Houghton-Medieval Studies Lecture in Early Book History

DUE TO THE CONTINUED CLOSURE OF THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES, THIS EVENT HAS BEEN MOVED TO WEDNESDAY, 25 FEBRUARY

Yossi Chajes (Sir Isaac Wolfson Professor of Jewish Thought, University of Haifa), Philosophy, Pedagogy, Prophecy, and the Enigmatic Origins of Ilanot. Co-sponsored by the Committee on Medieval Studies and Houghton Library. Free and open to the public; please register here.

In the fourteenth century, Jewish mystics began producing parchment sheets inscribed with arboreal diagrams that mapped the kabbalistic Godhead: ilanot (trees). Rather than serving merely as pedagogical charts designed to introduce beginners to Kabbalah, these iconotexts represent a sophisticated convergence of medieval visual culture and esoteric practice. Exploring the genre’s enigmatic origins, this lecture examines its previously unstudied foundational artifacts, revealing the early ilan as a unique synthesis of systematic theology, philosophical speculation, and ecstatic trance.