The personal psalter of one of the great Sephardi kabbalists and rabbis, the renowned Rabbi Israel Abuhatzeira, known as Baba Sali, is scheduled to be sold at auction on April 5. The book is being sold through the Jerusalem of Gold Auction House, which said bidding would begin at $10,000. Baba Sali studied and read the Psalms from this volume, and next to each verse appears the relevant commentary by Rashi -- Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki -- the famed 11th-century author of Torah commentary. Baba Sali also wrote two identical inscriptions in the book, one in standard Hebrew letters and one in oriental script. They both read: "This book is mine, the small worshipper of God, Israel Abuhatzeira." Baba Sali also noted the Hebrew date 5705 (1945) on the inside cover. "The inscriptions in this psalter by Baba Sali are from the year 1945, about 40 years before he died. One of the meanings of the name 'Baba Sali' is 'the praying father.' We have before us the item that more than anything else represents prayer, since we use the Psalms to pray for salvation and recovery [of health]," Israel Rafaeli, a researcher for Jerusalem of Gold, said. "Who do we have who is greater than Baba Sali, the symbol of prayer, to whom the people of Israel would flock by the thousands to receive a blessing and salvation at the time of trouble and distress-" Baba Sali was born in 1889 in the city of Rissani in the Tafilalt region of Morocco. From the time he was a young man, he stood out as a scholar of genius, known for fasting and asceticism. He was eventually named head of the yeshiva in his home town. In 1922, the rabbi traveled to then-British Palestine to study at the kabbalist Beit El yeshiva. He returned to Morocco, and in 1933 returned to Palestine, where he studied together with Rabbi Ezra Atia, head of Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He returned once again to Morocco. After serving for a time as head of the Moroccan Rabbinical Court, Baba Sali once again arrived in Israel in 1951, but, unsatisfied with the spiritual situation in the young nation, returned to Morocco. In 1964, Baba Sali finally made aliyah. A few years later, he made his home in the southern town of Netivot, where he lived until his death in 1984. Baba Sali became famous for working miracles and people flocked to his house to receive his blessing. Since his passing, hundreds of thousands of Jews from Israel and the Diaspora have visited the rabbi's grave in Netivot to mark the anniversary of his death.
