Concepts of Scripture in Nahmanides 147interpretation. For all, it refers to the importance of worshiping God and
not other deities; for the few, however, it refers to a particular mode of mys-
tical practice.
Within this context, Nahmanides is certainly informed by the kabbal-
istic tradition that sees the Torah as an esoteric text that is composed of
the names of God. He writes, as we have seen, that Moses wrote the Torah
directly “from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He.”21 In addition to
this, however, Nahmanides argues that Moses also received the secret com-
binations of letters that represent another, deeper, aspect of the Torah and,
by extension, the universe. We possess, according to him,
an authentic tradition [kabbalah] that shows the whole Torah is composed
of the Names of the Holy One, blessed be He, and that the letters of the
words separate themselves into Divine Names when divided in a diff erent
manner. . . . It is said that the Torah is written with letters of black upon a
background of white fi re, and this is the form we have mentioned, namely,
that the writing was contiguous, without break of words, which made it
possible for it to be read by way of Divine Names and also by way of our
normal reading which makes explicit the Torah and the commandment. It
was given to Moses our Teacher using the division of words that expresses
the commandment, and orally it was transmitted to him in the rendition
that consists of the Divine Names. 22Th is passage is signifi cant for several reasons. First, Nahmanides indicates,
in typical mystical fashion, that the Torah represents the cosmos and, like
it, conceals within itself inner mysteries connected to the divine presence.
Th e mystical light that the initiated is to uncover within the Torah is syn-
onymous with the mysteries of creation, both of which are connected to
understanding the potencies associated with the names of God. Th is is, of
course, a very daring statement because, as many subsequent kabbalists
have claimed, such a conception of Torah negates or devalues the literal
level of scripture, making it less about meaning than mystical value.
Yet, as we have seen, Nahmanides’s conception of scripture was not just
mystical or kabbalistic. He was well aware, for example, that Torah was
meant for all Israel, and this intersection of the kabbalistic and the non-
kabbalistic is, in many ways, one of the unique features of his understand-
ing of scripture. Nahmanides’s conception of scripture, to reiterate, is that
of an endless and eternal font of wisdom. It is not something that can be