Rav Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari
The Saba Kadisha, a great kabbalist and posek who served as Chief Rabbi of Damascus and Tzfas and spent his last years in Yerushalayim.
Biography
Early years
Rav Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari zt"l, known to all as the Saba Kadisha (the Holy Grandfather), was born in Constantinople in about 5603 (1826) to a distinguished family of talmidei chachamim. His father, Rav Yaakov, was a talmid chacham. His great-grandfather, Rav Yaakov ben Chaim Alfandari, wrote Mutzal MiEish, and his grandfather, Rav Chaim ben Yaakov Alfandari, wrote Maggid MiReishis. Chana, his mother, was descended from a distinguished family as well.
From his youth he was recognized for his sharp insight into every area of Torah. He turned down every rabbinical post and would not dress as the city's sages customarily did. He did accept a seat on the city's Spiritual Council, the Vaad Haruchani, and the Jews of the city established a yeshiva for him to head as rosh yeshiva. There he taught many outstanding talmidei chachamim, among them Rav Chaim Chizkiya Medini, who became known as the Sdei Chemed. It is told that in his youth he exchanged Torah letters with Rav Akiva Eiger.
Torah and leadership
In Constantinople he took a firm stand on a painful communal question, even though it set him against the whole community. The Jews who fled the Spanish Expulsion had been welcomed into the Ottoman Empire and freed from military service. Then Abdul Hamid II became sultan and ordered all non-Muslims to enlist. The city's rabbanim tried in vain to have the decree cancelled, and in the end the Vaad Haruchani advised the Jews of the region to comply.
Rav Shlomo Eliezer alone spoke against this path. Army service meant desecrating Shabbos and eating forbidden food, he told the Vaad, and enlistment would therefore be a chillul Hashem. He urged the community to stand firm, promising that Hashem would help, and then he burst into tears. When the sultan heard of his efforts he summoned the Rav to the palace, angry and ready to punish him. After meeting him, however, the sultan was deeply impressed and gave him the title of Chacham Bashi (chief rabbi of the Jewish community), with authority to issue edicts. In the end the draft was never enforced, because of quarrels within the royal court. The story of the wealthy supporter of the decree, and of the Rav's refusal to eulogize him, is told below.
In 1897 he left Constantinople to become Chief Rabbi of Damascus. There he founded a yeshiva that produced dozens of talmidim, who went on to serve as rabbanim and dayanim in Sephardic communities across the region. On his way from Syria to Eretz Yisroel he stopped in Beirut, where many questions about shmita (the laws of the Sabbatical year) were put to him. His answers show that he strongly opposed the heter mechira (the sale of the land), which the rabbinate had adopted to spare farmers from loss.
In 1904 he went up to Eretz Yisroel. For several years he lived in Haifa, until the Torah leaders of Tzfas invited him to be their Chief Rabbi. He remained in that post until 1918. During the hardship of the First World War he was able to ease the shortage of food and water for the Jews of Tzfas, as told below.
In 1918, while the Saba Kadisha was living in Teveria, Rav Yisroel Ber Odesser, a Breslover chassid, became his personal attendant. One night the Rav saw him recite Tikkun Chatzos (the midnight lament over the Churban). From then on he would not allow him to serve him, and treated him instead as a young colleague.
He was uncompromising in halacha. He forbade shaving the beard, even with scissors or depilatory cream, and he would not converse, even about Gemara, with a talmid chacham who had no beard. It is told that he would not allow unmarried men into his room, but sent them away with the message to go and get married. Every night he rose at chatzos to weep over the Churban. In British Mandate Palestine he opposed the Zionist Nationalist Council (Vaad Haleumi), which automatically enrolled every Jew unless he opted out, and he signed rulings obligating every Jew to opt out. In this he and the Minchas Elazar of Munkatch had much in common. Both led their followers by old-world values, like Aharon HaKohen, who did not change, and both refused to adapt to many modern changes.
Teachings and seforim
All of his teshuvos and halachic rulings were published after his passing. They include She'eilos U'Teshuvos MaHaRSHa (edited by Yitzchak Nissim, Jerusalem 1932) and She'eilos U'Teshuvos Saba Kadisha (edited by D. Y. Weiss, Jerusalem 1973–74). Masos Yerushalayim, Kumi Roni and Amudei Arazim hold his collected letters.
Later years and passing
In his final years he suffered from many ailments and sought treatment in Yerushalayim. He tried to travel quietly, but when word spread, Torah leaders came to meet him. One of them was Rav Ezra Attiya, later rosh yeshiva of Porat Yosef, whom the Saba Kadisha held in high esteem and always rose to greet when he visited.
In 1925 he fell seriously ill in Teveria. He declined treatment at the local hospital because it did not carefully keep the rules of tznius (modesty), and he was taken instead to Shaarei Zedek Hospital in Yerushalayim. After he recovered, the sages of the city begged him to remain. He rented an apartment in Ruchama, a neighborhood now called Mekor Baruch, near Zichron Moshe.
In that apartment he hosted prominent Torah scholars who came to consult him and to learn with him. They included Rav Tzvi Pesach Frank, Chief Rabbi of Yerushalayim; Rav Velvel Mintzberg, leader of the Ashkenazi community of the Old Yishuv; Rav Avrohom Weinberg of Slonim, author of Birkas Avrohom; and Rav Yitzchok Abuchatzeira, a Torah sage in his own right and a brother of the Baba Sali. Not long before the Rav passed away, Rav Chaim Elazar Shapira of Munkatch traveled to Yerushalayim to meet him. It was seen as a historic meeting between the Sephardic genius of the Middle East and the Chassidic tradition of Eastern Europe.
In May 1930 he contracted pneumonia, and Dr. Moshe Wallach of Shaarei Zedek Hospital treated him. His illness worsened, and he passed away on 22 Iyar 5690 (20 May 1930), when he was over a hundred years old. Thousands attended his levaya. His talmidim carried the aron on foot the entire way from his home to Har HaZeisim, the Mount of Olives.
Legacy
The street in Yerushalayim where he lived was named in his memory. He is remembered as the Saba Kadisha, a rav, kabbalist and rosh yeshiva whom Sephardic and Ashkenazic sages alike came to consult.
Stories
I Stand for the Honor of Hashem
“Warm yourself by the fire of the Sages, but beware lest you be burned by their coals; their bite is the bite of a fox, their sting the sting of a scorpion, and all their words are fiery coals” (Avos 2:15). Rav Ovadia Yosef used to illustrate this Mishnah with a story about the chief Rav of Constantinople, the Saba Kadisha, Rav Shlomo Alfandari.
After the Spanish Expulsion, Turkey was among the countries that welcomed the Jews, hoping their commerce would enrich the treasury. Among the privileges granted to them was an exemption from army service, so that Jewish young men would not be forced to desecrate Shabbos or be exposed to non-kosher food and foreign influences.
As time went on, a new sultan, Abdul Hamid, set out to conscript the Jews into the Ottoman army. Jews who were close to the ruler and his officials wanted to win favor and urged the community to comply, and the body that governed the community's spiritual affairs also favored enlistment. The only obstacle was the firman, a royal decree that the previous sultan had granted to the Chacham Bashi, Rav Moshe HaLevi, exempting the Jews. As long as he held it, Rav Moshe could block conscription, and the pressure on him was enormous. Chief among those pressing him to hand back the firman was one of the wealthiest Jews of Constantinople, a man very close to the sultan.
One of the few voices that stood firmly against enlistment was the chief Rav, Rav Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari. He argued that army service would mean mass chillul Shabbos, forbidden food and foreign influences. The sultan was enraged when he heard this and summoned the Rav, but when Rav Alfandari stood before him, the sultan was struck silent by his holy appearance and did not dare to harm him. The wealthy merchant, however, would not give up and looked for every way to bring about enlistment. At last the Rav told him that unless he changed his ways, his end would be bitter. When the man refused, the Rav turned away sadly and declared that Hashem would not forgive him for what he was doing.
That very day the merchant set out to see the sultan, but he never arrived. As he stepped over his own threshold he suffered heart failure and died on his doorstep.
It was the custom that Rav Alfandari gave the first hesped (eulogy) at every levaya, but this time he forbade anyone to eulogize the niftar. The man's son and other dignitaries and officials begged for a hesped, for the sake of the sultan's honor and the man's high position, and the Rav refused. “You speak of his honor and the sultan's, but I am an Eved Hashem. I stand for the honor of Hashem, Master and King of the World. It is His honor I seek, and I will not change my mind or bend my will to you.” Even a purse full of money did not move him, and the man was buried without a hesped, in disgrace.
Afterward the sultan awarded Rav Alfandari the title of Chacham Bashi, when he was appointed chief Rav of Damascus. There he ruled as Rav and dayan with the backing of both the Torah and the sultan's authority. He was able to run the Jewish community as he saw fit and to punish transgressors who opposed him.
The Holy Fire
The elders of Tzfas told a well-known story. One hot summer day a woman who lived near the home of the Saba Kadisha climbed up to her roof porch for some cooling air, as was common in summer. To her horror she saw flames blazing on the roof of Rav Alfandari's house and inside it.
She ran for help, and as she reached the house, Rav Alfandari's talmid, Rav Aharon Ben Shimon, who was learning with him, heard the commotion and came outside. He calmed her. There was no danger, he said. What she had seen was an aish kodesh (holy fire), the flames of the intense Torah learning in which the two of them were engaged, and she was fortunate to have been shown it.
Rav Ben Shimon asked her to keep the matter secret, and she did. She revealed it only after the Saba Kadisha had left this world.
The Blessing of the Saba Kadisha
A Turkish pasha once came to Tzfas, riding a white horse and dressed in a splendid uniform, with a retinue of soldiers. The fame of Rav Alfandari, the holy Rav from Constantinople, drew him to seek the Rav's blessing. When the Saba Kadisha came out to greet him, the pasha was struck by his distinguished appearance. “Please bless me,” he said.
“My berachos can be received only with humility,” the Saba Kadisha answered. “You must dismount from your horse and bow your head before me, and then I will bless you.”
The pasha agreed. He got down from his horse and bowed his head, and the Saba Kadisha blessed him that Hashem should grant him success, on condition that he work to benefit and protect his Jewish subjects.
It is told that during the First World War the Jews of Tzfas suffered from shortages of food and water. As a result of this meeting, the pasha arranged for food and water to be supplied to the Jewish residents.
The Kiddush Levana That Foretold War
The elders of Tzfas used to tell that one night in Chodesh Nissan, after Rav Alfandari finished reciting the berachah of Kiddush Levana with his congregants, they noticed that his gaze was drawn up to the sky, as if fixed on something far away. Then he clapped his hands in despair and let out a deep sigh of anguish.
When they asked what he saw that troubled him so, the Saba Kadisha answered, “I see a great war drawing near. Soon war will break out and strike the world harshly.”
It is told that this happened at the start of Nissan 5674 (April 1914), and that the First World War began not long afterward.
Please Decree That Moshiach Must Come
When Rav Chaim Elazar Shapira of Munkatch came to Eretz Yisroel, he traveled to Yerushalayim especially to meet the Saba Kadisha, who by then was living in the holy city after leaving the rabbinate of Tzfas and was well over a hundred years old.
During the visit the Munkatcher spoke Loshon Kodesh with a Sephardic accent so that the Saba Kadisha would understand him. He had been practicing, for he had a unique and wondrous request. He had brought a holy, secret letter, an igeres sesorim, which he had inherited from the holy Komarna Tzaddik, Rav Yaakov Moshe Safrin. It foretold that the way to bring the Geulah closer depended on the decree of the Tzaddik HaDor. If the Tzaddik HaDor would decree that Moshiach must come, the Geulah would be hastened.
The Munkatcher held that Rav Alfandari was worthy of making such a decree, and he asked him to do so. But the Saba Kadisha refused. In his humility he answered, “I am not a tzaddik.”
This conversation took place eight days before the Saba Kadisha left this world, on the 22nd of Iyar.
Seforim
- She'eilos U'Teshuvos MaHaRSHa: His responsa and halachic rulings, edited by Yitzchak Nissim (Jerusalem 1932).
- She'eilos U'Teshuvos Saba Kadisha: A further collection of his responsa, edited by D. Y. Weiss (Jerusalem 1973–74).
- Masos Yerushalayim, Kumi Roni and Amudei Arazim: Collections of his letters.
Family & talmidim
T:
@{name=Rav Chaim Chizkiya Medini, the Sdei Chemed}: Rav Aharon Ben Shimon
Also on 22 Iyar
All hilulos on 22 Iyar ›Historical sources
- The Monsey Mevaser, Jerusalem Personalities series
- Anaf Etz Avos
- Toras Aharon
- Oros Mimizrach