Tag Archives: Kabbalah

Jew of the Week: Baba Sali

A Modern Miracle Worker

Rabbi Israel Abuhatzeira (1889-1984) was born on Rosh Hashanah in Tafilalt, Morocco to a long line of Sephardic rabbis and miracle-workers. (His grandfather was the famed Abir Yakov, who was himself a grandson of Rabbi Shmuel Abuhatzeira, who had studied with Rabbi Chaim Vital, a disciple of the great Arizal.) The young Israel grew up on an estate that included a yeshiva and a beit din (the local Jewish courthouse), surrounded by wise scholars, judges, and mystics. By the age of 12, Israel was recognized as a child prodigy, and already began living the life of a mystic – fasting regularly, rising at midnight to pray and meditate – while hiding it all from his parents. He married at 16. After his father passed away and his older brother was murdered, the community begged him to take over as the town rabbi. Although only 22 years old, and exceedingly humble and modest, he eventually accepted. Within a decade, he was famous across Morocco, and as far as Israel, as a wise rabbi, a saint and a miracle-worker. On his first trip to the Holy Land, it is said that he reopened the Arizal’s ancient synagogue, which had been sealed off for years due to an apparent curse. Though he wished to stay in the Holy Land, Rabbi Abuhatzeira returned to Morocco to take care of his community. When the conditions for Jews in Morocco deteriorated even further after the founding of the State of Israel, Rabbi Abuhatzeira took it upon himself to facilitate Moroccan Jewry’s migration back to their Promised Land. He made the move himself in 1950. By then, he carried a new title: Because his prayers and blessings were known to always came true, he was referred to as Baba Sali, the “Praying Father”. The main possessions that he brought over from Morocco were 30 crates of books and manuscripts, together with thousands of pages of his own holy writings. He is considered one of the greatest kabbalists and holiest rabbis of recent decades. He was sought after not only by Jews, but by Arabs as well, and stories of his miracles abound. He took ill several months after his 94th birthday, and passed away soon after. The Baba Sali’s funeral was attended by over 100,000 people, and his grave in the town of Netivot is now a popular pilgrimage site. His yahrzeit begins tonight.

24 Amazing Torah Prophecies That Came True

Words of the Week

A man’s kind deeds are used by God as seeds for the planting of trees in the Garden of Eden; thus, each man creates his own Paradise. The reverse is true when he commits transgressions.
– Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch

Jew of the Week: Itzhak Bentov

The Amazing Life of Israel’s First Rocket Scientist

Itzhak Bentov

Itzhak Emery Bentov (1923-1979) was born in Czechoslovakia. After most of his family, including both parents, were killed in the Holocaust, Bentov settled on a kibbutz in the Negev. He soon joined the nascent Israeli Science Corps. In 1948, the corps was absorbed into the IDF as its official military research arm (heil hamadah). Although having no formal background or degree in science, Bentov quickly demonstrated his genius. Among other things, he designed Israel’s very first rocket, which was used successfully in the War of Independence. This marked the birth of Israel’s now world-famous military research and weapons development program. Out of the heil hamadah would be born RAFAEL, the organization tasked with developing Israel’s state-of-the-art rocketry, including the Iron Dome and the new David’s Sling missile system. Bentov moved to the US in 1954 and opened up his own workshop. There, he came up with dozens of new inventions, his most famous being the life-saving steerable heart catheter. Teaming up with a businessman, he founded Medi-Tech, which grew quickly and eventually became Boston Scientific, now a multi-billion dollar company with 29,000 employees worldwide. With dozens of patents for vital medical technologies under his belt, Bentov is considered a pioneer of the biomedical engineering industry. Full of great ideas, he was known as “Invention-a-Minute Ben”. At the same time, Bentov was a very spiritual person and was particularly drawn to the exploration of consciousness. After years of meditation and study, in 1977 he published his bestselling book, Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness. Many credit this book with launching the field of consciousness studies. Intriguingly, Bentov invented a seismograph which could record the vibrations of the aorta (the main artery coming out of the heart). He demonstrated that when a person meditates, the aorta’s vibrations tune to the beat of the heart, and synchronize with the brain’s alpha waves, and the Earth’s own magnetic pulsations. Bentov became a leading researcher on paranormal and supernatural phenomena, working alongside the renowned Dr. Andrija Puharich and Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell (who founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences to study the paranormal after returning from the moon and reporting a supernatural experience). In his second prized book, A Brief Tour of Higher Consciousness, Bentov synthesized the findings of modern physics and neurology with ancient mystical and Kabbalistic teachings. Bentov was famous for his vast array of knowledge, his ability to speak 11 languages, as well as his sense of humour. Sadly, he died in a plane crash at the young age of 56. His daughter recently published a book about his incredible life, called The Book of Telling: Tracing the Secrets of My Father’s Lives.

Why Do We Play With a Dreidel on Chanukah?

Chanukah & the Light of Creation

Words of the Week

We are all part of a gigantic hologram called Creation, that is everybody’s Self… a cosmic game where nothing exists apart from you.
– Itzhak Bentov

Jews of the Week: Rav Saragossi and the Radbaz

Two Inspiring Sages

Tomb of Rabbi Yosef Saragossi in Ein Zeitim, Israel

Yosef Saragossi (1460-1507) was born to a religious Sephardic family, either in Saragossa, Spain, or in Syracuse, Sicily. He became a respected rabbi at a young age. Around the time of the Spanish Expulsion of 1492, Rav Saragossi settled in Tzfat. He discovered a tiny community of just 300 poorly-educated Jews, with not a single full-time rabbi among them. Rav Saragossi revived the three synagogues in the city and founded new schools, reinvigorating Jewish life. His yeshiva soon attracted students from far and wide. Within a century, Tzfat was a major centre of Jewish learning, and the capital of Jewish mysticism. There, Rabbi Yosef Karo would produce the Shulchan Arukh, still the central code of Jewish law, and there the Arizal (Rabbi Isaac Luria) revealed his Kabbalistic system, forever revolutionizing Judaism. Rav Saragossi was beloved not only by Tzfat’s Jews, but by its Muslim residents, too. In fact, the Muslim governor at the time paid two-thirds of Rav Yosef’s salary just to keep him from leaving. Rav Saragossi’s tomb remains an important pilgrimage site, and is known as a place of miracles. Because of one such miracle involving 500 white hens, he has been called Tzadik haLavan, “the White Saint”.

One of Rav Saragossi’s foremost students was David ben Shlomo ibn Abi Zimra (c. 1479-1589). He, too, was born in Spain, and was exiled around the time of his bar mitzvah. His family settled in Tzfat, and the young David studied in Rav Saragossi’s yeshiva. Becoming a renowned rabbi of his own (later known by his initials, Radbaz, as is common among Jewish sages), he moved to Egypt and became a member of its beit din, the Jewish court. He would soon be appointed Hakham Bashi, Egypt’s chief rabbi. Meanwhile, the Radbaz made some good investments, and became exceedingly wealthy. He built a new yeshiva in Cairo, and it was there that a young Isaac Luria, the Arizal, would get his start. After serving as Chief Rabbi for nearly forty years, writing a number of important books, and penning over 3000 responsa, the Radbaz retired at age 90. He left most of his wealth for the poor, then returned to the Holy Land. Although he wished to settle in Jerusalem, the Ottomans made it difficult for Jews to live there, so the Radbaz returned to Tzfat. He was immediately placed on the highest beit din, alongside Rav Yosef Karo. The Radbaz merited to live many more years, inspiring a new generation of rabbis, including the great Rabbi Chaim Vital. He was over 100 years old when he passed away.

Words of the Week

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
– George Eliot