The moment
Safed, a Galilean hill town filled with exiles from Spain, became the centre of Jewish mysticism in the 16th century; Joseph Karo wrote his law code, the Shulchan Arukh, there. Isaac Luria taught in Safed for only about two years before dying in an epidemic and left almost nothing in writing, yet his picture of a God who withdrew to make room for the world, of vessels that shattered at creation and of a repair that human deeds help complete spread across the Jewish world and shaped both the Shabbetai Tzevi movement and Hasidism.
People: Isaac Luria (the Ari), Hayyim Vital, Joseph Karo, Moses Cordovero