The most famous figures in religious history are often prophets who spoke to multitudes, kings who built great temples, or reformers who challenged empires. However, there was a great mind in spirituality in the sixteenth century that died at thirty-eight years old, did not write much, and spent the majority of his life teaching a small number of scholars in the remote Galilee Mountains of Modern Day Israel. He was Rabbi Isaac Luria also known to history as the Ari, (the Lion). Luria was a mystic, visionary, and spiritual revolutionary living in Safed (Modern Israel) in the 1570's. During his lifetime, the Jewish people were reeling from the trauma of being expelled from Spain and were attempting to comprehend how a just God could allow for such an immense amount of suffering and dislocation. The standard explanations offered by the religious authorities were inadequate, and Luria developed a completely different view of the cosmos and the Creator.
Luria sought a way to explain the suffering of his people, but he also sought a way to help his people heal from their trauma. The results of Luria's inquiry have become among the most important teachings in the history of mysticism, and he is considered the father of the Lurianic Kabbalah.
This week we will take a journey back to the mountains of the sixteenth century in Galilee to meet the mystic who reformulated the creation of the Universe in his search for answers to the most fundamental questions regarding human suffering. Luria ultimately discovered these truths through careful observation and contemplation of the divine structure and has provided us with a pathway to the attainment of spiritual restoration..
The Problem Luria Refused to Ignore
While many spiritual leaders focus on God, transcendent reality, or the ideal realm, Luria was the first to deal with a subject so fundamental most humans avoid addressing it: the basic brokenness of our world.
The pain of losing a loved one, the pain of the body changing from life to death, the pain of wanting something we cannot obtain, and ultimately, the pain we feel from a broken world that is evident in our everyday lives. Everything we enjoy is temporary; nothing we have will give us lasting joy; everything we enjoy will eventually disappear, change, or we will become bored with that.
