Moses ben Jacob Cordovero (Hebrew: משה קורדובירו Moshe Kordovero ‎; 1522–1570) was a central figure in the historical development of Kabbalah, leader of a mystical school in 16th-century Safed, Israel.

After the Medieval flourishing of Kabbalah, centered on the Zohar, attempts were made to give a complete intellectual system to its theology, such as by Meir ibn Gabbai.

[3] Both articulations of the 16th century mystical Renaissance in Safed gave Kabbalah an intellectual prominence to rival Medieval Rationalism, whose social influence on Judaism had waned after the Expulsion from Spain.

According to his testimony in the introduction to Pardes Rimonim, in 1542, at the age of twenty, Moses heard a "heavenly voice" urging him to study Kabbalah with his brother-in-law, Shlomo Alkabetz, composer of the mystical song Lecha Dodi.

The Pardes, as it is known, was a systemization of all Kabbalistic thought up to that time and featured the author's attempt at a reconciliation of various early schools with the conceptual teachings of the Zohar to demonstrate an essential unity and self-consistent philosophical basis of Kabbalah.

Some other books for which he is known are the Tomer Devorah ("Palm Tree of Deborah"), in which he utilizes the Kabbalistic concepts of the Sefirot to illuminate a system of morals and ethics; Ohr Neerav, a justification of and insistence upon the importance of Kabbalah study and an introduction to the methods explicated in Pardes Rimonim;[5] Elimah Rabbati, a highly abstract treatise on kabbalistic concerns revolving around the Godhead and its relationship to the sefirot; and the Sefer Gerushin, a short and intimate composition which features the highly devotional slant of Cordovero, as well as his asceticism and religious piety.

His disciples included Eliyahu de Vidas, author of the Reshit Chochmah "Beginning of Wisdom", and Chaim Vital, who later became the official recorder and disseminator of the teachings of Isaac Luria.

After the public dissemination of the Zohar in Medieval times, various attempts were made to give a complete intellectual system of theology to its different schools and interpretations.