MS Sassoon 979 – Letters on Immigration to Eretz Israel of Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar, Author of Or HaChaim – Italy ...

MS Sassoon 979 – Letters on Immigration to Eretz Israel of Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar, Author of Or HaChaim – Italy, 18th Century – Unique Copy

Manuscript booklet, letters of Rabbi Avraham Yishmael Sanguinetti documenting the immigration of the Or HaChaim with his holy companions to Eretz Israel, with bar mitzvah discourses of the Sanguinetti brothers. [Italy, Modena?, second half of the 18th century.] Hebrew and Italian.
Neat scribal writing, in Italian cursive script.
On the right part of the booklet is a copy (from right to left) of three letters documenting the immigration of the holy Or HaChaim to Eretz Israel with his companions in 1741, and his early days in Eretz Israel, his performance of Ziyarah-pilgrimage with his disciples at the graves of the righteous and the holy sites in the Galilee, and more. These letters were written by the Or HaChaim's disciple, rabbi Avraham Yishmael Chaim Sanguinetti, and sent to Modena for his father, the philanthropist Shlomo Chaim Sanguinetti. The present item is MS Sassoon 979, which contains the only extant copy of these letters, some of which was first printed in Jacob Mann, "The Voyage of R. Chayim Ibn Attar and His Companions to Palestine and Their Temporary Settlement in Acre", Tarbiz, VII, Jerusalem, 1935, pp. 74-101 (Hebrew; see further below).
On the left part of the booklet are copied (from left to right) four discourses for the bar mitzvahs of Avraham Yishmael Chaim Sanguinetti and his brother Yitzchak Chaim. The discourses are written in Italian, interspersed with Hebrew sections. These discourses have not been printed. Apparently, the booklet was written by a member of the household of the philanthropist Shlomo Chaim Sanguinetti.
At the top of the first page appears an introductory paragraph to the first letter: "Spectacular letter sent by the intelligent and wise dear son R. Avraham Yishmael from Jerusalem to his honorable father R. Shlomo Chaim Sanguinetti here in Modena, in which you will find a written account of all the places and all the journeys he made from the day he left Livorno until he reached the Holy Land with all his companions… And the day they set out from Livorno was Rosh Chodesh of the month of Menachem [Av] 5501 (1741), and they reached their destination, the Holy Land, on the Festival of Sukkot 5502 (1741)".

R. Chaim ibn Attar (1696-1743), known as the holy Or HaChaim, left Salé, Morocco, in 1739 on his way to Eretz Israel, intending to establish a yeshiva in Jerusalem to be named "Knesset Yisrael", whose members would conduct themselves in holiness and piety and occupy themselves in Torah day and night in order to hasten the redemption. On his way there he passed through Italy, where he intended to recruit members for his yeshiva and emigrate from there to Eretz Israel. On the eve of Shavuot of that year, he was received with great honor in Livorno, where he made his home into a Beit Midrash to which many people came to hear his discourses and teachings. His visitors included important and wealthy community members whom R. Chaim ibn Attar influenced to support the Yeshiva he was going to establish in Jerusalem. In Livorno he founded a committee called Knesset Yisrael, whose members were merchants and rich community members, he traveled to other communities in Italy, including Venice, Modena, Ferrara and Mantua, and also founded a similar committee in Modena. At the same time, he gathered a group of disciples who joined with his family and a few disciples who had come with him from Morocco, forming the group that immigrated with him to Eretz Israel. In Italy the Or HaChaim stayed about two and a half years (from 1739-1741), during which he worked to secure funding for his yeshiva and finish preparing his works for press (his book Or HaChaim was printed in Venice in autumn 1741, a short time after his immigration to Eretz Israel; his work Pri Toar was likewise printed in Amsterdam, 1742, after his immigration; both works were printed with the support of Livorno philanthropists).
On Rosh Chodesh Av 1741, he departed Livorno on his way to Eretz Israel, together with his companions, numbering thirty persons. Many details about their journey and the Or HaChaim's first year in Eretz Israel were first known from the present manuscript. Among other things, it is related that the group did not reach Jerusalem immediately upon entering the Land, due to a plague that was in the city, and during the beginning of his stay in Israel the Or HaChaim lived in Acre. Only on 15 Av 1742, about a year after their departure from Livorno, did the Or HaChaim and his companions reach Jerusalem. In Jerusalem the Or HaChaim established his yeshiva, which many eminent scholars and kabbalists of Jerusalem joined (on the yeshiva and its organization, see: Benayahu, "History of the Knesset Yisrael Beit Midrash in Jerusalem", Yerushalayim, II, 1949, pp. 103 onwards [Hebrew]). Unfortunately, R. Chaim ibn Attar passed away suddenly about a year later, on 14 Tammuz, 1743.
One of his young disciples in Jerusalem was R. Chaim Yosef David Azulai (the Chida), who writes of him in his book Shem HaGedolim: "R. Chaim ibn Attar, a holy angel from Salé, came to Jerusalem in the summer of 1742. And I merited to be a member of his elevated yeshiva, and I saw with my eyes the greatness of his Torah. He would uproot mountains of mountains, and his holiness was absolutely wondrous. He struck awe in our generation in study, and he was like an ever-gushing fountain… and in Tammuz 1743 he was called up to Heaven at the age of 47. He authored Chefetz HaShem, Rishon LeTzion, Or HaChaim and Pri Toar, and his sagacity is discernable from his books, yet this is only a tenth of his wisdom and heart's expansiveness and unbelievable sharpness. He conducted himself continuously in holiness and separation from worldly matters, and his mighty deeds of awe were many…" (Shem HaGedolim, Maarechet Gedolim, Chet, 42).
During his stay in Italy, the Or HaChaim developed a special love and attachment to the philanthropist Shlomo Chaim Sanguinetti, one of the distinguished and wealthiest families in Modena. Shlomo Chaim, along with his brother, was a member of the committee of the yeshiva Knesset Yisrael in Modena, and greatly helped the Or HaChaim raise funds for the yeshiva from donors throughout Italy, and likewise helped him make arrangements for his trip to immigrate to Eretz Israel (see further below).
Shlomo Chaim Sanguinetti's son is the traveler R. Avraham Yishmael Chaim Sanguinetti, who wrote the present letters from Eretz Israel and sent them to his father in Modena. He was one of the Or HaChaim's disciples and a member of the holy group that immigrated with him from Italy to Eretz Israel. In the letters to his father appearing in the present manuscript, he left behind a fascinating and unique documentation of the course of the journey and the first period of the Or HaChaim's stay in Eretz Israel.
Family records written by his father, the philanthropist Shlomo Chaim Sanguinetti, in a copy of a Sephardic Machzor he possessed, were published by Binyamin Klar ("New Writings for the History of the Or HaChaim's Immigration to Eretz Israel", Alim LeBibliografiya VeKorot Yisrael, 3(2), Vienna, 1938, pp. 42-44 [Hebrew]), where he documents the birth of his sons Avraham Yishmael (on 20 Tevet 1726) and his brother Yitzchak Chaim (Nisan 1729). As stated above, the present manuscript contains a copy of the bar mitzvah discourses delivered by these two sons.
About four months after the passing of his teacher, R. Avraham Yishmael Sanguinetti left Jerusalem and traveled back to his birthplace, Modena (he reached the Port of Livorno on Hoshana Rabba 1745). He also documented this journey in the record preserved in manuscript (printed by Klar, ibid., pp. 98-114). During his journey he also passed Acre, and he describes his meeting there on Rosh Chodesh Kislev 1743 with R. Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Ramchal) in his house (this is one of the most important documentations of the Ramchal's yeshiva in Acre). R. Avraham Yishmael Sanguinetti later returned to Jerusalem, as he is a signatory of the deed of engagement of the Midrash Chassidim yeshiva headed by R. Shalom Sharabi (Rashash), in the years 1754 and 1758 (see Mann, op. cit., pp. 85-86).
On the margins of the first page of the present manuscript appears an inscription in semi-cursive Sephardic script, with a sort of summary of the days of the journey appearing in the letter, with the writer's name: "From Livorno to Messina ten days, we made it from Messina to Alexandria in Egypt only six days with good wind… I Moshe Najara of Jerusalem wrote this note…" The meaning of this inscription was not entirely clear to us, but it appears to have been written by R. Moshe Najara of Jerusalem, a descendant of R. Yisrael Najara who seems to have gone on a personal mission and stayed in Italy at the time. In 1743 he printed in Mantua the second part of the book Meor Einayim of R. Yoshiyahu Pinto (further details about him appear in the approbations and in his introduction to that book; see also: Benayahu, "Rabbi Yisrael Najara", Asufot, IV, Jerusalem, 1990, pp. 216-217). On the endpaper of the present manuscript, the above inscription is copied in the handwriting of the owner of the manuscript, David Sassoon.

The present letters were published by Jacob Mann (op. cit.), with a detailed preface. The letters describe in detail the course of the journey from Livorno, from which the Or HaChaim and his companions left on Rosh Chodesh Av 1741; the intermediate stops in Messina, Sicily and Alexandria, Egypt; their arrival in Acre a few days before Rosh Hashanah 1741; and their journeys to graves of Tzaddikim in the environs during the following weeks. The letters include numerous details about the places they passed through, their adventures along the way and the special sights they saw. Among other things, they describe their group's gracious reception in Messina by local government officials, who tried to influence Jews to live in Sicily. Jews had ceased to settle there since they had been expelled in the Spanish Expulsion period, and the Christian inhabitants sought to convince them to settle in the island once again to promote the local economy (see at length in Mann, ibid.). Likewise, R. Avraham Yishmael Sanguinetti describes their stay in Alexandria, where they stayed two weeks, and tells of the special things they encountered in the city (including immersion in the mikveh of Knesset Eliyahu, which adds an "additional soul" to whoever immerses in it). He writes that the group later wanted to travel to Jaffa in order to reach Jerusalem directly from it, but the owner of the ship brought them against their will to Acre instead of Jaffa. After they reached Acre, it turned out that this was to their benefit, as there was a plague in Jerusalem at the time. For this reason, the Or HaChaim decided to temporarily settle in Acre (where he remained for nearly a year, and he moved to Jerusalem only in late summer 1742). R. Avraham Yishmael Sanguinetti describes Acre and its inhabitants, and likewise describes the settlements and villages around it and the condition of the Jews there. Likewise, he describes at length their journeys to the graves of the righteous in the vicinity, the prayers and Kavanot that they performed, and their feelings while staying at the holy sites. The third letter concludes by mentioning their journey on Rosh Chodesh Kislev 1741 to the grave of Shmuel HaKatan. Likewise, the letters include various details about the members of the group, for example the Or HaChaim's intentions to settle temporarily in Safed or Tiberias and the reasons he refrained from doing so, historical events in Eretz Israel at the time, and more.

[20] leaves (40 written pages). 25 cm. Good condition. Stains. Non-original binding.

(Former) provenance of manuscript: Sassoon Collection, no. 979. See its description in: Ohel David, part 2, p. 995.

Ziyarah

The custom of "Ziyarah" – pilgrimage and prostration upon the graves of the righteous – was long established among the Jews of the east, and was especially dear to pilgrims to Israel and its kabbalistic sages. As the present manuscript makes clear, the Or HaChaim highly prized this custom, and often went from his residence in Acre with his group of disciples to the graves of the Tannaim and righteous men of the Galilee. The present item documents the Or HaChaim's first Ziyarah trips in Eretz Israel. The Chida, his student in Jerusalem, writes of his participation in the Or HaChaim's Ziyarah with the students of the yeshiva in Jerusalem: "And I merited in my youth to go with the aforementioned rabbi and all his yeshiva to perform Ziyarah" (Shem HaGedolim, Maarechet Sefarim, entry "Pri Toar").
Consequent to the Ziyarah custom, detailed lists of the holy graves in Eretz Israel began to appear, and these were copied and published in the diaspora. Similarly, some of the pilgrims began to document their Ziyarah trips, what happened to them along the way, and the sites of the Holy Land. These travelogues were also copied and published, and they contributed highly to immigration to the Land of Israel and yearning for it. In addition to its importance for the holy Or HaChaim's biography, the present manuscript is also an important document of this type – a record of a pilgrimage that was copied into an Italian booklet very soon after the event.

Relation of Another Manuscript Written in Modena to This Sassoon Manuscript
A corresponding manuscript, which complements the present manuscript, is MS Mossad Harav Kook 154, which appears to have been written in Modena in the same period. R. Yitzhak Rafael published 19 letters from it which the philanthropist Shlomo Chaim Sanguinetti sent to the Or HaChaim, containing many details about the Or HaChaim's stay in Italy and the help Shlomo Chaim Sanguinetti provided for him (Y. Rafael, "Letters of R. Shlomo Chaim Sanguinetti to R. Chaim ibn Attar", Temirin, vol. 1, 1972, pp. 271-286 [Hebrew]).
The Mossad Harav Kook manuscript was written in varying hands. Apparently, part of it was written by the philanthropist Shlomo Chaim Sanguinetti himself (some of his letters appear in autograph handwriting, with erasures and corrections), and part of it in a hand similar to the copyist of the present Sassoon manuscript. We may posit that the copyist was from the philanthropist's household.
Among other things, an additional travelogue was copied there, documenting the continuation of the Or HaChaim's group's journey to the graves of the righteous in the Galilee, in the month of Adar (the latest date that appears in this Sassoon manuscript is Rosh Chodesh Kislev, 1742), when the Or HaChaim and his disciples visited Safed, Meron and the graves of the righteous in the vicinity. It may well be that this account was also written by R. Avraham Yishmael Sanguinetti, but it may also have been written by one of the other disciples in the Or HaChaim's group. At the top of that account appears a note relating to this Sassoon manuscript: "An account of the trip from Modena to Acre is written in the booklet of the discourses that my son Avraham Yishmael Chai and Yitzchak Chaim delivered upon their bar mitzvah, and this is all that R. Ibn Attar's group saw in Acre".
The above travelogue was first printed by Yaakov Halpern, Eretz HaChaim, Vienna, 1933, pp. 20-27 (and later by Binyamin Klar, Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar – His Immigration to Eretz Israel – Letters and Documents, Jerusalem, 1951, pp. 40-47 [Hebrew]). Afterwards an additional account appears in MS Mossad Harav Kook, with the title: "These are the Ziyarahs that we performed in the village of Peki'in" (printed by Klar, ibid., pp. 83-86, where he posits that this account may have been written by the Or HaChaim himself).