Today I posted the following note to the editor of the "Star of David" page on Wikipedia:
You wrote: "However, the sign [Star of David] is nowhere to be found in classical kabbalistic texts themselves, such as the Zohar, the writings of Rabbi Isaac Luria and the like".
I read on G.S. Oegema's book (Realms of Judaism, The history of the Shield of David, the birth of a symbol, Peter Lang, Germany, 1996, ISBN 3-631-30192-8) that "Isaac Luria provided the Shield of David with a further mystical meaning. In his book "Etz Hachayim" he teaches that the elements of the plate for the Seder evening have to be placed in the order of the hexagram: above the three sefirot "Crown "Wisdom" and "Insight", below the other seven".
2 comments:
I read on http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/szyk/jewish/71420.htm
that Arthur Szyk illustrated the haggadah in 1935 and arranged the elements of the plate for the Seder evening in the shape of a Star of David.
The illustration served as both an attack on the Nazis and a Zionist plea.
In the middle of the star, In the place of the Maror - Horse-radish(which symbolizes hardships) there's an Egyptian with an armband similar to those worn by the Nazis killing a Jew.
(Taken from Exodus 2:11)
M. Costa wrote that M. Gudemann and other researchers in the 1920's claimed that Isaac Luria influenced the becoming of the Star of David a national Jewish emblem by his teaching that the elements of the plate for the Seder evening have to be placed in the order of the hexagram, but Gershom Scholem proved that Isaac Luria talked about parallel triangles one beneath the other and not about the hexagram. [Source: "Hatakh ha-zahav, hotam Shelomoh u-magen-David", Poalim, 1990, Hebrew, pp. 156]
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