Shomer Emunim שומר אמונים
Shaltiel accepts only the revealed Torah, Yehoyada defends Kabbalah. The book appeared at Amsterdam in 1736, posthumously.
The objection it answers is the strongest available: that the kabbalistic language of sefirot and partzufim seems to ascribe to God structure, parts and change — precisely what Jewish philosophy had denied for centuries. Ergas's answer is not to wave it away but to take it apart: to show in what sense these terms are said and why they do not describe the divine essence.
Printed with it is Mevo Petahim, a lexicon of Lurianic terms; together they served as an entry into Kabbalah for a reader with philosophical training.
It is best read paired with Leone Modena's Ari Nohem: that book disputes the Zohar's antiquity, this one defends the intelligibility of its language. A century of Italian argument lies between them.
On the timeline
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Shomer Emunim, Amsterdam 1736 — the dialogue of Shaltiel and Yehoyada; a posthumous edition
- Leone Modena, Ari Nohem — the opposite side of the same Italian argument
Scholarship
- Encyclopaedia Judaica, "Ergas, Joseph ben Emanuel" — the make-up of the book and its place in the defence of Kabbalah
Basis: documents and evidence.