Richard Zimler - The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

MicvahRitual bath in which women immerse themselves following menstruation. It is also used by men for purposes of ritual purification.

MitzvahA divine commandment. There are 613 such commandments in the Torah. It can also mean any good deed.

MohelA person trained to perform ritual circumcisions. Jewish male children are generally circumcised on the eighth day after birth.

MordecaiJewish courtier who thwarted Haman’s plan to massacre the Persian Jews (from the Book of Esther).

NeshamahThe divine spark of God in man; the soul.

NezahDivine endurance.

NisanThe seventh month of the Hebrew lunar calendar, generally coinciding with part of March and part of April.

PassoverThe Jewish festival commemorating the escape of the Hebrew people from bondage in Egypt, traditionally celebrated for eight days in the spring.

PurimA Jewish holiday which celebrates the downfall of Haman’s plan to massacre the Persian Jews.

RahamimDivine compassion.

Rosh HashanahThe Jewish New Year.

SamaelThe name of Satan in Judaism.

SederThe traditional ceremonial meal eaten on the first and sometimes second nights of Passover. (Christ’s Last Supper was a Jewish seder.)

SeferHebrew for “book.”

SefirotThe ten aspects or manifestations of God, sometimes represented as divine lights and often associated with the Cosmic Tree, the names of God and various parts of the human body.

Sitra AhraThe kabbalistic term for the domain of evil emanations and demonic powers (The Other Side).

ShefaA divine influx or moment of divine presence.

ShevatThe fifth month of the Hebrew lunar calendar, generally coinciding with part of January and part of February.

ShofarA ram’s horn blown to produce a trumpet sound during certain Jewish rituals.

ShohetA Jewish butcher specially trained in the techniques governing the slaughter of animals.

TallisA rectangular prayer shawl.

TalmudAn ancient compilation of Jewish Oral Law which includes rabbinical commentaries.

TefillinPhylacteries.

TishriThe first month of the Hebrew calendar, generally coinciding with part of September and part of October.

TorahThe Pentateuch or first five books of the Old Testament. In a broader sense, it can refer to the complete Old Testament or even all of Jewish teaching.

TrefFood unfit for human consumption and which must be discarded according to Jewish dietary laws.

TzitzitThe fringes which dangle from the four corners of a Jewish prayer shawl.

Tu BisvatA Jewish holiday connected with the Tree of Life and the eating of fruit associated with the land of Israel.

Yom KippurThe holiest Jewish holiday, on which Jews fast to atone for their sins.

ZedekDivine Justice.

ZoharThe Book of Splendor. The most influential book of kabbalistic mysticism, written in Guadalajara, Spain, between 1280 CE and 1286 CE, by the Jewish mystic Moses de Leon.

Richard Zimler, born in 1956 in New York, has lived since 1990 in Portugal, where he is a professor of journalism at the University of Porto. His short fiction, which has appeared in Britain in London Magazine and in America in The James White Review, won the 1994 Panurge Prize and has since been anthologized in the Book of Eros and Men on Men: 6. He has also won a fellowship in fiction from the US National Endowment for the Arts. Unholy Ghosts, his second novel, was recently published. His most recent novel, The Angelic Darkness, is also published by Arcadia.