Elijah de Vidas

The kabbalist Elijah de Vidas was born in Safed, where he was a student of Moses Cordovero. He traveled to Poland but later returned to Palestine and died in Hebron. De Vidas composed a lengthy, encyclopedic work of ethics, Re’shit ḥokhmah (Beginning of Wisdom), which has been reprinted some forty times, in many languages. It is divided into five gates (sections): fear of God, love of God, repentance, holiness, and humility. De Vidas also included chapters from Israel al-Nakawa’s (d. 1391) Menorat ha-ma’or (Shining Lamp), as well as a collection of rabbinic sayings and moralizing maxims.