Overview
Bet El Yeshiva was founded in eighteenth-century Jerusalem as an institution devoted to intensive Kabbalistic study and prayer. Under Shalom Sharabi, its scholars developed detailed systems of contemplative intention based on the teachings of Isaac Luria and Hayyim Vital. Members organized their communal life around disciplined worship, manuscript study, and shared spiritual obligations. The yeshiva influenced Kabbalists from Jerusalem, Syria, Iraq, North Africa, and other Sephardic communities. Bet El demonstrates how mysticism could be institutionalized through rules, study schedules, scribal transmission, patronage, and highly specialized forms of liturgical practice.
