Sefer Raziel HaMalakh

Grimoire of practical Kabbalah

Page 44b in the 1701 edition of Sefer Raziel HaMalakh, featuring various magical sigils (or סגולות, seguloth, in Hebrew).

Sefer Raziel HaMalakh (Hebrew: ספר רזיאל המלאך, "the book of Raziel the angel") is a grimoire of Practical Kabbalah from the Middle Ages written primarily in Hebrew and Aramaic. Liber Razielis Archangeli, its 13th-century Latin translation produced under Alfonso X of Castile, survives.

## Textual history

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Like other obscure ancient texts such as the Bahir and Sefer Yetzirah, Sefer HaRaziel has been extant in a number of versions. The book cannot be shown to predate the 13th century, but may in parts date back to late antiquity insofar as its title is mentioned in another magical work of late antiquity: The Sword of Moses.

The book claims to have been revealed to Adam by the angel Raziel. Critical historians regard it as a medieval work, most probably originating among the Ashkenazi Hasidim, as citations reliant on the main body content of the work as we receive it begin to appear only in the 12th century. At least one section was available to Ibn Ezra before 1153, when he finished his commentary to Exodus.[1] The likely compiler of the medieval version is Eleazar of Worms, as Sefer Galei Razia, which developed into what we have now as Sefer Raziel, including more writings written by people of various theological opinions.[2] According to Jacob Emden, it was compiled by Abraham Abulafia.

## Contents

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Part of a series on

Kabbalah

Concepts

* Ein Sof
* Tzimtzum
* Ohr
* Ayin and Yesh
* Sefirot
* Four Worlds
* Seder hishtalshelut
* Tree of Life
* The path of the flaming sword
* Merkavah
* Jewish angelic hierarchy
* Shekhinah
* Partzufim
* Qlippoth
* Tohu and Tikun
* Sparks of holiness
* Messianic rectification
* Gilgul
* Kabbalistic astrology
* Gematria
* Notarikon
* Temurah
* Names of God in Judaism
* Shemhamphorasch
* Tzadik
* Tzadikim Nistarim
* Anthropomorphism in Kabbalah
* Panentheism

History

|  Pre-Kabbalistic Jewish mysticism

* Tannaim
* Heichalot
* Sefer Yetzirah
* Chassidei Ashkenaz

Medieval

* Bahir
* Toledano tradition
* Prophetic Kabbalah
* Zohar

Kabbalistic commentaries
on the Bible

Mainstream displacement of
rationalism with Kabbalah

Renaissance

Selective influence on
Western thought

* Hermetic Qabalah

Mysticism after
Spanish expulsion

Mystics of
16th-century Safed

* Cordoveran Kabbalah
* Lurianic Kabbalah
* Maharal's thought

Popular Kabbalistic
Mussar

Early modern

* Baal Shem-Nistarim
* Sabbatean mystical heresies
* Emden–Eybeschutz controversy
* Immigration to the Land of Israel
* Traditional Oriental Kabbalists
* Beit El Synagogue
* Eastern European Judaism
* Hasidic Judaism / philosophy
* Lithuanian Jews
* Hasidic-Mitnagdic schism

Modern

* Hasidic dynasties

Mysticism in
religious Zionism

Academic interest in
Jewish mysticism

Non-Orthodox interest in
Jewish mysticism

* English
* James Lees'

Practices

* Torah study
* Mystical exegesis
* Mitzvot
* Minhag
* Customary immersion in mikveh
* Meditation
* Kavanot
* Teshuvah
* Deveikut
* Prayer
* Nusach
* Tikkun Chatzot
* Tikkun Leil Shavuot
* Pilgrimage to Tzadik
* Pilgrimage to holy grave
* Lag BaOmer at Meron
* Asceticism
* Rosicrucianism
* Practical Kabbalah

People

|  100s

* Four Who Entered the Pardes
* Simeon bar Yochai
* Akiva ben Joseph

1100s

* Isaac the Blind
* Azriel
* Judah ben Kalonymus

1200s

* Nahmanides
* Abraham Abulafia
* Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla
* Moses de Leon
* Menahem Recanati
* Judah Ha-Hasid
* Eleazar of Worms
* Isaac ben Moses of Vienna
* Abraham ben Isaac of Granada

1300s

* Bahya ben Asher

1400s

* Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov
* Yohanan Alemanno
* Moses Botarel
* Joseph De La Reina

1500s

* Meir ibn Gabbai
* Joseph Karo
* Shlomo Alkabetz
* Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chełm
* Moshe Alshich
* Moses ben Jacob Cordovero
* Isaac Luria
* Chaim Vital
* Mordechai HaKohen of Safed
* Kalonymus Haberkasten
* Joseph Saragossi

1600s

* Judah Loew ben Bezalel
* Isaiah Horowitz
* Eliyahu Baal Shem Ben Yosef Yutzpa
* Abraham Azulai
* Shimon Lavi
* Joel Sirkis
* Elijah Loans
* Yoel Baal Shem
* Shabbatai HaKohen
* Jacob ben Aaron Sasportas

1700s

* Chaim ibn Attar
* Naphtali Cohen
* Joseph Ergas
* Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk
* Jonathan Eybeschutz
* Baal Shem Tov
* Dov Ber of Mezeritch
* Moshe Chaim Luzzatto
* Shalom Sharabi
* Vilna Gaon
* Chaim Joseph David Azulai
* Nathan Adler
* Schneur Zalman of Liadi
* Chaim Volozhin

1800s

* Nachman of Breslov
* Tzvi Hirsh of Zidichov
* Ben Ish Chai
* Shlomo Eliyashiv
* Chaim Pinto
* Yedidyah Raphael Chai Abulafiya
* Chaim Yehuda Leib Auerbach

1900s

* Aharon Roth
* Yehudah Yudel Rosenberg
* Solomon Eliezer Alfandari
* Baba Sali
* Sholom Dovber Schneersohn
* Abraham Isaac Kook
* Salman Eliyahu
* Yaakov Chaim Sofer
* Levi Yitzchak Schneerson
* Yehuda Fatiyah
* Hillel Zeitlin
* Kalonymus Kalman Shapira
* Yehuda Ashlag
* Yitzhak Kaduri
* Yechiel Fishel Eisenbach
* Monsieur Chouchani
* Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag
* Mordechai Sharabi
* Aryeh Kaplan
* Menachem Mendel Schneerson

2000s

* Avraham Brandwein
* Menachem Froman
* Eliyahu Leon Levi
* Adin Steinsaltz
* Gamliel Rabinowitz
* Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto
* Moshe Weinberger
* Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern
* Avraham Mordechai Gottlieb

Role

|  History

* Torah
* Tanakh
* Prophecy
* Ruach HaKodesh
* Pardes exegesis
* Talmudical hermeneutics
* Midrash

Jewish commentaries
on the Bible

* Oral Torah
* Eras of Rabbinic Judaism
* Generational descent in Halacha
* Generational ascent in Kabbalah
* Rabbinic literature
* Talmudic theology
* Halakha
* Aggadah
* Hakira
* Classic Mussar literature
* Ashkenazi Judaism
* Sephardi Judaism
* Modern Jewish philosophies
* Jewish studies

Topics

* God in Judaism
* Divine transcendence
* Divine immanence
* Free will
* Divine providence

Kabbalistic reasons
for the 613 Mitzvot

* Jewish principles of faith
* Jewish eschatology
* Primary texts

* v
* t
* e

It draws heavily on Sefer Yetzirah and Sefer HaRazim "Book of Secrets". There are multiple manuscript versions, containing up to seven tractates. The printed version of Sefer Raziel is divided into five books, some of it in the form of a mystical midrash on Creation. It features an elaborate angelology, magical uses of the zodiac, gematria, names of God, protective spells, and a method of writing magical healing amulets.

Book six of the Liber Razielis is based on Sefer haRazim, with various additions, including the "Prayer of Adam" of Sefer Adam.

The book became notorious in German Renaissance magic, named together with Picatrix as among the most abominable works of necromancy by Johannes Hartlieb. The prayer of Adam is paraphrased by Nicholas of Cusa in two sermons (Sermo I, 4, 16.25; Sermo XX, 8, 10-13) and further made use of by Johann Reuchlin in his De Arte Cabalistica.[3] Konrad Bollstatter in the 15th century also shows awareness of the Latin version of the "Prayer of Adam" an interpolation in Cgm 252, although he replaces Raziel with Raphael and Seth with Sem.[4]

### Tree of Knowledge

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Adam, in his prayer to God, apologized for listening to his wife Eve, who was deceived by the snake into eating from the Tree of Knowledge. According to the Book of Raziel, God sent the highest of the angels, Raziel, to teach Adam the spiritual laws of nature and life on Earth, including the knowledge of the planets, stars and the spiritual laws of creation.

The angel Raziel also taught Adam the knowledge of the power of speech, the power of thoughts and the power of a person's soul within the confines of the physical body and this physical world, basically teaching the knowledge with which one can harmonize physical and spiritual existence in this physical world.

The angel Raziel teaches the power of speech, the energy contained within the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, their combinations and meanings of names.

### Adam and Abraham

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According to Jewish traditions, the angel Raziel was sent to Earth to teach Adam as he prayed for guidance after the fall, and then returned to teach Abraham spiritual knowledge and laws because he had an elevated soul. The Book of Raziel explains everything from astrology to how the creative life energy starts with a thought from the spiritual realms, prior to manifestation as speech and action in this physical world. The eternal divine creative life energy of this earth is love, the book explains the spiritual laws of birth, death, reincarnation of the soul, and many spiritual laws of "change".

## Heptameron

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The Heptameron, ascribed to Petrus de Apono, is based on the Book of Raziel.[5]

## Editions

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* רזיאל המלאך. Amsterdam (1701) Chabad-Lubavitch Library. Full-text PDF version, in Hebrew, from HebrewBooks.org
* Steve Savedow (trans.), Sepher Rezial Hemelach: The Book of the Angel Rezial, Red Wheel/Weiser (2000), ISBN 978-1-57863-193-3.
* The Book of the Angel Raziel. Volume I / Transl. from Hebrew and Aramaic and comm. by E. V. Kuzmin; editorship and foreword by B. K. Dvinyaninov. — St. Petersburg: Academy Of Culture's Research, 2020. — 264 pp.: illustrated, — (Code Grimoire Series). ISBN 978-5-6045100-3-2 (на русском языке)
* The Book of the Angel Raziel. Volume II / Transl. from Hebrew and Aramaic, afterword and comm. by E. V. Kuzmin; editorship and foreword by B. K. Dvinyaninov. — St. Petersburg: Academy Of Culture’s Research, 2021. — 512 pp.: illustrated, — (Code Grimoire Series). ISBN 978-5-6045100-4-9 (на русском языке)

## See also

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* Hebrew astronomy
* Jewish astrology
* Jewish views on astrology
* Primary texts of Kabbalah
* Semiphoras and Schemhamphorash
* Bahir
* Sefer HaRazim

## References

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1. ^ See Abraham Ibn Ezra on Exodus 14:19
2. ^ admin (2019-01-29). "On the Origins and Authenticity of Zohar". The Rational Believer. Retrieved 2023-07-18.
3. ^ Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Reuchlin-Tagung Pforzheim 2001
4. ^ Cgm 252, f. 142r-144r; Encyclopaedia Judaica 1, 777
5. ^ "Peter of Abano: Heptameron, or Magical Elements". www.esotericarchives.com.

## Further reading

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* Avilés, A.G., Alfonso X y el Liber Razielis: imágenes de la magia astral judía en el scriptorium alfonsí, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Volume 74, Number 1, 1 January 1997, pp. 21–39

## External links

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* The Original ספר "Sefer" Book of Raziel ספר רזיאל המלאך The Amsterdam Edition of Sefer Raziel "Book of Raziel" ספר רזיאל המלאך
* The english translation of the book on Internet Archives

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