Sepher Derech Etz Chaim [“The Way of the Tree of Life”: Kabbalah]. Gate 27 (Sha’ar Peratei Ibur [Yenikah] Mochin) until Gate 49 (Sha’ar Kelipat Nogah)

VITAL, CHAIM.

Germany

18th Century

Several Aschkenazic hands. Customary chart of Ten Sephirot on f. 152v. On f.46r. there is an anonymous scholarly gloss concerning the relation between the sephirot of Hochmah (“Father”)) and Malchuth (“Daughter”). Another scholarly gloss on f.121v. concerns kavanoth (mystical meditations) of the prayer

MAGNUM OPUS OF RABBI CHAIM VITAL (1542-1620) Derech Etz Chaim is the authoritative summary of Lurianic kabbalah as transmitted by the master, Isaac Luria (“Ari”) to his disciple Chaim Vital Calabrese (1542-1620). Meir Poppers, disciple of Jacob Zemach, arranged this final edition of Vital’s writings by 1653. The book consists of fifty sub-sections (“she’arim” or “gates”). First published in Korets (Korzec) in 1782 by the maskil Isaac Satanov (a member of Mendelssohn’s circle), the book was entitled Sepher Etz Chaim. From a scholarly point of view, the book is a curious amalgam: The Earlier (Mahadura Kama) and Later Version (Mahadura Tinyana) of the teaching interchange throughout. See EJ, Vol. XVI, cols. 171-176. The text of the present manuscript comprises roughly the entirety of Volume II of the modern printing of Etz Chaim, Judah Zevi Brandwein ed. (Jerusalem, 1988)