16th century Kabbalist
Rabbi
Isaac Luria
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![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%99_%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%94.JPG/220px-%D7%A8%D7%91%D7%99_%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%94.JPG) The grave of Isaac Luria in Safed
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Title
| Ha'ARI
Ha'ARI Hakadosh
ARIZaL
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Born
| 1534
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Died
| July 25, 1572 (aged 37–38) (5
Av
5332
AM
)
Safed
, Damascus Eyalet, Ottoman Syria, Ottoman Empire
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Religion
| Judaism
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Signature
| ![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Isaac_Luria_signature.svg/150px-Isaac_Luria_signature.svg.png) |
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Buried
| Old Cemetery of Safed
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Isaac ben Solomon Luria Ashkenazi
(
Hebrew
:
??????? ?? ???? ???????? ??????
;
c.
1534
[1]
– July 25, 1572
[2]
), commonly known in Jewish religious circles as
Ha'ari
[a]
,
Ha'ari Hakadosh
[b]
or
Arizal
,
[c]
was a leading
rabbi
and
Jewish mystic
in the community of
Safed
in the
Galilee
region of
Ottoman Syria
, now Israel. He is considered the father of contemporary
Kabbalah
,
[5]
his teachings being referred to as
Lurianic Kabbalah
.
While his direct literary contribution to the Kabbalistic school of Safed was extremely minute (he wrote only a few poems), his spiritual fame led to their veneration and the acceptance of his authority. The works of his disciples compiled his oral teachings into writing. Every custom of Luria was scrutinized, and many were accepted, even against previous practice.
[4]
Luria died at Safed on July 25, 1572, and is buried at the Old Jewish Cemetery, Safed.
[4]
[2]
The
Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue
, also located in Safed, was built in memory of Luria during the late 16th century.
[6]
Early life
[
edit
]
A letter sent to Luria while he lived in Egypt.
Luria was born in 1534 in
Jerusalem
[1]
in what is now the Old Yishuv Court Museum
[4]
to an
Ashkenazi
father, Solomon, and a
Sephardic
mother.
[7]
Sefer HaKavanot U'Ma'aseh Nissim
records that one day Luria's father remained in the
Beth kneset
alone, studying, when
Eliyahu HaNavi (Elijah)
appeared to him and said, "I have been sent to you by the Almighty to bring you tidings that your holy wife shall conceive and bear a child, and that you must call him Yitzchak. He shall begin to deliver the believers from the
Klipot
[husks, forces of evil]. Through him, numerous souls will receive their
tikkun
. He is also destined to reveal many hidden mysteries in the
Torah
and to expound on the Zohar. His fame will spread throughout the world. Take care therefore that you not circumcise him before I come to be the
Sandak
[who holds the child during the
Brit Milah
ceremony]."
[4]
While still a child, Luria lost his father, and was brought up by his rich maternal uncle Mordechai Frances, a
tax-farmer
from
Cairo
,
Egypt
. His uncle placed him under the best Jewish teachers, including the leading rabbinic scholar
David ibn Zimra
.
[7]
Luria showed himself a diligent student of rabbinical literature and under the guidance of another uncle, Rabbi
Bezalel Ashkenazi
(best known as the author of
Shittah Mekubetzet
), he became proficient in that branch of Jewish learning.
[8]
At the age of fifteen he married a cousin, the daughter of Mordechai Frances, and being amply provided for financially he was able to continue his studies. Around the age of twenty-two he became engrossed in the study of the
Zohar
(a major work of the
Kabbalah
that had recently been printed for the first time) and adopted the life of a recluse. Retreating to the banks of the
Nile
for seven years, he secluded himself in an isolated cottage, giving himself up entirely to meditation. He visited his family only on
Shabbat
. But even at home, he would not utter a word, even to his wife. When it was necessary for him to say something, he would say it in the fewest words possible,
[4]
and then, only in
Hebrew
.
[9]
Teachings
[
edit
]
Ark in the
Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue
. Luria was called
Ha'ari
, "the Lion"
In 1569, Luria moved back to
Eretz Israel
; and after a short sojourn in
Jerusalem
, where his new kabbalistic system seemed to have met with little success, he settled in Safed. Safed over the previous decades had become a center for kabbalistic studies, led by Rabbi
Moses Cordovero
.
[10]
[11]
There is evidence that Luria also regarded Cordovero as his teacher.
Joseph Sambari
(1640?1703), an Egyptian chronicler, testified that Cordovero was "the Ari's teacher for a very short time."
[12]
Luria probably arrived in early 1570, and Cordovero died on June 27 that year (the 23d day of Tammuz).
[13]
Bereft of their most prominent authority and teacher, the community looked for new guidance, and Luria helped fill Cordovero's former role.
[
citation needed
]
Soon Luria had two classes of disciples: novices, to whom he expounded the elementary Kabbalah, and initiates, who became the repositories of his secret teachings and his formulas of invocation and
conjuration
. The most renowned of the initiates was Rabbi Hayyim Vital, who, according to his master, possessed a soul which had not been soiled by Adam's sin.
[11]
With him Luria visited the grave of Rabbi
Shimon bar Yochai
and those of other eminent teachers; it is said that these graves were unmarked (the identity of each grave was unknown), but through the guidance given by
Elijah
each grave was recognized. Luria's kabbalistic circle gradually widened and became a separate congregation, in which his mystic doctrines were supreme, influencing all the religious ceremonies. On Shabbat, Luria dressed himself in white and wore a fourfold garment to signify the four letters of the
Ineffable Name
.
[
citation needed
]
Many Jews who had been exiled from Spain following the
Edict of Expulsion
believed they were in the time of trial that would precede the appearance of the
Messiah
in Galilee. Those who moved to Ottoman Syria in anticipation of this event found a great deal of comfort in Luria's teachings, due to his theme of exile. Although he did not write down his teachings, they were published by his followers and by 1650 his ideas were known by Jews throughout Europe.
[14]
Luria delivered his lectures spontaneously, without ever writing down his ideas (with a few exceptions, including kabbalistic poems in
Aramaic
for the Shabbat table). The foremost advocate of his kabbalistic system was Rabbi
Hayyim Vital
, who collected all the disciples' lecture notes. Numerous works were produced from these notes, the most important of which was the
Etz Chaim
, ("Tree of Life"), in eight volumes (see below). Originally, it circulated only in manuscript copies. Each of Luria's disciples had to pledge?under pain of excommunication?not to allow any copy be made for a foreign country, so that for a time all the manuscripts remained in Ottoman Syria. Eventually, one was brought to Europe and was published at
Zolkiev
in 1772 by
Isaac Satanow
.
[11]
In this work, both the theoretical and the
devotional-meditative
teachings of
Lurianic Kabbalah
, based on the
Zohar
, are elaborated upon.
[
citation needed
]
Tzimtzum
was one of Luria's most important ideas that he stressed in his lectures.
[3]
Disciples
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Hebrew
: ???"?, meaning "the Lion"; derived from the acronym for "Elohi Rabbi Itzhak" (the Godly Rabbi Isaac) or "Adoneinu Rabbeinu Isaac" (our master, our rabbi, Isaac). Sometimes known as
the Ari
in English.
[3]
- ^
Hebrew
: ???"? ?????, meaning "the Holy Lion"
- ^
Hebrew
: ????"?, meaning "the Lion of
Blessed Memory
"
[4]
Citations
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Fine 2003
, p.
24
- ^
a
b
Green, David B. (July 25, 2016).
"1572: Father of Lurian kabbala and confidant of Elijah dies"
.
Haaretz
. Retrieved
July 25,
2021
.
- ^
a
b
Falcon, Ted;
Blatner, David
(2019).
Judaism for Dummies
(2nd ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
p. 76.
ISBN
978-1-119-64307-4
.
OCLC
1120116712
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
"Rabbi Yitzchak Luria Ashkenazi"
. Ascent of Safed. Archived from the original on January 8, 2009
. Retrieved
January 2,
2009
.
{{
cite web
}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (
link
)
- ^
Eisen, Yosef (2004).
Miraculous Journey: A Complete History of the Jewish People from Creation to the Present
(Rev. ed.). Southfield, Mich.: Targum Press. p. 213.
ISBN
1568713231
. Retrieved
December 2,
2018
.
- ^
Isaacson, Judith; Rosenbloom, Deborah (1998).
Bar and Bat Mitzvah in Israel: The Ultimate Family Sourcebook
. Israel Info-Access. p. 59.
ISBN
9780966087703
.
- ^
a
b
Fine 2003
, p.
29
- ^
Fine 2003
, p.
31
-
32
- ^
"The Essence"
. Archived from
the original
on January 8, 2009.
- ^
Fine 2003
, p.
1
- ^
a
b
c
"Isaac ben Solomon Ashkenazi Luria (ARI)"
. JewishEncyclopedia.com
. Retrieved
December 2,
2018
.
- ^
Sambari 1673
, p. 64
- ^
Fine 2003
, pp.
80-81
- ^
Armstrong, Karen
(2001).
The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism
.
Ballantine Books
. pp. 8?14.
References
[
edit
]
- Fine, Lawrence (2003).
Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos:
Isaac Luria and His Kabbalistic Fellowship
. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. p. 480.
ISBN
0-8047-4826-8
. Retrieved
December 2,
2018
.
- Klein, Eliahu (2005).
Kabbalah of Creation: The Mysticism of Isaac Luria, Founder of Modern Kabbalah
. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
ISBN
1-55643-542-8
.
- Avivi, Yosef (2008).
Kabbala Luriana
(in Hebrew). Vol. 3. Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute.
ISBN
978-965-235-118-0
.
- Joseph ben Isaac Sambari (1994) [1-23-1673].
Sefer Divrei Yosef
. Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute.
- Dunn, James David (2008).
Window of the Soul. The Kabbalah of Rabbi Isaac Luria
. San Francisco, CA/Newburyport, MA: WeiserBooks.
ISBN
978-1-57863-428-6
.
External links
[
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]
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