Luria, Isaac ben Solomon

Luria or Loria, Isaac ben Solomon (lr`ēə, lôr`–), 1534–72, Jewish kabbalist, surnamed Ashkenazi, called Ari [lion] by his followers, b. Jerusalem. In his 20s he spent seven years in seclusion, intensely studying the kabbalah. He settled (c.1570) at Safed, Palestine, where he became the teacher and leader of a large circle of students who formed an important school of mysticism. Combining messianism with reinterpreted kabbalistic doctrines from an earlier period, Luria sought to understand the nature and connection between earthly redemption and cosmic restoration. Man's deeds, linked to the secret processes of creation and thus an integral part of the cosmic drama, work toward man's redemption by aiding in the restoration of the cosmos to its original state. It is the Jewish people, through their adherence to God's halakah, who will effect this restoration and thereby bring forth the Messiah as the consummate act of earthly redemption. Luria's philosophy has come down to us through the numerous works of his chief disciple, Hayim Vital.

Bibliography

See G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (3d rev. ed. 1954, repr. 1967).

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Luria, Isaac ben Solomon

(born 1534, Jerusalem—died Aug. 5, 1572, Safed, Syria) Jewish mystic and founder of a school of Kabbala. He was brought up in Egypt, where he pursued rabbinic studies. He dedicated himself to the study of the Kabbala with messianic fervour, and in 1570 he journeyed to a centre of the movement in Galilee. He died two years later in an epidemic, having written little. The Lurianic Kabbala, a collection of Luria's doctrines recorded after his death by a pupil, had great influence on later Jewish mysticism and on Hasidism. It propounds a theory of the creation and later degeneration of the world and calls for restoration of the original harmony through ritual meditation and secret combinations of words.