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7.1.18

Rav Avraham Abulafia

Though I would not say anything about it without the authority of Rav Avraham Abulafia about Jesus after the fact it is possible to discuss the issue. For one thing the Gemara in Sanhedrin about the fact that God had come down from Heaven and became a physical body in order to give the king of Assyria a haircut.

We also find that saints and Jerusalem and angels are called by  the Name of God. [As is brought n Bava Batra פרק הספינהs  page 75 side B]

In any case, the Gra said that all the deep secrets of Torah are contained in the midrash [That is the non legal parts of Gemara and the actual midrah. That is Midrash Raba and  few other neglected books. The trouble seems to be that there is no place to put Midrash. It is not exactly Musar. Nor is it exactly Gemara.  One learning partner I had at the Mir found an elegant solution to this problem - he used to learn Midrash at night after the two regular day time sessions.

So it is possible to ask what is the meaning of the Midrash in Sanhedrin about G-d giving  the king or Assyria a haircut. The actual events are well known. The previous king of Assyria had already taken Israel, and then the capital city of Samaria. Then his successor took the cities of Judah, and then the King of Judah sent a bribe to him to "lay off". After that instead of laying off, he sent his armies to take Jerusalem. The attempt to take Jerusalem was unsuccessful to say the least. To me it is not clear where the King of Assyria was at the time. He might have joined his forces outside of Jerusalem or maybe not. In any case, he was occupied with a different war near a neighboring state. Then he went back to his capital city and there the incident the Gemara relates took place.  Apparently after two failed wars he was unpopular. He got a haircut to disguise himself. He then was killed by two of his children.

The whole issue of Jesus as understood by Rav Avraham Abulafia really is treated best in the books of Professor Idel at Hebrew University. In those books he concentrates of Rav Avraham Abulafia and gives him a thorough academic treatment--much better than what one could figure out on his own by reading Rav Abulafia. Though in my case it was reading the actual microfilms at HU in around 1992 to got me to see clearly what the approach of Rav Abulafia is. I should mention that even though people nowadays have not heard of him, he is quoted at length in שערי קדושה by רב חיים וויטל the major disciple of the Ari.

[I ought to mention I did not make a major study of Rav Abulafia myself, since at the time his books were published I already had started on other subjects. ]
The place I found his books was in Jerusalem but they might be already in NY.]