THE GREAT ARI

Of course you know that the kabbalah is not interested in history, not even its own history. The subject of kabbalah is the method for to understand the Only Creating strength by every one of us. The interest we have for all the great kabbalists of all times exists only for what they did for us and how we can use their works for our spiritual progress. They were written for us, not? And there were starts every other interest in whatever subject, otherwise than bringing us closer to the Only Creating strength stops Kabbalah to be Kabbalah.

So, men who call themselves professor in the Kabbalah are in no way an expert in the Kabbalah. They are specialists in history but they do not teach us the path of the spiritual comprehension. Of course it is useful to know something of the history during the lifetime of a Kabbalist because it gives us insight about the descending of a soul into the light of his time.

On the other hand we cannot exactly know why the Only Creating strength has send such a specific soul to that specific time in our world, if we not have any comprehension of the information of the High source. The history of Kabbalah can only be understood by a kabbalist and not by an academic. This subject treatise the correction and the process of her development: the correction of the society in its whole and her progression to the end of correction in common. All this happens under influence of special souls of kabbalalists who descend in this world and with that fulfil ‘the role of personality in the history’.

But inasmuch as the description of the history will be restored to the description of the general high government, kabbalists do not divide the history in separate parts, but they study the complete development of the correction of the souls during a period of 6000 years, the time for the process of correction. The book Zohar is an allegorical story regarding the universe in the order as it is explained in the Torah. The spiritual depths of the book Zohar has all kind of levels of comprehension of the spiritual man in it, but the way it is explained and the order as it is talked about does not confirm with the demands required for a manual.

The book Zohar therefore is for a kabbalist who has already reached the spiritual observations and has a personal relationship with the Only Creating strength. While he is guided through the book Zohar, he can ceaseless go forwards in the strengthening of his close relationship with the Only Creating strength and come to elevation of his spiritual actions. The expounding of the order of the creating of the creations, the spiritual descending of the Only Creating strength as far as our world and a clear statement of the causality between the root and its consequence on every descending step, that is the first special feature from the greatest work of AR”I.

In this, by AR”I ’s expounding system of the producing of the worlds, everything is build up according the expounding of all the laws of the universe in the order of their demonstration through the time of development. Although his system looks familiar for us and by the similarity of the expounding of the subject-matter of teaching, it needs quite extension of a teacher and the reason for this is that it is written in a very tight kabbalistic language and not in an allegoric language as the book Zohar, and therefore summons a lot of questions of the students.

Such a schematic system is opener for the understanding and less confusing because a student gets all the details of the creation in a clear way and therefore sees directly what is not clear for him and starts to understand. For beginners Zohar is as music; impressive but not analytic. It gives a common impression but it does not give us clearness in the construction of the universe. To make the works of AR”I for everyone accessible therefore created rabbi Yehuda Ashlag this fundamental work concerning the whole area of the Kabbalah; “Talmud Esser Ha-Sephirot”.

In this work he placed fragments of all the works of AR”I and provide it from comment and explanations for the reader how he have to understand the reading. Special souls of kabbalist descended in every generation in our world. But such souls as from Rabbi Sjim’on Bar Jochaj, the author of the book Zohar, AR”I and of rabbi Yehuda Ashlag (Baal Sulam), descend only in a special appointed time. Rabbi Sjim’on wrote the book Zohar before the nation left the land during the 2000-years during exile (galut). AR”I appeared when the prohibition of learning the Kabbalah was ended and the Kabbalah became necessary for the progress of the entire correction. Baal Sulam appeared when the mass had to study the Kabbalah for the fulfilment of the complete correction.

Itschak Ashkenazi, AR”I was born in Jerusalem in the year 1534 according the western calendar (according the Jews calendar in 5294) in the family of Shlomo Ashkenazi. When he was an adolescent he already took the attention by his knowledge of the Torah and his capability to understand. His father died young and so his mother moved with her children from Jerusalem to her rich brother in Egypt. In Egypt Itschak Ashkenazi grow up. Because he was a student by the upper rabbin of Egypt: Radbaz is it clear that he is a real connoisseur of the Talmud. In 1549 he married with his cousin and because he had a well-to-do father in law, he could continuing his study of the Torah. It is not known how he started with the kabbalah.

There are many common fabrications but it is not known who his teacher was in the Kabbalah. We can say that it was, as the same with rabbi Sjim’on and rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, illumination, in such a clearness, comes from above without the intervention of a intermediary or teacher. Over their teachers is also no more known. We can indicate from whom they received the first knowledge but the whole new approach that each of them brought in, in the science of Kabbalah, they received this from above and each one of them completely independent. When AR”I was 36 years old he moved to Tsfat.

During that time there lived in Tsfat de rabbi’s Josef Karo – the conneseur of the Torah and Mosje Cordovero, a great kabbalist in his time. In Tsfat there were many synagogues, universities, jesjievas and a very large social and religious life. Rabbi Itschak Ashkenazi opened his own school and already after a few lessons he was recognized by his knowledge of the Kabbala, that students of rabbi Mosje Cordovero changed of rabbi and became students of him. There was a very special student, the 28-year old Chaim Vital. Rabbi Itschak Ashkenazi lived only for 2 years in Tsfat, he died at 5 Av and his school, only open for 1,5 year, closed. Before he died he ordered his student Chaim Vital to go further with the study of the Kabbalah on his own because others could not understand his expounding of the system of the universe.

After the dead of his teacher, Chaim Vital moved to Jerusalem, turned back for a short period to Tsfat to then establish his self in Damascus. He refused, who ever he was, to teach them and the only work he did was to systemize the notes, which he had made during the lessons of his teacher. After a while these notes filled the famous cabin-trunk of Chaim Vital. He refused absolutely to publish this work. Only after his dead his son Shlomo published 8 books and he named them the “eight gates”. From that time people started to name Itschak Ashkenazi AR”I – Elokie rabbi Itschak – the devine rabbi Itschak, or ARIZAL, with a particle of ZAL – “of enlightened memory”.

The foundation of the world contains two opposite forces, good and evil. And this was the reason that opponents of the Kabbalah, disposed their, what is now known as a very sad meeting “Vaad” in the city of Lvov and they announced a ban of the studying of the Kabbalah for people younger than the age of 40 and then only if one was master in the knowledge of the Talmud, and this is for nobody possible!! This order, just as other orders in Judaism is named “Cherem” – excommunication, it comes from the word that means “to resign”. All kabbalists of that time of course became in action, mainly because the conclusion of the Ivovses counsil was that if people occupied their mind with the Kabbalah this would lead to false-messiahism and not to the correction of the world!

Even the followers of Chassidism didn’t escape from these accusations, and they were not busy with the works of AR”I or with the Kabbalah. This attitude against the Kabbalah is, even today, still alive. Chaim Vital write about this in his own preface in the works of AR”I.