Moses Cordovero

Moses Cordovero, known by the acronym Ramak, was born in 1522, probably in Safed in Galilee, to a family of Spanish origin. He studied Jewish law with Joseph Karo and Kabbalah with his brother-in-law Solomon Alkabetz, the author of the Sabbath hymn Lekhah Dodi, and became the leading figure of the circle of mystics in Safed in the mid-sixteenth century.

His Pardes Rimmonim, “Orchard of Pomegranates”, completed in 1548, is a systematic exposition of the whole of Kabbalah, reconciling its conflicting traditions and setting out the doctrine of the sefirot with philosophical rigour. His later works include Elimah Rabbati and a vast commentary on the Zohar, Or Yakar. With his companions he practised gerushin, wandering among the graves of the sages to receive inspiration.

His short ethical treatise, The Palm Tree of Deborah, teaches that one should imitate the divine attributes, the sefirot, in one’s own conduct: patience, mercy and humility. Isaac Luria studied with him briefly before Cordovero’s death in 1570; Luria’s system soon overshadowed his, but his works remained widely read, and his ethics influenced later Hasidism.

Cordovero’s thought is notable for its balance between the philosophical and the mystical: he argued that the sefirot are both the essence of God and the instruments of divine action, and his formulations of God’s presence in all things were taken up by later Kabbalists and Hasidic teachers.