1. This is not the place to review this vast output. Some of the most important studies will be noted below in relation to the themes addressed. Apart from the prayer to be discussed here, Naḥmanides also wrote the “Sermon for Rosh Ha-shanah” in ’Ereẓ Yisra'el, and apparently delivered it in Acre: see Yahalom, Shalem, “Historical Background to Nahmanides' Acre Sermon for Rosh ha-Shanah: The Strengthening of the Catalonian Center,” Sefarad 68, no. 2 (2008): 315–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. To these must be added the additions, alterations, and revisions he made to his commentary on the Torah following its initial publication: see Ofer, Joseph and Jacobs, Jonathan, Naḥmanides' Torah Commentary Addenda: Written in the Land of Israel [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Herzog Academic College, 2013)Google Scholar.

2. For various perspectives on the status of 'Ereẓ Yisra'el in medieval kabbalistic thought, see Rosenberg, Shalom, “The Connection to the Land of Israel in Jewish Thought: A Struggle of Outlooks” [in Hebrew], Cathedra 4 (1977): 148–66Google Scholar; Idel, Moshe, “The Land of Israel in Medieval Kabbalah,” in The Land of Israel, ed. Hoffman, Lawrence A. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 170–87Google Scholar; Idel, “On the Land of Israel in Jewish Mystical Thought” [in Hebrew], in The Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought, ed. Hallamish, Moshe and Ravitzky, Aviezer (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 1991), 193–214 Google Scholar; Moshe Hallamish, “Some Characteristics of the Land of Israel in Kabbalistic Literature” [in Hebrew], in Hallamish and Ravitzky, Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought, 215–32; Haviva Pedaya, “The Spiritual vs. the Concrete Land of Israel in the Geronese School of Kabbalah” [in Hebrew], in Hallamish and Ravitzky, Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought, 233–89; Yisraeli, Oded, “ ’Ereẓ Yisra'el: Between the Sanctity of Place and Purity of the Land: Trends in Medieval Jewish Mysticism” [in Hebrew], Pathways through Aggadah 9 (2006): 117–42Google Scholar.

3. Isadore Twersky, “Land and Exile in Maimonides” [in Hebrew], in Hallamish and Ravitzky, Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought, 93 n. 5; Rosenberg, “Connection to the Land of Israel,” 160; Henoch, Chayim J., Ramban, Philosopher and Kabbalist (Northvale, NJ: Aronson, 1998), 114–29Google Scholar.

4. See, for example, Aviezer Ravitzky, “‘Waymarks to Zion’: The History of an Idea,” in Hallamish and Ravitzky, Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought, 11; Halbertal, Moshe, By Way of Truth: Nahmanides and the Creation of Tradition [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Shalom Hartman Institute, 2006), 263Google Scholar.

5. Chavel, Charles, Ramban: Writings and Discourses (New York: Shiloh, 2010), 1:141–231 Google Scholar, 234–353. Some of the manuscripts of the sermon on Ecclesiastes are headed by the words: “Sermon of the great Rabbi Moshe bar Naḥman of blessed memory in the state of Gerona in the synagogue when he made a vow to Abir Ya˛akov [God] to settle in ’Ereẓ Yisra’el.” For various reasons, I am inclined to doubt the veracity of this note, rather believing that the sermon was delivered several decades earlier. I hope to discuss this issue in a separate article.

6. Chavel, Charles, Ramban: Commentary on the Torah (New York: Shiloh, 1974), 1:269Google Scholar. Naḥmanides alludes to this idea in his commentary on Genesis 28:21 in relation to Jacob's vow “the Lord shall be my God”: “There is in this matter a secret relating to that which the rabbis have said: ‘He who dwells outside the Land of Israel is like one who has no God.’” See also his commentary on Deuteronomy 31:17.

7. In this respect, Naḥmanides's thought closely resembles Ibn Ezra's comment on this passage, which he himself cites. The astrological links of this idea are far clearer in Ibn Ezra and the philosophers who followed in his wake: see Dov Schwartz, “The Land of Israel in the Fourteenth-Century Jewish Neoplatonic School” [in Hebrew], in Hallamish and Ravitzky, Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought, 146–49.

8. See, for example, his commentary on Genesis 1:1, where he explains the role the Genesis narratives play, based on and as an interpretation of the midrash. In contrast to the national context Rashi imputes to this verse, portraying these stories as though intended to anchor the people's right to the land, Naḥmanides stresses the ethical-cosmopolitan dimension, regarding the biblical text as echoing the scriptural view that right(s) do not override the laws of the God of the land—which do not discriminate against those who profane the land with their evil deeds. The “law of the land” is one of its peculiar attributes, and everyone who seeks to inhabit ’Ereẓ Yisra'el must know and live according to this law—irrespective of whether the Torah has already been given at Sinai or not. Naḥmanides thus also associates the well-known tradition that the patriarchs observed all the Torah (cf. Gen. Rab. 95:3) with the fact that they lived in ’Ereẓ Yisra'el, since they were under no obligation to perform its commandments outside of it. This is the context in which Jacob instructs his household—upon their entry into the land—to “put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves.” Similarly, neither Amram when he married his aunt or Jacob when he took his two wives were in the land, since Rachel died before reaching it and thereby prevented Jacob from settling in it as a bigamist (commentary on Genesis 26:5).

9. Naḥmanides elucidates the Torah's abhorrence of blood-shedding in the land in Numbers 35:33, “You shall not pollute the land in which you live; for blood pollutes the land, and no expiation can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it,” thus: “He mentioned additional stringencies applying to the inhabitants of the land in honor of the Divine Presence which is [especially] present there, and He warned us not to pollute it and not to defile it. … And the meaning of the term ‘defilement’ is that the land will become defiled so that the Glory of God will not dwell therein if there is innocent blood [shed] in it.” He likewise interprets the laws regarding affected clothing and houses in relation to the land's status as God's portion: see the commentary on Leviticus 13:47 (cf. also Kuzari 2.62). In order to complete the picture, in his comment on Leviticus 18:25, Naḥmanides also states that not only is settling in the land dependent on observing the commandments but the value of performing them also depends on residence there. In his opinion, religious life outside the land is simply preparation and training towards returning to it, because carrying out the statutes of the Torah only has purpose within its confines. The fact that the commandments are dependent on the land has far-reaching implications for religious life outside it. For the evolution of the idea of “setting up road markers,” see Ravitzky, “Waymarks to Zion,” 8–13.

10. For Halevi's earlier and later thought, see Yochanan Silman, “The Earthliness of the Land of Israel in the Kuzari,” in Hallamish and Ravitzky, Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought, 79–90.

11. For Ibn Ezra, see Schwartz, “Land of Israel,” 138–45. For Crescas, see Warren Zev Harvey, “The Uniqueness of the Land of Israel in the Thought of Crescas” [in Hebrew], in Hallamish and Ravitzky, Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought, 151–65.

12. Only on two occasions—in his commentary on Leviticus 18:25 and Deuteronomy 21:22—does Naḥmanides impute any sanctity to the land. Even here, however, it is closely associated with the purity of the land.

13. The isolated passages in which Naḥmanides offhandedly cites rabbinic dicta regarding prophecy as only occurring in ’Ereẓ Yisra'el (cf. his commentary on Deuteronomy 18:15 and Torat ha-’adam, “Gate of reward,” 1:396) merely highlight the absence of these elements from his lengthy concentrated treatises on ’Ereẓ Yisra'el and life therein.

14. Henoch, Ramban, Philosopher and Kabbalist, 157–58.

15. See, for example, the commentary on Genesis 1:1, 48:16, Exodus 19:5, Leviticus 18:25, 26:42, and Deuteronomy 11:10. For the distinction between ha-’areẓ’ and ’Ereẓ Yisra'el in the Zohar, see Zak, Brachah, “ ’Ereẓ and ’Ereẓ Yisra'el in the Zohar” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 8 (1989): 239–41Google Scholar.

16. This idea first occurs in Hippocrates, spreading from the ninth century onwards throughout the Arab world and becoming a well-known and accepted theory in the Middle Ages: see Keren Abbou Hershkovits, “The Historiography of Science in the Muslim World: 10th–14th Centuries” (PhD diss., Ben-Gurion University, 2008), 151–70 and the bibliography cited there.

17. Alexander Altmann, “Judah Halevi's Theory of Climates,” trans. Schramm, Lenn, Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 5 (2005): 215–46Google Scholar; Silman, “Earthliness of the Land of Israel,” 84 n. 15; Abraham Melamed, “The Land of Israel and Climatology in Medieval Jewish Thought” [in Hebrew], in Hallamish and Ravitzky, Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought, 55, 63–64 n. 30, 68.

18. Altmann, “Judah Halevi's Theory of Climates.” In Naḥmanides, the idea also frequently refers to ’Ereẓ Yisra'el as a whole: see his commentary on Leviticus 18:25 and his Rosh Ha-shanah sermon (Chavel, Ramban, 1:352).

19. Aptowitzer, Avigdor, “The Heavenly Temple in the Aggadah” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 2, no. 2 (1931): 137–53Google Scholar; no. 3: 257–87; Urbach, Ephraim E., “The Heavenly and the Earthly Jerusalem in Rabbinic Thought” [in Hebrew], in Jerusalem through the Ages: Proceedings of the 25^th Archaeological Convention of the Israel Exploration Society, ed. Aviram, J. (Jerusalem: IES, 1968), 156–71Google Scholar; Prawer, Joshua, “Jerusalem in the Christian and Jewish Perspectives of the Early Middle Ages,” Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo 26 (1980): 1–57 Google Scholar; Grossman, Abraham, “Jerusalem in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature,” in The History of Jerusalem: The Early Muslim Period, 638–1099, ed. Prawer, Joshua and Ben-Shammai, Haggai (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 1996), 295–310 Google Scholar.

20. Pedaya, Haviva, Name and Sanctuary in the Teaching of R. Isaac the Blind [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2001), 148–77Google Scholar; Pedaya, “Spiritual vs. Concrete Land of Israel,” 237–41.

21. See his commentary on Leviticus 18:25. For the symbolic meaning of Jerusalem in medieval Kabbalah and the possible distinction in this context between “Jerusalem” and “Zion,” see Idel, Moshe, “Jerusalem in Thirteenth-Century Jewish Thought” [in Hebrew], in The History of Jerusalem: Crusaders and Ayyubids (1099–1250), ed. Prawer, Joshua and Ben-Shammai, Haggai (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 1991), 264–86Google Scholar.

22. Pedaya, Name and Sanctuary, 154–61.

23. The former include Fulda A 2, Milan 180, Parma 3255, 3535, Munich 137, London 5703, et al. For those copied together (apparently randomly) with other medieval manuscripts, see London 27131, Paris 839. For those copied together with other kabbalistic manuscripts, see MSS New York Jewish Theological Seminary 2131, 8124, Parma 2654, and Cincinnati 523.

24. Lunz, Abraham Moses, “Hishtapkhut nefesh ve-tefillato shel Rabbi Moshe ben Naḥman (ha-Ramban) be-‘omdo lifne sha‘are Yerushalayim,” Ha-m'amar 3 (1920): 54–62 Google Scholar; Yaari, Abraham, “Kenisato shel R’ Moshe ben Naḥman li-Yerushalayim,” in Masa‘ot ’Ereẓ Yisra'el shel ‘olim yehudim mi-yeme ha-benayim ve-‘ad reshit yeme shivat ẓion (Ramat Gan: Masada, 1946), 71–80 Google Scholar. This edition served as the basis of the version published by Brinker, Dov Nathan in Luaḥ Yerushalayim (Jerusalem: 1948), 81–82 Google Scholar: see the editor's comments on p. 82.

25. “Tefillah ‘al ḥorvot yerushalayim,” in Kitve Rabbenu Moshe ben Naḥman, ed. Chavel, Charles (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1971), 1:424–32Google Scholar. As Schwartz notes, this contains far more errors than either of the manuscripts on which it is based: Schwartz, Ya‘akov Kapil, “Tefillah ‘al ḥorvot Yerushalayim le-Ramban (bi-melo'o),” Mayim mi-dolyo (1999): 93–112 Google Scholar.

26. The title “Tefillah ‘al ḥorvot Yerushalayim” does not appear in the manuscripts or early printed editions. In the former it bears the more general heading “[And this is the] prayer Naḥmanides prayed in Jerusalem,” “A prayer of Naḥmanides, of blessed memory,” etc. In the Lisbon edition, it is entitled “A prayer prayed by Naḥmanides, of blessed memory.” In the Rome edition, it bears no heading at all. Since the title was not known prior to Chavel's edition, he appears to be responsible for it, and Schwartz then adopted it.

27. To these two passages may be added the opening remark: “Jerusalem, you are built as a city compact together” (l. 3). Although a quotation from Psalm 122:3, the statement carries profound personal significance for Naḥmanides as his own feet stand within the city's gates.

28. The motives Naḥmanides cites for his ascent to Zion closely correspond to the passage at the end of his Rosh Ha-shanah sermon (Chavel, Ramban, 1:351). The language in these is virtually verbatim, quoting Jeremiah 12:7: “I have forsaken my house, I have cut off my heritage” (l. 264). His depiction of the sad state of the Jewish community in the city is also almost identical to that in the letter he wrote to his son Naḥman, apparently composed during the same period: see Chavel, Kitve Rabbenu Moshe ben Naḥman, 1:367–68. Likewise, his view of the role played by the cherubim in the giving of prophecy here (ll. 30–42) closely corresponds to his comment on Exodus 25:1 and what he would later state at the end of his Rosh Ha-shanah sermon (ibid, 1:252). The idea that the Sanhedrin and its seventy members is structured on the pattern of the “princes above” (ll. 80–81) similarly parallels his comment in the commentary on Numbers 11:16.

29. According to the Rome edition, Naḥmanides relates that he arrived in Jerusalem “on the ninth day of Elul 5027.” The Lisbon edition and majority of the manuscripts, however, read: “The year [5]028: see Chavel, Rabbenu Moshe ben Naḥman: Toldot ḥayav, zemano, ve-ḥiburav (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1967), 194 n. 7*; Schwartz, “Tefillah,” 107 n. 31. To the best of my knowledge, this discrepancy has yet to be resolved. The use of the past tense in his account of his ascent to Jerusalem indicates that the passage was written after his visit. A kernel of the prayer (based on the “first edition”—see below) may nonetheless have served him already for the “lament ritual” he engaged in over the ruins of the temple. My thanks go to Elchanan Reiner for sharing with me his research into the “lament rituals” that became part of the cultus of sacred places during the medieval period.

30. Around thirteen fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscripts exist; the earliest is MS New York Jewish Theological Seminary 8124, copied in 1286 shortly after Naḥmanides's death.

31. For the addenda, see Ofer and Jacobs, Addenda to Naḥmanides's Torah Commentary. In two important manuscripts of the commentary (MS Parma, Palatina 3258 and MS Munich 137), all three were in fact copied as a single addendum: see ibid., 31 and n. 100. Other manuscripts contain two of the addenda in various combinations. During the transmission of the copies of the commentary some of the addenda may have been omitted for editorial and copying reasons—the list of addenda to the commentary presumably became superfluous, for example, when they found their way into the body of the text.

32. Davidson, Israel, Thesaurus of Mediaeval Hebrew Poetry [in Hebrew] (New York: Ktav, 1970)Google Scholar, 3:189, 256.

33. R. Aharon Berakhiah of Modena, Seder ‘ashmoret ha-boker (Venice, 1721), 75b–78a. See Davidson, Thesaurus, 1:280–81 (who also does not attribute it to Naḥmanides).

34. For the Hebrew version of this document, see appendix A.

35. The two versions are presented side by side in appendix B.

36. In the manuscripts and printed editions, the essay contains an additional section appended at the end that opens with the statement: “O Lord, arise from Your throne of judgment.” This has no parallel in the Jerusalem Prayer. A lament over the exile, it asks for vengeance for those martyred. It differs substantially in style and language from the first section, which corresponds to the prayer, since it is not written in rhyming couplets, for example. The shift from the conclusion of the Jerusalem Prayer to the beginning of this section of the prayer is also rough. The angelic motifs that run through it (“Angels held by pillars of light, before Your throne of glory stand, their voices moving the foundations, their faces flying in Your word”) are similarly foreign to Naḥmanides's writings. It thus seems best to regard this passage as an independent literary unit that did not belong to the original framework of the prayer, but was rather appended to it during a tragic period of history, to which it alludes.

37. Thus, for example, the opening of the Jerusalem Prayer that quotes Psalm 122:3 is replaced by another in the essay, and the same is true of the other autobiographical sections interwoven through the text, as noted above.

38. While on rare occasions, the essay contains material not found in the prayer, these differences appear to be more stylistic than substantive.

39. For this doublet, see below.

40. For the same reason, the essay should not be ascribed to R. Moses b. R. Solomon, Naḥmanides's flesh and blood, of whom he spoke in the letter he sent to his son from ’Ereẓ Yisra'el: “And peace be upon the sons and disciples [my son and my disciple] R. Moses b. R. Solomon, your uncle, for I declare to him that I stood on the Mount of Olives … and there opposite the Temple I read his couplets with much weeping as he predicted” (Chavel, Kitve Rabbenu Moshe ben Naḥman, 1:368). Without any knowledge of the early version of the essay, Chavel (ibid., 424) contended that the prayer is based on R. Solomon's couplet. Naḥmanides's clear imprint on the essay is sufficient to refute this theory. It is also difficult to imagine that if the letter was sent from ’Ereẓ Yisra'el (as suggested above) Naḥmanides would have signed his name to a document at whose basis lay the work of a person who would have been among its recipients.

41. The omission of the autobiographical material is understandable on the (hypothetical) assumption that the person who copied the essay sought to give it a general liturgical nature, and deleted all the concrete spatial and temporal notations.

42. Cf. ll. 82, 95–96, 105, 169–70.

43. Cf. the additions he sent from ’Ereẓ Yisra'el at precisely the same time: see Ofer and Jacobs, Addenda to Naḥmanides Torah Commentary, 56–57.

44. Yisraeli, Oded, “Early vs. Late in the History of Kabbalistic Ideas in Naḥmanides's Torah Commentary” [in Hebrew], Zion 79 (2014): 477–506 Google Scholar; Yisraeli, , “From Torat Ha-Shem Temimah to the Torah Commentary: Milestones in Naḥmanides's Creative Life,” Tarbiz 83, nos. 1–2 (2014/2015): 163–95Google Scholar.

45. Psalm 82:1.

46. Deuteronomy 11:122.

47. Naḥmanides's custom of adding to rather than deleting parts of original drafts is responsible for the anachronistic reference “there” when in fact, according to his own testimony, he was actually standing “here.”

48. This reflects the ancient midrashic idea of Jerusalem as the “navel of the earth”: cf. Tanḥuma B., Ked. 10. For the term “navel of the earth” in the biblical context, see Talmon, Shemaryahu, “The ‘Navel of the Earth’ and Comparative Method,” in Scripture in History and Theology: Essays in Honor of J. Coert Rylaarsdam, ed. Merrill, Arthur L. and Overholt, Thomas W. (Pittsburgh, PA: Pickwick, 1977), 243–68Google Scholar. For this idea in Sefer Yeẓirah 4.2 (“and the holy temple exactly in the middle”) in light of the Qumran scrolls and Hellenistic parallels, see Hayman, Peter, “Some Observations on Sefer Yesira: (2) The Temple at the Center of the Universe,” Journal of Jewish Studies 37 (1986): 176–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Liebes, Yehuda, Ars Poetica in Sefer Yetsira [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Schocken, 2000), 205–8Google Scholar. For the idea of the axis mundi in ancient religious thought, see Eliade, Mircea, Images and Symbols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 27–56 Google Scholar.

49. For the ancient roots of the myths regarding the “heavenly temple” and “heavenly Jerusalem” in rabbinic, apocryphal, apocalyptic, and early Christian literature, see Aptowitzer, “Heavenly Temple in the Aggadah,” 137–53, 257–87; Urbach, Ephraim, The World of the Sages: Collected Essays [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), 2:376–91Google Scholar; Joshua Prawer, “Christian Attitudes towards Jerusalem in the Early Middle Ages,” in Prawer and Ben-Shammai, History of Jerusalem: The Early Islamic Period, 311–48; Avraham Grossman, “Jerusalem in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature,” 295–310. For this idea in nascent Kabbalah, see Pedaya, Name and Sanctuary, 148–77. For the divergence between Naḥmanides and the Geronese kabbalists R. Ezra and R. Azriel with regard to this issue, see Pedaya, “Spiritual vs. Concrete Land of Israel,” 237–41.

50. In the commentary, the expression “Lord of all the earth,” which derives from Joshua 3:11, bears a kabbalistic connotation: see the comments on Exodus 23:16 and Deuteronomy 5:23. In this scheme, it is the grammatical equivalent of the “ark of the covenant,” the two together representing malkhut/the Shekhinah.

51. The verb תהים is obscure. Schwartz (“Tefillah,” 97–98) vocalizes it as תֹהִים (from the root תה"ה) in the sense of trembling: “Thus prophecy is disseminated to the soul that trembles before it.” The plural verb does not agree with the feminine singular “soul,” however (see his remarks in the continuation there). It thus appears better to read it as תָּהִים in analogy with תהמה (from the root המ"ה), signifying that prophecy proceeds to the soul who yearns and longs for it. For the various senses of the root המ"ה in general and medieval Jewish literature in particular, see Eliezer ben Yehuda, A Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew (Jerusalem: Publishing House in Memory of Ben Yehuda, 1948–59), 2:1109–10. The unusual form may be understood as reflecting the grammatical creativity of medieval poetry, in conjunction with the need to find a rhyming parallel to אלהים. Alternatively, it may derive from the rare biblical root הי"ם (cf. Psalm 55:3: הקשיבה לי וענני אריד בשיחי ואהימה, “Pay heed to me and answer me. I am tossed about, complaining and moaning”)—i.e., in great agitation of spirit: see ibid., 1080. My thanks go to R. Ori Samet for bringing this to my attention. In the broad context of poetic expression, all these possibilities lead to the same place, of course.

52. Azriel, R., Perush ha-’aggadot, ed. Tishby, Isaiah [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Academon, 1945), 40Google Scholar. The parallel in R. Ezra's Perush ha-’aggadot is almost completely identical. This passage has been discussed from various perspectives: see Scholem, Gershom, Origins of the Kabbalah (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 299–309 Google Scholar; Tishby, Isaiah and Lachower, Fishel, The Wisdom of the Zohar, trans. Goldstein, David (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 3:983–84Google Scholar; Idel, Moshe, Menachem Recanati the Kabbalist [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1998), 127–32Google Scholar; Pedaya, Haviva, Vision and Speech: Models of Prophecy in Jewish Mysticism [in Hebrew] (Los Angeles, CA: Cherub, 2002), 140–207 Google Scholar; Garb, Jonathan, Manifestations of Power in Jewish Mysticism: From Rabbinic Literature to Safedian Kabbalah [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2005), 74–79 Google Scholar; Wolfson, Elliot, Through a Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 297–300 Google Scholar; Gottleib, Ephraim, Studies in the Literature of the Kabbalah [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1976), 40–41 Google Scholar; Afterman, Adam, Devequt: Mystical Intimacy in Medieval Jewish Thought [in Hebrew] (Los Angeles, CA: Cherub, 2011), 253–65Google Scholar.

53. Pedaya, Vision and Speech, 140–207.

54. For Judah Halevi's doctrine of prophecy, see Wolfson, Through a Speculum, 1–163; Kreisel, Howard, Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001), 94–147 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harvey, Warren Zev, “Judah Halevi's Synesthetic Theory of Prophecy and a Note on the Zohar ,” Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 12 (1996): 141–55Google Scholar; Afterman, Devequt, 83–85.

55. See Pedaya, Vision and Speech, 137–207, and in contrast, Afterman, Devequt, 258 n. 141. An echo of this quality of Jerusalem in Naḥmanides's thought may be discerned in a passing comment he makes in Torat ha-’adam: “… when you will say of the one who stands in Jerusalem that his soul has been garbed with the Holy Spirit and prophetic crafts at the will of the Sovereign whether in dreams or visions, more than all those who stand in an impure land” (Chavel, Kitve Rabbenu Moshe ben Naḥman, 2:298); see below.

56. See, for example, his commentary on Genesis 18:4, 46:1, Exodus 6:2, 19:20, 33:18, Leviticus 1:1, Numbers 12:6, 23:2; “The Law of the Lord is Perfect” (Chavel, Kitve Rabbenu Moshe ben Naḥman, 1:148; Torat ha-’adam, ibid., 2:399). See Elliot Wolfson, “The Secret of the Garment in Nahmanides,” Da‘at 24 (1990): xxv–xlix; Henoch, Ramban, Philosopher and Kabbalist, 165–66 n. 504, 184–86; Halbertal, By Way of Truth, 181–211; Afterman, Devequt, 316–21.

57. “There I will meet with you, and I will impart to you—from above the cover, from between the two cherubim that are on top of the ark of the covenant—all that I will command you concerning the Israelites” (Exodus 25:22). While this revelation is confined to Moses alone and the concrete situation of the tabernacle, Naḥmanides appears to regard it as the archetype for prophetic revelation down the ages.

58. Chavel, Ramban: Writings and Discourses, 1:353.

59. For medieval aliyah to ’Ereẓ Yisra'el, see Elchanan Reiner, “Pilgrims and Pilgrimage to ’Ereẓ Yisra'el, 1099–1517” (PhD diss., Hebrew University, 1988).

60. Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews (Philadelphia, PA: JPS, 1894), 3:605. For Graetz's view, see Yitzhak Baer, “The Disputations of R. Yechiel of Paris and of Naḥmanides” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 2 (1931): 177 n. 1; Reiner, “Pilgrims and Pilgrimage,” 80–81.

61. In the Jerusalem Prayer, Naḥmanides gives voice to the great sacrifice he was forced to make in order to realize his heart's desire to settle in ’Ereẓ Yisra'el and Jerusalem (ll. 258–78), justifying it on the grounds that “[A day in thy courts is better to me] [Psalm 84:11], to visit in Thy destroyed temple … for your dust is honeyed food in my mouth” (ll. 276–81). In slightly different fashion, he notes in the Rosh Ha-shanah sermon delivered in Acre at the end of his life: “This [consideration, the importance of dwelling in the Land of Israel,] has taken me out of my [native] land … into the lap of my mother's bosom” (Chavel, Ramban: Writings and Discourses, 1:351).

62. Graetz (History of the Jews, 3:605), for example, suggests that although prompted by historical events, “It would have been easy for him to find a safe haven in a nearby land … but he directed his paths towards the holy land to which he had yearned for so long.” (This sentence appears in the Hebrew edition of Graetz's work but not in the English.) Even some of the scholars who believe him to have been motivated primarily by spiritual-religious reasons regard the political situation as an additional and complementary factor.

63. Prawer, Joshua, The Crusaders' Kingdom: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (New York: Praeger, 1972), 248–49Google Scholar.

64. https://www.sefaria.org/Hasagot_HaRamban_al_Sefer_HaMitzvot,_Mitzvot_Ase.4?lang=en. For Maimonides's and Naḥmanides's dispute over this issue, see Michael Zvi Nehorai, “The Land of Israel in Maimonides and Nahmanides,” in Hallamish and Ravitzky, Land of Israel in Medieval Jewish Thought, 123–37.

65. Scholem, Gershom, “A New Document Concerning the Early History of the Kabbalah” [in Hebrew], in Gershom Sholem: Meḥkare kabbalah, ed. Sheshet, Joseph ben and Idel, Moshe (Tel Aviv: ‘Am ‘Oved, 1998), 1:7–38 Google Scholar. For a discussion of this passage, see Idel, “Land of Israel,” 204–5; Pedaya, “Spiritual vs. Concrete Land of Israel,” 243–49.

66. Cf. R. Meir of Rothenberg's responsa (Berlin, 1891), 14–15. See also Grossman, Avraham, “’Iggeret ḥazon ve-tokheḥah me-’ashkenaz ba-me'ah ha-yod daled [A Letter of Vision and Reproof from Fourteenth-Century Ashkenaz],” Cathedra 4 (1974): 191Google Scholar. For Maimonides's views on aliyah, see Ta-Shma, Israel, “The Attitude to Aliyah to ’Ereẓ Yisra'el (Palestine) in Medieval German Jewry” [in Hebrew], Shalem 6 (1992): 318–15Google Scholar; and in contrast Grossman, Abraham, “Zikato shel Maharam mi-Rothenburg le-’Ereẓ Yisra'el [R. Meir of Rothenberg's Link to ’Ereẓ Yisra’el],” Cathedra 84 (1997): 63–84 Google Scholar. For the attitude towards the value of making aliyah among the Tosafot and Ḥaside Ashkenaz, see Kanarfogel, Ephraim, “The ‘Aliyah’ of ‘Three Hundred Rabbis' in 1211: Tosafist Attitudes towards Settling in the Land of Israel,” Jewish Quarterly Review 76 (1986): 191–215 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reiner, “Pilgrims and Pilgrimage,” 91–118. For the general reluctance to make aliyah during this period, see Ravitzky, Aviezer, “The Land of Israel: Desire and Dread in Jewish Literature,” in Hearing Visions and Seeing Voices: Psychological Aspects of Biblical Concepts and Personalities, ed. Glas, Gerrit et al. (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), 153–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67. Kuzari 2.23–24, 5.23–27.

68. Idel, “Land of Israel,” 206.

69. Pedaya, “Spiritual vs. Concrete Land of Israel,” 285–86.

70. Chavel, Kitve Rabbenu Moshe ben Naḥman, 2:298.

71. Yisraeli, “Early vs. Late in the History of Kabbalistic Ideas”; Yisraeli, “From Torat Ha-Shem Temimah to the Torah Commentary.”