Baruch Dayan the truth: Yesterday (Saturday) an old man of the Kabbalists, the Gaon Rabbi Shalom Shmuel ztzel, passed away on a good shivah at the age of 106.
The deceased, the father of Rabbi Benyahu Issachar Shmuel, head of the Nahar Shalom Kabbalistic Yeshiva, was one of the greatest Kabbalists in recent generations.
Rabbi Shalom was born in Bizd in Persia about 106 years ago, to a family of Aralim and Tarshishis, which produced great and accepted sages.
It is told about his mother Rachel, that several of her children died when they were young and therefore she made a vow before his birth that she would ascend to the Land of Israel. Indeed, when he was only a month old, he ascended with his family to the Land of Israel by an unpaved road while they were riding camels.
Here in the Holy Land, Rabbi Shalom grew up on the Torah and the work, when after his marriage he decided to make a living from what he could, and opened a modest shoe store for him in the Nachalot neighborhood, from which he barely survived.
He learned the wisdom of Kabbalah from his teacher and rabbi, Rabbi Mordechai Sharabi zt’l. Later, he continued his path in the leadership of the yeshiva “Nahar Shalom” which was founded by Rabbi Mordechai Sharabi, who appointed him already in his lifetime to head it.
Many great Israelis greatly appreciated the greatness of Rabbi Shalom, and testified about him that he was “sharp in his holiness and purity”. The most prominent of them are the Maran HaGaon Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ztzel, and the Rebbe of Belza, who together with him studied the secrets of Kabbalah under Rabbi Mordechai Sharabi.
All his days he shut himself up in D’Emot of Torah and work, dedicating his life out of absolute asceticism, and with a minimum of speech, to the study of the occult, and prayers with unique people for the salvation of the whole and the individual.
In his humility, he did not agree to be respected in any manner of respect, and thus managed to stay behind the scenes, when he appointed his son, the head of the Yeshiva, Rabbi Benyahu, to steer the Yeshiva and head it.
Many wonderful stories have been associated with his name over the years, but he continued to walk as one of the people, while running away from the spotlight, and in his simple clothes it was not even apparent to many that a great man was in front of them.
His work in the sanctuary was wonderful when his whole day was full and overflowing from the very early hours of the morning he would get up to prepare for prayer with specifics and intentions, and after the prayer he would engage in Torah and work all day, rarely going out for joys and events even within the family.
The Kabbalist left behind an honest and blessed generation, engaged in the Torah and mitzvot in the way he had outlined for them all these years, headed by his Kabbalistic son Rabbi Rabbi Benyahu Shmuel, head of the Nahar Shalom yeshiva in Jerusalem.
The funeral procession left last night, on Shabbat evening, from the Purat Yosef Geulah synagogue to Beit Chaim in the Sanhedria, where he will be laid to rest near the Maran HaGaon Rabbi Ovadia Yosef ztzel.
May his soul be bundled in the bundle of life.
Rabbi Zamir Cohen in a fascinating lecture on Kabbalah:
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