ALEPPO 1872 Holy ARI RABBI LURIA TALES judaica Kabbalah Start Price USD 299.99 Current Price USD 299.99 Time Left - Bid Count 0 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Tuesday, November 04, 2008 End Time Sunday, December 14, 2008 Location ISRAEL See more about 'ALEPPO 1872 Holy ARI RABBI LURIA TALES judaica Kabbalah' Description Shivchei HaAr"i. A collection of stories about the 16th century Kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Ben Solomon Luria Published in Aram Soba [Aleppo], Syria 1872 by Eliahu Sasson.96 pp. 14 x 9 cm. Excellent condition. He revolutionized the study of Jewish mysticism through Kabbalah. Rabbi Isaac Luria, attracted a large number of followers who gave him the title of "HaAri," The Lion, because of the initials of the phrase "haeloki Rabbi Yitzhak" – the divine Rabbi Yitzhak. Rabbi Isaac Luria:He was born at Jerusalem in 1534 to an Ashkenazi father and a Sephardic mother; died at Safed, Israel August 5, 1572. While still a child he lost his father, and was brought up by his rich uncle Mordecai Francis, tax-farmer at Cairo, Egypt, who placed him under the best Jewish teachers. Luria showed himself a diligent student of rabbinical literature; and, under the guidance of Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi (best known as the author of Shittah Mekubetzet), he, while quite young, became proficient in that branch of Jewish learning. At the age of fifteen he married his cousin, and, being amply provided for, was enabled to continue his studies. Though he initially may have pursued a career in business, he soon turned to asceticism and mysticism. About the age of twenty-two years old, he became engrossed in the study of the Zohar, a second-century work of Kabbalah which had recently been printed for the first time, and adopted the life of a recluse. He retreated to the banks of the Nile, and for seven years secluded himself in an isolated cottage, giving himself up entirely to meditation. He visited his family only on the Shabbat, speaking very seldom, and always in Hebrew. Such a mode of life could not fail to produce its effect on a man endowed by nature with a lively imagination. Luria became a visionary. Through this ascetic life he was able to have frequent interviews with the prophet Elijah, by whom he was initiated into sublime doctrines. He asserted that while asleep his soul ascended to heaven and conversed with the great teachers of the past. [edit] Disciples In 1569 Luria moved to the Land of Israel; and after a short sojourn at Jerusalem, where his new kabalistic system seems to have met with little success, he settled in Safed. There he formed a circle of kabbalists to whom he imparted the doctrines by means of which he hoped to establish a new basis for the moral system of the world. To this circle belonged Rabbi Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, Shlomo Alkabetz, Joseph Karo, Moses Alshech, Elijah de Vidas, Joseph Hagiz, Elisha Galadoa, and Moses Bassola. They met every Friday, and each confessed to another his sins. Soon Luria had two classes of disciples: (1) novices, to whom he expounded the elementary Kabbalah, and (2) initiates, who became the depositaries of his secret teachings and his formulas of invocation and conjuration. The most renowned of the initiates was Chaim Vital of Calabria, who, according to his master, possessed a soul which had not been soiled by Adam's sin. In his company Luria visited the grave of Shimon bar Yochai and of other eminent teachers, it is said that these graves were unmarked and the identitys of each grave was unknown and through Elijah was each grave 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 Sabbath Luria dressed himself in white and wore a fourfold garment to signify the four letters of the Ineffable Name. Powered by eBay Turbo Lister Place a Bid!