The Work of Sapphire Stone / Ma'aseh Livnat Ha-Sapir

Ma’aseh Livnat Ha-Sapir ("The Work of Sapphire Stone) is a mystical-philosophical treatise by Jewish thinker Salomon Maimon (1753-1800). Believed to have been lost in the Holocaust, the Hebrew manuscript roughly dated to 1778 is held today at the Israel National Library in Jerusalem (MS Heb. 8o 6426). The manuscript is transcribed and translated into English for the first time. The work stands out as Maimon's only foray into the realm of Jewish mysticism, displaying the summation of his study of Kabbalah in Lithuania, before his transformation from Ostjude into Aufkläerer. Critically examining ideas from philosophical, Talmudic and kabbalistic sources, it explores the nexus between neo-Platonic mysticism and Arisotetlian and Maimonidean philosophy. The Hebrew text follows traditional conventions, with implicit cross-references and prose inspired by the riches of Jewish religious lore. As one of Kant's foremost critics, Maimon continued to maintain a close, if tenuous, relationship with the Jewish philosophical tradition. Ma'aseh Livnat Ha-Sapir uniquely documents this delicate interplay at a transitional phase in Maimon's intellectual development, between speculative Kabbalah and ideas that were to ripen under Kant's influence.