392 A History of Judaism
thought he was a messianic agent, destined to die in the fulfilment of his
mission to hasten the redemption of the world.^19
By the end of the sixteenth century, less than thirty years after Luria’s
death, he was being called by kabbalists in Italy the Ari, an acronym
from the Hebrew for ‘the divine Rabbi Isaac’. This elevated status was
the product of the wealth of writings which promulgated his teachings
after his death. Unconstrained by the evidence of writings by Luria him-
self, his disciples revealed to the world doctrines which they explicitly
stated Luria himself had kept secret and which had survived only in
their memories of Luria’s discourse until committed to writing after his
death. Hagiography of the pious life of the master preceded circulation
of his teachings, and since Luria had uttered his ideas in a state of mys-
tical inspiration, those teachings unsurprisingly varied in form.^20
It does not help in the investigation of Luria’s real teachings that his
disciples were themselves in many cases powerful personalities with a
deep commitment to mysticism, which was their reason for attraction
to the charismatic Luria in the first place. Prime among these was
Hayyim Vital, probably a native of Safed although his father seems to
have come from southern Italy. Vital was a sufficiently restless spirit to
have dabbled in alchemy in his early twenties. The period of just under
two years which he spent in his late twenties as Luria’s leading disciple
was to shape the rest of his life. In the years immediately following
Luria’s death, Vital wrote down the teachings of his master in a book
which he called Ets Hayyim (‘The Tree of Life’), but both he and his son
made many alterations to the text over the following years, so that dif-
ferent versions circulated. Other disciples of Luria produced their own
competing versions. Striking evidence of the struggle over Luria’s heri-
tage was the need for a formal agreement in 1575 by twelve of Luria’s
disciples to study Luria’s theories only from Vital, and not to force Vital
to reveal more than he wished (or themselves to reveal these secrets to
others). Vital himself moved to Jerusalem in 1577 and eventually to
Damascus, where he put together much later in his old age a sort of
autobiography, recording his dreams and actions and reflecting on his
role as preserver of Luria’s insights:
On the New Moon of Adar, in the year 5331 [6 February 1571], he [Luria]
told me that while he was in Egypt, he began to gain his inspiration. He
was informed there that he should go to the city of Safed, insofar as I,
Hayyim, resided there, so as to teach me. And he said to me that the only
reason he came to Safed, may it be rebuilt and re - established speedily