Fons Vitae · Mekor Chayyim

Ibn Gabirol's dialogue between master and pupil, in five books, and the most consequential Jewish Neoplatonic work before the Kabbalah. Two doctrines carried forward: universal hylomorphism — everything except God, including souls and intellects, is composed of matter and form, so spirit is not simply the absence of substance; and the divine Will as the mediator between the utterly hidden Source and all that proceeds from it. That Will, hovering between an unknowable Infinite and the first emanated thing, is the philosophical parent of Keter as *Ratzon*.