הרב חיים ויטאל

Rav Chaim Vital (Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan 5303/1542–30 Nisan 5380/1620), known in sefarim as the Maharchu and in English sources as Hayyim Vital, was the foremost talmid of the Arizal and the one through whom the Ari’s Torah was set down in writing. He was born in Tzfat, then at the height of its greatness, to Rav Yosef Vital Kalabrezi, a sofer stam who had come up to Eretz Yisrael from Calabria in southern Italy — Vital being a Latin rendering of the name Chaim. At fourteen he entered the beit midrash of Rav Moshe Alshich, and Rav Yosef Karo is said to have taken note of the boy’s gifts, asking the Alshich in 5317/1557 to watch over his education with special care. He went on to learn kabbalah in the beit midrash of Rav Moshe Cordovero, the Ramak, and for two and a half years occupied himself also with the study of alchemy.

The turning point of his life came with the Arizal’s arrival from Egypt in 5330/1570. The Ramak was niftar shortly afterward, and about six months later Rav Chaim accepted the Ari as his rebbe. He stood at the head of the talmidim, explaining the rebbe’s words to the others and writing down his shiurim. The learning lasted only about a year and two months before the Ari was niftar in 5332/1572, and Rav Chaim took upon himself to carry the Torah of his rebbe onward: seven of the Ari’s talmidim accepted him as their rav, handing over to him everything they had written in the Ari’s name without keeping a copy for themselves, and he gave the rest of his days to arranging that Torah from the writings in his hand.

During a year-long illness in Tzfat, a large part of his manuscripts, kept under lock, was borrowed by way of his brother Moshe and copied — a hundred copyists producing six hundred pages in three days — and from there the writings spread through the world. Their best-known arrangement is the Etz Chaim, and his son Rav Shmuel Vital arranged them as the Shemonah She’arim, among them Shaar HaGilgulim; after his passing these became the principal source of the Ari’s kabbalah. Beside them stand works of his own: Etz HaDaat Tov on Torah and Nach, Shaarei Kedushah on mussar and the attainment of ruach hakodesh, and Sefer HaChezyonot, the diary of his dreams and visions.

He lived some eight years in Yerushalayim, received semichah from his old teacher the Alshich, and from 5355/1595 settled in Damascus, where he served as rav of the Sicilian kehillah and taught kabbalah every evening. He was niftar there on 30 Nisan 5380/1620 and was buried in Damascus; streets in the Givat Shaul neighborhood of Yerushalayim and in Tel Aviv are called by his name.