On February 4, 1657, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, issued the first residence permit to a Jew, Luis Carvajal, since the expulsion of all Jews from England by King Edward I in the year 1290. The edict of expulsion had been officially overturned in the previous year, 1656. The re-admittance of Jews into England was partially due to the efforts of the great scholar Rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel.
Link: Menasseh Ben Israel
Rabbi Moshe Galante II was born in Safed in 1620 and later moved to Jerusalem where he founded a large yeshivah. He was a grandson of the famed Rabbi Moshe Galante I, who was a student of Rabbi Yosef Karo.
Rabbi Galante was the first rabbi endowed with the title Rishon l'Tzion ("the First of Zion"), a title traditionally conferred upon the Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Jerusalem and later of the Land of Israel. This due to the profound love and esteem he was given by the Sephardic community in Jerusalem.
He authored a number of works including Elef HaMagen, which includes 1,000 responsa on various topics; Parpara'ot l'Chochmah, a commentary on the Bible; and Zevach HaShelamim on the Talmud.
Counted among his students was Rabbi Chizkiyah De Silva, rabbi of Hebron and author of the Pri Chadash (printed in the standard edition of the Code of Jewish Law).
Creativity is an exercise in paradox.
On the one hand, creativity is the artist’s expression of self.
Yet, on the other hand, the artist must remove himself from his art, with discipline and with skill, so that his creation will appear real, as though it has a life of its own.
Creation of a universe from the void is the absolute paradoxical act.
It is the absolute expression of absolute existence, as existence emerges without bounds.
And it is the absolute of restraint, as the Creator conceals His presence so that this creation will perceive itself as its own being, and not simply a fantasy of its Creator.
In the very existence of this universe is manifest the ultimate oneness: That light and darkness, being and not-being converge at a point where all is one.
So that even when there is a heaven and an earth, there is nothing else but that elusive point we know as G‑d.