Yosef Rosen

Historian of Kabbalah.

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

@ArielleLAngel @yitzlandes did 🙌🏻

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

@YehudaHaMaccabi Sukkot is a holiday of nostalgia, so https://t.co/zl3Uo4pgXF

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

@YehudaHaMaccabi Not flowers, garlic! A key Jewish trope/stereotype in early-modern Christian art and writing.

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

@jewishstudent1 @YehudaHaMaccabi https://t.co/JK8uA3wsyX

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

@YehudaHaMaccabi And a misunderstanding of a Greek-Hebrew word (פרוס העצרת): https://t.co/H4zcWn06Jv

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

@YehudaHaMaccabi A gash largely predicated on a typo: https://t.co/JK8uA3wsyX

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

Not sure if it's kosher/historically-accurate, but very into this Sukkah architecture & its porousness of inside & outside (also from Johannes Leusden, Philologus Hebraeo-mixtus, Netherlands, 1682).

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

On the broader kabbalistic context of the symbol of the headless-man & its connection to Sukkot + other Dutch examples, see https://t.co/VthcUqVAhL

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

This Sukkot may we merit to know that our shadow-sides are worthy of celebration & be free of any headless self-apparitions. [Johannes Leusden, Philologus Hebraeo-mixtus, Netherlands, 1682]

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

This Sukkot may we all merit to botanical devotion. [Woodcuts from Sefer Minhagim, Amsterdam, 1708]

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

This Sukkot may we all merit to feast on the fish that feasts on itself. [A printed lithographic Ushpizin plaque, Warsaw, 1839]

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

@Z047926489558 Agreed! I tried to do something similar in ch. 3 of my dissertation: https://t.co/lfvsqjMlT1

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

@zackamenetz Why is hamtaqa acceptance? It’s a practice of transforming & sweetening darkness/doubt/din. True, it sees value in working with those hard experiences but I wouldn’t frame it as acceptance.

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

One of the only early-modern illustrations of the kabbalistic "four-worlds"—emanation, creation, formation, and making (in an Ashkenazi, 18th century manuscript copy of Hayim Vital's Etz Hayim)

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

https://t.co/n7Ytp524sn

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

More contemporary siddurim like this, please. (Baghdad, 1867)

[Zac Kamenetz @zackamenetz]

“When he knows in the light of permutation that the name אלד is אגלא (then) it is good to recite it three times and this name (AGLA) derives from אתה גבור לעולם אדני.”

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

@YehudaHaMaccabi 🤯

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

The upshot? Don't start a fire to prove you can put it out + When Kabbalah is no longer theoretical but also "practical," its relationship to the elements and society is more acute & mistakes have material & historical consequences.

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

How a Kabbalist Accidentally Became an Arsonist: A True Tale of the Rabbi who Burned Down the Jewish Ghetto of Frankfurt in 1711 🔥🧵

[Yosef Rosen @Yossele]

This incident would have occurred not long after 1711 (the Besht is born in 1698 & these tales occur in his youth). And, reportedly, the Besht knew of Rabbi Naphtali & mocked his ascetic model of practical Kabbalah.