Rabbi Moses Cordovero was born in the year 5282 (1522) to Rabbi Yaakov. His birthplace is unknown, though his family name attests that his lineage traces to the city of Córdoba in Spain. He grew up and lived in Tzfat, studying Gemara and Jewish law under Rabbi Yosef Karo. According to one tradition, he received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Yaakov Berav, who renewed the institution of semichah. He married the sister of Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz, and at the age of twenty began his study of Kabbalah under the tutelage of his brother-in-law. After a few years he began to serve as head of a yeshivah in Tzfat. Among his students were Rabbi Chaim Vital and Rabbi Eliyahu de Vidas, author of Reishit Chochmah. The Ramak’s work Pardes Rimonim was printed during his lifetime and became a foundational text in the study of Kabbalah, while his other works—Eilimah and Shi'ur Komah, which expound his Kabbalistic system—were printed much later. In his writings, the Ramak synthesizes the Kabbalistic approaches of the Rishonim, engaging and adjudicating among them. He likewise composed a commentary on the Zohar and the Tikkunei Zohar entitled Or Yakar, as well as a work of mussar called Tomer Devorah, grounded in the thirteen attributes of Divine mercy and the imperative of "and you shall walk in His ways." In the year 5322 (1562), at the age of forty, his son Rabbi Gedaliah was born. Rabbi Moses Cordovero departed this world on the 23rd of Tammuz, 5330 (1570), at the age of 48, and was interred in the cemetery of Tzfat.
On the day the Ramak, of blessed memory, passed from this world, his students and the other sages of the generation came to visit him. He said to them: “Know, my masters, that one man will arise after me and illuminate your eyes in the wisdom of Kabbalah. And though you may perceive him as disputing my words, this is not so—for all is one. In my days, the channels of holiness were still sealed, and I wrote my teachings in great concealment, in terms of sefirot. But after my passing, those channels will be more fully revealed, and that man will expound his teachings in terms of partzufim (personas) and so forth. It is for this reason that he may appear to you to be departing from my words. I therefore warn you: do not dispute him, for such was the Torah received by his soul from Sinai—and all the more so, since the spark of his soul derives from Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, of blessed memory.”
When his students heard these words, they pressed him to reveal the man’s identity, but he declined, saying: “Since he himself does not wish to be revealed, neither do I wish to reveal him. Nevertheless, one sign I will give you: whoever merits to behold the pillar of cloud that walks before my bier—he is the man of whom God has spoken, to be a prince and guide over His people Israel.”
When the bearers of the bed on which the Ramak’s body lay arrived at the cemetery, they sought to prepare the Ramak’s grave near the great sages of the generation. But Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Ari, said to them: “This is not his place—for the pillar of cloud that moves before the coffin has passed further on and has come to rest at a different spot.” At once they understood that he was the man of whom the Ramak, of blessed memory, had spoken.
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One night, the holy Ari was teaching Torah before the fellowship, and among those present was a student of Rabbi Moses Cordovero. This student spoke up concerning the teaching the Ari was expounding, and said that the Ramak was of a different opinion. The holy Ari turned aside and was silent. The student asked: “Why does the master remain silent?” He replied: “Know that the soul of the Ramak is seated upon a throne in this very place, listening to your words and has told you that you are speaking falsehood!” The student said: “Who can attest to this?” The master said: “Wait.”
The holy Ari turned once more toward that same direction and spoke with the soul of the Ramak, then turned back to the student and said: “This is what the Ramak told me: go to his wife and ask her to give you a certain book, and open it to a certain page and column, and there you will find his reasoning in full agreement with my words.” The student did so, and he found the matter written precisely as the holy Ari had said.
(Toldot HaAri)
Many things may be seen in this wondrous story: the humility of the Ramak, the Ru’ach HaKodesh of the Ari, and the vast distance between imagined disputes on the one hand and genuine mutual esteem and complementarity on the other. It is also striking that although the Ramak had written about partzufim—one of the hallmarks of the Ari’s Kabbalah—he nonetheless did not publish these works until the Ari came and revealed his own teachings as reflected in the story itself, where the manuscript in the possession of the Ramak’s widow confirmed the Ari’s words. Why did Divine guidance arrange matters so that only the Ari would reveal the full depth of the Ramak's intent?
It can only be that within the Ramak’s Kabbalah, as it stands, a secret is concealed, one that remains profound and relevant even after the teachings of the Ari. To understand what this is, let us open with a Chasidic story:
At times, when the Ba’al Shem Tov would teach Torah, the Toldot—Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polonne—would suddenly cry out: “The Ari writes otherwise!” Once, on a Shabbat night, the Ba’al Shem Tov was learning a certain discourse together with the Ari, and he roused Rebbe Ze’ev Kitzes, who was sleeping nearby, so that he might see and serve as a witness that the holy Ari had indeed learned it with him, should the Toldot later cry out that it was not so written in the Ari.
And so it was: the following day, when the Ba’al Shem Tov repeated the discourse, the Toldot cried out: “This is not what is written in the Ari!” Whereupon the Ba’al Shem Tov called upon Rebbe Zev Kitzes to testify that this is precisely what he had heard him learn together with the holy Ari.
History repeats itself. The very claim that the Ramak's students levelled against the Ari is now levelled by students of the Ari’s Torah against the Ba’al Shem Tov, and in precisely the same manner that the Ari responded, so too responds the Ba’al Shem Tov.
What makes this still more astonishing is that the Ba’al Shem Tov presented himself as the direct successor of the Ramak in particular. In his own words: “The teaching that the blessed Ein Sof, fills all worlds and surrounds and is within, and that there is no place void of Him, even in the lowest things, this is the Kabbalistic approach of the Ramak, of blessed memory, and upon it I have built and established our own true path as well.”
Who, then, is more precise: the Ari, with whom the Ramak concurred, or the Ramak, upon whose foundations the Ba’al Shem Tov's Torah was built, and who in the story received the Ari’s own confirmation?
The truth, as taught by Rebbe Isaac of Homel, is that the Ramak, the Ari, and the Ba’al Shem Tov represent three stages in the evolution of Kabbalah.
The first stage is known as Hishtalshelut (possibly translatable as “evolution”). The Kabbalah of the Ramak, which describes the stages of Creation and the development of multiplicity from within unity. The worldview it presents resembles a chain of interlocking rings, extending from the Creator down through the lower worlds.
The second stage is known as Hitlabshut (“enclothment”). The Kabbalah of the Ari portrays Creation as a system of partzufim (personas), diverse expressions of the "Divine personality" garbed within one another as a soul within a body.
The third and final stage is Hashra’ah (“inspiration” or “immersion”). The Kabbalah of the Ba’al Shem Tov illuminates how finite creatures may sense themselves immersed or inspired by the Infinite, which dwells around them and flows through them. The Ari’s Kabbalah is built upon the foundations of earlier Kabbalistic tradition, interpreting and expanding upon it; and the Ba’al Shem Tov's Kabbalah refines and deepens what came before him.
The apparent difference between the Ba’al Shem Tov and the Ari finds its clearest expression in the mystery of the tzimtzum (contraction). One who studies the writings of the Ari might conclude that the contraction is to be understood literally—that God’s Infinite revelation (or light) withdrew from and is no longer present within Creation. But according to the Ba’al Shem Tov, the entire description of the contraction is a parable, rendered from our own limited perspective; and the Presence of God and His light can be sensed even within the void of contraction in which we live. Significantly, it is precisely in the Ramak's system that the concept of contraction does not appear at all; instead, there is only a continuous evolution (Hishtalshelut), an unbroken flowing-forth from God Himself to the furthest reaches of the created worlds. It is from this that the Ba’al Shem Tov draws his inspiration, understanding all the Ari's innovations as not to be taken in their literal sense.
The Ramak’s Kabbalah is simpler and more foundational, and there are nuances and layers to which it attends less fully. Yet it is precisely by virtue of this simplicity that the Ba’al Shem Tov was able to strip the Ari’s words of any material connotation and bring to completion the process begun by the Ramak and continued by the Ari. The Ari unveiled the depth of the Ramak’s intent and the richness latent within the more restrained Kabbalah he had disclosed; and through the Ramak’s vision—which presents the world and Divinity as a single, unbroken continuum—the Ba’al Shem Tov in turn revealed the depth of the Ari’s own intent.
