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176 It is, therefore, unnecessary to do more than name one or two of the more noted Kabbalists of post-Zoharistic ages. Isaac Lurya (1534–1572) was a saint, so devoid of self-conceit that he published nothing, though he flourished at the very time when the printing-press was throwing copies of the Zohar broadcast. We owe our knowledge of Lurya’s Kabbalistic ideas to the prolific writings of his disciple Chayim Vital Calabrese, who died in Damascus in 1620. Other famous Kabbalists were Isaiah Hurwitz (about 1570–1630), author of a much admired ethical work, “The Two Tables of the Covenant” (Sheloh, as it is familiarly called from the initials of its Hebrew title); Nehemiah Chayun (about 1650–1730): and the Hebrew dramatist Moses Chayim Luzzatto (1707–1747).

A more recent Kabbalistic movement, led by the founder of the new saints, or Chassidim, Israel Baalshem (about 1700–1772), was even less literary than the one