Abraham ben Mordecai Azulai (c. 1570–1643) () was a

Kabbalistic Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal (). Jewi ...

author and commentator born in

Fez, Morocco Fez () or Fes (; ) is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fez-Meknes, Fez-Meknes administrative region. It is one of the List of cities in Morocco, largest cities in Morocco, with a population of 1.256 million, according to ...

. In 1599 he moved to

Ottoman Palestine The region of Palestine (region), Palestine is part of the wider region of the Levant, which represents the land bridge between Africa and Eurasia.Steiner & Killebrew, p9: "The general limits ..., as defined here, begin at the Plain of ' ...

and settled in

Hebron Hebron (; , or ; , ) is a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Hebron is capital of the Hebron Governorate, the largest Governorates of Palestine, governorate in the West Bank. With a population of 201,063 in ...

Biography

, Azulai wrote a commentary on the ''

Zohar The ''Zohar'' (, ''Zōhar'', lit. "Splendor" or "Radiance") is a foundational work of Kabbalistic literature. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah and scriptural interpretations as well as material o ...

'' under the title ''Kiryat Arba'' (City of Arba (in Hebrew four); Gen. xxiii.2). The plague of 1619 drove him from his new home, and while in Gaza, where he found refuge, he wrote his Kabalistic work ''Chesed le-Abraham'' (Mercy to Abraham;

Book of Micah The Book of Micah is the sixth of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible. The book has seven chapters. Ostensibly, it records the sayings of Micah, whose name is ''Mikayahu'' (), meaning "Who is like Yahweh?", an 8th-century BCE prophet f ...

vii.20). It was published after the author's death by Meshullam Zalman ben Abraham Berak of Gorice, in Amsterdam, 1685. The work is a treatise with an introduction, (''The Cornerstone''; see Talmud

Yoma Yoma (Aramaic: יומא, lit. "The Day") is the fifth tractate of '' Seder Moed'' ('Order of Festivals') of the ''Mishnah'' and of the ''Talmud''. It is concerned mainly with the laws of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur, on which Jews atone for t ...

53b), and is divided into seven "fountains" (

Book of Zechariah The Book of Zechariah is a Jewish text attributed to Zechariah, a Hebrew prophet of the late 6th century BC. In the Hebrew Bible, the text is included as part of the Twelve Minor Prophets, itself a part of the second division of that work. In ...

iii.9), each fountain being subdivided into a number of "streams." A specimen of the work Chesed Le-Avraham, taken from the fifth fountain, twenty-fourth stream, p. 57d, of the Amsterdam edition: A popular story about Rabbi Azulai is that of how he retrieved the sultan's sword. When the Ottoman sultan visited Hebron, his precious sword fell into the Cave of Machpela. Anyone sent down to retrieve it disappeared. Only Rabbi Azulai was able to descend into the cave and retrieve the sword. He died in

on November 6, 1643 and is buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Hebron.Michael Laitman, ''Gems of Wisdom: Words of the Great Kabbalists from All Generations'', Laitman Kabbalah Publishers, 2011, p. 413-414 One of the manuscripts that he left to his descendant,

Chaim Yosef David Azulai Haim Yosef David Azulai ben Yitzhak Zerachia (; 1724 – 1 March 1806), commonly known as the Hida (also spelled Chida, the acronym of his name, ), was a Jerusalem born rabbinical scholar, a noted bibliophile, and a pioneer in the publication o ...

, is also published. It is a Kabalistic commentary on the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

xiv.13), Vilna, 1873.
Pirkei Avot
– a selection from Chesed le-Abraham

References

Jewish Encyclopedia

* Azoulay, ''Shem ha-Gedolim,'' s.v.; * Isaac ben Jacob Benjacob, ''Oẓar ha-Sefarim,'' p. 196; *

Julius Fürst Julius Fürst (; 12 May 1805, Żerków, South Prussia – 9 February 1873, Leipzig), born Joseph Alsari, was a Jewish German oriental studies, orientalist and the son of noted maggid, teacher, and Hebrew grammarian Jacob Alsari. Fürst was a dis ...

, ''Bibliotheca Judaica,'' i.67; * Michael, Heimann Joseph (1891). ''Or ha-Ḥayyim''. Frankfort-on-the-Main. p. 12. {{DEFAULTSORT:Azulai, Abraham 1570s births 1643 deaths People from Fez, Morocco Kabbalists Sephardi rabbis from Ottoman Palestine Rabbis in Hebron Moroccan writers 16th-century Moroccan rabbis 17th-century rabbis from the Ottoman Empire Burials at Old Jewish cemetery in Hebron