Learning Ohr Hachaim Like the Zohar

A Bershader chassid related that Rav Pinchos used to say that learning the sefer Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh is a segulah for the neshamah, like learning the Zohar Hakadosh. This is because Rashbi had the soul of the Moshiach of his generation, and Rav Chaim ben Attar, the author of the Ohr Hachaim, had the soul of the Moshiach of his generation as well.

Rav Pinchos instructed his descendants, the Shapira grandsons who ran the press in Slavita, to print the Ohr Hachaim, and told them this would protect them from evil and harm. They obeyed until so many editions had been printed that there were more seforim than buyers, and they stopped. In the very year they stopped printing the Ohr Hachaim, the infamous libel against them took place and they were falsely accused.