Rav Chaim Yosef Dovid Azulai

The Lots in Beis El

It is told that in Beis El, the yeshiva of the mekubalim in Yerushalayim, the Rashash taught a circle of future giants of Kabbalah, among them Rabbeinu Yom Tov Algazi and the Chida. After they had absorbed the revealed Torah, they turned to its hidden depths, and the group bound itself to a set of takanos (spiritual undertakings). The Chida was among its most distinguished members.

Then word spread that the Chida was leaving the group to travel abroad and raise money for the poor of Chevron. The reason soon became known. The Rashash had sensed that the moment was right in Heaven to daven for the final redemption. At his direction the members withdrew from worldly affairs, afflicted themselves, and fasted for three days without a break.

When the fast ended they heard a heavenly voice: “My sons, the time is not yet ripe, and you have no right to force it. One of you must also endure the hardship of golus.” No name was mentioned, so they drew lots, and the lot fell on the Chida.

Soon afterward the men of Chevron came to ask him to travel for them. They had hoped that his name and his powerful speech would draw generous gifts, but they had not expected him to agree so quickly. He left at once by way of Egypt, and his travels took him to Livorno, across most of Italy and on to the German lands.

The Chida Who Would Not Speak

Early in his travels, the Chida was welcomed warmly and with great honor. His fame had gone ahead of him, the rabbonim already studied his seforim, and a few of the laymen recognized him. In much of Europe, though, his name was still unfamiliar, and wherever he went people asked to see a letter of approbation that would vouch for him.

Somewhere on the exhausting road, the Chida lost all his papers. In the next city he introduced himself to the rov, but he had nothing to show that he was truly the Chida and not an impostor. The rov demanded that he say some of the chiddushim found in the Chida's seforim, since a person who knew them well would have proven himself.

The Chida refused. His assistant, Chacham Shmuel Ben Chaim, urged him to speak, warning that the townspeople would drive him out in disgrace and nothing would be collected for the poor. The Chida would not move. He was mocked and humiliated, and finally he wrote to Chevron asking them to send new papers quickly.

When the letter arrived, the elders of the city apologized again and again and begged him to speak. They asked why he had not simply told them some Torah and spared himself the shame. The Chida answered, “Where people know me and ask me to speak words of Hashem or to draw hearts close to our Father in Heaven, I do not refuse, for that is the purpose of man, to bring glory to the Torah. But I cannot use Torah to win honor for myself. You wished to test me through Torah and make me display myself with it, and that is not permitted. I preferred to be suspected of fraud rather than use the crown of Torah for my own benefit.” The people were deeply moved and quickly collected a large sum for his cause.

The Blessing of Aharon HaKohen

Rav Yekusiel Yehuda of Sanz-Klausenberg told this account one Shalosh Seudos. Although the Chida was among the younger talmidim of the Ohr HaChaim, his rebbi admired him greatly and drew him close. The Ohr HaChaim gave him a special berachah, that he should be sanctified from Heaven with the kedushah of Aharon HaKohen. At first the Chida understood this to mean that he would be able to bless Klal Yisroel with love, as the Kohanim do. The real meaning, it is told, was revealed only decades later.

In his old age, in Livorno, the Chida refused again and again to accept a rabbonus. He preferred to learn without interruption, and he held no official title, yet everyone recognized his greatness. One day a community leader came to him with a complaint that his wife had been seen alone with another man. The Chida ruled that the man must divorce her, and that she would lose her kesubah. The dayanim were stunned that he would rule without testimony, but they did not dare to object.

The Chida had the woman brought to the place in the beis medrash where he sat learning. He tried gently to persuade her to accept a get, but she answered him with insolence. As she did, he remembered the berachah of his rebbi. He asked her for one favor, that she listen while he read a passage of the Torah, and she agreed.

He took out a Sefer Torah and began to read Parshas Naso, the section about the sotah. Partway through, the woman began to walk away. She reached the stairs just as the Chida finished the last words. Her foot stopped on the step, her face twisted, and with a cry she fell and died. People ran to the scene as she took her last breath, and they saw the miracle.

The Chida Comes Home

It is told that in the late 1950s, Dr. Shlomo Umberto Nachon of Livorno heard that the Italian authorities intended to run a highway across the Jewish cemetery where the Chida lay buried. He alerted Rav Yitzchak Nissim, the Rishon LeTzion, and together they decided that the moment had come to bring the Chida to Eretz Yisroel. Dr. Nachon made the arrangements with the authorities.

In 1960 Rav Nissim asked Rav Mordechai Eliyohu, then thirty-one and known for his deep familiarity with the Chida's writings, to lead a group of Sephardic rabbonim in reburying the Chida's bones in Yerushalayim. The group included the Baba Sali, Rav Yisroel Abuchatzeira, and his brother the Baba Haki, Rav Yitzchok Abuchatzeira, the chief rav of Ramle, who knew the laws of burial well.

At Lod Airport the Chida's bones arrived in a small wooden box, and Rav Eliyohu was horrified. He had a larger coffin brought, asked two drivers to immerse in a mikveh and buy a screwdriver, and cut an opening in the bottom of the new coffin so that nothing would separate the bones from the earth. When the small coffin was opened, he reached in to arrange the bones, but he began to tremble and closed his eyes. In a broken voice he asked the Chida to please do this himself.

Immediately a powerful sound was heard, the coffin shook, and the bones rattled against its walls. The other rabbonim fainted. Rav Eliyohu stayed conscious, and later said that his absorption in the mitzvah kept him standing. The shaking went on until, bone by bone, the entire skeleton lay in order.

Thousands escorted the Chida from Sanhedria to Har HaMenuchos. Rav Eliyohu described what had happened as absolute miracles, and he later announced that anyone who needed a personal salvation should daven at the Chida's kever. Fifty years later Rav Eliyohu himself was buried near the Chida. Many Jews have since made pilgrimages to the kever or left kvittlach there, asking the Chida to plead for them in the Heavenly court.

Sweet to Mordechai, Bitter to Haman

The Midrash teaches that Hadassah, the myrtle, is Esther: sweet-smelling but bitter in taste, so she was sweet to Mordechai and bitter to Haman. The Chida explains, as recorded by the talmidim of the Arizal, that Esther was a gilgul of Chava, the Serpent was clothed in Haman, and Mordechai was a gilgul of Yaakov. Esther, as Chava, was therefore bitter to the Serpent who had led her to sin. The Bnei Yissaschar adds that the sense of smell is the only one not mentioned in the sin of Adam, so it was never damaged and gives pleasure to the soul, which is why her scent was sweet to Mordechai. Taste, by which the Serpent seduced Chava, was bitter for Haman.

Dvash L'Fi 5:2, as cited in Bnei Yissaschar, Adar 7:10

Yaakov's Bow and Mordechai's Refusal

The Sefer HaKinuyim teaches that Mordechai was a gilgul of Yaakov and Haman a gilgul of Esav. Yaakov bowed to Esav seven times, and Mordechai repaired this by refusing to bow to Haman. The Chida asks how the most perfect of the Avos could bow to a wicked man. His answer is that Yaakov did nothing wrong, since he was bowing to the Shechinah that was coming to meet him. The fault that needed repair was that he gave his wives and children the impression that he was bowing to Esav. Mordechai corrected that impression by refusing to bow.

Teachings of the Chida on Bereishis 33:3, citing Sefer HaKinuyim