מהרי״ץ

The Maharitz, Rabbi Yichya Tzalach, is the pillar of ruling of Yemenite Jewry, who held an ancient, unbroken tradition against winds of change. The rabbi of Sana'a in the eighteenth century, a decisor, kabbalist and poet, whose writings became the code of law of Yemenite Jewry, on which every Yemenite home leans to this day.

In his time a debate arose in Yemen: whether to continue the ancient Yemenite prayer rite, 'Baladi,' whose tradition runs from the Geonim and Maimonides, or to switch to the accepted Sephardic rite that spread with printing. The Maharitz ruled to preserve the ancient Yemenite tradition, and in this saved a thousand-year-old treasure from assimilation.

His work 'Etz Chaim' on prayer and his responsa 'Pe'ulat Tzaddik' are the foundation on which Yemenite Jewry stands. He taught that a tradition a community had faithfully guarded for centuries is not inferior to the majority, but a treasure to be defended precisely against the wave of standardization that threatens to erase it.

What do we learn from him? That faithfulness to an ancient tradition, even that of a small minority, is a value worth defending. The Maharitz teaches that a community at the edge of the world that preserved an unbroken link from the Geonim and Maimonides holds a precious treasure, and that the leader's task is sometimes precisely to stand against the current and preserve the distinctive.