Kabbalistic Translations Between Learned and Vernacular Knowledge Cultures in Early Modern Central and Eastern Europe

The study of translations of kabbalistic lore has hitherto focused on grand translational projects of rather elite character, such as those of Renaissance humanists. This chapter explores how strategies for translating kabbalistic texts were intertwined with broader processes of knowledge-making in early modern Europe, encompassing both scholarly and vernacular contexts. It showcases two examples of expanding the boundaries of kabbalistic tradition through translation in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when kabbalah had already become an integral part of European intellectual discourse. Firstly, it focuses on a project of translation and appropriation of kabbalistic texts and ideas into a nonpareil comprehensive knowledge system with cross-cultural and cross-denominational ambitions envisioned by a group of learned Christians in Central Europe. Secondly, the chapter highlights the dynamic and non-linear use of Hebrew alongside Jewish and non-Jewish vernaculars in the fundamentally transnational early modern kabbalistic recipe book culture. Special attention is paid to examples of the use of “ocular script” in representations of the Tetragrammaton. By examining how complex kabbalistic ideas were translated into a functional mix of languages and a discourse of easily replicable practices, this essay sheds light on the fluid categories of “elite” and “popular” kabbalistic knowledge.