Abraham Azulai

Kabbalistic author and commentator (1570–1643)

Abraham ben Mordecai Azulai

אברהם בן מרדכי אזולאי

Title page of Chesed Le'Avraham by Abraham Azulai, published in Vilna, 1877

Personal life
Born| c. 1570

Fez, Morocco

Died| 6 November 1643(1643-11-06) (aged 72–73)

Hebron,  Ottoman Empire

Nationality| Moroccan, Ottoman Palestinian Jew
Notable work(s)|

* Kiryat Arba
* Chesed le-Abraham
* Ba'ale Berit Abraham

Known for| Commentary on the Zohar, Chesed le-Abraham
Occupation| Kabbalistic author and commentator
Part of a series on

Kabbalah

Concepts

* Ein Sof
* Tzimtzum
* Ohr
* Ayin and Yesh
* Sefirot
* Four Worlds
* Seder hishtalshelut
* Tree of Life
* The path of the flaming sword
* Merkavah
* Jewish angelic hierarchy
* Shekhinah
* Partzufim
* Qlippoth
* Tohu and Tikun
* Sparks of holiness
* Messianic rectification
* Gilgul
* Kabbalistic astrology
* Gematria
* Notarikon
* Temurah
* Names of God in Judaism
* Shemhamphorasch
* Tzadik
* Tzadikim Nistarim
* Anthropomorphism in Kabbalah
* Panentheism

History

|  Pre-Kabbalistic Jewish mysticism

* Tannaim
* Heichalot
* Sefer Yetzirah
* Chassidei Ashkenaz

Medieval

* Bahir
* Toledano tradition
* Prophetic Kabbalah
* Zohar

Kabbalistic commentaries
on the Bible

Mainstream displacement of
rationalism with Kabbalah

Renaissance

Selective influence on
Western thought

* Hermetic Qabalah

Mysticism after
Spanish expulsion

Mystics of
16th-century Safed

* Cordoveran Kabbalah
* Lurianic Kabbalah
* Maharal's thought

Popular Kabbalistic
Mussar

Early modern

* Baal Shem-Nistarim
* Sabbatean mystical heresies
* Emden–Eybeschutz controversy
* Immigration to the Land of Israel
* Traditional Oriental Kabbalists
* Beit El Synagogue
* Eastern European Judaism
* Hasidic Judaism / philosophy
* Lithuanian Jews
* Hasidic-Mitnagdic schism

Modern

* Hasidic dynasties

Mysticism in
religious Zionism

Academic interest in
Jewish mysticism

Non-Orthodox interest in
Jewish mysticism

* English
* James Lees'

Practices

* Torah study
* Mystical exegesis
* Mitzvot
* Minhag
* Customary immersion in mikveh
* Meditation
* Kavanot
* Teshuvah
* Deveikut
* Prayer
* Nusach
* Tikkun Chatzot
* Tikkun Leil Shavuot
* Pilgrimage to Tzadik
* Pilgrimage to holy grave
* Lag BaOmer at Meron
* Asceticism
* Rosicrucianism
* Practical Kabbalah

People

|  100s

* Four Who Entered the Pardes
* Simeon bar Yochai
* Akiva ben Joseph

1100s

* Isaac the Blind
* Azriel
* Judah ben Kalonymus

1200s

* Nahmanides
* Abraham Abulafia
* Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla
* Moses de Leon
* Menahem Recanati
* Judah Ha-Hasid
* Eleazar of Worms
* Isaac ben Moses of Vienna
* Abraham ben Isaac of Granada

1300s

* Bahya ben Asher

1400s

* Shem Tov ibn Shem Tov
* Yohanan Alemanno
* Moses Botarel
* Joseph De La Reina

1500s

* Meir ibn Gabbai
* Joseph Karo
* Shlomo Alkabetz
* Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chełm
* Moshe Alshich
* Moses ben Jacob Cordovero
* Isaac Luria
* Chaim Vital
* Mordechai HaKohen of Safed
* Kalonymus Haberkasten
* Joseph Saragossi

1600s

* Judah Loew ben Bezalel
* Isaiah Horowitz
* Eliyahu Baal Shem Ben Yosef Yutzpa
* Abraham Azulai
* Shimon Lavi
* Joel Sirkis
* Elijah Loans
* Yoel Baal Shem
* Shabbatai HaKohen
* Jacob ben Aaron Sasportas

1700s

* Chaim ibn Attar
* Naphtali Cohen
* Joseph Ergas
* Hayyim Samuel Jacob Falk
* Jonathan Eybeschutz
* Baal Shem Tov
* Dov Ber of Mezeritch
* Moshe Chaim Luzzatto
* Shalom Sharabi
* Vilna Gaon
* Chaim Joseph David Azulai
* Nathan Adler
* Schneur Zalman of Liadi
* Chaim Volozhin

1800s

* Nachman of Breslov
* Tzvi Hirsh of Zidichov
* Ben Ish Chai
* Shlomo Eliyashiv
* Chaim Pinto
* Yedidyah Raphael Chai Abulafiya
* Chaim Yehuda Leib Auerbach

1900s

* Aharon Roth
* Yehudah Yudel Rosenberg
* Solomon Eliezer Alfandari
* Baba Sali
* Sholom Dovber Schneersohn
* Abraham Isaac Kook
* Salman Eliyahu
* Yaakov Chaim Sofer
* Levi Yitzchak Schneerson
* Yehuda Fatiyah
* Hillel Zeitlin
* Kalonymus Kalman Shapira
* Yehuda Ashlag
* Yitzhak Kaduri
* Yechiel Fishel Eisenbach
* Monsieur Chouchani
* Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag
* Mordechai Sharabi
* Aryeh Kaplan
* Menachem Mendel Schneerson

2000s

* Avraham Brandwein
* Menachem Froman
* Eliyahu Leon Levi
* Adin Steinsaltz
* Gamliel Rabinowitz
* Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto
* Moshe Weinberger
* Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern
* Avraham Mordechai Gottlieb

Role

|  History

* Torah
* Tanakh
* Prophecy
* Ruach HaKodesh
* Pardes exegesis
* Talmudical hermeneutics
* Midrash

Jewish commentaries
on the Bible

* Oral Torah
* Eras of Rabbinic Judaism
* Generational descent in Halacha
* Generational ascent in Kabbalah
* Rabbinic literature
* Talmudic theology
* Halakha
* Aggadah
* Hakira
* Classic Mussar literature
* Ashkenazi Judaism
* Sephardi Judaism
* Modern Jewish philosophies
* Jewish studies

Topics

* God in Judaism
* Divine transcendence
* Divine immanence
* Free will
* Divine providence

Kabbalistic reasons
for the 613 Mitzvot

* Jewish principles of faith
* Jewish eschatology
* Primary texts

* v
* t
* e

Abraham ben Mordecai Azulai (c. 1570–1643) (Hebrew: אברהם בן מרדכי אזולאי) was a Kabbalistic author and commentator born in Fez, Morocco. In 1599 he moved to Ottoman Palestine and settled in Hebron.[1]

## Biography

[edit]

In Hebron, Azulai wrote a commentary on the Zohar under the title Kiryat Arba (City of Arba (in Hebrew four); Gen. xxiii.2). The plague of 1619 drove him from his new home, and while in Gaza, where he found refuge, he wrote his Kabalistic work Chesed le-Abraham (Mercy to Abraham; Book of Micah vii.20). It was published after the author's death by Meshullam Zalman ben Abraham Berak of Gorice, in Amsterdam, 1685. The work is a treatise with an introduction, אבן השתיה (The Cornerstone; see Talmud Yoma 53b), and is divided into seven "fountains" (Book of Zechariah iii.9), each fountain being subdivided into a number of "streams." A specimen of the work Chesed Le-Avraham, taken from the fifth fountain, twenty-fourth stream, p. 57d, of the Amsterdam edition:

> On the mystery of Gilgul (reincarnation) and its details: Know that God will not subject the soul of the wicked to more than three migrations; for it is written, "Lo, all these things doth God work twice, yea thrice, with a man" (Job xxxiii. 29). Which means, He makes him appear twice and thrice in a human incarnation; but the fourth time he is incarnated as a clean animal. And when a man offers a sacrifice, God will, by miraculous intervention, make him select an animal that is an incarnation of a human being. Then will the sacrifice be doubly profitable: to the one that offers it and to the soul imprisoned in the brute. For with the smoke of the sacrifice the soul ascends heavenward and attains its original purity. Thus is explained the mystery involved in the words, "O Lord, thou preservest man and beast" (Psalms xxxvi.7 [R. V. 6]).

A popular story about Rabbi Azulai is that of how he retrieved the sultan's sword. When the Ottoman sultan visited Hebron, his precious sword fell into the Cave of Machpela. Anyone sent down to retrieve it disappeared. Only Rabbi Azulai was able to descend into the cave and retrieve the sword.[2][3][4][5][6]

Grave of Rabbi Abraham Azulai in the Old Jewish cemetery, Hebron.

He died in Hebron on November 6, 1643 and is buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Hebron.[7]

One of the manuscripts that he left to his descendant, Chaim Yosef David Azulai, is also published. It is a Kabalistic commentary on the Hebrew Bible, Ba'ale Berit Abraham (Abraham's Confederates; see Book of Genesis xiv.13), Vilna, 1873.

* Pirkei Avot – a selection from Chesed le-Abraham

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Dov Zlotnick, "The Commentary of Rabbi Abraham Azulai to the Mishnah", in: Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 40, 1972, pp. 147-168
2. ^ "Rabbi Abraham Azulai and The Sultan's Sword". the Jewish Community of Hebron. Retrieved 2016-02-21.
3. ^ Auerbach, Jerold S. (2009-07-16). Hebron Jews: Memory and Conflict in the Land of Israel. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 9780742566170.
4. ^ "Rabbi Avraham Azoulay". www.hevratpinto.org. Retrieved 2016-02-21.
5. ^ "Rabbi Avraham Azulai - RabbiShimon.com- Tzadikim list".
6. ^ "The Fallen Sword of the Sultan - Chabad.org".
7. ^ Michael Laitman, Gems of Wisdom: Words of the Great Kabbalists from All Generations, Laitman Kabbalah Publishers, 2011, p. 413-414

## Jewish Encyclopedia

[edit]

* Azoulay, Shem ha-Gedolim, s.v.;
* Isaac ben Jacob Benjacob, Oẓar ha-Sefarim, p. 196;
* Julius Fürst, Bibliotheca Judaica, i.67;
* Michael, Heimann Joseph (1891). Or ha-Ḥayyim. Frankfort-on-the-Main. p. 12.

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* FAST
* WorldCat

National|

* Germany
* United States
* Netherlands
* Vatican
* Israel

People|

* DDB

Other|

* Yale LUX

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template