מחלוקת המקובליםWhen Kabbalists Disagree

maḥloket ha-mekubbalimIn Gamatria ↗

Hints without teachers bred disputes; the Ari's writings ended them.

Shaltiel complains that kabbalah books say strange things. Yehoyada answers that every science looks absurd before its preliminaries. He quotes the Rambam: tell a fine physician who knows no astronomy that the sun is some 166 times the earth, and he will scoff until he studies the Almagest. Learn in order, then judge. Shaltiel presses: if kabbalah was received, why do kabbalists disagree? The Zohar and older books hold no real dispute, only many readings of a verse, 'seventy faces'. The Talmud has disputes too, and no one doubts it. The later disputes began after the Ramban. Earlier masters wrote only hints for those who held the oral keys; as that teaching thinned, each guessed. Cordovero narrowed the disputes, and the Ari, to whom Elijah appeared, settled them.

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