Hayyirn Vital (1542-1620), one of the
greatest Kabbalists, lived in Safed, Palestine, where he was a disciple
of Yitzhaq Luria and the interpreter of his teachings. The following dreams
are described in Vital's Sefer haHezyonot ("Book of Visions").
I dreamt: I was standing on top of the great mountain to
the west of Safed, at the beginning of the mountain. In the middle it
has two great peaks which are toward the village of Meron. And I heard
a voice proclaim and say: "Behold, the Messiah is come!" And
behold, the Messiah stood before me, and he blew the shofar, and thousands
and myriads from Israel gathered around him.
And he said to me: "Come with me, and you will see the vengeance
of the destruction of the Temple." And we went there. And he fought
there, and smote all the Christians who were there. And he entered the
Temple and killed also those who were in it. And he commanded all the
Jews and said to them: "My brethren, cleanse yourselves and our Temple
of the defilement of the blood of the bodies of the uncircumcised and
the defilement of the idolatry which is in it."
And we cleansed ourselves and rebuilt the Temple on its site, and offered
up the daily sacrifice through the hands of the High Priest who had the
likeness of my neighbor R. Israel Halevi. And I asked the Messiah: "How
can a Levite be a priest?" And he said to me: "You were in error
when you thought that he was a Levite; in fact, he is a Kohanite."
Thereafter he brought out the Tora scroll from the sanctuary of the Temple
and read from it. And I woke up.
(Hayyim Vital, Sefer Hahezyonot, p. 41)
On the twenty-sixth of Heshvan I dreamt a great dream but
I remember only this small part of it:
I saw a certain man, a good friend of mine, bringing me a letter of the
size of one-half of our usual papers, written in large Assyrian [Hebrew]
characters, similar to the letters of the script of our Tora scrolls.
And he put it into my hand and said to me: "You have always been
desirous to see the handwriting of the Messiah, king of Israel. Behold,
I brought it to you from a land more distant than two years [journey],
from the place where the [lost] tribes live. But I brought it to you in
a hurry, in a short time, and it is written by the hand of the Messiah
himself, and he sent it to you."
Then I made him swear three times that it was true that it was the handwriting
of the Messiah himself, and that he himself had sent it to me especially.
And he swore to me that it was absolutely true. And I opened it and, behold,
in its beginning he wrote many greetings as is usual in letters, and after
that he wrote at length and in a general way to let me know that he was
already preparing to come to the Land of Israel, and that therefore I
must make efforts to turn Israel to repentance so that this should be
a help for him when he will come soon.
(Ibid, pp. 71-72).
In my dream ... in the night of the Sabbath, the twenty-seventh
of the month of Av, in the year 5368 of the Creation [1608 C.E.], I saw
that I was going to Jubr [a town in Syria, near Damascus], to the synagogue,
to observe the eve of the New Moon. And as I was walking on the road,
I met a man, most splendid in appearance, and he asked me whether we have
made peace with the sage, our master, the divine rabbi, may the Merciful
One preserve him. And I answered him that we have agreed to make peace
with him. And then he said to me: "if you only knew who that sage
is, you would go to his house early in the morning and late in the evening
to kiss his hands and feet, to shelter under his wings.” I answered
him: “Do I not know that he is very great in wisdom?” he said
to me: “The whole world knows that he is great in wisdom, but you
do not know who he is.” Then I importuned him to tell me who he
is. He said: “he is the Messiah…”
(Ibid.,p. 241)
Source: The Messiah Texts, Raphael Patai, Wayne
State University Press