Background
His entire activity was centered in the town of Safed in Eretz Israel, the great kabbalistic focus of the 16th century, which may have been his birthplace.
His entire activity was centered in the town of Safed in Eretz Israel, the great kabbalistic focus of the 16th century, which may have been his birthplace.
He studied rabbinics with Joseph Caro and the Kabbalah with his brother-in-law, the distinguished Solomon Alkabets.
He wrote prolifically. His best-known kabbalistic work, "Pardes Rimmonim" (“Pomegranate Orchard”) was completed when he was twenty-seven. This is a systematic exposition and synthesis of kabbalistic thought from the classic "Zohar" (13th century) to his own time.
Cordovero wrote "Tomer Devorah" (“Deborah’s Palm Tree”), an ethical work in a mystical spirit, which was for long one of the most influential Jewish ethical works. Its guide to proper behavior is rooted in the relation between the individual and the ten sefirot.
He deals with the fundamental problem of creation, seeing God as First Cause from whom emanate ten sefirot (“radiances”) seen as vessels, which make possible the multifaceted functioning of a single Godhead. Nothing exists outside of God but while God is all reality, not all reality is in God.
Before long, Cordovero was recognized as the outstanding teacher of mysticism in Safed and the next generation of scholars were nearly all his students including, for a time, Isaac Luria. Like his teacher, Joseph Caro, he experienced supernatural mani-festations. While he and Alkabets were visiting the graves of Talmudic rabbis in the Galilean hills, they would be overcome and utter automatic speeches, which were the source of their understanding of the mysteries of the Kabbalah.