He was for a time rabbi at Polia (Michael, Or ha-Ḥayyim, p. 95); in 1601 he lived in Palestine (David Conforte, Ḳore ha-Dorot, pp. 47b, 51a), and in 1603 was at Constantinople (Michael, ib.).
Based on the advancing progression of a seminal idea from "point to line to area", he summarises the cumulative generational advance in teaching, according to the Habad conception that in each generation the teachings of Jewish mysticism ascend in depth, progressively drawing down from a higher source in Divinity to prepare for the Messianic era.
The original manuscript was brought from Egypt by R. David Ashkenazi of Jerusalem, who, to judge from a note in his preface, gave it the title Ḳore ha-Dorot, and had it printed in Venice in 1746, without mentioning the name of the author.
The fourth branch is that of Jehiel ben Solomon ben Jekuthiel of Minsk, author of "Seder ha-Dorot", whose son Moses succeeded him in the rabbinate, and whose grandson, Löb b.