Sermon for Shabbat ha-Gadol, Autograph Manuscript of the Ben Ish Hai (Joseph Hayyim al-Hakam of Baghdad), 5654 (=1894)

49 leaves (7 ¼ x 4 ¾ in.; 186 x 120 mm). Written in black ink on paper in Eastern semi-cursive Hebrew script, 20-26 lines per page; mostly unruled, a few leaves ruled in print; recent foliation in pencil, occasional strikethroughs and edits by author; minor smudging;  a few leaves with chips to fore-edges; corners slightly rounded. First three leaves reinforced at gutter, affecting a few letters; minor tears in the outer margins of ff. 2, 16; tape repairs on ff. 2, 12; stubs after ff. 12, 36; f. 19 blank;, small tears from stab-sewing final fourbleaves, with tape repairs, affecting a few letters. Modern panelled, tooled two-tone brown morocco. 

Shaul Regev, “The Homiletical and Ethical Literature of Rabbi Joseph Hayyim,” Yahadut Bavel 1 (1996): 35-42 (in Hebrew).

unpublished sermon of the renowned leader of Iraqi Jewry

Rabbi Joseph Hayyim al-Hakam of Baghdad (1835-1909) was one of the most prominent halakhic authorities and kabbalists of Iraqi Jewry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born into a rabbinic family, he was selected to succeeded his father as spiritual leader of the Jews of Baghdad in 1859, a post he held for half a century until his death. In addition to serving as the community’s primary posek (halakhic decisor), he delivered daily lectures and weekly sermons to its members, always attracting large crowds. While his weekly Sabbath afternoon homily was given in the so-called “small” synagogue, which seated a thousand worshipers, there were four Sabbaths in the year when he would lecture at the “large” synagogue, with a capacity of over ten thousand seats: the Sabbaths before Yom Kippur (“Shuvah”), Purim (“Zakhor”), Passover (“Ha-Gadol”), and Shavu‘ot (“Kallah”). Each of these sermons would typically feature a blend of Jewish law, rabbinic legend, parables, and ethical teachings.

The present lot comprises the sermon delivered by Rabbi Joseph Hayyim al-Hakam of Baghdad on Shabbat ha-Gadol 5654 (8 Nisan 5654 = April 14, 1894), and written in his own hand. While in recent years a number of collections of al-Hakam’s Shabbat ha-Gadol sermons have begun to appear in print (Ben Ish Hayil [1988], Siftei Hayyim [2009], Gedullat Hayyim [2012]), the present homily has yet to be published.

Al-Hakam was and continues to be respected throughout the Sephardic world, especially in the Jewish communities of Iraq, Iran, India, and the Land of Israel. His prestige is such that his descendants and followers particularly deem original handwritten material to be imbued with an ineluctable level of holiness that serves as both a source of metaphysical protection and blessing.