Chacham Mordechai Tzemach Eliyahu

Early years

Chacham Mordechai Tzemach Eliyahu zt"l was born in 1929 in the Jewish Quarter of Yerushalayim. His father, Rav Suliman Eliyahu, was a Kabbalist of Iraqi origin and a talmid of the Ben Ish Chai. His mother, Mazal, was a sister of Rav Yehuda Tzadka and a grandniece of the Ben Ish Chai. His siblings were his elder brother Naim Ben Eliyahu, a brother Shimon, and a younger sister, Rachel.

The family was poor, and young Mordechai found his own ways to learn, often by candlelight. His father passed away when he was eleven, but not before instilling in him a deep love for Torah and for Kabbalah. As a young man he learned at the Porat Yosef yeshiva, where his teachers included Rav Ezra Attiya and Rav Sadqa Hussein, and he also learned from the Chazon Ish. He later came into contact with Rav Mordechai Sharabi, Rav Yaakov Mutzafi and Rav Yitzchok Kaduri, and in later years he formed a close bond with the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

Outreach and youthful zeal

As a teenager he joined Shabtai Yudelevitz in outreach to other Jews. In 1950 and 1951 he was among the leaders of Brit HaKanaim, a religious underground that acted against the spread of secularism in the country. Its members burned cars driven on Shabbos and butcher shops selling non-kosher meat, and once planned to set off a smoke bomb inside the Knesset while it debated conscripting religious women. The plan was never carried out, since the member inside lacked an opportunity.

The group's members were arrested on 14 May 1951, and Rav Mordechai was sentenced to ten months in prison. At his trial he explained that they had wanted to give Jews a sense of Jewish pride. In later years he said that although his convictions had not changed, the path he had chosen then was mistaken, and that the Torah itself is unchanging but the way to bring it to the people had to change.

Torah and leadership

Rav Mordechai received semichah from the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Rav Yitzchok Nissim, who asked him to arrange for the Chida to be brought from Livorno, Italy, to Eretz Yisroel. On 17 May 1960 the Chida was laid to rest on Har HaMenuchot in Yerushalayim.

That same year he was appointed dayan in Beersheva, the youngest in the country, and he was often involved in complicated family cases. It is told that the Baba Sali, who lived in nearby Netivot, was especially fond of him. One day the Baba Sali insisted that Rav Mordechai drop everything and come for a glass of arak. Reluctant to offend the tzaddik, he went. Only afterward did he learn that a disgruntled former litigant had gone to the beis din looking to harm him.

Four years later he was transferred to the regional beis din in Yerushalayim, and he was later elected to the Supreme Rabbinical Court there, a position he kept throughout his term as Chief Rabbi and afterward.

Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisroel

On 18 March 1983 he was installed as Rishon LeZion, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisroel, in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, at the Yochanan Ben Zakai Synagogue. He served alongside the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Rav Avraham Shapira, until both terms ended in 1993.

A central goal of his tenure was to reach secular Israelis and help them understand Jewish customs and why they matter. He traveled widely in Eretz Yisroel and abroad, often with Rav Shapira, stressing Jewish education, Shabbos observance, taharas hamishpacha, the fight against assimilation, and aliyah. He was willing to go to secular settings to speak to fellow Jews, and sometimes lectured in secular moshavim and kibbutzim.

Teachings and seforim

After leaving his official post, Rav Mordechai became even more active for the Jewish community in Eretz Yisroel and abroad. He worked to preserve the Iraqi Jewish nusach and the rulings of the Ben Ish Chai, and he differed with Rav Ovadia Yosef over his effort to establish a single Israeli Sephardic custom based on the Shulchan Aruch and on his personal halachic views. His siddur, Kol Eliyahu, reflects this approach.

He ranked among the spiritual guides of Religious Zionism and spoke out forcefully against the 2005 Gaza disengagement. He taught that Orthodox Jews should not take part in or assist the removal of Jews from Gaza, and he later clarified that he had not meant to call for active refusal by soldiers. In 2006 he urged the public not to vote for parties that had backed the disengagement and to support parties committed to religious education and yeshivos. He had long supported Rav Meir Kahane, was close to his family, officiated at the wedding of his son, Binyamin Zeev Kahane, and delivered the hesped at Rav Meir Kahane's funeral. He was also a longtime supporter of Jonathan Pollard and served as his spiritual mentor while Pollard was in prison.

Later years and passing

At the age of twenty-four Rav Mordechai married Tzviya, daughter of his rebbi, Rav Shmuel Azran. They had three sons, Shlomo, a lawyer, Rav Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Tzfas, and Rav Yosef Eliyahu, who heads Darchei Hora'ah LeRabbanim, as well as a daughter, Merav.

Rav Mordechai suffered from a heart condition. On 24 August 2009 he collapsed at home and was rushed unconscious to the hospital. He passed away on 25 Sivan 5770 (7 June 2010) at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Yerushalayim, at the age of eighty-one. An estimated 100,000 people attended his levayah, which began at ten that night. He was buried on Har HaMenuchot beside the Chida.

Legacy

He established the Darchei Hora'ah LeRabbanim yeshiva in Yerushalayim's Kiryat Moshe neighborhood, today led by his son, Rav Yosef Eliyahu, as well as the Heichal Yaakov Synagogue, which bears the name of Jacob Safra.

His published seforim include Maamar Mordechai on the laws of prayer; Darchei Taharah on taharas hamishpacha; Machzor Kol Yaakov for the Yomim Tovim; Siddur Kol Eliyahu (1998); Kitzur Shulchan Aruch of Rav Shlomo Ganzfried with his notes, Darchei Halachah, for both Ashkenazim and Sephardim (1999); Shu"t HaRav HaRashi; Shu"t Kol Eliyahu; and the Torah commentary Divrei Mordechai.