Img. ID: 577369

The following description was prepared by William Gross:

Sar Shalom Sharabi (Hebrew: שר שלום מזרחי דידיע שרעבי), 1720–1777, was a Yemenite-Israeli Jewish Rabbi, Halachist, Chazzan and Kabbalist. In later life, he became the Rosh Yeshiva of Bet El Yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem. His daughter married Rabbi Hayyim Abraham Gagin of Jerusalem, making him the great-great-grandfather of Shem Tob Gaguine, the "Keter Shem Tob."

Sar Shalom Sharabi was born in Jewish Sharab, Yemen. He moved to Palestine, then under Ottoman rule, in fulfillment of a vow. On his way he stayed in India, Baghdad and Damascus. He was one of the earlier commentators on the works of the Ari, a major source of Kabbalah. His Siddur was known as the "Siddur Ha-Kavvanot," and is the main siddur used today by Kabbalists for prayer, meditation and Yeshiva study. It is a Siddur with extensive Kabbalistic meditations by way of commentary.

This Kabbalistic Siddur Harashash, developed by Rabbi Sharabi at Beit El in Eretz Israel in the 18th century, is apparently written in Saloniki. The special forms for the written text of the extremely meditative prayers are quite aesthetic in their symmetry.

The contents are a part of the recitaton of the Shema at night and the morning blessings in a nice Oriental Scribal hand.