Abstract
The main purpose of this discussion is an attempt to clarify Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel's attitude towards the kabbalah and the main Hebrew mystical sources on the background of his time and his other ideological positions. Jewish mystical sources are integrated into this picture by Menasseh's insistence, when analyzing scores of sources that the same attitude towards the soul's eternal existence is to be found in the Zohar and other classics of Jewish mysticism. Menasseh ben Israel quoted the Zohar extensively in Nishmat Hayyim ; indeed, when reading this work one may get the impression that the Zohar is the main representative, besides the Talmud, of ancient Judaism. When we compare Menasseh's attitude towards the central ideas of the Zohar to that of earlier and contemporary kabbalists and Jewish thinkers, not all the elements which he rejected were accepted by everybody else. Keywords: Jewish mysticism; Judaism; Kabbalah; Menasseh Ben Israel; Nishmat Hayyim ; Zohar
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