אהרן סבאעוני

Rav Aharon Sabaoni, of the Siboni (al-Sab’uni) family of chachamim, lived in Salé, Morocco, in the middle of the seventeenth century, serving Torah as an editor and mechaber while trading as an international merchant. He prepared for print Heichal HaKodesh, the kabbalistic work of Rav Moshe ben Maimon Albas, adding notes of his own; it appeared in Amsterdam in 5413/1653.

When the followers of Shabtai Tzvi cast off the four fast days on the claim that the geulah had already arrived, Rav Aharon stood with Rav Yaakov Sasportas in condemning them. He corresponded with Rav Sasportas during the latter’s years in Amsterdam, a city he himself knew from his travels in trade; in one letter he describes the expulsion of the Jews of Spanish-ruled Oran on Pesach 5429/1669, when the shul of the city was turned into a church. His sons Rav Yehoshua and Rav David served as rabbanim in Salé at the end of the seventeenth century, and manuscripts of their many derashot survive.