The Matrix of Understanding: Moses Zacuto’s Em la-Binah and Kabbalistic Works of Reference

Abstract

The systematization of knowledge for educational practice entered a new era in the wake of Ramism. Innovative encyclopedic approaches and textbooks also surfaced in the field of Kabbalah. This article discusses Moses Zacuto’s approach to the kabbalistic genre of reference books and the impact of Lurianic Kabbalah. Against the backdrop of the reception of Ramist ideas and building upon the interaction between Kabbalah and logic in Abraham Cohen de Herrera’s Spanish books, two works in particular, which Zacuto left in an apparently unfinished state in manuscript form, are analyzed in this context: Em la-Binah and Remez ha-Romez. Both works differ from traditional reference books, and Em la-Binah in particular will be examined in order to answer the question of how Zacuto’s strategy for commonplace learning worked in a Lurianic textbook in progress.