Abraham Azulai


Abraham ben Mordecai Azulai was a Kabbalistic author and commentator born in Fez, Morocco. In 1599 he moved to Palestine and settled in Hebron.

Biography

In Hebron, Azulai wrote a commentary on the Zohar under the title Kiryat Arba. 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. 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, , and is divided into seven "fountains", 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 Hebron on November 6, 1643 and is buried in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Hebron.
One of the manuscripts that he left to his descendant, Chaim Yosef David Azulai, is also published. It is a Kabalistic commentary on the Hebrew Bible, Ba'ale Berit Abraham, Vilna, 1873.