Silkworms of Exile: Jewish History and Collective Memory in the Kabbalistic Works of Meir ibn Gabbai

Abstract

Meir ibn Gabbai (1480–ca. 1540) was an influential kabbalist active in the first half of the fifteenth century. He was born in Spain, but following the edict of expulsion in 1492, he and his family fled and resettled in the Ottoman Empire. There, he composed three important works that enjoyed a wide readership and shaped the views of subsequent generations of kabbalists. While these texts do not reflect an interest in chronicling historical events, they are a rich resource for understanding how Jews in this period understood themselves within the broader sweep of history, and how they assigned meaning to collective Jewish historical experience. Ibn Gabbai regarded the dissemination of Kabbalah through the composition of kabbalistic books as a means by which Jews could survive the traumas of exile and correct the course of human and cosmic events. Drawing upon a rich array of medieval kabbalistic texts, ibn Gabbai argued for the power of Jewish religious practice as a mechanism for rebalancing the divine realm, perfecting the cosmic order, and returning the Jewish people to their proper place in the world of human affairs and flow of historical time. The rhetorical strategies evident in ibn Gabbai's texts reveal a remarkably self-aware approach to the importance of kabbalistic discourse for sustaining Jewish life in the face of historical challenges.