抄録
As well known, the period from the 10th to the 12th centuries is the time of the emergence of Dikduk (the traditional Hebrew Grammar in Judaism) and Kabbalah (the medieval Jewish mysticism); in the 10th century, Saadia Gaon writes Hebrew grammar and his dictionary for the first time in history as well as the commentary on the book of Yezirah, that is also about the same time when the Masoretic codex of Aleppo is completed by Ben-Asher the authority of the vocalization and the accent signs of the biblical text as attested in the famous Mishne Torah of Maimonides; and toward the end of the 12th century, the title of Sefer ha-Bahir begins to be spread in vocabulary of kabbalists as an early teaching of Sefirot theory.
The interest in the origin of Dikduk and Kabbalah in the 16th century is renewed with the quest of the historical Masora by Levita who denies the origin of the Masoretic signs and marks of vocalization and accent to be seen as of the ancient tradition from the time of Moses. At this, Azariah De Rossi refutes to Levita by quoting a passage from Sefer ha-Bahir by which he tries to prove the antiquity of Masoretic vocalization an integral to the square letters of the Torah Scroll since Ezra's time. Thus, as the controversy abruptly comes to the spotlight as asking on the connection of mysticism with Hebrew Grammar, the refutation of De Rossi is not entirely clear but demands the explanation of his historical logic in asking why De Rossi finds a kabbalistic text such as Sefer ha-Bahir as valid to argue the antiquity of the Masoretic tradition of grammatical signs of sound.
