The History of Kabbala Part 7 - The Early Years of the Arizal and His Methodology

this torah class is brought to you by torahanytime.com okay good morning rabbi we're continuing this series uh we're sort of working our way backward which is always a good way to go in the month of adar um so i want to share with you a um just to give you a quick recap of where we're holding we mentioned there were two sort of editions of the writings of their resale you have something called madura kama and madurabasra the first edition the second edition um now reza was very protective over his teachings but um there was a period of time where khaimital was ill and a man by the name of yahushua bennun bribed of khambita's brother of moshe vital and he took he got a hold of some manuscripts these are known as the tough race niyara's the 600 papers he hired six scribes each one copied over a hundred pages and that's from where we have basically what is known as madura kama of the kise arizal so to put it bluntly the actually he he hired excuse me 100 scribes he gave each one six pages to copy over um so the first edition and the first madura of the kiswayari were unauthorized from there came what is known as seifer had jerusalem safer and safer maduro basra was later on when refrain vita wrote the itzkayam and he wrote it with sort of some of his own perushim in a very deep way and then he decided he had kharata and he buried it and it was unearthed by rabb avram azula the great grandfather of the khida and that is maduro basra but either way both editions of the kisi ariana are unauthorized and so now we're going to work our way back sort of from the beginning of where did this body of information come from and let's begin in the beginning this is again from the safer kaswak of hillel he writes it did not write most of his torah allah ma'ad means the army manner just a little bit now this title rabbenu hari uh was the title that that um he was known as the little that he did write on his own was primarily a commentary to a few statements of the zayar visa shams chakravataria a little bit here a sprinkling over there some back and forth in his commentary and explanation of the ramak nuhu rabbi that theresa called him his rebbe that at first that rizal's rebbe was ramire cordovero and in a way ultimately that result would surpass the ramak but he called him originally his rabbi vial of kamachika atsumai and primarily what he wrote on his own hayao mimashi be a guillotine guy is that which he achieved in the beginning of his path while he was still in egypt israel before he went up to israel uno sal piha dibor compelled by the word of god which is an expression why did that read go up to israel you sort of heard he was it was a divine beckoning god was calling him the term zach before so to speak the the uh the ariza reached his prophetic levels through the manifestation of the divine spirit on him through elio's revelation of and the other great revelations he was because of the sanctity and greatness of his soul in other words most of the stuff that reason wrote he wrote before he reached the high levels he ultimately achieved adsigi lamashige until he reached that high level until he reached so to speak the level of mount sinai of kabbalah in other words that rizal achieved so to speak a momentous level that what was given to the jewish people on harsina in terms of the revealed law was given to the arizal in terms of the secrets of the torah as is known and is is clear in the language that the arizona wrote for those who are proficient and uh and ragil in his la shine if you look in the footnote over here in ice gimmel it says for all this looking to say for shivkehari how that rizal began learning the kabbalah and how much toil he put it and how much assistance he had from heaven and the years that he went into seclusion the kadush of tara until he was and after all of these matters he writes one night in the academy of the rashbee umruli they said to him to me as what are you doing in this impure land like go to safad visham tisca and basically it says over here when he got it's fast he forgot his wisdom his rakhakoides left he became very frightened and in his abundant pain he fell asleep he dreamed there was a man standing opposite him he says why are you sleeping call out to god and afflict yourself and and immerse yourself to return to your strength because all the afflictions that you did in will not help for art's israel because the avira veritas is more spiritual and that's what he did and then he says hashem at the end of a couple of days the spirit of god rested on him in his um overpowering of shepherd then uh then what then was at first and he reached a kiss but until the point where from the time of the rashmi until this time there was no one like him now here he brings another interesting thing he says look in the shark noise therefore says that the first time that rizal came from the tsraim uh unlike omar to meron it says that we don't know if the first time that rizal came to marone he was on that level that he ultimately reached and in the safer period skying he adds that this was eight years before that result ultimately came up for good but basically what comes out he says is um whatever that reason wrote when he was in egypt and whatever he revealed after he came to israel that's basically what he received from elio anavi but after he came up he was zakah to a much greater geluyim this is not like while in egypt but when he was in israel right he was on a much higher level so the opinion of robiaku allows that he had gilead before not sure how he sees this not unclear how he sees us but he says this is not like the opinion of the mokobo ramanakam d lonzano that who questioned some of the writing of the arizal in his early years he says what that reza wrote earlier before he reached the higher levels of them we could have questioned and we could critique okay so be it sma um that result was on a high level even before he came to ourselves but he was elevated upon uh coming to arizona okay page base rasa is about the main transmission of the arizal's teachings was in the category of the oral law and venemes was given over through the student salary uber who put to writing who recorded the revelations so basically the main transition of the teachings of through his students but not through the written word as ariza we as we mentioned did not really write down his teachings why didn't dari write down his teachings if you have good teachings you want to write it down otherwise you forget it why didn't that rewrite it down so here we have haha the reason he didn't write it down we find in the safer hari the zealous did you not compose from your wisdom to illuminate the eyes of the coming generations so this is a famous thing that rizal said basically his mind had opened up to such a fountain and wellspring of torah that he literally when he opens up his mouth to talk it's like there's a torrent coming out of his mouth and he doesn't even know where to start it's just pouring forth here he says an incredible thing he says he says every stick in the world was a pen there would not be enough pens to go around to write my wisdom when i open up my mouth to tell you one of the secrets of the torah hashef the sus the bounty increases like a raging river and i look for all kinds of stratagems from where could i open up one little pipeline the cotton so that you could bear it meaning when i open up my mouth it's like a torrent of torah is going to come out that could like wash you away i have to figure out how to open up like a needles hole so that you'll be able to listen and tolerate and accept what i'm saying it's like when a baby suckles from the mother the opening that he suckles from has to be pinpoint because it would be big the baby would choke likewise arizona said i have so much to offer i have so much skyra but i have to give it in very very small doses but for me to commit to writing there are not enough pens vic has not produced enough pens for me to be able to record all my teaching you're going to lose everything okay so that's sort of the first uh the first level the first um the first dimension that the kabbalah was primarily tara shabalpa not her there's a reason that the result did not write it down and that is it was not possible okay let's is there a downside over here people were confused and everybody came with them yeah the danger is that if you if it's left to the oral law then some it's up to everyone's interpretation and um and that's why there was a lot of confusion ultimately about the the writings that arizona another important point page gimbal idea we also want to notify that when that result he didn't it was not a systematic approach okay today we're going to learn the abcs then we're going to learn you know um beginners then we're going to learn um the the the medium level then we're going to learn advanced right it was it was scattered wasn't it it was not a systematic approach it was it seemed to be random by teaching them the introductions of the way the worlds trickle down and then the intentions the um cavanos of the prayers of the week for shabbos and the yom toivim and then the sadha mitzvahs and other sukhim rather what did he do meaning the way we have the writings of arie is not the way it was taught yeah the way we have the reader we have the rhinestone re in somewhat of a systematic format we have the way the worlds trickle down and the intentions of the weekday prayers the shabbos paris that's not how he taught it how did he teach it whatever happened to be being taught that day it was like the share the tuesday share right whatever was being taught that day that's uh that's what was taught you know you had to be able to piece together based on what you may have heard before or wait until you got further details the agave macdonald through basically he gave draw choice and through the draw choice you would hear a piece of information and then you sort of add a piece together systematic approach nisbaru he gave long discourses the discourses sort of spoke about a number of different subjects and after being in the class long enough you picked up different principles and then you would have to piece them together he didn't give like okay today we're going to discuss the topic of um you know here are the basics here are the complexities it was all um a complicated drush that incorporated many ideas and after hearing different ideas many times you had to piece it together yourself the kha khasabi garas rav shloima shlumel of who was the son-in-law of rabbi records this in the safer shivkairi okay i'll pause for a moment sometimes he would tell them a secret of tfillin in middle of the drush on godless or a jerush one jerush in the middle of the jerusha of mon we'll have to see what is man with saying was that not a recommended way to take thor or that's the way he did it that's the way he did it with no further you know commentary that's that's what he did likewise um rav mayor paparish writes in his hak dhamma to the dark vine it is known whoever comes in the gate of this wisdom and according to the of the drashois that are tied that were more beautiful than gold hayem jerusalem the cabanas it was explained on its own jerusalem cavanaugh how to fix availability so in other words every share had a good drush had a good remiss had a kavanaugh had a tam and then if you heard a hundred shiurim you ended up hearing a hundred ta'ame it's voice so after the fact they gathered together all the tamiya mitsubishi or all the yehudah or the cabanas one time he would talk about the final level of the world about citizens sometimes the first level okay so this gives you i guess a little bit of a background in terms of who that reza was how he taught and what his methodology was you've just experienced another torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com