Img. ID: 577555
The following description was prepared by William Gross:
One of two manuscripts in the gross collection from the same hand, this volume contains prayers according to the kabbalah, the mystical tradition, for the holiday of Succot, in the fall season. This manuscript is for the "Nitilat Lulav", one of the rituals for this holiday involving the palm branch, one of the four species brought to the synagogue for the holiday prayers. The calligraphy is very striking. The design of the pages with the repetition of certain words for the Kabbalistic prayers with Kavanot (mystical meditations) is extraordinarily pleasing esthetically. The place of writing is also unusual as manuscripts from Tunisia with decorations are relatively far and between.
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 fulfilment 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.
The work was written by Rabb Ya'akov bar Yosef Elchayeich, one of the judges in the Great Beit Din of Tunis. He is listed as well in the approbations of several books published in Tunis.
This manuscript contains the Sukkot prayers for meditations while shaking the palm branch. It is written in a nineteenth-century Sephardic hand. It was written in Tunis, one of the three locations for Rashash prayer communities, the other two being Jerusalem at the Beit El Yeshivah and in Saloniki. This manuscript is one of the few of the genre starting with a decorated title page.
Pages: 38