#samuel aranda | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

docpiplup · 1 year

Text

Abraham Levi and the creation of the doors of time

(This is a translated and extended version of a couple of posts I published about this topic some time ago @asongofstarkandtargaryen )

I was thinking about other issues related to Emdt, and then some things began to occur to me about Abraham Levi and how he came to put these doors into operation and the sources from which you may have been inspired or taken ideas for his work in relation to the gates and time travel.

Isabella: What do you want from me, Abraham?

Now we see Abraham Levi (a man in his 60s, thin, weak in appearance, but with a firm voice)

Levi: Protection for my family. In exchange I offer you the work to which I have dedicated my whole life… The Book of Doors…

Levi shows him the book. Isabel looks at him strangely.

Levi: Part of it has been burned. I saved it from the synagogue fire.

She turns the pages carefully… Only sees diagrams, drawings…

Isabella: I only see doodles and numbers.

Levi: They are keys to the Doors of Time. With them you can travel in time.

Isabella: (Smiles) That's impossible.

Levi: It's not. I myself have traveled to the day that King Alfonso inaugurated the Toledo School of Translators. I also went to my own past to see my mother's joy when she brought me into the world.

Isabella: Do you expect me to believe in those fantasies?

Levi sighs deeply: he must give definitive proof

Levi: On your right hand you have a slight scar. You did it the first time you shot with a bow. It was in Aranda and you were barely nine years old.

Isabella's face changes.

Isabel: Nobody knows that…

Levi: You cried when you saw your injured hand. Someone was passing by...

We see Isabel as a girl (9 years old) saddened with a wound on her hand next to a lady-in-waiting and a guard… An old man (the same Levi with the same age as in the previous sequence), applies an ointment to her hand .

Off Levi: …he cured your hand with an ointment made from the traitor's root.

Isabella looks at the face of the old man who helps her… the same one she has now, many years later, in front of her

Isabella: It was you! But… you were the same age you are today and 30 years have passed. That... that's magic!

Levi: Science that is ahead of its time is always called magic. (Points to the book) I offer you to be the queen of Time. Will you protect my family?

Location

A first point that I would like to comment on is the possible location of the place where Abraham kept his book.

Abraham Levi is a rabbi from the city of Toledo, and he himself says that the book was in the synagogue.

That is to say, it is a specific one, and due to the dates, taking into account that the mission of the episode 1×04 Una negociación a tiempo takes place in the year 1491 and is located in Toledo, since it has practically all the ballots that Abraham was a rabbi of the synagogue del Tránsito, also known as the synagogue of Samuel ha Levi. (The first gif shows one part of the synagogue)

Today the synagogue houses the Sephardic Museum, a museum about Jewish history of the Iberian peninsula.

(Extra: In the intro of the 1-3th seasons, there's a moment in which there are several keys, and the most common thought is that there are keys in the intro because of the aesthetic of the timedoors, but they haven't any locks and one of my thoughts is that they're a reference of the tale of the keys of the Jews who were expelled in 1492. It's said that they took the keys of their houses with them and kept them generation after generation, hoping to one day return and open the locks of their old homes.)

The fact is that the origin of this synagogue dates back to the middle of the 14th century, when Samuel Ha Levi Abulafia (Úbeda, Jaén, Andalusia, 1320-Sevilla, Andalusia, 1360), who was treasurer and counselor of Peter I (Burgos, Castile and Leon, August 30, 1334-Montiel, Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha, March 23, 1369), ordered to build it, presumably as a private synagogue of his palace, where currently the House-Museum of El Greco, the painter Doménikos Theotokópoulos (Herakleion, Crete, October 1, 1541-Toledo, Castile-La Mancha, April 7, 1614) is located. Perhaps it could be that Abraham was a relative or descendant of Samuel, so it could make sense that Abraham was in the synagogue that his ancestor had built.

I have focused a lot on the Tránsito synagogue, but it is not the only one in the city, it is usually estimated that there were about 10 synagogues in the city during the Middle Ages, of which some only a few remains remain today, and another that is still standing, which is the synagogue of Santa María la Blanca, also known as the Greater Synagogue, probably built in the 12th century. Unfortunately, as a result of the pogrom of 1391 that the Jewish quarters of some of the main cities of the peninsula suffered, most of the synagogues are either destroyed due to the assaults and popular revolts against the Jewish quarters or are seized by the Catholic Church, as this was the case of the synagogue of Santa María la Blanca.

Subsequently, the only synagogue that was officially preserved as such until the end of the 15th century was the Tránsito synagogue, I suppose that it was preserved that way because it was "private". In the year 1492, the synagogue was requisitioned by Isabella I (Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Ávila, Castile and Leon, April 22, 1451-Medina del Campo, Valladolid, Castile and Leon, November 26, 1504) and Ferdinand II (Sos del Rey Católico, Zaragoza, Aragon, March 10, 1452-Madrigalejo, Cáceres, Extremadura, January 23, 1516) and handed it over to the Order of Calatrava.

Within the known history of the Tránsito synagogue, I don't remember if there was a concrete tale of a fire, although it could be that it was damaged as a result of an assault on the Jewish quarter.

Inspirations and origins of the doors

One of the things that mentions Abraham is the School of Translators of Toledo, it is thought that probably the antecedent of this group was created in the 12th century by the archbishop of Toledo, Raimundo de Sauvetât, but it would not be organized as a true institution until the 13th century during the reign of Alfonso X the Wise (or the Astrologist, for his passion and wide knowledge about astrology) (Toledo, November 23, 1221-Sevilla, April 4, 1284), in which Jews, Muslims and Christians worked, in charge of translating into different languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, old Spanish...) the almost lost works of the great Greek thinkers at that time or the translations of some Muslim intellectuals such as Averroes (Córdoba, Al-Andalus, Almoravid Empire, April 14, 1126–Marrakech, Almohad Empire, December 17, 1198) and Avicenia (Bukhara, Great Khorasan, Iran, c. 980-Hamadan, Iran, 1037) of other ancient Greek treatises. And in general they work on medicine, mathematics, astrology, astronomy, philosophy, alchemy, magic and even instruction books for games such as chess, tables and dice.

The thing is, this which has to do with the theme of Abraham and the gates?

One of the things I was thinking about Abraham and the School of Translators in relation to the creation of the gates is that perhaps Abraham had at some point access to some of the texts translated by the school, some treatise related to astrology, philosophy or magic probably, and take ideas that may have been crucial in developing what the doors would be.

Some of them are the Astromagic Book and the Picatrix, which in short, in what they extended was in knowledge of astrology and philosophy, which are used in magic that can be obtained and used by the magician thanks to the astral power of the stars and the planets.

There are several more treatises and books, but it is true that the Picatrix is considered a very important work within these magic manuals of the time, its original name is Ghayat al-hakim, which can be translated as the goal or the end of the wise, and was probably written in the 10th or 11th century by the mathematician, alchemist, astronomist and astrologist Maslama Ibn Ahmad al-Mayriti (or al-Magriti) (Madrid,950-Cordoba, Andalusia, 1007), the latter being interpreted as "the Madrilenian", author of the Treaty for building astrolabes and other mathematical and astronomical calculations, and he was the astrology counselor of al-Manṣūr/ Almanzor "the Victorious" (castle of Turrush, Fuentes de Cesna, Granada or Torrox, Málaga, Andalusia, 939-Medinaceli, Soria, Castile and Leon, August 9, 1002), háyib and chancellor of the Caliphate of Córdoba during the rule of Hisham II (Córdoba, June 11, 965 – Córdoba, May 18, 1013)

Fun fact: In 2015 the extrasolar planet Upsilon Andromedae d, located about 44 light years from Earth, in the Andromeda constellation, was renamed as Majriti, in honor of al-Mayriti.

Madrid was founded in 9th century by the emir Muhammad I of Córdoba (Córdoba, 852- Córdoba, 886), who established the first permanent settlement by building a watchtower in the middle valley of the river Guadarrama (the watchtower turn into an alcazar and then in the 18th century was replaced with the current Royal Palace).This watchtower had the function of guarding the passage towards the mountain range of Guadarrama. Madrid was a military site formed by the Medina (from the arabic Madinat, the city, intramural neighborhoods, there are several spanish towns whose name has the word Medina in it: Medina del Campo, Medina de Pomar, Medina de Rioseco, Miño de Medina, Brahojos de Medina, Villaverde de Medina, Medinaceli, Almedina, Medina Sidonia, Medina de las Torres, Mediñá, Medina Azahara...) and the Almudaina (from the Arabic al-mudayna, citadel), Madrid's Cathedral is named after this, the Santa Maria de la Almudena and the woman name Almudena.

Madrid comes from Mayrit/Magrit:

-Mayrit: from the Arabic “Mayra”, which translates as mother or womb, and the suffix “it”, which means place

-Magrit: a hybrid between the Arabic word “Maǧra”, which means channel or water course, and the suffix romance "it", which indicates abundance, thus conforming the meaning of "place abundant in waters"

Its name refers to the abundance of aquifers and the Manzanares River, and since the foundation of the city the Muslims as masters in channeling water, they used various techniques such as the use of the noria, the storage and distribution of water through ditches, canals and pools, and the qanat, or use of groundwater through conduction.

In fact, it's said that the primitive coat of arms of Madrid was formed by a flint that emerged from the water. In addition, it would have had these two sentences: "I was built on water, my walls of fire are" making reference about the abundance of water, on the one hand, and to the walls of the city, made of silex, that produced sparks and fire in contact with projectiles.

And then I look the etymology of La Mancha (Toledo is the capital of Castile-La Mancha) is funny because it's like quite the opposite. I mean there are some rivers like the Tagus, but still it's quite accurate. There are different theories. One would suppose that the toponym "Mancha" would be pronounced in Arabic as Manxa or Al-Mansha, which translates as "land without water", "land of espartos" or "dry land", and another as Manya, translated as "high plain", "plateau" or "elevated place".

About other interesting details is that the first famous person who was born in Madrid was an astronomist and the flag and the coat of arms of the city of Madrid are related with stars. The flag of the community of Madrid is seven stars divided in two lines at the center in a red field, and the COA is a she-bear with an arbutus, surrounded by a blue bordure with seven white stars, both the flag and the COA are reference to the Ursa Minor or Ursa Maior constellation (7 starts, a she-bear). The first coat of arms of Madrid with the bear consisted in a bear in a field with the Ursa Minor constellation on the animal's back and with the North Star on its tail, because the Polaris star and thus the constellation was important for orienteering for several cultures that established in the region since the Carpetans (one of the Celtiberian tribes, their area was called Carpetania, located in the community of Madrid ans some partsof Castile- La Mancha)

Maybe the reason why the headquarters of the ministry are located in Madrid, instead of Toledo, is because it's a tribute of Abraham Levi to al-Mayriti and his Picatrix. At first someone would say that the ministry is located in Madrid, because it's the capital of Spain, it wasn't until 1561 that the city didn't became the capital.

A deltail relared with these theme: The intro of seasons 1-3 begins with a starry night over Madrid. The Almudena cathedral can be seen in the landscape of the city.

Returning to the main theme, I think that the book of doors can be considered another kind of treatise on astromagic, but later than the others and that it has been the work of Abraham when taking references from other books on astromagic, but although in traditional treatises formulas and magical rituals for all kinds of purposes, Abraham focused on the creation of the doors.

Specifically, the formulas to open these connections between two different times and places are mere speculation because the writers have not focused on giving an exact explanation.

As data is that the internal magical scheme of the doors is clearly inspired by the design of a classic element of the cabal, the Tree of Life. Kabbalah is a mystical study and interpretation of sacred texts that peaked during the Middle Ages, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, specifically by authors from the south of France and Spain.

In the tree of life the 10 emanations of God are represented when creating the universe. And that it is suggested that it is also the structure of the microcosm within the human being, and that similarity is what connects it with the rest of the macrocosm and is also divided into various levels according to the four elements: water, fire, earth and air, and levels of Emanation, Creation, Formation and physical world and in three pillars, rigor or severity, balance and mercy. Then also each of the 10 spheres is associated with some attribute of creation, a planet or a celestial body and a number.

In the episode 3×09 El Cisma del tiempo, it is shown what the internal "code" of the doors is, and therefore the scheme is clearly inspired by the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah.

Bringing together the elements of the cabalistic tree with what has already been mentioned with astromagic, I would say that Abraham may have designed the doors based on placing a combination of letters that are equivalent to numbers (such as the kabbalah system), which may be used to indicate the year and the coordinates of the two places that a time gate connects. Perhaps through numerical coordinates as such and a date, or perhaps this is also accompanied by the position of the stars in the connected places and times, as well as perhaps connecting the two different combinations of the location of the stars , would generate some kind of magical reaction or energy that would allow time travel between both points.

Although there are also some questions about how Abraham created all the existing doors considering that from his point of view in the 15th century, a large number of doors would lead to the future, to years that have not yet passed or to places that such Abraham probably could not know under normal conditions, such as the doors that connect a place with some place in America or some other place that in the past was a Spanish colony. It may also be that he was experimenting with the combinations of numbers in the code and resulted in traveling to other parts of the world (like Abraham suddenly appearing in Havana or Cartagena).

Some points regarding the doors that from the point of view of the time of Abraham is that when he created them, perhaps several of them were located in the time of Abraham or before and that as the years have passed, like most of the doors the time is continuous (except for example some that are in a loop), since time has elapsed normally. I say this because of "time is what it is" and you cannot travel to the future beyond the year in which the main Ministry is located, although it is something quite relative.

Another option is that when Levi was experimenting and creating what the doors would be, he wouldn't put limits on how long to go, and he created doors that led to other times after his own.

Another hypotheses about the doors located in America or elsewhere is that perhaps originally they were not located there, but later someone who knew very well the operation and internal codes of the doors, wanted to move several of those doors to other places, to have better access to them or whatever.

Although I suppose that the internal codes are not mastered by everyone, and the only people apart from Abraham that we have heard that work with directly manipulating some characteristic of the doors are the "technicians" of the current ministry who are mentioned a couple of times throughout the series. From what is intuited, they are Ministry workers who handle a kind of digitized collection of the door codes, and manipulate them from a "computerized" method, we suppose that this computerized registry of the doors may have given rise to the temporary error alert system that is seen in 4×00 Antes de que no haya tiempo, or the mobiles with which the ministry workers can call other times, I suppose that the technicians implanted a chip in the phones with a special operating system that is directly connected to the computer registry of the doors.

#emdt #history #el ministerio del tiempo #mdt #abraham levi #theories #headcanons #the doors of time

9 notes · View notes