I recently acquired two handwritten documents, written by the Baba Sali in his early years, which tell of the personality and greatness of the man before his later fame as a miracle worker. Born in 1889 in Morocco, R. Israel Abuhatzeira (died 1984) was the son of R. Masoud and grandson of R. Yaakov Abuhatzeira who served as rabbis in the Tafilalt region in Eastern Morocco. In 1908, the Baba Sali’s father Rabbi Masoud passed away, and the eldest son R. David took his place as rabbi of the community. In 1919, there were local revolts against the ruling French by local Muslim rulers. Viewed as having leanings towards the French rulers, the Jews were persecuted by the revolting Muslim local rulers, led by Mulai Mohamad who decreed that all the Jewish inhabitants of the Tafilalt region be murdered. On Dec. 6, 1919, R. David Abuhatzeira, leader of the community, alongside two other leaders of the community, was murdered by Mulai Mohamed and his henchmen.
Following his elder brother’s murder, the Baba Sali was appointed head of the community, but fearing continuing antisemitism, his family and much of the community moved to the town of Boudenib, where the yeshiva he led was resettled. Serving as rabbi of the community, most of his writings from this period and his activities revolved around community affairs and heading the bet din.
The separate documents I acquired include a psak din, a rabbinical court ruling signed by the Baba Sali in 1937, and a page handwritten by him in 1938 from the Kabbalistic work Pri Etz Hayyim, containing meditations for the daily prayers authored by Rabbi Chaim Vital. While there was a printed edition of the volume in existence at the time, the book was printed in Eastern Europe and finding a copy in rural Morocco would have been nearly impossible in that era, thus writing manuscripts for personal use was still a common occurrence in this region. While the first book printed anywhere in the African continent was a Hebrew book, the Sefer Abudarham printed in Fes, Morocco in 1516, printed by exiles from Lisbon, there was four centuries following that when no Hebrew printing occurred anywhere in Morocco.
