יוסף סרגוסי

Rav Yosef Saragossi (5220/1460–5267/1507) was the first great rav of Tzfat, Eretz Yisrael — the quiet builder who prepared the city that would become, within two generations, the Torah and kabbalah center of the world. Driven from Spain in the expulsion of 5252/1492, he passed through Sicily, Beirut and Sidon to Egypt, where he was received with great honor and where the young Radbaz, Rav David ibn Zimra — the future rav of all Egypt — learned under him. From Egypt he went up to Eretz Yisrael and settled in Tzfat.

He found there a small community — a few hundred Jews of Berber, Sephardi and Morisco origin, without a leader — and made of them a kehillah. The Sefer Charedim records his signature trait: he multiplied shalom, between a man and his fellow, between husband and wife, and even among the gentiles of the city — and so great was the regard he won that when he thought to leave, the Muslim governor himself undertook a third of the annual stipend the community offered to keep him. Joining Talmud with the hidden wisdom, he planted the study of kabbalah in Tzfat — the seed that flowered after him in the city of the Beit Yosef and the Arizal.

On the way to daven at the kever of Rabbi Yehuda bar Ilai, Eliyahu HaNavi was revealed to him and learned with him, and at his request he was buried at that spot, at Ein Zeitim outside Tzfat. Generations called him the Tzaddik HaLavan — the white tzaddik — after the legend of the decree of the white chickens, when hundreds of ordinary fowl brought to his kever turned white and the community was saved; and his resting place drew pilgrims from Tzfat every week between Pesach and Lag BaOmer.