Arizal האר"י הקדוש
founder of Lurianic Kabbalah, master of the Safed mystics
Rabbi Yitzchak Luria was born in Jerusalem in 5294, raised in Egypt by a merchant relative, and by tradition spent years in seclusion on an island in the Nile studying the Zohar. In 5330 he came to Safed; two years later he died, aged thirty-eight. Two years were enough.
His teaching answers the question that haunted the generation of the expulsion: why the world is so broken. The Infinite «contracted» Himself to make room for the world — tzimtzum; the light sent into the vessels was too strong, and the vessels shattered; sparks of holiness scattered and fell. The human task is tikkun: with every commandment, prayer and right intention, to raise the sparks back. The exile of the people turns out to be part of the exile of the light itself, and repair is shared work.
He wrote almost nothing. What we have was recorded by his student Rabbi Chaim Vital in «Etz Chaim» and related works — and not all of it.