Kabbalistic Treasures Hidden:

This lecture explores the fascinating travels of Rabbi Haim Yosef David Azulai (HIDA)'s fascinating travels through the princely libraries of Italy in the 18th century. The lecture will focus on HIDA's remarkable discovery of the 16-volume Kabbalistic commentary of Rabbi Moses Cordovero in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena, and will emphasize the importance of these findings for Jewish scholarship.

The presentation will explore the broader context of the Hebrew and princely patronage during the Renaissance and the era of and the era of Christian Hebraism. We will examine how the interests of the Italian nobility's interest in Hebrew texts and Jewish knowledge contributed to the to the preservation of important Jewish works, and how scholars such as HIDA used these collections for their research. This exploration will shed light on the complex relationship between Jewish intellectual history and the cultural milieu of 18th-century Italy, revealing the unexpected intersections of Jewish mysticism, Renaissance humanism, and aristocratic book collecting.

Maoz Kahana (PhD) is an associate Professor in the Jewish History Department, Tel Aviv University. His research focuses on deciphering and elucidating rabbinical literature and Jewish law and legal cultures within the social and intellectual contexts of early modern and modern European history as well as its minority Jewish culture.
His research and teaching integrates intellectual and social history; legal and cultural methods.Characteristic themes of his work are print and book history, the scientific revolution, magic, law, and the divine; Rabbi's allure to Sabbatian literature, Chassidic Halakhic writings, Jewish legal cultures and European romanticism, the emergence of European coffeehouses, and others. 

His book "Halakhic Writing in a Changing World, from the ‘Noda B’yhuda’ to the ‘Hatam Sofer’, 1730-1839", based on his doctoral :dissertation, was published in the Zalman Shazar Publication House, Jerusalem (2015). A second book, “A Heartless Chicken and other Wonders: Religion and Science in Early Modern Rabbinic Culture”, was published (2021) in Bialik Institute Publishing House, Jerusalem.