Isaac Luria and Jewish Mystical Hagiography

Offers a compelling new approach to this enigmatic figure in Jewish mysticism. Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534–1572) was an extraordinary figure in the Jewish mystical tradition. His public career in Safed, the center of kabbalistic innovation in the sixteenth century, lasted only two years and two weeks (June 1570–July 1572). In this short interval, however, his personality and his supernatural knowledge helped to establish him as the most consequential figure in the midst of a large number of scholars and mystics. He left behind very few writings, but many stories about his abilities and knowledge began to circulate during his lifetime, and they were collected and transmitted both orally and in writing by his disciples and published many years later. For instance, he was said to be able to commune with the soul of Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai, the purported author of the Zohar, and receive new interpretations from him. He could also tell a person about their earlier transmigrations and for what sins they needed atonement. He was visited by and studied with Elijah the prophet, and at night his soul ascended to the heavenly academies to study and receive revelations while he slept. This book is a study of how these and other stories about Luria coalesced into the first hagiographical biography in the kabbalistic tradition and became the template for later Jewish hagiographies. It also includes annotated English translations of three key texts: Shloimel Dresnitz's letters as they were published in Delmedigo's Ta'alumot Hokhmah; Benayahu's Toldot ha-AR"I; and the Yiddish translation from Ma'aseh ha-Shem.