VITAL, HAYYIM BEN JOSEPH

born 1543, Safed, Palestine [now Zefat, Israel] died May 6, 1620, Damascus [now in Syria] one of Judaism's outstanding Kabbalists (expounder of Jewish esoteric or occult doctrine). In Safed, Palestine, in about 1570, Vital became the disciple of Isaac ben Solomon Luria, the leading Kabbalist of his time, and after Luria's death (1572) Vital professed to be the sole interpreter of the Lurian school. He became the leader of Palestinian Jewish Kabbalism and served as rabbi and head of a yeshiva (school of advanced Jewish learning) in Jerusalem (157785). His major work was the 'Etz hayyim (Tree of Life), a detailed exposition of Lurian Kabbala, which also appeared in altered editions by rivals that he repudiated. His son Samuel published accounts of Vital's dreams and visions posthumously under the title Shivhe R. Hayyim Vital.