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.--◀Puck^talk▶ 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

• 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

Chesdovi (talk) 01:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

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