הרב חיים יוסף דוד אזולאי

Rav Chaim Yosef David Azulai (5484/1724–11 Adar 5566/1806), known by his roshei teivot as the Chida, was a posek, dayan, mekubal, and shadar — among the greatest of the acharonim of the Sephardic world — and the author of dozens of sefarim in every corner of Torah. Born in Yerushalayim, he was a great-great-grandson of the mekubal Rav Avraham Azulai, who had come from Fez and settled in Chevron; his mother Sarah was a daughter of the mekubal Rav Yosef Bialer, who came up to Yerushalayim with the aliyah of Rav Yehudah HaChasid. His rebbi muvhak was Rav Yonah Navon, author of Nechpah BaKesef, who trained him in the writing of teshuvot; he also learned under Rav Chaim ben Attar, the Ohr HaChaim, in Yeshivat Knesset Yisrael, under Rav Yitzchak HaKohen Rapoport, and in the yeshiva of the mekubalim, Beit El, in the chaburah of the Rashash, Rav Shalom Sharabi. By the age of twelve he was already writing chiddushim.

In 5513/1753 he set out as shadar — emissary of the community of Chevron — on a mission of some six years through Italy, the German lands, Western Europe, and London; in Germany he met the Pnei Yehoshua. Later he served about five years as rav and av beit din of Alexandria in Egypt (5524/1764–5529/1769) before returning to Chevron. On erev Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan 5533/1772 he set out on his last shlichut, through Tunisia, Italy, France, and Holland, and in 5538/1778 settled in Livorno — on the condition that he be free to write and print his sefarim — where he remained until his petirah. His journeys live on in his diary Ma’gal Tov, a first-hand record of the kehillot of Europe and North Africa in his day; wherever he went he searched out the great libraries and examined manuscripts of the rishonim with his own eyes.

A modern reckoning counts 122 chiburim from his pen, about fifty of them printed in his lifetime: the Birkei Yosef on the Shulchan Aruch, printed in most editions of the Shulchan Aruch itself, with its companion Machazik Berachah; the teshuvot Chaim Sha’al, Yosef Ometz, and Tov Ayin; Petach Einayim on the aggadot of the Shas; peirushim on Tanach, the Haggadah, mussar, and kabbalah; and above all the Shem HaGedolim, with its companion Vaad LaChachamim — entries on the chachamim of all the generations and on their sefarim, built in great part from the manuscripts he had seen on his travels.

He was niftar in Livorno on leil Shabbat Zachor, 11 Adar 5566/1806. In his diary he had written of his hope to return to Eretz Yisrael, and in 5720/1960, at the initiative of the Rishon LeTzion Rav Yitzchak Nissim, his remains were brought up from Livorno and reburied on Har HaMenuchot in Yerushalayim, where an ohel stands over his kever.