Rav Chaim Ibn Attar
The Sephardi kabbalist and author of the Ohr HaChaim on the Chumash, who founded two yeshivos in Yerushalayim and passed away at forty-seven.
Biography
Early years
Rav Chaim Ibn Attar zt"l, known as the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh, was born in 1696 in Salé, Morocco. His father, Rav Moshe ben Attar, named him after his own father, who was also named Chaim and who first taught him Torah. (Sephardim often name a child after a living parent or grandparent.) In 1705 the family fled Salé for Meknes, where they lived in the home of Chacham Moshe De Avila.
At the age of eleven he married his first wife, Patsonia, a tzadekes who even wore a tallis and tefillin. While still a young man, he became famous as a great talmid chacham and kabbalist. He lived such a saintly life that he was called HaKadosh, the holy one.
Torah and leadership
Rav Chaim traveled across Morocco, and when he reached Fez, Rav Shmuel Elbaz appointed him Rosh Yeshiva. Because he had no children, he married Esther, the daughter of Rav Meir of Fez. Traditions differ on whether he had children: some say that he and Esther had several daughters, while others say he had no children from either wife.
After the famine in Morocco in 1738, he left for Algiers and from there went to Livorno, Italy. On his way to Eretz Yisroel he spent several years in Livorno, Venice and Damascus. Wherever he lived he founded a yeshiva and a shul that bore his name, and they remained famous long after his passing. In Livorno he began preparing for the move to Eretz Yisroel.
Teachings and seforim
His seforim include Chafetz Hashem; commentaries on the Gemara; Pri Toar, on the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah; and Rishon LeTzion, a commentary. His great work is the Ohr HaChaim, his commentary on the Chumash, which is often printed alongside Rashi, the Ramban and other classic commentaries. The Ohr HaChaim was first printed in Venice in 5502, and it quickly became beloved far beyond the Sephardi world.
He is also remembered through the Chida's testimony of his holiness, in which the Chida described his Rebbe as a man whose heart beat with Gemara, who uprooted mountains like an unstoppable torrent, who was holy as an angel of Hashem, and who had cut himself off from the affairs of this world.
Later years and passing
In 1741, together with thirty of his talmidim, Rav Chaim sailed for the Holy Land and landed at the port of Acco, where they settled. He visited the kivrei tzaddikim and the kever of Rashbi in the Galil. In 1742 they arrived in Yerushalayim.
There he founded two yeshivos, one for nigleh, the revealed Torah, and one for nistar, the secrets and mysteries of Kabbalah. In a letter dated 22 Shevat 5502 to the supporters of his yeshiva in Mantua, Italy, he explained that he had named the beis medrash Heichal Ahavah, Medrash Kenesses Yisrael, “the Chamber of Love,” to awaken Hashem's love for Kenesses Yisrael, which alludes to the Shechinah. He had brought talmidim with him from the Diaspora and gained new ones in Yerushalayim, among them the great Chida. The students were to sit all day immersed in learning, speaking no mundane words, wrapped in tallis and crowned in tefillin, uniting the Shechinah as they delved into Gemara and Rambam.
In 1740 the Ottoman authorities had invited the renowned kabbalist Rav Chaim Abulafia, the rabbi of Izmir, to come to Eretz Yisroel and rebuild Teveria, which had long lain desolate. The Jews saw his mission as a sign that their hopes for Mashiach were drawing near. He re-established the yeshiva in Teveria and brought new life to the city. In 1742, Rav Chaim Abulafia met the Ohr HaChaim, who had just arrived in Eretz Yisroel. The Ohr HaChaim was his guest for nine days. Rav Abulafia pleaded with him to stay in Teveria, but the Ohr HaChaim declined.
Rav Chaim passed away at the age of forty-seven, on 15 Tammuz 5503 (1743), and was laid to rest on Har HaZeisim, the Mount of Olives.
Legacy
The Ohr HaChaim shul and yeshiva in the Old City of Yerushalayim were destroyed by the Jordanians when they held the Old City. There are plans to rebuild them.
Chassidus embraced the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh. Rav Yaakov Yosef of Skver learned the whole commentary on the weekly parsha on his own from the age of six. He said, “I don't know how I would have survived the last fifty years without the Ohr HaChaim,” and called it the first Chassidishe sefer. He taught that every word is a whole body of Yiddishkeit, that nearly all of Chassidus draws from it, and that it is the sefer most widely accepted among chassidim. He told a bochur whose yiras Shomayim had weakened to learn it, even on subjects that were not mussar, because it was a segulah for the soul, and he held that one cannot be a full Yid without learning it. On Simchas Torah he would finish the Ohr HaChaim, begin again from Bereishis, and dance with the sefer in his hands as one dances with a Sefer Torah. The Rebbe Rashab of Lubavitch commanded his son, the Rebbe Rayatz, to learn Chumash with Rashi and with the Ohr HaChaim, as one of three practices.
Once, chassidim from a kloiz in Haifa told their Rebbe, Rav Avrohom Yaakov Friedman, that they learned the Ohr HaChaim every Shabbos night but found Parshas Vayikra hard to follow, and they asked to switch to the Ramban. The Rebbe replied sharply, “If you hit a hard point in Gemara, do you stop learning?” The kloiz kept its custom. It is told that Rav Chaim Dovid, a doctor in Pietrokow who had become a baal teshuvah, wept on his sickbed. The Tiferes Shlomo comforted him that the sins of his youth would be forgotten. He answered that he wanted to do teshuvah out of love, so that his intentional sins would turn into merits, and that learning and memorizing the Ohr HaChaim every week would surely do so.
Many tzaddikim have taught that learning the Ohr HaChaim is a segulah. Rav Pinchos of Koretz said that it is a segulah for the neshamah, like learning the Zohar, since Rashbi and the Ohr HaChaim each carried the neshamah of the Moshiach of their generation, and that keeping a copy at home protects the household. When his son was ill, he told him to learn a page each day for a complete recovery. Rav Avrohom Elimelech of Karlin-Stolin said it is a segulah against the sicknesses of our time. Many Rebbes, among them the Vizhnitzer Rebbes, Rav Menachem Mendel of Deezh and Rav Avrohom Elimelech of Karlin, held a shiur in Ohr HaChaim on Leil Shishi as preparation for Shabbos. Rav Avrohom Elimelech urged his chassidim in America to learn it in groups on Thursday night, as a segulah for the pleasure of Shabbos, and later confirmed that those who did so felt a deeper sweetness. Rav Yochanan of Karlin said that it makes Yedid Nefesh on Shabbos taste different.
Chassidic tradition also holds it to be a segulah for healthy children. The practice is to learn it every Erev Shabbos, and on Leil HaSeder to learn the passage on “and you shall tell your son.” Some connect this with a tradition that he had no children because he poured that creative power into his sefer, and Rav Simcha Bunim of Ger is quoted to that effect. It is related that two married couples in Beis Shemesh without children each learned together for ten minutes a day for about a year and were then blessed with healthy children. Learning his commentary on Parshas Acharei Mos and Kedoshim is said to be a segulah for teshuvah, and on Vayikra 18:3 for yiras Shomayim. Rav Yissachar Dov of Belz told young chassanim to learn it daily, and Rav Mordechai of Lechovitch and Rav Moshe of Kobrin told their talmidim to learn his Bereishis commentary during Elul as a source of emunah.
Stories
Preparing for Kiddush
The Chida was once in the lands of Ashkenaz when one of the Admorim there asked for an account of his Rebbe's holy avodah, both in nigleh and in nistar. Among the things the Chida told him was a custom the Ohr HaChaim kept to ready himself for Kiddush on Shabbos.
It is told that each Erev Shabbos the Ohr HaChaim sat with his talmidim and went over the Rambam's Hilchos Eidus, with special attention to what makes a witness unfit to testify. Their aim was to do complete teshuvah for any such flaw in themselves.
Then, at the Kiddush itself, the Rebbe would take the cup and begin the berachah aflame with longing for teshuvah and kedushah. The feeling spread through the room, and everyone there was filled with remorse. Each of them pleaded to be worthy of standing as a kosher witness to Hashem's creation of the world in six days.
The Blessing of Aharon HaKohen
Rav Yekusiel Yehuda of Sanz-Klausenberg told this story at Shalosh Seudos. The Chida was among the younger talmidim of the Ohr HaChaim, yet his Rebbe held him dear, drew him close, and gave him a unique berachah: that he should be sanctified from Heaven with the kedushah of Aharon HaKohen.
The Chida first understood this to mean that he would be able to bless Klal Yisroel with love, as Aharon and the kohanim do. Decades later its true meaning was revealed. In his old age the Chida was in Livorno. Again and again he had refused the post of Rav, though community leaders pressed him, and he preferred to learn without interruption. His only exception was a four-year period when he served as Rav in Egypt. Even with no title, all Yidden knew his greatness.
One day a community leader told the Chida that his wife had been seen alone with another man. The Chida ruled that he must divorce her and give her a get, and that she would lose her kesubah. The dayanim were stunned that he ruled without testimony or evidence, but did not dare to object. The Chida had the woman summoned to where he sat learning and tried gently to persuade her to accept the get. She was brazen, and spoke back to him with chutzpah. As she did, the Chida remembered the berachah of his Rebbe.
He asked her to listen while he read one portion from the Torah. She agreed, and he took out a Sefer Torah and began the parshah of Naso, which describes the sotah. Partway through, she started to leave, but she did not escape in time. As she reached the stairs, the Chida read the last words. She froze with her foot on the step, her face twisted and her eyes bulging, let out a cry and fell dead. Many people ran to the scene and saw the miracle.
Why the Rebbe Was Late
Rav Chaim Yosef Arye Prager of Brisk tells of a meeting in Livorno between the Chida and Rav Dovid Ashkenazi of Bichov. Rav Dovid made his home in Teveria, and Rav Avrohom Kalisker had sent him west to raise money for the young and struggling Chassidic community there. His fundraising journey lasted about seven years.
When they spoke of the great esteem chassidim had for the Ohr HaChaim, the Chida answered with modesty. He did not think himself a real talmid, he said, only one who had learned in the Ohr HaChaim's yeshiva. He then shared a story about his Rebbe.
One day the Ohr HaChaim failed to arrive at the yeshiva at the usual time. This was so unlike him that the waiting talmidim wondered what had happened. As the delay stretched on, the Chida summoned his courage and walked to his Rebbe's house to see for himself.
They began to talk, and the Ohr HaChaim remarked casually, “I was late because I was stuck on a difficult Tosafos that I could not understand, until Rabbeinu Yitzchok, one of the Baalei Tosafos, came and explained what he meant.”
At the Kever of the Pri Chodosh
The Chida recalled a visit from his youth, when he had the privilege of accompanying the Ohr HaChaim and the talmidim of his yeshiva. It was the Rebbe's custom to take them to daven at the kevarim of tzaddikim in Yerushalayim.
At the matzeivah of the author of the Pri Chodosh, the Ohr HaChaim remained by himself for a quarter of an hour or longer. He stood praying at the kever, his lips moving, and the talmidim understood that he was begging forgiveness.
In his own sefer, Pri Toar, Rav Chaim disagrees with the Pri Chodosh and decides against him in places. He was asking pardon for that, and affirming that all he had done was purely for the sake of Heaven.
Rav Gershon of Kitov in Yerushalayim
Chassidic tradition preserves more than one account of how Rav Gershon of Kitov, the brother-in-law of the Baal Shem Tov, came to meet the Ohr HaChaim in Eretz Yisroel.
In the first account, the Ohr HaChaim's commentary on Chumash was printed in Venice in 5502 and made its way to the Baal Shem Tov. He was overjoyed to discover an author whose whole heart and soul burned with feeling for avodas Hashem. He sent Rav Gershon to Yerushalayim to visit the yeshiva of the Ohr HaChaim, and told him that there were two of them, one for nigleh and one for nistar, the hidden secrets of Kabbalah. Rav Gershon was to try to enter the second, and to keep his identity hidden until the Ohr HaChaim sensed it on his own.
Rav Gershon arrived and asked to hear a derashah. Once permission was given, he sat in the nigleh yeshiva for roughly a week, and then requested a place in the second one. “Who told you that I have a yeshiva for nistar?” the Ohr HaChaim asked. Rav Gershon explained that it was his brother-in-law, the Baal Shem. The Ohr HaChaim, who had never met him, examined him from head to toe and judged him fit to learn Kabbalah.
Three days later the Ohr HaChaim sent word that Rav Gershon was not to come back. Rav Gershon went to the Rav's home to ask why he had been barred, and the Ohr HaChaim told him, “I am angry with you. Why did you not say that your brother-in-law was the Baal Shem Tov? You only said 'Rav Yisroel Baal Shem.' I do not know of a Rav Yisroel Baal Shem, but I know the Baal Shem Tov from seeing him in the upper worlds.” Anyone who already had the Baal Shem Tov, he explained, needed no other Rebbe.
Rav Yitzchok of Neshchiz related a second version on Motzoei Shabbos Parshas Behaaloscha 5627. In it, Rav Gershon described the Baal Shem Tov to the Ohr HaChaim, who said he had heard of him and knew that his name was Yisroel. Rav Gershon also asked why the Ohr HaChaim kept in his yeshiva a talmid whose conduct did not suit a yeshiva student. The Ohr HaChaim answered, “This is our way. We draw close those who are distant. We are mekarev rechokim.”
A third version comes from the Kisvei Ri Shuv of Brisk. The Baal Shem Tov told Rav Gershon to give the Ohr HaChaim his regards, in case he did not know his own greatness, and to say that he saw him in the palace of Mashiach, where Mashiach sits on a throne and learns the Ohr HaChaim. Others say that Rav Gershon asked why the Ohr HaChaim learned with people of lowly souls. The Ohr HaChaim asked where he was from, and on hearing Polnoy, told him to return the next day. Then he said, “I saw your Rebbe, and he is a very great man.”
When Rav Gershon passed on the regards, the Ohr HaChaim replied, “I do not know what favor he does me by revealing my greatness. Tell him I saw the Angel of Death, standing with one foot on Polnoy and the other on the whole world.” This hinted at the danger facing the Jews of Europe and their need for mercy. As for learning with lowly souls, he explained that he did so to free holy sparks held captive in such places.
A Slight Touch to Awaken Him
Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi shared a story about the deveikus of the Ohr HaChaim with Rav Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev, whose child was married to his own.
A harsh decree had been issued against Klal Yisroel by the nations. The community leaders resolved to daven and to bribe officials in the hope of cancelling it, and all agreed that the Ohr HaChaim must be asked to daven for them.
They rushed to his beis medrash and found him absorbed in holy thought, so removed from the world that they dared not come near. They waited for him to rise, but hour after hour passed and nothing changed. He was in such deep deveikus that he neither answered them nor seemed to know they were there.
They knew that the lightest touch, even a brush against his clothing, would bring him back at once, and that he would gladly help in such a time. But he was exacting about his state of purity and became upset when anyone disturbed it. So they found a pure young boy, untouched by sin or wrong thoughts, brought him to the mikveh, and gave him brand-new clothes to wear. Only then did they let him touch the Ohr HaChaim's cloak, lightly and for a moment. At the touch of the child's fingers, the tzaddik awoke from his deveikus and returned to himself.
Rav Shneur Zalman concluded, “See how great the deveikus of the Ohr HaChaim was, and his love and awe of Hashem were just as lofty.”
The Two Moshiachs
This story was told by Rav Yaakov Chai Zerihan, the chief Rav of Teveria. On reaching Teveria, the Ohr HaChaim walked into the beis medrash, where Rav Chaim Abulafia was teaching his talmidim. The old Rav sat leaning against cushions and pillows placed on both sides of him. The Ohr HaChaim quietly said to himself in surprise, “Does the Torah deserve this?”
Rav Chaim Abulafia noticed him and called out, “The Chacham Chaim has come to us.” He stood up to receive him, citing the pasuk “Rise before the aged.” The two sat down to learn sugyos of Shas together, and the Ohr HaChaim marveled at his host's depth and breadth of Torah. Then Rav Abulafia said, “The Torah does deserve this and requires it, because of my age and weakness.” The Ohr HaChaim begged his forgiveness.
Afterward they went off to visit Rav Akiva's kever. To save time they hired an animal for Rav Abulafia, who was about ninety-three years old. At the cave he got down, and each insisted that the other go in first. The Ohr HaChaim sat down and wept, saying, “Woe to us, that both Moshiachs have come here together at the right time.”
A thick fog and mist settled over them, and from inside came soft whispers and quiet weeping. Those who were present later guessed that both Rav Chaims had been shown that they would leave this world a year apart. So it was. The Ohr HaChaim passed away on 15 Tammuz 5503. Rav Chaim Abulafia followed him in Nissan 5504.
The Western Candle Has Gone Out
In the year 5503, at Shalosh Seudos on Parshas Balak, the Baal Shem Tov suddenly said to his talmidim, “I believe that the Ner HaMaaravi, the Western Candle, has been put out.”
After Havdalah the talmidim asked what he had meant. He explained that the holy tzaddik, author of the Ohr HaChaim, had left the world. He knew this because there is a secret about netilas yadayim, the washing before eating bread, which is revealed to only one tzaddik in each generation. Until that day the secret had been held by the Ohr HaChaim. Now it had been revealed to the Baal Shem Tov, so he understood that he alone knew it, and that the Ohr HaChaim must no longer be in this world.
The Tractors on Har HaZeisim
Rav Chaim Uri Lipshitz used to repeat a story about the Ohr HaChaim that he had heard from Arabs.
It is told that the Jordanian authorities, who ruled Yerushalayim at that time, decided to clear away the Jewish cemetery on Har HaZeisim and rebuild the site. A tractor flattened kevarim one after another, until it came to the kever of the Ohr HaChaim, where it overturned and its driver was killed.
Undeterred, they sent a second tractor. It stopped working just as it neared that same kever. It was repaired, but then it too flipped over and its driver was badly injured. Next they sent a worker with a heavy sledgehammer to break the kever by hand, but the hammer flew from his grip and struck the foreman on the head.
Finally they conceded that a Divine Hand was at work, and they gave up. The Jordanians never tried again to harm the tziyun of the Ohr HaChaim, and in time the Bais HaChaim returned to Jewish hands.
Teachings
Why Mankind Was Created as One
The Ohr HaChaim asks why Hashem first created Adom and Chava as a single being and only later separated them, while the animals were created as male and female from the start. He answers that the Torah is marking the difference between human and animal relationships. Animals have many mates, and we never speak of one ewe as the wife of a certain ram. Only among people does a man and a woman form a lasting bond and build a family. To teach this, Hashem formed them from one body and then divided them, so that they would seek to rejoin as one flesh.
Ohr HaChaim, Bereishis (on Bereishis 2:18)
Shabbos Sustains the World
The Ohr HaChaim explains that the world was originally made to last only six days. On the seventh day Hashem blessed it and sent down an added flow of abundance, enough to carry the world through another six days, and so it goes every week. Without Shabbos, creation would return to chaos. This is why Shabbos exists only when Bnei Yisroel keep it. It is also why we may break Shabbos to save a person's life, so that he can keep many more. Someone who keeps Shabbos helps sustain creation, which explains the teaching of Chazal that whoever says Vayechulu becomes a partner with Hashem in creation (Shabbos 119b).
Ohr HaChaim, Bereishis (on Bereishis 2:3)
Why Noach Built an Ark for Himself
The Ohr HaChaim relates the command “Make yourself an ark” to the verse in Yechezkel naming Noach, Doniel and Iyov, who would save only themselves by their righteousness. Three such people can save themselves, while two or one cannot. So Noach was told to build an ark for himself, because he was not righteous enough to be saved alone, and his sons were not on his level. The Ohr HaChaim adds that Avrohom learned from Noach to ask for ten tzaddikim in Sedom. Once destruction has been released, only people as righteous as Noach can save even themselves. Before it is released, the merit of others could still have saved the world.
Ohr HaChaim, Bereishis, Noach (on Bereishis 6:14)
Seforim
- Ohr HaChaim: His commentary on the Chumash, his great work, often printed alongside Rashi, the Ramban and other classic commentaries.
- Chafetz Hashem: One of his seforim, together with his commentaries on the Gemara.
- Pri Toar: His commentary on the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah.
- Rishon LeTzion: A work of commentary in which he discusses, among other things, the Shulchan Aruch on Yoreh Deah, siman 245.
Family & talmidim
Teachers: Rav Chaim ibn Attar (his grandfather)
Talmidim: Rav Chaim Yosef Dovid Azulai (the Chida)
Also on 15 Tammuz
All hilulos on 15 Tammuz ›Historical sources
- Ner HaMaaravi
- Kuntres HaYachieli
- Shefa Chaim
- Tav Chaim
- Shem HaGedolim
- Doresh Tov Tshortkov
- Zichron Tov
- Kisvei Ri Shuv of Brisk
- Lemaan Yeidu Bonim Yivoldu
- Hillula Kadisha
- Yalkut Yosef
- Toldos Yaakov Yosef (Skver)
- Shivchei Ohr HaChaim