Society
The Safed Kabbalists
The 16th-century circle of mystics that gave Kabbalah its great cosmological system.
Society · Founded 1,550 · Safed, Galilee (Ottoman Palestine) · Dissolved
Founded by Moses Cordovero, Isaac Luria
What it was
In the hill town of Safed in the 1500s, a remarkable community of Jewish mystics gathered around Moses Cordovero and then Isaac Luria.
Lurianic Kabbalah — with its drama of divine contraction (tzimtzum), the shattering of the vessels, and the repair of the world (tikkun) — reshaped Jewish mysticism and rippled far into Western esotericism.
Its place in the lineage
The most influential Kabbalistic school, whose map of creation and repair underlies much later Hermetic and Theosophical thought.
Founders & leaders
Its tradition
Explore further
The circle · 2 in the Atlas
Each star is a teacher; colour marks how they were tied to the order. Tap a star to open them.