In his short life, Isaac Luria (1534–1572) managed to become one of the most consequential figures in the history of Jewish religious thought, cultivating a novel approach to kabbalah that became immensely popular among rabbis from Iran to Amsterdam and that had a profound role in shaping Hasidism as well as both Ashkenazi and Sephardi liturgical practices. Luria wrote very little; it was his disciples who put his teachings on paper. Like many of his contemporaries, he held no official rabbinic position but supported himself through his business endeavors.

Those endeavors are the subject of a rare letter in his own hand, found in the Cairo Genizah. Ben Outhwaite describes this document:

Luria . . . spent most of his working life in Egypt, mainly in Cairo. . . . According to Lawrence Fine, Luria supported himself through trading in “pepper, wine, cucumbers, wheat, and leather”—for which, all bar the cucumbers, we have documentary evidence.

The letter is interesting for the simple details it records about the business activities of the mystic and sage, but also for the colorful Hebrew language in which he communicates them. Luria doesn’t refer to “summer” and “winter,” but to the seasons of heat and the “mightiness of rains.” A relative’s marriage is celebrated in proverbial terms, and he wishes his business associate to “ride upon the heights of prosperity.” He’s polite and witty, and using Hebrew from a variety of sources, even in a run-of-the-mill business communication. Ultimately, from reading this, the impression I get is that it’s a shame that he didn’t write more in his lifetime, since he was evidently a talented writer in Hebrew.

Addressing a recent meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee, Mahmoud Abbas criticized Hamas more sharply than he has previously (at least in public), calling them “sons of dogs.” The eighty-nine-year-old Palestinian Authority president urged the terrorist group to “stop the war of extermination in Gaza” and “hand over the American hostages.” The editors of the New York Sun comment:

Mr. Abbas has long been at odds with Hamas, which violently ousted his Fatah party from Gaza in 2007. The tone of today’s outburst, though, is new. Comparing rivals to canines, which Arabs consider dirty, is startling. Its motivation, though, was unrelated to the plight of the 59 remaining hostages, including 23 living ones. Instead, it was an attempt to use an opportune moment for reviving Abbas’s receding clout.

[W]hile Hamas’s popularity among Palestinians soared after its orgy of killing on October 7, 2023, it is now sinking. The terrorists are hoarding Gaza aid caches that Israel declines to replenish. As the war drags on, anti-Hamas protests rage across the Strip. Polls show that Hamas’s previously elevated support among West Bank Arabs is also down. Striking the iron while it’s hot, Abbas apparently longs to retake center stage. Can he?

Diminishing support for Hamas is yet to match the contempt Arabs feel toward Abbas himself. Hamas considers him irrelevant for what it calls “the resistance.”

[Meanwhile], Abbas is yet to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacre. His recent announcement of ending alms for terror is a ruse.

Abbas, it’s worth noting, hasn’t saved all his epithets for Hamas. He also twice said of the Americans, “may their fathers be cursed.” Of course, after a long career of anti-Semitic incitement, Abbas can’t be expected to have a moral awakening. Nor is there much incentive for him to fake one. But, like the protests in Gaza, Abbas’s recent diatribe is a sign that Hamas is perceived as weak and that its stock is sinking.