Rav Salman Mutzafi הרב סלמאן מוצפי
A Baghdad kabbalist in Jerusalem; a man of the midnight prayer over the ruined Temple
He was born in Baghdad at the close of the days of the Ben Ish Chai and learned there from sages who remembered him alive. Later he went up to Jerusalem and remained there to the end.
He is remembered for tikkun chatzot—the midnight prayer over the ruined Temple, which he led openly and hardly ever missed. About him gathered a circle of men for whom the exile was not a word in a book but something wept over at night. He was also among those who kept the Baghdad kabbalistic learning alive in Jerusalem, brought there with the community.
His kinship with Rav Yaakov Mutzafi is not named in the sources, and we do not invent it: they were men of one generation and one circle. Rav Salman's son is Rav Ben Zion Mutzafi. The exact Hebrew date of birth is not recorded; the year from Creation is derived from the common-era year.
Places
Related
Sources
Acharonim and later rabbinic literature
- Records and testimony of the Baghdadi community of Jerusalem — the circle, the prayers and the transmission of learning
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — the years, Baghdad and the ascent to Jerusalem
Basis: documents and evidence.