Isaac Luria

Isaac Luria — also known by the acronyms Ari HaKadosh or Arizal — was a rabbi and mystic who taught in Egypt and Safed in the sixteenth century. He is considered the forefather of modern Kabbalah, also known as Lurianic Kabbalah. Born in Jerusalem, but educated in Egypt under the auspices of the David bin Abi Zimra (Radbaz) and Bezalel Ashkenazi, Luria became one of the Radbaz's leading students. He lived a life of seclusion on an island in the Nile but was eventually forced to turn to commerce. It was during this period of seclusion that he developed his famous system of kabbalistic ideas. After moving to Safed, Luria taught his system to many followers, who copied down and interpreted his ideas. Shrouded in secrecy, many legends developed about his life, which were only furthered after his death at a young age. Luria’s students mostly memorized his teachings and put them in writing. Among the transmitters of Luria’s kabbalistic ideas were Eleazer Azikri, Israel Sarug, Elijah de Vidas, Abraham Galante, Moses Jonah, Menahem Azariah Fano, Joseph ibn Ṭabul and Joseph Solomon Delmedigo. None of them, however, was as instrumental in disseminating Luria’s teachings as his closest disciple, Chaim Vital. The Lurianic version of Kabbalah, far as it was from Luria’s original teaching, became the mainstream form of Kabbalah. Its popularity in the Jewish world, even in circles that had never before practiced Kabbalah, contributed to the surge of messianism that set the ground for the messianic movement Shabbtai Tzvi and his followers in the seventeenth century.