IMAGES OF THE SOUL IN THE SHAAR HA-GILGULIM (“GATE OF

REINCARNATION”) BY RABBI CHAIM VITAL

DR. BARRY HAMMER

Chaim (Hayyim) Vital’s book, Shaar Ha-Gilgulim, is based on the views of his kabbalistic teacher, Rabbi
Isaac Luria, combined with some of Vital’s own original ideas. In my reading of sections of this book,
Vital’s superior soul-type, (which he refers to as the neshomah hadasha or neshoma elyonah) seems
similar to the tragic hero of the Hellenic and Elizabethan theater. Both the tragic hero and Vital’s master
soul are larger-than life daring personalities, who are beset by a major flaw that sometimes brings about
their downfall. However, Vital’s hero is rescued not by the Deus Ex Machina of the ancient Greek stage,
nor by the grace of a messianic savior, as in the theology of Pauline Christianity of the Sabbataean
movement. Instead, it is only through the study of the Torah that the practice of mitzvoth (biblical and
rabbinic commandments) that Isaac Luria’s disciple Vital urges his readers to extricate their souls from
the clutches of the kelipot, or demonic forces of evil, described as “husks” or “shells” that parasitically
cover over and derive their nourishment from forces of goodness or holiness. According to Vital’s
rendering of Luria’s teachings, fulfilling each precept of the Torah purifies one of 613 corresponding
parts of one’s spiritual body, when performed with proper devotion and kabalistic insight. Likewise, each
of four ascending levels of Torah study, denoted by the Talmudic acronym “Pardes,” repairs a
corresponding aspect of the soul.1

Vital maintains that heroic human effort is needed in order to redeem the cosmos, as well as oneself,
since the physical world of Asiyah (the “World of Action”) was seriously damaged by the cosmic
catastrophe known in Lurianic Kabbalah as “The Breaking of the Vessels,” as were the higher spiritual
“worlds” of Yetzirah and Beriyah, while the highest spiritual world of Atzilut remains intact. Likewise,
God’s wholeness and wellbeing can either by enhanced or impaired depending on human conduct.
Human sin tends to estrange the divine parzufim, or male and female aspects of God, from each other,
whereas they are reconciled when the mitzvoth (divine commandments) are performed with the
necessary enthusiasm and theurgical intentions. 2 The writings of Vital, and of later Kabbalists who were
influenced by his rendition of Luria’s teachings, suggest various complex kavanot, or arcane mystical
intentions, to be kept in mind at the time of performing the commandments, or engaging in sacred
studies, in order to invest those activities with redemptive power. 3

In Christian theology and Hindu mythology, God takes on hum form, as the “Word made flesh,” or the
Avatar, in order to provide spiritual salvation to sinful human beings, whereas Vital’s writings indicate
that God is, in effect, rescued through the ability of His human worshippers to comprehend, reunify, and
thereby heal His inner being through their visionary ascent to higher levels of spiritual reality. Vital’s
conviction that the Kabbalist is responsible to redeem God, the cosmos, the Jewish people, and his own
soul through bold, strenuous, dangerous acts of contemplative activity imbues his writing with a tone of
epic heroism. 4
Likewise, there is a strong undertone of epic tragedy in Shaar ha-Gilgulim and other writings by Chaim
Vital, which is derived in part from his view that daring souls who aspire to achieve spiritual greatness
can run the risk of inadvertently facing sinful temptations as part of that quest, and in part that sense of
epic tragedy is also derived from Vital’s view that many, but not all, human souls were seriously defiled
and reduced in spiritual stature by the “Original Sin” of the biblical Adam, variously referred to as Adam
ha-Rishon or Adam Qadmon in Shaar ha-Gilgulim. Vital identifies the biblical Adam with the humanoid
spiritual “body” of God, and as the divine oversoul, the Sephirotic “Tree of Life” in which all individual
human souls abide, and are organically rooted. Since most human souls participated in Adam’s sin,
except for a minority who withdrew from him in protest on the eve of his transgression, he and they lost
their original immense stature and radiant spiritual brightness. This sin also caused most souls to
become trapped and imprisoned within the Kelipot, whose tenacious grip makes escape extremely
difficult. In fact, the greatest souls are often the most deeply trapped and seriously defiled, since those
parasitic “husks” cling to them with extra vigor in hopes of continuing to be nourished by their unusually
abundant degree of spiritual light and vitality, which is why great souls can be involuntarily beset by
great temptations as a form of spiritual danger that parallels their daring ambition to ascend to the
greatest possible heights of holiness or spiritual development and insight. Without that abundant
nourishment, provided by lofty souls, the kelipot would lose most of their evil power and ultimately be
starved to death. Since many extraordinary souls are infected and concealed in this manner, a person’s
inner spiritual potential may not necessarily be recognized by himself and others. 5

Isaiah Tishby contents that Vital’s description of the “fallen zaddik” prefigures and directly influenced
the antinomian theology of the Sabbatean movement 6, which was deemed heretical by mainstream
rabbinic leaders of the Jewish community. According to Sabbatean theology, the apostasy of Sabbatai
Zevi (the Sabbatean “Messiah”) from Judaism to Islam served a crucial soteriological
(redemptive)purpose by enabling him to redeem immense forces of good trapped within the kelipot
which he could then utilize in order to perfect creation. Likewise, various other systematic
transgressions of biblical and rabbinic law committed by Sabbatai Zevi and many of his adherents were
justified as having a redemptive effect. Although Vital himself clearly did not subscribe to this
antinomian doctrine, he does indicate that God sometimes makes lofty souls appear to be sinners in
order to protect them from the “accusations of Satan;” or the “Sitra Achra” (the evil “Other Side” of
Holiness) i.e., to prevent them from being subject to undue excessive temptation. Vital mentions the
righteous Biblical patriarch Abraham being born as son of the sinful idolator Terah as an example of this
kind of ruse by which God and the zaddik (righteous person) rescues others from the evil forces. 7

Ironically, Vital employs the biblical villain Cain as one of his leading models of the tragic hero, based on
the premise that he originally occupied a higher spiritual level than his brother Abel, but later fell into
sin due to his impetuous eagerness to risk that exalted rank in hopes of ascending even higher in his
spiritual development. Apparently, Vital’s view is that this impetuous eagerness to risk one’s spiritual
and worldly security for the sake of continued spiritual growth is praiseworthy even if it proves
unsuccessful and leads to tragic consequences. Similarly, Vital describes Esau (another biblical figure
viewed as an arch-villain in most postbiblical Jewish texts) as originally occupying a higher spiritual level
than his righteous brother Jacob, but Jacob was able to supplant Esau and raise himself from the lowest
spiritual level of “heel,” i.e. representing the lowest Sephirah Malchut or Shekhinah, to higher Sephirot
(plural of Sephirah, i.e., levels of God’s spiritual body in which individual human souls abide) such as
Tipheret and Hokhmah, by working extremely hard to develop himself spiritually 8 In fact, Vital describes
himself as a great soul who worked his way up from captivity to the kelipoth, and he identifies himself as
possessing aspects of the soul sparks of Cain and the Talmudic Rabbi Akiba/Akiva. Vital suggests that
Rabbi Akiba was another individual who worked his way up from the lowest level of the “heel” to the
greatest heights of spiritual development. 9 Thus, Vital describes the spiritual hero as being willing to
risk great danger, including great temptation, in order to achieve the greatest heights of spiritual
development, involving ascending to and reunifying the Divine Parents, Abba and Imma, respectively
representing the high Sephirot or divine attributes Hokhmah and Binah, as well as unifying a lower divine
couple, Tipheret and Malchut or Shekhinah . 10

Paradoxically, lofty souls such as Vital and his favorite biblical protagonists have both greater spiritual
potential and more vulnerability to the kelipot; i.e., more vulnerability to being tempted by the “evil
inclination” than do innocent, cautious souls. “New souls” are classified by Vital as being on a
significantly higher spiritual level than the “old souls” even though the latter group began their cycles of
reincarnation earlier than the former group. Old souls need to undergo reincarnation in order to perfect
themselves over a series of lifetimes, whereas new souls can perfect themselves in a single lifetime, and
then have no need to reincarnate, because of their inherently higher level of spiritual status.

Nevertheless, a superior new soul is more likely to fall prey to sin and to self-doubt than is an inferior old
soul, since it is impelled by greater spiritual ambition to take dangerous risks in hopes of ascending to an
even higher level of holiness. An old soul will typically avoid those risks, together with the opportunities
for continued growth and insight which they entail, since it is by nature cautious. 11

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:

Chaim Vital did not take credit for the Kabbalistic teachings presented in his writings, but instead
attributed them to his teacher Isaac Luria. Vital claimed that he was scrupulously careful to record
Luria’s teachings in an accurate and thorough manner. Although Vital claims that most of these
teachings were directly transmitted to him by Luria, he also acknowledged including elements of Luria’s
teachings originally received by other disciples of the Ari (Luria) that he considered to be reliable. 12

The consensus of contemporary scholarship is that Vital’s interpretation of Luria’s teachings is indeed
authentic, on the whole. Nevertheless, Gershom Scholem notes that some other credible versions of
Luria’s teachings exist, including those of Joseph ibn Tabul and several anonymous writings. Scholem’s
view is that only those teachings that are found both in the writings of Hayyim Vital and of Joseph ibn
Tabul “may safely be regarded as the authentic Lurianic doctrine.” 13 Scholem contends that a third
version of Luria’s teachings, that of Rabbi Israel Sarug, is completely inauthentic, since Sarug apparently
never had direct contact with the Ari, but instead based his interpretation on a combination of Vital’s
writings and his own original ideas.14 The versions of Sarug and of Vital both had a considerable
historical impact, whereas ibn Tabul’s interpretation was virtually ignored until the Twentieth Century. 15
REFERENCE NOTES
1) Rabbi Chaim Vital, Shaar ha-Gilgulim (Jerusalem: Keren Hossaath Sifre Rabbane Babbell,
produced by the Old City Beth El Yeshiva of Kabbalists and Hasidim, 1981, with the
commentary B’nai Aaron by Shimon Agassi), Chapter or Introduction (Hakdamah) 11, pages
86-111,Chapter 30, pages 221-223, and passim.
2) Ibid.
3) For further information on this topic, the reader is referred to the following article by
Lawrence Fine; “The Contemplative Practice of Yihudim in Lurianic Kabbalah;” in Arthur
Green, Ed., Jewish Spirituality from the Sixteeenth Century Revival to the Present (New York:
Crossroad Press, 1987), 99-126.
4) Vital, Shaar ha-Gilgulim, chapters 12-18, pages111-136 and passim.
5) Ibid., chapter 38, pages 322-370 and passim.
6) Isaiah Tishby, Torat ha-Ra ve ha-Klipoth be-Kabbalat ha-Arizal. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press,
1983-4), 131-2. Cf. Vital Shaar ha-Gilgulim, chapter 21, pages 141-152
7) Vital, Shaar ha-Gilgulim, Chapter 15, pages 122-125.
8) Ibid., Chapter 29, pages 208-210, chapter 31, pages 229-241, chapter 38, page334, and
passim.
9) Ibid., Chapter 31, pages 234-6, Chapter 38, 334-336, 352-3, 340, 358, 369 and passim.
10) Ibid., Chapter 18, pages 134-5, chapter 24, pages 175-179, chapter 29, page 219 and passim.
11) Ibid., Chapter 7, pages 64-76, Chapter 12, pages 111-116, Chapter 39, page 371 and passim.
12) S.A. Horodezky, Lurianic Kabbalah and Hayyim Vital (Jerusalem: Kemah Publs., no date
listed), 31-33. (Hebrew).
13) Gershom G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. (New York: Schocken Books, 1961),
254.
14) Ibid., 257-8.
15) Ibid., 254-8.