Hayyim Vital apparently married at a young age. According to one legend, his first wife was Hannah, the daughter of a certain Moses Saadia. It was an unhappy marriage, and when he left his wife, the prophet Elijah appeared to him in a dream and led him to a beautiful garden, where he saw the pious of all ages, in the form of birds, flying through the garden and studying the Mishnah. In the center of the garden was God Himself, seated on a throne that was surrounded by the pious, resting on elaborate tapestries. Convinced by this vision that he was destined to become a kabbalist, Rabbi Hayyim Vital devoted the following two and a half years to the study of alchemy. Upon completing his studies, Elijah appeared to him again in a vision, and told him that he would succeed in his efforts and write a commentary on the Zohar.
There's evidence to suggest that Isaac Luria also regarded Moses Cordovero as his teacher. "Joseph Sambari (1640-1703), an important Egyptian chronicler, testified that Cordovero was 'the Ari's teacher for a very short time.' ... Luria probably arrived in early 1570, and Cordovero died on June 27 that year (the 23d day of Tammuz). Bereft of their most prominent authority and teacher, the kabbalists looked for new guidance, and Isaac Luria helped fill the vacuum left by Cordovero's passing.
Despite this rivalry, it is largely accepted that within a year Hayyim Vital emerged as the leading student, so that when the Arizal died in 1572, at the age of thirty-eight, Vital succeeded him. Since the Arizal had left almost none of his teachings in writing, Vital began to write down everything he had learned from his master.
A legend states that, when Vital was in Jerusalem, the Ottoman governor, Abu Saifia, requested that he use his powers to locate the aqueduct leading from the River Gihon to the city, which had been built in the days of King Hezekiah. Unwilling to fulfill this request, he fled to Damascus using the power of practical Kabbalah, where his master appeared to him and told him that he had had a chance to bring the final redemption by releasing the waters of Gihon, and now the chance was lost. This grieved Vital greatly.
In Damascus he began writing his first work of his own, on Abraham. The greater part of the book consists of an exposition on the conjuring of clouds and a discourse on the seven fixed stars (planets), the seven heavens, and their corresponding metals. Upon completing his book, Vital returned to Jerusalem, where his former teacher, Moshe Alshich, ordained him "in the 1590s." After a time, however, Vital left Jerusalem for Safed, where he fell sick and was obliged to keep his bed for an entire year.
He also authored Shaar HaGilgulim, a kabbalistic work on reincarnation, which became one of the Shemonah She'arim (see below).
The first printed edition was in eight volumes, known as the Shemonah She'arim, and this version is still used by some Kabbalists in the Sephardi world. The best known recension was published later under the title Etz Hayyim ("Tree of Life"), in which the topics were arranged in a more systematic order, and the parts on ritual (the Peri Etz Hayyim) were kept separate from the parts on the underlying theology. In addition to a tribute to the Arizal, the work contains the assertion that it is one of God's greatest pleasures to witness the promotion of the teaching of the Kabbalah, since this alone can assure the coming of the Jewish Messiah. Rabbi Chaim Vital stated that he had received these teachings, like his other mystic theories, from his teacher the Arizal.
However, Vital still held the teachings of his former teacher, kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, in high esteem. He maintained that Rabbi Moshe Cordovero often appeared to him in dreams. One of the most prominent of Vital's opponents was Menahem Lonzano, who publicly denounced him in his work Imrei Emet.
Category:16th-century rabbis Category:17th-century rabbis Category:Italian rabbis Category:16th-century Italian rabbis Category:17th-century Italian people Category:Rabbis in Safed Category:Syrian rabbis Category:Jewish mysticism Category:Italian emigrants to Israel Category:1543 births Category:1620 deaths Category:Rabbis in Ottoman and British Palestine
it:Hayim Vital he:חיים ויטאל ru:Виталь, Хаим sv:Chayim VittalThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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