Chalom Messas

Shalom Messas
Born (1909-02-13)February 13, 1909
Meknes, Morocco
Died April 12, 2003(2003-04-12) (aged 90)
in his house in Jerusalem
Resting place Har HaMenuchot, Jerusalem, Israel
31°47′49″N 35°10′51″E / 31.796856°N 35.180755°E / 31.796856; 35.180755
Nationality Israeli, Moroccan
Known for Religious teacher
Home town Meknes
Title Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem
Relatives Ruth Elkrief (great-niece)[1]

Shalom Messas (Or Shalom Mashash; Hebrew: שלום משאש) was the Chief Rabbi of Morocco, and the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, Israel.

Biography

Messas was born in Meknes, Morocco in 1909. He was the son of Rabbi Mimoun Messas and his wife, Rachel. In his youth, he studied with his father and with Rabbi Yitzhak Sabag, Dayan and Rosh Yeshiva in Meknes.

Messas also attended an Alliance Israélite Universelle school. He was a promising Torah prodigy at a very young age, and was a leading student of Morocco's Chief Rabbi Yehoshua Berdugo. The Messas family is an old one, with roots deep within Spain and Portugal. Shalom Messas was appointed Chief Rabbi of Casablanca at the young age of 36, he later served as Chief Rabbi of all Morocco. In 1978, then-Israeli Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef asked Rabbi Messas to come to the holy city and become its Chief Sephardic Rabbinical authority. When he departed for Israel, Rabbi Messas was escorted to the airport by Morocco's King Hassan II himself, who requested that the Rabbi bless him one last time before his departure, and with that was his last official act in Moroccan.

He had worked on important matters of Halacha right up to his last days. He was said to be very exact in preserving Sephardic customs, and would work full days and nights to try to find a Halachic way to solve the issue at hand. As an author of many books, he wrote his first significant scholarly work, "Mizrach Shemesh" in 1930, and his last work, "V'Cham HaShemesh" was written in 2002. Rabbi Chalom Messas, died on Shabbat Hagadol, 2003, at the age of ninety. He was buried in Har Hamenuhot in Jerusalem. His many works include: Mizrah Shemesh, Tevouot Shemesh, Shemesh Umagen, Beit Shemesh and Veham Hashemesh.[2]

He also edited and published the following books:

  • Divre Moshe by Chief Rabbi Moses ben Abraham Berdugo, called "Mashbir"
  • Divre Mordechai by Rabbi Mordechai Berdugo, Hamarbitz
  • Torot Emet, Me Menuhot, Rav Peninim and Messamehe Lev by his great-great-great-grandfather Rabbi Raphael Berdugo
  • Lev Mevin and Penei Mevin by Rabbi Mimoun Berdugo
  • Edout Beyaakov by his great-grandfather Rabbi Yaacov Berdugo.
  • Divre Chalom by his grandfather also named Rabbi Chalom Messas.
  • Guevoul Binyamine
  • Divre Yossef[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Ruth Elkrief". Gala. Retrieved November 3, 2016.
  2. 1 2 "MESSAS Family Tree". Retrieved December 1, 2011.
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