שלמה אליעזר אלפנדרי

Rav Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari (c. 5586/1826–22 Iyar 5690/1930), known in his last years to all as the Saba Kadisha, was a posek and mekubal, Chacham Bashi of Damascus, and rav of Tzfat. He was born in Kushta (Constantinople), capital of the Ottoman empire, to Rav Yaakov Alfandari, of a rabbinic line traced by family tradition to Betzalel ben Uri of shevet Yehuda — his great-grandfather wrote Mutzal MiEish and his grandfather Maggid MiReishit — and his mother was a sister of Rav Menachem Tzuntzin, av beit din of Kushta. In his youth he refused every offer of rabbanut and even the dress of the city’s chachamim, though he sat on its spiritual council and served as rosh yeshiva in Kushta, refusing any wage beyond the stipend given the avrechim; among those who learned from him was Rav Chaim Chizkiyahu Medini, the Sdei Chemed. His only son was niftar young, and after his wife’s passing he never remarried; he gathered young yesomim into his home and raised them.

He was appointed Chacham Bashi of Damascus, where he served some twenty years and founded a yeshiva that raised dozens of rabbanim and dayanim for the Sephardic kehillot of the region. Near ninety, he went up to Eretz Yisrael and resolved never again to leave its borders; after several years in Haifa he answered the call of the chachamim of Tzfat, who sought a rav to restore shalom in their divided kehilla, and in 5670/1910 took up the rabbanut of Tzfat, his authority extending to Acco and Haifa — the whole Galil — where he served until 5678/1918. In the early 5680s he settled in Yerushalayim, in the neighborhood now called Mekor Baruch, on a street that today carries his name.

His derech in psak joined the words of the rishonim with the hachra’ot of the mekubalim of the school of the Ari and the Rashash, and he did not fear to rule against poskim who came before him. He was exacting in every matter: he forbade the removal of the beard even with scissors, and he opposed the heter mechira for shemitta. His door in Yerushalayim was open only to a small circle of chosen talmidei chachamim, and gedolim came to it — Rav Tzvi Pesach Frank, Rav Velvel Mintzberg, Rav Avraham Weinberg of Slonim, the baal Birkat Avraham, and Rav Yitzchak Abuchatzeira, brother of the Baba Sali; for Rav Ezra Attiya, later rosh yeshivat Porat Yosef, he would rise whenever he entered. On leil Pesach he would begin the seder early and finish it swiftly, then open his doors so that anyone with a she’eila in halacha could come and ask without hesitation — for on that night, he explained, the rabbanim are taken up with the mitzvot of the chag or refrain from ruling because they have drunk wine.

Shortly beforehis passing, the Munkatcher Rebbe, Rav Chaim Elazar Spira, traveled from Hungary especially to meet him — a meeting spoken of as the joining of the chochmat Sefarad of the East with the chassidut of Europe. To his last day he kept his full seder of avoda: tikun chatzot, tefilla at vatikin, shiurim in halacha and nistar, and teshuvot to she’eilot from across the world; on the night of 22 Iyar 5690/1930 he wrote one of the longest teshuvot of his life, and in the morning, after laying tefillin and finishing kriat Shema, he was niftar on his chair before shacharit. Thousands went on foot behind his mitah from his home to Har HaZeitim, where he is buried. His teshuvot were printed after his passing as the Teshuvot Maharsha Alfandari, called also the Teshuvot HaSaba Kadisha; most of his other writings, in kabbala and on the sugyot of the Shas, were lost or remain in manuscript.