Derech Emunah

R’ Meir ibn Gabbai was carried out of Spain as a child in the expulsion of 1492 and became one of the foremost Kabbalists of the generations between the Zohar’s spreading and the teachings of the Arizal. In Derech Emunah he answers a student’s ten questions on the foundations of Kabbalah — patiently, rigorously, drawing his proofs from Scripture, from Chazal, from the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah, the Tikkunim and the Bahir, and from the responsa of R’ Azriel of Gerona, teacher of the Ramban.

This sefer carries a modern story too. When the federal court ruled on Hey Teves that the seforim of the Central Lubavitch Library belong to their rightful home — Didan Notzach — the Kehot foreword to a new printing of Derech Emunah was dated the very day after the books returned, at the Rebbe’s explicit directive. Days later, on Shabbos Parshas Vayeitzei 5748, the Rebbe devoted a sicha to the freshly reprinted sefer, learning its opening teshuvos before the assembled chassidim. That sicha is translated in full as the appendix of this edition.

The Tzemach Tzedek cites Derech Emunah by name in Derech Mitzvosecha, and ibn Gabbai’s Avodas HaKodesh is drawn upon across the Chabad corpus — in the Rebbe’s Igros Kodesh and Likkutei Sichos and the Toras Shmuel of the Rebbe Maharash. Yet in nearly five hundred years, the Way of Faith has never been opened to the English reader. It is open now — and waiting.