๐งฟ The legacy of the Ari was closely guarded, and thus tied up in, the life and works of his self-proclaimed chief disciple, the prolific R. Chaim Vital of Tzfat, the architect of Lurianic Kabbala.
"This tension was brought to the fore by Rabbi Yehuda ha-Nasiโs project of writing down the Oral Law as the Mishna, in apparent (but only apparent) contravention of the prohibition on its writing, which, as Rambam would later explain in the introduction to his Commentary on the Mishna, was a result of the especially difficult tribulations the Jewish people encountered in late antiquity."
The Rambam ื''ื did explain it this way, but that does not seem to be true, and it is not even certain that it was written down at all. Most likely it was, but the near-exclusive means of its dissemination was oral, and deliberately so. I highly recommend 'The Publication and Early Transmission of the Mishnah' by David Stern.
"This tension was brought to the fore by Rabbi Yehuda ha-Nasiโs project of writing down the Oral Law as the Mishna, in apparent (but only apparent) contravention of the prohibition on its writing, which, as Rambam would later explain in the introduction to his Commentary on the Mishna, was a result of the especially difficult tribulations the Jewish people encountered in late antiquity."
The Rambam ื''ื did explain it this way, but that does not seem to be true, and it is not even certain that it was written down at all. Most likely it was, but the near-exclusive means of its dissemination was oral, and deliberately so. I highly recommend 'The Publication and Early Transmission of the Mishnah' by David Stern.