הרש״ש

The Rashash, Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, is a kabbalist of Yemen who went up to Jerusalem and became the head of its kabbalists. Born in Yemen, he wandered through India and the lands of the East until he reached Jerusalem, and there, by tradition, he entered discreetly the kabbalists' academy 'Beit El,' and soon became known as a hidden giant, and served as its head.

The Rashash devoted his life to the intentions of prayer according to the Kabbalah of the Ari. His work 'Nahar Shalom' and his siddur of intentions became a foundation of the service of Sephardic kabbalists to this day, and one who prays 'with the intentions of the Rashash' walks the path he charted. He took the abstract teaching of the Ari and turned it into a practical service of prayer.

Tradition crowns him with immense holiness and divine inspiration, but also with a rare humility: the foreign Yemenite who arrived quietly and refused to stand out, until his greatness broke forth on its own. The 'Beit El' fellowship he led made a 'covenant of connection' of love, that all its members would be as one soul in this world and the next.

What do we learn from him? That true greatness needs no publicity; it breaks forth on its own even from one who sought to hide. The Rashash teaches that a Jew from the ends of the earth, from Yemen, can stand at the head of the kabbalists of Jerusalem, and that the highest spiritual service rests precisely on humility, and on a love of friends that binds souls into one.