Chaim Yosef David Azulai

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Haim Yosef David Azulai
Personal
Born1724
Jerusalem, Ottoman Empire
Died1 March 1806(1806-03-01) (aged 81–82)
Livorno, Etruria
ReligionJudaism
ChildrenRaphael Isaiah Azulai,
Abraham Azulai
Signature

Haim Yosef David Azulai ben Yitzhak Zerachia (1724 – 1 March 1806) (

bibliophile
, and a pioneer in the publication of Jewish religious writings.

Some have speculated that his family name, Azulai, is an acronym based on being a Kohen: אשה זנה וחללה לא יקחו‎ (Leviticus, 21:7), a biblical restriction on whom a Kohen may marry.

Biography

Azulai was born in Jerusalem, where he received his education from some local prominent scholars. He was the scion of a prominent rabbinic family, the great-great-grandson of Moroccan Rabbi Abraham Azulai.[2] The Yosef part of his name came from his mother's father, Rabbi Yosef Bialer, a German scholar.[3]

His main teachers were the

chiddushim on Hilchos Melichah."[citation needed
]

In 1755, he was—on the basis of his scholarship—elected to become an emissary (shaliach) for the small Jewish community in the Land of Israel, and he would travel around Europe extensively, making an impression in every Jewish community that he visited. According to some records, he left the Land of Israel three times (1755, 1770, and 1781), living in Hebron in the meantime. His travels took him to Western Europe, North Africa, and—according to legend—to Lithuania, where he met the Vilna Gaon.

In 1755 he was in Germany, where he met the Pnei Yehoshua,[4]

Shulhan Aruch, entitled Birke Yosef, (Livorno, 1774–76). In 1777 he was in France, and in 1778 in Holland. Wherever he went, he would examine collections of manuscripts of rabbinic literature
, which he later documented in his Shem HaGedolim.

On 28 October 1778 he married, in Pisa, his second wife, Rachel; his first wife, also Rachel, had died in 1773. Noting this event in his diary, he adds the wish that he may be permitted to return to the Land of Israel. This wish seems not to have been realized. In any event, he remained in Leghorn (Livorno), occupied with the publication of his works, and died there twenty-eight years later in 1806 (Friday night, 11 Adar 5566, Shabbat Zachor).[6][3][4] He had been married twice; he had two sons by the names of Abraham and Raphael Isaiah Azulai.

Reburial in Israel

In 1956,[7] the 150th anniversary of Hida's death, Israel's Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim[8] began work on a plan

Petira
, Hida's final written wish, to return to Israel, "came true."

His early scholarship

While being a strict Talmudist, and a believer in the Kabbalah, his studious habits and exceptional memory awakened in him an interest in the history of rabbinical literature.

He accordingly began at an early age a compilation of passages in rabbinical literature in which dialectic authors had tried to solve questions that were based on chronological errors. This compilation, which he completed at age 16,[10] he called העלם דבר (Some Oversights); it was never printed.

Azulai's scholarship made him so famous that in 1755 he was chosen as meshulach, (emissary), an honor bestowed on such men only as were, by their learning, well fitted to represent the Holy Land in Europe, where the people looked upon a rabbi from the land of Israel as a model of learning and piety.

Azulai's literary activity is of an astonishing breadth. It encompasses every area of rabbinic literature:

homiletics, casuistry, Kabbalah, liturgics
, and literary history. A voracious reader, he noted all historical references; and on his travels he visited the famous libraries of Italy and France, where he examined the Hebrew manuscripts.

His works

Azulai was a prolific writer. His works range from a prayerbook he edited and arranged ('Tefillat Yesharim') to a vast spectrum of

Sephardi heritage, he appears to have been particularly fond of the Chasidei Ashkenaz (a group of Medieval German rabbis, notably Judah the Chasid
).

Shem HaGedolim

His notes were published in four booklets, comprising two sections, under the titles Shem HaGedolim

Neviim and Ketuvim
, contrary to others' opinions.

Nevertheless, he firmly believed that

Haim Vital had drunk water from Miriam's well, and that this fact enabled him to receive, in less than two years, the whole Kabbalah from the lips of Isaac Luria
(see "Ḥayyim Vital," in Shem HaGedolim). Azulai often records where he has seen in person which versions of certain manuscripts were extant.

Bibliography

A complete bibliographical list of his works is found in the preface to Benjacob's edition of Shem HaGedolim, Vilna, 1852, and frequently reprinted;

His role as Shadar

Mausoleum in Jerusalem

The Hida served the role of

shadar (shaliach derabanan), or emissary, for the Jewish community of Hebron. He left Israel twice on five-year-long fundraising missions that took him as far west as Tunisia and as far north as Great Britain and Amsterdam. The Hida collected money on behalf of the Jewish communities in Israel who suffered from poverty and persecution.[12]

The Hida, like many emissaries, was a qualified and highly regarded personality who was chosen to represent his community. A shadar often had to be able to arbitrate matters of Jewish law for the local Jewish communities Ideally, emissaries were multi-lingual so that they could communicate with both

Jew and Gentile
along the way. Emissaries had to be willing to undertake dangerous journeys mission that would separate them away from their families for so long. One in ten emissaries sent abroad for these fundraising missions never made it back alive. Emissaries would often divorce their wives before leaving, so that if they died along the way and their deaths could not be verified, their wives would be able to legally remarry. If they returned safely from their journey, they would remarry their wives, who would sometimes wait as long as five years for their husbands to return from their mission.

Moreover, the Hida records numerous instances of miraculous survival and dangerous threats of his day, among them, close scrapes with the

Knights of Malta, the hostility of the English government officials towards anyone entering the country from France or Spain, as well as those aforementioned countries' wrath against someone crossing back over from their hated enemy, England, and the daily danger of running into various anti-semitic locals and nobles throughout mainland Europe (especially Germany
).

The Hida's intact and published travel diaries, similarly to those of Benjamin of Tudela, provide a comprehensive first hand account of Jewish life and historical events throughout the Europe and Near East of his day.

Rabbinical eras

References

  1. ^ Paretzky, Zev T. The Chida: Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai: His life and the turbulent times in which he lived. Targum Press, 1998.
  2. ^ Shem HaGedolim, Livorno 1774, p. 11b. (Available on Hebrewbooks.com.) In this passage, Haim Yosef David gives the following genealogy: Abraham Azulai → Isaac Azualai → Isaiah Azulai → Isaac Zerahiah Azulai → Haim Yosef David Azulai.
  3. ^ a b "The human side of the Chida". 24 March 2013.
  4. ^ a b "This Day in History – 11 Adar/March 2". Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 30 January 2017.
  5. ^ An experience Hida described in his Shem HaGeDoLim as "I was fortunate as a young man to spend time with" ... Rabbi Pinches Friedman (12 August 2011). "Shvilei Pinches".
  6. ^ 'Codex Judaica', Mattis Kantor, p.259
  7. ^ Dr. Aaron Arend. "You shall carry up my bones from here (Parashat Beshalah 5760/2000)". Archived from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved 26 January 2017.
  8. ^ "Story about the Chida's burial facilitated by Rav Mordechai Eliyahu zt"l". 17 June 2010. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  9. ^ Azoulay, Yehuda (April 2010). "From Italy to Jerusalem". Community Magazine. Brooklyn. Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 24 January 2017.
  10. ^ Mindel, Nissan. "Rabbi Chaim Joseph David Azulai". Kehot Publication Society. Retrieved 12 February 2017.
  11. ^ Cowley, Arthur Ernest (1911). "Hebrew Literature s.v. Ḥayyīm Azulai" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 176.
  12. ^ Paretzky, Zev T. The Chida: Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai: His life and the turbulent times in which he lived. Targum Press, 1998.

External links

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