Talk:Isaac Luria

Disciples section
Having just read several biographies on Luria by respected Jewish historians (Fine, Scholem, etc.) I can't help but think this entire section is heavily based on hagiographical sources. Unless the section is heavily revised to source some primary texts (i.e. Shaar ha-Gilgulim, Shaar ha-Haqdamot, Shaar ha-Kavvanot, Shaar Ma amarei Rashbi, Shaar ha-Mitsvot, Shaar ha-Pesuqim, Shaar Ruah ha-Qodesh, Shaar ha-Yihudim, Sefer ha-Ari ve-gurav, Sefer ha-Gilgulim, Sefer ha-Hezyonot, or Sefer Toldot ha-Ari); or some respected authorities (Tishby, Lachower, Meroz, Arthur Green, etc.) I feel a lot of what's here will need heavy editing / chopping. --Xtraeme (talk) 09:24, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Graveside Photo?
What is the point of that photo? What's going on there that makes it important for this article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.237.254.60 (talk) 04:08, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * What's wrong with the photo? It's great! The page needs a photo of the Ari's grave, and this is the most beautiful one on Wikimedia Commons (Assuming your comment applies to the same photo currently used!) Aesthetic and dramatic-vivid impact is necessarily part of the criteria for image choice. April8 (talk) 19:42, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the current one is fine, so don't worry about that anonymous post from 2 years ago! Chesdovi (talk) 20:26, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I say Kabbalah you say Cabala
Actually, I say Qabalah, but that's beside the point.

I've noticed there are mixed spellings of the subject of Luria's work here. In three places the adjective cabalistic is used, while the noun is Kabbalah. In most of the material I've read references to the purely Jewish practice is spelled Kabbalah, the Christian form is spelled Cabala or a variant and the Hermetic form is Qabalah or Qabala. In the interest of clarity and consistency I propose changing cabalistic to Kabbalistic. I will wait a reasonable time, perhaps a week or two, and if someone doesn't object or make the changes before then I will do it. < Puck 13:22, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Based on this Reference desk conversation I'm cleaning up the spelling in this article. Since this article concerns a Judaic Kabbalist I am using Kabbalah for nouns and kabbalistic for adjectives.  Since I'm feeling puckish I'll add that we should all just start calling it קבלה and have done with it.--◀Pucktalk▶ 15:06, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

"Kabbalah" is the spelling mainly used by the english (mainly ashkenazi oriented) language. As it is written with a qof and as to distinguish it from a kaf, it would sound more natural to speak stricto sensus of Qabalah. However what is generally accepted is not to be changed, though incoherent to the spelling in hebrew. I do agree we should use קבלה. --hasofer

Lurianic Kabbalah is not the only branch of Kabbalah
Lurianic Kabbalah is not synonymous to "modern Kabbalah", as wrote one of the previous authors; for example, rabbi Moshe Kordovero was very influentialamong Hassidim, and Hassidism itself (or various branches of it) can perhaps be considered as (number of) different Kabbalistic schools. M.L.

Was Arizal actually believed by some to be a Messaiah?
What are the sources for this?

Please ! This is a very well documented statement of the Mar`ho (`Hayim Vital) ... only that the references are solely in Hebrew (which is the case for the majority of statements on such a subject), so cannot be left as references in this page for english speaking readers. One example of a source is: Peri Ets `Hayim, Sha`ar he`Amidah chap. 19, with annotations of R' Natan Shapira, Karets edition, 5542. hasofer 13:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is anything wrong with adding references in other languages than the language of the document one is reading. You are presuming that those who speak English don't speak any other language. Also (IMHO) it is better to have a reference in a language one can't read than to have no reference at all. At least then one has the hope of getting it translated if one is keen enough to follow up sources. Morgan Leigh 00:53, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Madonna
Did anyone catch the Fall 2005 news stories on Madonna and the rabbis caring for Luria's tomb? Apparently, the rabbis more or less dissassociated themselves from her b/c of her use of his legacy for $.

Someone needs to write an article about the differences between Madonna's brand of Kaballah - which seems like a bastardised, US self-help version of the movement not unlike Scientology as a pseudo-cult - and historic Kaballah. Historic Kaballists would have been horrified by the Kaballah Centre as far as I can see. ThePeg 22:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Article very Luriaic
There is no mention of the Vilna Goan. Bias about play downing. No mention that Rabbi Yosef Karo says Luria's opinion is base on a misinterpertation. (Afkat Rokhel 136). etc. 203.206.248.147 18:43, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is 'Ottoman Palestine'?

 * Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not feel the need to err on the side of accuracy. There was no subdivision of the Ottoman Empire, at any time, called 'Palestine'. Not a vilayet, not a sanjak, not a mutaseriflik, nothing. 'Palestine' became an entity only as a League of Nations territory under British mandate. There was no subdivision of the Ottoman Empire that even corresponded to the boundaries of that mandated territory.
 * It is also significant that the term 'Palestine' was rarely used, if at all, in European circles of the Renaissance era in which Isaac Luria was born (16th century). As someone who is interested in old maps, it has not escaped my attention that in the cases where Renaissance maps delineated the land in question as a differentiated area from surrounding Syria, the term overwhelmingly used was Judaea, or rather the Latin term of the Roman era, IUDAEA. The term 'Palestine' started creeping into Western public discourse only in the 18th century, with the secularizing tendencies of the Enlightenment era to avoid the ecclesiastical associations of the term 'Terra Sancta'.
 * Why, then, it is it more correct to speak of an Ottoman Palestine than an Ottoman Israel, Ottoman Eretz Israel, or Ottoman Judaea?
 * Jacob Davidson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.68.95.65 (talk) 21:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * That is very interesting. However, the way Wikipedia works, editors can put the information in the article only if there is a reliable published source (WP:reliable source) that can be cited. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 21:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Malcolm, that cuts both ways. What source do they have for calling it "Ottoman Palestine" in the first place? Why not just something general like "the Ottoman"? 198.228.199.18 (talk) 02:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC) Collin237

As a Palestinian
Chesdovi (talk) 01:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The greatest of the cabalists here was Isaac Luria, a native Palestinian of Italian-German origin The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book 315-1791 with an Introduction ... By Jacob R. Marcus
 * ISAAC LURIA (1534–72) [Ari Ashkenazi] Palestinian kabbalist. Fifty key Jewish thinkers By Dan Cohn-Sherbok
 * We see it in the kabbalistic doctrine cimcum, which was created by the Palestinian mystic Isaac Luria Unmasking Bruno Schulz By Kris Van Heuckelom
 * ...at the request of the Palestinian mystic and liturgist Isaac Luria Passport to Jewish music: its history, traditions, and culture By Irene Heskes
 * The Palestinian kabbalist Isaac Luria Themes and issues in Judaism By Seth Daniel Kunin

Palestinian rabbi
I intend to add he was a Palestinian rabbi to the lead, as the category has been removed by Debresser. Chesdovi (talk) 10:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * See Category talk:16th-century Palestinian rabbis that such an edit is rejected by many editors. If Chesdovi will make such an edit, he will therefore be reverted forthwith. In addition, he is WP:FORUMSHOPPING here, so please leave your comments at the discussion I linked to. Debresser (talk) 11:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Needs a criticism section!
The theories presented in this article run totally contrary to everything I learned as a Jew, and especially as the grandson of a philosopher from Vilna. There must be plenty of sources on Jewish opposition to Kaballah, if this is what it's really about. 198.228.199.18 (talk) 02:34, 15 July 2011 (UTC) Collin237


 * I was surprised when I first saw your comment. What kind of criticism is there against the Arizal? But I now see that you mean criticism against Lurianic Kabbalah. And that brings me to the following point:

Split needed
This article should be about the Arizal, his life. While another article, possibly to be called Lurianic kabbalah (now a redirect back here) should treat his school of Jewish mysticism. Debresser (talk) 02:52, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

In addition, I now had a look at this article. The treatment of Lurianic Kabbalah is too technical and detailed, even if this were an article about that subject alone. Debresser (talk) 03:03, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

If other editors agree with my suggestion to split this article into two, I'd be happy to do it, and rewrite the technical parts in a more accessible way. Debresser (talk) 03:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)


 * ✅ Debresser (talk) 01:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

After the split, one of you should have fixed the Lurianic Kabbalah redirect, and as other lemmata are called Christian Kabbalah, Hermetic Qabalah and Practical Kabbalah, shouldn’t Lurianic kabbalah therefore be moved to Lurianic Kabbalah? See Talk:Lurianic kabbalah and discuss there. --217 /83 05:53, 21 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I should have checked redirects, and forgot to do that. The move to a capital is probably a good idea. Will do. Debresser (talk) 09:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Necromancer
According to this source Isaac Luria and his foremost disciple Hayyim ben Joseph Vital "conjured up the spirits of dead Rabbis". One of the spirits told Isaac Luria that he is the Jewish Messiah. Anyway, this "practice" is called Necromancy. Can this be implemented into the article? I am sure I can find more sources for this, if it isn't enough. 88.153.208.150 (talk) 15:43, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The source (Livius.org) is credible, maintained by Jona Lendering. 88.153.208.150 (talk) 15:46, 10 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The claim is rather far-reaching, and I would like to know the source of Livius.org. Debresser (talk) 00:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Delete or merge non-notable stub?
Is Lilith (Lurianic Kabbalah) really needed? Seems to have no reliable sources related to Luria and isn't linked from here. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the most elegant solution would be to merge it into Lilith. Debresser (talk) 13:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Undo.
Now that was an eloquent edit summary.

My edit was motivated by the fact that reading the intro, I stumbled over the allcaps "ARI" for "Lion". Reading the footnote, the reason becomes clear of course. I tried to explain this in the text body. But if you didn't like it, just propose your own revision, it's no big deal. --dab (𒁳) 19:51, 29 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the humor and taking my revert in stride. One of my problems with your edit was the repeated stylization "A.R.I." which looks massive and disregards the fact that it is pronounced as one word. Basically I think the explanation makes reading that first paragraph too hard. That is why I am happy it is in a footnote. On the other hand, you are right, that this information belongs in the text proper. Perhaps we should make a small paragraph of it, not necessarily in the lead. Your suggestions? Debresser (talk) 20:25, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

I understand your point. I took care to use "A.R.I." in translation only, i.e. when "Lion" would not do, because the acronym is intended. I agree that this explanation would clutter the introduction. Perhaps a short paragraph in the body of the article. But you know what, it is also fine as it is, people will find the explanation if they are looking just as I did, I merely spent ten secons thinking "wth, allcaps" before going "aha", and tired to avoid this effect, but it's ok. --dab (𒁳) 13:50, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

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