הרב משה קורדובירו

Rav Moshe Cordovero (5282/1522–23 Tammuz 5330/1570), known as the Ramak and in English sources as Moses Cordovero, was among the greatest mekubalim of Tzfat (Safed) in its golden generation — the first to order the whole teaching of the kabbalah into one built system. His family name points to roots in Cordoba in Spain; his birthplace is not known. He grew up in Tzfat, learned Talmud and halachah under Rav Yosef Karo, and at twenty — roused, as he writes in the introduction to Pardes Rimonim, by a voice from Heaven — entered the study of kabbalah under his brother-in-law, Rav Shlomo Alkabetz, the author of Lecha Dodi.

Pardes Rimonim, completed in 5308/1548 when its author was twenty-six, gathers the differing paths of the earlier mekubalim across thirty-two gates, weighs them against the teaching of the Zohar, and decides among them — the sefer that made his name. The labor of his life was Or Yakar, a commentary on the whole of the Zohar, the Tikunei Zohar and Sefer Yetzirah, some sixteen volumes in manuscript, whose printing in Yerushalayim was completed only in our own generation. Beside these stand Tomer Devorah, the beloved mussar sefer that builds the tikun of a man’s midot on the thirteen midot of rachamim; Or Ne’erav, on the worth and order of learning kabbalah; the long treatises Eilima Rabbati and Shiur Komah; Sefer HaGerushin, chidushim opened to him in his wanderings with his chevrah outside the city; and Tefillah LeMoshe on the tefillot.

From about 5310/1550 he headed a yeshiva of mekubalim in Tzfat for some twenty years. Among his talmidim: Rav Chaim Vital, later the recorder of the Arizal‘s Torah; Rav Eliyahu de Vidas, author of Reishit Chochmah; Rav Avraham Galanti; and Rav Shmuel Gallico, author of Asis Rimonim; while the Rama of Fano and Rav Shabtai Sheftel Horowitz, author of Shefa Tal, drew from his sefarim. The Arizal held him as his rebbi from his writings even before coming to Tzfat, and tradition tells that at the Ramak’s levayah the Ari alone saw a pillar of fire going after the mitah — the sign given to the one who would carry the leadership after him. The Ramchal later taught that the two teachings sit together: the kabbalah of the Ramak speaks of the world before the tikun, and that of the Ari of the world of tikun. The Ramak was niftar on 23 Tammuz 5330/1570 and rests in the old cemetery of Tzfat; his son, Rav Gedalyah Cordovero, brought his sefarim to print in Venice between 5344/1584 and 5347/1587.