Rav Avraham Abulafia was one of those people who were not exactly politically correct.
The major story with him is fairly well known. He was a mystic from the Middle Ages and is quoted extensively by later mystics like Rav Haim Vital, the Remak and Rav Haim Azulai. etc.
He went to debate the pope and the pope sent police to arrest him on his way there. But anyone who tried to lay a hand on him did not survive long.
But he was subject also to criticism by the Rashba and others.
Thus his books were not published for 800 years until recently someone finally published the whole set.
The first person to pay any attention to him in recent years is Professor Moshe Idel who did his PhD thesis on Rav Abulafia, and also wrote lots of later books dealing with his approach. Then later, that fellow from Mea Shearim went into the basement of Hebrew University and started the long and arduous process of writing down the medieval script into legible Hebrew letters and publishing his books.
What is lacking is for someone to redact his system. To condense it and explain it. For what was published was simply to write down in legible script the manuscripts in medieval script. No real analysis has been done yet.
The major story with him is fairly well known. He was a mystic from the Middle Ages and is quoted extensively by later mystics like Rav Haim Vital, the Remak and Rav Haim Azulai. etc.
He went to debate the pope and the pope sent police to arrest him on his way there. But anyone who tried to lay a hand on him did not survive long.
But he was subject also to criticism by the Rashba and others.
Thus his books were not published for 800 years until recently someone finally published the whole set.
The first person to pay any attention to him in recent years is Professor Moshe Idel who did his PhD thesis on Rav Abulafia, and also wrote lots of later books dealing with his approach. Then later, that fellow from Mea Shearim went into the basement of Hebrew University and started the long and arduous process of writing down the medieval script into legible Hebrew letters and publishing his books.
What is lacking is for someone to redact his system. To condense it and explain it. For what was published was simply to write down in legible script the manuscripts in medieval script. No real analysis has been done yet.
