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Discourses based on the Ez Hayyim of R. Hayyim Vital. The title page states that it is branches to the three branches of the book Ez Hayyim. The title page enumerates the three branches as 1) Sha’arei Zion; 2) Hata’ot Sodom; and 3) ezeh Tovah. It is small in size but in great value.
R. Hayyim ben Joseph Vital (1542–1620) was a student of R. Moses Alshekh, his teacher in exoteric subjects. In 1564 he began to study Kabbalah, at first according to the system R. Moses Cordovero, and, after R. Isaac Luria’s (Ari) arrival in Safed, under the latter, becoming the Ari’s principal disciple. After the Ari’s death, R. Vital began to arrange the Ari’s teachings in written form, elaborating on them according to his own understanding, becoming the primary transmitter of the Ari’s teachings. R. Vital was a prolific writer, his works encompassing Talmud, response, homilies, and even astronomy. R. Vital assembled his major writings into two vast works Ez ha-Hayyim and Ez ha-Da’at. The former is the inclusive name for all those writings in which he elaborated on the teaching of the Ari. These works went through several versions and adaptations, for Vital began to arrange what he had heard from Luria immediately after his death, remained absorbed in this task for more than 20 years.
The complete Ez Hayyim addresses such subjects as the doctrine of emanation and the creation of the world, R. Vital’s commentaries on the Zohar and on talmudic tractates according to Lurianic principles, biblical commentaries, mystical customs and meditations on prayers; the reasons for the mitzvot according to the order of the sections of the Torah, with meditation, customs, acts of magical contemplation (unification, yihudim), the tikkun of sins, and the principles of physiognomy, and Gilgulim (transmigration of souls).
Reference Description BE mem 123
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