In the later and developed form of the Kabbala, the origin of the world is represented as a gradually descending emanation of the lower out of the higher.
This Palestinian town was in the 16th century the headquarters of the Kabbala.
One of Leon's most effective works was his attack on the Kabbala ('Ari Nohem, first published in 1840), for in it he demonstrated that the "Bible of the Kabbalists" (the Zoltar) was a modern composition.
He was associated with the promoters of the New Learning within Judaism, and wrote on the history of the Kabbala.
Later Jewish and Christian speculation followed on the lines of the angelology of the earlier apocalypses; and angels play an important part in Gnostic systems and in the Jewish Midrashim and the Kabbala.