Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (1522-1570): A Brief Biography

the yeshiva.net so welcome everybody to a new class a new sheer in one of the very important and powerful books of musser of jewish ethics and spirituality known as taimed vara the palm tree of dvara this class is dedicated in the merit for a complete and speedy recovery from binyamin yisrael ben khanita for your heel shall murder malcolm may they all have a reforeschleimer of four crava complete and speedy recovery and many many long happy healthy incredible prosperous years filled with good health good spirit and joy before we begin inside this is going to be a few words of introduction this is going to be a 10 minute class it's going to be a few times a week this new book that we're going to begin learning the say for taimer divira palm tree of dvara was written by one of the greatest cabalists in jewish history a man known as the ramak r-a-m-a-k-ramak which is really an acronym it's three letters reshmemkuff which was an acronym of his full name rabbi rabbi moisha cordovero ramak is rabbi moisha cordovero cordovero is probably he was named cordovera because his family came from spain from the city of cordova by the way that's the city where maimonides where rambam came from and many other great jews came from there apparently they came from cordova and thus as the name is cardavero he lived in svas and he was a tremendous tremendous scholar a prolific writer an author and a great soul one of those great souls of jewish history that made its its mark on the eternal landscape of jewish learning jewish scholarship kabbalah jewish mysticism and spirituality which is basically the theology the under underlying program of what yiddishkait is ramashrikar devera was a student of the great rabios of cairo rabios of cairo was the author of the shulkhana the code of jewish law known as the base yosef he wrote the commentary on the rambam called casa mishna commentary on the tour called base yosef or sulhana code of law and one of his students was rebecca cordovero he was also a student of the great savas scholar of yaakov beirav marie bairav he was a brother-in-law of rip shlaima al-khabats absalom al-khabits is the composer of luchado that beautiful poem that we all say friday night was composed by ramosa cordovero's brother-in-law who was murdered by an arab and swas the composer of and other works that he wrote he's the one who introduced his brother-in-law to the teachings of the kabbalah at the age of 20. because till then he dedicated his life to the study of mishnah talmud commentaries on talmud books of jewish law resharing him and he was he was brilliant brilliant man at 20 he brought him in also to the study of the kabbalah rabbisha cordovera and then he rose to become the greatest or one of the greatest capitalists of his day remember and created a whole school of kabbalah and educated many disciples and many students in the field of kabbalah and wrote many many works on kabbalah including an encyclopedic work that compiled all of the teachings of kabbalah of jewish spirituality that were known till that day and he turned it into a very systematic and thorough system like an encyclopedic book but work it's called paradis remind them which means the orchard of pomegranates the orchard of pomegranates that's his famous encyclopedic kabbalistic work of the macro marcia cordovera he also wrote many other works it's really uh it's really uh incredible to see how many works this person wrote just to give you a list of a few of them he wrote a word called a lima a lima which is a word from it says that the jewish people vayah you a lima this is shortly after the exodus of egypt they arrived to a place called a lima where they found 12 wellsprings and 70 palm trees and this is what sustained them and hydrated them after a horrible situation where they went three three days without water etc they come to this place there's 12 springs and 70 palm trees and basically this book a lima also has 12 springs and 70 palm trees because basically it's divided into wellsprings and palm trees categorizing kabbalah in that way it's called elima rhapsody the greatest lima apparently this work that we're starting to entire dvira he called the palm tree of devoir because there's a story in the book of judges about the great voyage very the prophet he is timer she was sitting under a palm tree called time advice the palmetry of devoir and in fact for millennia this exact palm tree was known and many historians wrote about visits to israel and they pointed out where this palm tree is until today there's still discussions about where exactly the virus palm tree is so he named it with that and apparently it's one of it's referring also to one of the 70 palm trees that he was referring to in his savory lima and this one particularly is about a person developing his and her midais to align and reflect our creator as we will see he wrote another work called shir kaima he wrote a magnum opus called ur yucker 22 volumes not printed in manuscript it was 22 volumes a commentary on the zohar or yakar also a commentary on the safe yitzira he wrote a book i said pardis remind him the orchard of pomegranates he wrote a book called ar nerov ernerov is a book about why somebody should become aware of premier satire the inner side of tara kabbalah has seven sections the paradis has 72 portals the narrow has seven sections he wrote a called safer wrote a book called sephirah gerushin this is basically ideas that he developed during meditation outside of his home he wrote a secret called phila maisha commentary on davening say for called zifresh commentary on the service of the kangadalanyam kippur i would say that this most accessible of all of his works his works are amazing most accessible of all of his works is this one time advair it's a short work work it's potent it's powerful it's uh it's it's it's very practical and relevant to people's life and it's really about personal refinement allowing yourself to become the human being who reflects his creator or her creator the human being being in the visage of god is supposed to reflect god not just through his physical anatomy or her physical and ambrosa through our characteristics and dispositions and behaviors ramosha cordovero as i said had many many students his most famous student was a student for only a very short time diarizal rabbi yitzhak gloria thyrizal came to tsvas he lived in egypt he came to born in ushalam lived in egypt came he's called aries he's known as rabbi isaac luria and these are all they are all scholars of the 16th century they all live in the 1500s and arizona became a student of the ramak and kabbalah he calls him i think twice in his writings mighty my teacher but only for a short time but during that short time he received a lot from maisha cordover cordovero fell ill in 1570 and he passed away that year on the 23rd day of thomas that's july 1570. he was 48 years old in the hebrew calendar it's hey i love from shin lamed 5 30. five hey i love from shin laman five three three zero that's the year he passed away when his students asked him on his deathbed who will succeed you he said a person the person who's going to recognize the pillar of fire at my funeral and um they buried ramosa cordovero in sfas in the old cemetery and when they were taking the coffin to its resting place they wanted to bury him near some great people who are buried in the cemetery and arizona who was not very well known said no no no no don't bury him there and he pointed to another grave where they should bury him and that's where they buried him and they asked dariza why and he said because i see that the pillar of fire that's escorting him went to another place and that's when they realized that he's the successor and they buried ramayana in the place where he is now if you go to zvas and you go to the old cemetery you'll see rebecca cardevero's grave it's dyed with a blue color it says rabbi marcia cordovera the ramak and in fact before the arizona passed away only two years later he asked to be buried near the ramak and that's why you have the arizo right near the ramak rabbi yitzhak and ramosha cordovera right near each other darizal taught kabbalah for a year and 10 months he passed away at the age of 38 or even younger according to some versions hey of shimla bays august 1572 two years after exactly two years and a month after a marcia called the vero leicester exactly two years after rebecca cordovero and during that two years diarrhea literally revolutionized the landscape of jewish mysticism and many ways he departed from the ramachani developed a whole new system of kabbalah which in many ways was was different at least different focuses than his teacher in marsha cordovero at the lavaya at the funeral of hamashiach devera that rizal spoke and this is how he eulogized them writes this he said it says in the parishes in deuteronomy if somebody will uh will cut the death penalty so in certain situations the terrorist says they should be hung on a tree and then they were taken off right away before sunset the word hate means a lack something is missing like if somebody will lack the judgment of death meaning they'll die but they die and we don't understand why we cannot attribute any reason why this person should have died and not live forever is you should attribute it to the hadas they died because god decreed death from the moment that adam and eve ate from the tree of knowledge and he said this refers to reminiscent cordovera the only reason a person like this passes away is because of the tree of knowledge because essentially his body and his soul were so refined that they were conduits for life itself for divinity which lives on for eternity just like the song so this is a few words about the author of time madrid marcia cadavero whose book of ethics we're going to begin in the next class and i wish you all a wonderful and meaningful day this class is brought 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