Img. ID: 574216
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." This manuscript was written by this same Shem Tob Gaguine and is signed on a front page as well as dated. Gaguine penned this Siddur at the age of 21 while he was still studying in Jerusalem.
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.
The Siddur for the Shabbat was written in Eretz Israel in the first quarter of the 20th century. The seller, who is a member of the Shmueli family, claims that it was written by Rabbi Benayahu Shmueli. Harav Benayahu Shmueli Shlita is Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Hamikubalim, Nahar Shalom. This manuscript contains the prayers for Shabbat and Passover. It is written in a Yemenite-Eastern hand by R. Shalom Halevi Alsheich, one of the Yemenite sages at the Rehovot Hanahar Yeshiva.
It is similar to his handwriting in his comments on Etz Hayyim (Jerusalem, 1866), a copy of which is in the R. Yaakov Moshe Hillel Library, no. 3005.
34 pp