David Ben Judah

German cabalist; flourished in the thirteenth century. He was not the son of Judah ha-Ḥasid (see A. Epstein in "Monatsschrift," 1895, p. 450), but he may have been his grandnephew, the fact of his father's name being "Judah" being responsible for the confusion in the sources quoted by Gross ("Magazin," i. 106 et seq.). David was an eminent cabalist, and is highly praised by Eleazar of Worms. He wrote the following works, none of which has been published: "Sodot shel Ma'aseh Bereshit" (The Mysteries of the Beginning), a cabalistic explanation of the Creation;Ma'aseh Merkabah" (Description of the Chariot); "Peraḳim be-Siklin ha-Nibdalim," chapters on the individual intellects which, according to David, are between the  and ; "Sefer ha-Gebul" (Book of the Boundaries), on the names of God (the foregoing treatises are still extant in manuscript in the Bodleian Library: Neubauer, "Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS." No. 1911, 5); "Or Zaru'a" (Sown Light), a mystic commentary on the prayers (ib. No. 1624); a commentary on the Sefer Yeẓirah (mentioned in the preceding work); "Libnat ha-Sappir" The (Whiteness of the Sapphire), cabalistic explanations on the Haggadot of the Talmud, quoted by Bezalel Ashkenazi in his "Shiṭṭah Meḳubbeẓet" (B. B. ed. Lemberg, 1809, p. 64); "Mare'ot ha-Ẓobe'ot" (Visions of the Assembled), a mystic commentary on the prayers, after the "Or Zaru'a." I. D. Luzzatto expresses his doubts concerning David's authorship of the "Or Zaru'a," as the work contains passages from the Zohar, which was composed later (see "Yad Yosef," p. 13).

Bibliography:

  * Steinschneider, Jewish Literature, p. 304, note 7;
  * Jellinek, Beitäge zur Gesch. der Kabbala, ii. 47.;
  * Fuenn, Keneset Yisrael, p. 263.



K.I. Br.