Sitrei Torah · סתרי תורה

A commentary on the secrets of the Guide of the Perplexed, in three parts, written by Abulafia at the entreaty of four youths of his school, its two aims the cause of the life of the intellective soul and the service of God from love. It is called Sitrei Torah because with the Guide's secrets it also reveals some secrets of the Torah according to his tradition; at its head stand the openings of all 177 chapters of the Guide and the thirty-six secrets received from his teachers, each then written in its place with the chapters in which it is hinted. The first part, Orah Hayyim, sets out fourteen secrets from image and likeness to the confusion of the religions; the second, Mekor Mayim Hayyim, twelve, from potency and act to prophecy; the third, Tokhahat Hayyim, ten, from the secrets of the Torah to the service of God from love, the root and end, it says, of the whole treatise. The author names himself Raziel son of Samuel Abulafia, and at the close he sets the Guide before the reader as Gan Eden by the count of its chapters and this commentary as ziv ehad by the count of its secrets.