Jacob ben Hayyim Zemah () was a Portuguese kabalist and physician. He received a medical training in his native country as a

Marrano ''Marranos'' is a term for Spanish and Portuguese Jews, as well as Navarrese jews, who converted to Christianity, either voluntarily or by Spanish or Portuguese royal coercion, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but who continued t ...

, but fled about 1619 to

Safed Safed (), also known as Tzfat (), is a city in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to , Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. Safed has been identified with (), a fortif ...

and devoted himself to the

Talmud The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

and the casuists ("poseḳim") until 1625; then he went to

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

, where for eighteen years he studied

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

from 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 ...

and the writings of

Isaac Luria Isaac ben Solomon Ashkenazi Luria (; #FINE_2003, Fine 2003, p24/ref>July 25, 1572), commonly known in Jewish religious circles as Ha'ari, Ha'ari Hakadosh or Arizal, was a leading rabbi and Jewish mysticism, Jewish mystic in the community of Saf ...

and Hayyim Vital. He finally settled at

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

and opened a yeshivah for the study of the Zohar and other kabbalistic works, David Conforte being for some time one of his pupils.

Author

Jacob Ẓemaḥ was one of the greatest kabbalists of his period and was a prolific author, his works including treatises of his own as well as compilations of the writings of Ḥayyim Vital. He produced twenty works, of which only two have been published. The first of these is the ''Ḳol ba-Ramah'' (Korez, 1785), a commentary on the ''Idra,'' which he began in 1643, and for which he utilized the commentary of Ḥayyim Vital. In the preface to this work he maintained that the coming of the

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

depended on repentance ("teshuvah") and on the study of kabbalah from the Zohar and the writings of Isaac Luria, the delay in the advent of the Messiah being because schools for such study had not been established in every town. His second published work is the ''Nagid u-Meẓawweh'' (Amsterdam, 1712), on the mystical meaning of the prayers, this being an abridgment of a compendium which Ẓemaḥ composed on the basis of a more comprehensive treatise. Among his unpublished works, special mention may be made of the ''Ronnu le-Ya'aḳob,'' in which he calls himself "the proselyte" ("ger ẓedeḳ").''Cat. Oppenheimer,'' No. 1062 Q This treatise consists of notes recorded while studying under Samuel Vital and supplemented by his own additions. In his compilation of Ḥayyim Vital's writings, Ẓemaḥ pretended to have discovered many works of Vital which were unknown to the latter's son Samuel.

Death

He died at Jerusalem in the second half of the 17th century.

References

Its bibliography: * Azulai, Shem ha-Gedolim, i., ii. s.v. Gilgulim, et passim; * Eliakim Carmoly, in Revue Orientale, ii. 287; * Fuenn, Keneset Yisrael, p. 570; * Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1268. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zemah, Jacob ben Hayyim 17th-century rabbis from the Ottoman Empire Sephardi rabbis in Ottoman Syria Rabbis in Safed Kabbalists 17th-century Jewish Portuguese physicians 17th-century Portuguese physicians Sephardi Jews from Ottoman Palestine