12 Cheshvan · Yahrzeit
Yahrzeit/Hillula of Rabbi Ben Tzion Mordechai Yechezkel Chazan - Porat Yosef
Rabbi Ben Tzion Mordechai Yechezkel Chazan (1877 - 1951)
Yahrzeit - 12 Cheshvan;
Resting place - Sanhedria, Jerusalem;
Rabbi Ben Tzion Mordechai Chazan was born in the month of Nissan in 1877 in Baghdad (Iraq) into the Nachum family.
Two of his brothers died the day after their brit milah, and the whole family was worried about him from the day of his own brit milah onward. Since he showed signs of dying, his mother brought him to the home of Rabbi Yosef Chaim - the Ben Ish Chai - and pleaded with him to save her son. Rabbi Yosef Chaim asked to keep him, so that he would grow up and be raised in his home as an adopted son, and taught him both the revealed and hidden parts of the Torah.
He became known for his strong and moving voice and began serving as cantor in the "Tzalat Kabiri" synagogue, where the Ben Ish Chai prayed.
After a Muslim sheikh heard his rare, beautiful voice and wanted to convert him to Islam so he could serve as a muezzin in a mosque, he fled to the Land of Israel on the advice of the Ben Ish Chai, who appointed him there as the publisher of his books.
On the first day of the month of Cheshvan in 1950, he arrived in Israel and lived in the Bukharim neighborhood of Jerusalem. The authorities refused to record his father's name, as was customary in Iraq, and decided that his surname would be "Chazan," since he was known as a great cantor.
He studied Kabbalah under Rabbi Chaim Shaul HaCohen Dweck, and published in the book "The Fearsome Deed of the Spirit" a description of an act of removing a dybbuk.
He published novel Torah insights and was in contact with great rabbis in Israel and abroad.
Rabbi Ben Tzion Mordechai Chazan, together with Rabbi Yaakov Chaim Sofer, Rabbi Ezra Halevi, and his son-in-law Yonatan Assolin, founded in Jerusalem the Talmud Torah and Yeshiva of the Babylonian community "Shoshanim LeDavid," and every Shabbat he gave a sermon at the "Yochanan Ben Zakai" synagogue in the Jewish Quarter. He collected his sermons over 40 years and wanted to have them printed, but all his writings were lost when the Jewish Quarter was captured by the Jordanians.
Appointed by the Ben Ish Chai to oversee the construction of the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in the Old City in 1959, he came to the home of the head of the landowning family with a beautiful basket in which fresh and dried fruits were arranged, and at the bottom of which lay 30,000 gold pounds, donated by the philanthropist Yosef Avraham Shalom of Calcutta (India) for the purchase of land in front of the Western Wall.
In 1955 he signed the purchase agreement and began construction, which lasted about ten years. Due to an interruption during the First World War, theft of building materials, and threats from Muslims to kill him, he was forced into hiding.
In 1991 he was put in charge of building the "Chesed LeAvraham" clinic in Hebron - today this place is called "Beit Hadassah."
He served as the Sephardic rabbi of the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem.
When the Quarter fell into the hands of the Jordanians, he was one of those who negotiated the terms of surrender and the evacuation of its residents, and with the approval of the Haganah command, on May 28, 1948, he carried a white flag alongside the Ashkenazi rabbi of the Quarter, Israel Ze'ev Mintzberg, and together they went to the Legion commander Abdullah al-Tal to arrange a truce with him for the evacuation of the dead and wounded.
After the evacuation of the Porat Yosef Yeshiva building and its demolition by the Jordanians in 1948, he moved to live in the Katamon neighborhood.
According to him and to Rabbi Avraham Chaim Adas, after the passing of the Ben Ish Chai, his body was brought to Jerusalem and buried in the cemetery on Har HaZeitim next to the Rashash.
In 2017, with the help of the kabbalist Nissim Nachum, he founded the Porat Yosef Yeshiva on the land he had purchased, and moved to live in the Yeshiva complex.
After the passing of the kabbalist Nissim Nachum, in the month of Shevat, he was appointed head of the Yeshiva in his place. Every month he prepared a report of the Yeshiva's expenses and income and made sure that donations were not wasted.
He became renowned as a healer of the sick, a deliverer from fears, and a remedy for infertility, but he steadfastly refused to accept money from those who came to him.
He edited and printed about 20 books of the Ben Ish Chai and dozens of books by other great rabbis - Rabbeinu Chida [Chaim David Azulai], Rabbi Chaim Palaggi, Rabbi Yechezkel Ezra HaLevi, Rabbi Abdallah Someach, and others.
Before Shabbat he asked his wife to move laundry day from Monday to Sunday, because on Monday she would be busy, and on Saturday evening he went to visit his sons, without explaining why.
On Sunday he told his wife that he wanted to go to the Porat Yosef Yeshiva, because he had not visited the Yeshiva since Rosh Hashanah.
When he arrived at the Yeshiva, he said that his time in this world was numbered; he asked forgiveness of all the students in case he had ever scolded anyone, even though it had been for the sake of Heaven, and instructed Rabbi Yehuda Tzadka to take care of his burial.
Returning home, he kissed the mezuzah, exclaimed, "I have sinned, I have sinned, I have sinned," and called out "Shema Yisrael." So that his wife would not be present at the moment of his death, he asked her to prepare a cup of milk for him, and when she returned with the cup of milk, she saw that he had returned his soul to his Creator.
May the merit of the tzadik protect Am Yisrael and hasten the coming of Moshiach!
(from the website mytzadik.com)