Moses Botarel

Who is Moses Botarel?

Moses Botarel was a Spanish scholar who lived in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He was a pupil of Jacob Sefardi, who instructed him in the Kabbala.

Moses studied medicine and philosophy; the latter, he regarded as a divine science which teaches the same doctrines as the Cabala, using a different language and different terms to designate the same objects. He extolled Aristotle as a sage, applying to him the Talmudic sentence, "A wise man is better than a prophet," and he censured his contemporaries for keeping aloof from the divine teachings of philosophy. He believed in the efficacy of amulets and cameos, and declared that he was able to combine the names of God for magical purposes, so that he was generally considered a sorcerer. He stated that by means of fasting, ablution, and invocation of the names of God and of the angels prophetic dreams could be induced. He also stated that the prophet Elijah had appeared to him and appointed him as Messiah. In this role he addressed a circular letter to all the rabbis, asserting that he was able to solve all perplexities, and asking them to send all doubtful questions to him. In this letter Botarel refers to himself as a well-known and prominent rabbi, a saint, and the most pious of the pious. Many believed in his miracles, including the philosopher Hasdai Crescas.