Jacob ben Hayyim Zemah

Who is Jacob ben Hayyim Zemah?

Jacob ben Hayyim Zemah was a Portuguese kabalist and physician. He received a medical training in his native country as a Marrano, but fled about 1619 to Safed and devoted himself to the Talmud and the casuists until 1625; then he went to Damascus, where for eighteen years he studied kabbalah from the Zohar and the writings of Isaac Luria and Hayyim Vital. He finally settled at Jerusalem and opened a yeshivah for the study of the Zohar and other kabbalistic works, David Conforte being for some time one of his pupils.

Jacob Ẓemaḥ was one of the greatest kabbalists of his period and was a prolific author, his works including treatises of his own as well as compilations of the writings of Ḥayyim Vital. He produced twenty works, of which only two have been published. The first of these is the Ḳol ba-Ramah, a commentary on the Idra, which he began in 1643, and for which he utilized the commentary of Ḥayyim Vital.