Isaac ben Solomon Luria

Isaac ben Solomon Luria (born 1534, Jerusalem, Palestine, Ottoman Empire—died August 5, 1572, Safed, Syria [now Zefat, Israel]) was the eponymous founder of the Lurianic school of Kabbala (Jewish esoteric mysticism).

Luria’s youth was spent in Egypt, where he became versed in rabbinic studies, engaged in commerce, and eventually concentrated on study of the Zohar, the central work of Kabbala. In 1570 he went to Safed in Galilee, where he studied under Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, the greatest Kabbalist of the time, and developed his own Kabbalistic system. Although he wrote few works beyond three famous hymns, Luria’s doctrines were recorded by his pupil Ḥayyim Vital, who presented them in a voluminous posthumous collection.

Luria’s father was an Ashkenazi (a German or Polish Jew), while his mother was a Sephardi (of Iberian-North African Jewish stock). Legend has it that the prophet Elijah appeared to his father and foretold the birth of the son, whose name was to be Isaac. As a child, Luria was described as a young genius, “a Torah scholar who could silence all opponents by the power of his arguments,” and also as possessed of divine inspiration.

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The main source for his life story is an anonymous biography, Toledot ha-Ari (“Life of the Ari”), written or perhaps edited some 20 years after his death, in which factual and legendary elements are indiscriminately mingled. According to the Toledot, Luria’s father died while Isaac was a child, and his mother took him to Egypt to live with her well-to-do family. While there, he became versed in rabbinic studies, including Halakha (Jewish law), and even wrote glosses on a famous compendium of legal discussions, the Sefer ha-Halakhot of Isaac ben Jacob Alfasi. He also engaged in commerce during this period.

While still a youth, Luria began the study of Jewish mystical learning and lived for nearly seven years in seclusion at his uncle’s home on an island in the Nile River. His studies concentrated on the Zohar (late 13th–early 14th century), the central and revered work of the Kabbala, but he also studied the early Kabbalists (12th–13th century). The greatest Kabbalist of Luria’s time was Moses ben Jacob Cordovero of Safed (modern Ẕefat), in Palestine, whose work Luria studied while still in Egypt. During this period he wrote a commentary on the Sifra di-tzeniʿuta (“Book of Concealment”), a section of the Zohar. The commentary still shows the influence of classical Kabbala and contains nothing of what would later be called Lurianic Kabbala.

Early in 1570 Luria journeyed to Safed, the mountain town in the Galilee that had become a centre of the Kabbalistic movement, and he studied there with Cordovero. At the same time, he began to teach Kabbala according to a new system and attracted many pupils. The greatest of these was Ḥayyim Vital, who later set Luria’s teachings down in writing. Luria apparently expounded his teachings only in esoteric circles; not everyone was allowed to take part in these studies. While he devoted most of his time to the instruction of his pupils, he probably made his living in trade, which prospered at that time in Safed, situated as it was at the crossroads between Egypt and Damascus.

At the time of Luria’s arrival in Safed, the group of Kabbalists gathered there around Cordovero had already developed a unique style of living and observed special rituals, going out, for instance, into the fields to welcome the sabbath, personified as the Sabbath Queen. With Luria’s arrival, new elements were added to these excursions, such as communion with the souls of the zaddikim (men of outstanding piety) by means of special kawwanot (ritual meditations) and yiḥudim (“unifications”) that were in essence a kind of lesser redemption whereby the souls were lifted up from the kelipot (“shells”; i.e., the impure, evil forms) into which they were banned until the coming of the Messiah.

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The strong influence of Luria’s personality helped to bring about in Safed an atmosphere of spiritual intensity, messianic tension, and the fever of creation that accompanies the sense of a great revelation. Deep devoutness, asceticism, and withdrawal from the world marked the Kabbalists’ way of life. Luria apparently looked upon himself as the Messiah ben Joseph, the first of the two messiahs in Jewish tradition, who is fated to be killed in the wars (of Gog and Magog) that will precede the final redemption. In Safed there was an expectation (based on the Zohar) that the Messiah would appear in Galilee in the year 1575.

Even though he did not distinguish himself as a writer, as is evident from his own remarks about the difficulty of writing, Luria composed three hymns that became widely known and part of the cultural heritage of the Jewish people. These are hymns for the three sabbath meals, which became part of the Sephardic sabbath ritual and were printed in many prayer books. The three meals were linked by means of mystical “intention” or meditation (kawwana) to three partzufim (aspects of the Godhead). The hymns are known as “Azamer be-she-vaḥim” (“I Will Sing on the Praises”), “Asader seʿudata” (“I Will Order the Festive Meal”), and “Bene hekh-ala de-khesifin” (“Sons of the Temple of Silver”). They are mystical, erotic songs about “the adornment (or fitting) of the bride”—i.e., the sabbath, who was identified with the community of Israel—and on the other partzufim: arikh anpin (the long-suffering: the countenance of grace) and zeʿir anpin (the impatient: the countenance of judgment).

During his brief sojourn in Safed—a scant two years before his death—Luria managed to construct a many-faceted and fertile Kabbalistic system from which many new elements in Jewish mysticism drew their nourishment. He set down almost none of his doctrine in writing, with the exception of a short text that seems to be only a fragment: his commentary on the first chapter of the Zohar—“Be-resh hormanuta de-malka”—as well as commentaries on isolated passages of the Zohar that were collected by Ḥayyim Vital, who attests to their being in his teacher’s own hand. Luria died in an epidemic that struck Safed in August 1572.

What is called Lurianic Kabbala is a voluminous collection of Luria’s Kabbalistic doctrines, recorded after his death by Ḥayyim Vital and appearing in two versions under different editorship. Because of this work, Lurianic Kabbala became the new thought that influenced all Jewish mysticism after Luria, competing with the Kabbala of Cordovero. Vital laboured much to give Lurianic Kabbala its form as well as to win legitimization for it.

Lurianic Kabbala propounds a theory of the creation and subsequent degeneration of the world and a practical method of restoring the original harmony. The theory is based on three concepts: tzimtzum (“contraction,” or “withdrawal”), shevirat ha-kelim (“breaking of the vessels”), and tiqqun (“restoration”). God as the Infinite (En Sof) withdraws into himself in order to make room for the creation, which occurs by a beam of light from the Infinite into the newly provided space. Later the divine light is enclosed in finite “vessels,” most of which break under the strain, and the catastrophe of the “breaking of the vessels” occurs, whereby disharmony and evil enter the world. Hence comes the struggle to rid the world of evil and accomplish the redemption of both the cosmos and history. This event occurs in the stage of tiqqun, in which the divine realm itself is reconstructed, the divine sparks returned to their source, and Adam Qadmon, the symbolic “primordial man,” who is the highest configuration of the divine light, is rebuilt. Man plays an important role in this process through various kawwanot used during prayer and through mystical intentions involving secret combinations of words, all of which is directed toward the restoration of the primordial harmony and the reunification of the divine name.

The influence of Luria’s Kabbala was far-reaching. It played an important role in the movement of the false messiah Shabbetai Tzevi in the 17th century and in the popular Ḥasidic (mystical-pietistic) movement a century later.