Today, the 30th of Nisan, is the yahrzeit of Rabbi Chaim b'R' Yosef Vital ז"ל. He was a close student of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero - the Ramak. After his teacher's passing, Rabbi Chaim began studying with Rabbi Yitzchak Luria - the Arizal - who had arrived in Tzefas in the year 5330 (1570 CE), and whose system of studying kabbalah was different from that of the Ramak.
Rabbi Chaim related that Ramak appeared to him in a dream a few months after his passing, and when Rabbi Chaim asked his former teacher about which kabbalistic system was studied in Olam Habah, the Ramak told him: "Both my approach and that of the Ari are true. However, the teachings of the Ari are primary. Therefore I now study only according to the approach of your master.”
Rabbi Chaim also described an incident that marked his initiation into the Arizal's teachings: “When I [first] came to the sainted master [the Ari] to study, he took me with him aboard a boat on the Kinneret. Then, at a location opposite the Old Synagogue of Tiberius, he dipped a cup into the water and gave it to me to drink. He told me that now I would be able to understand his teachings, for I had tasted water from the well of Miriam [which is hidden in the Kinneret]. From that moment on I was able to enter the depth of this wisdom.”
