SAFED, ISRAEL—A sizeable fire blazed across the ancient Safed cemetery Monday night amid the annual pilgrimage to the tomb of the great Kabbalistic sage, Rabbi Isaac Luria, on the anniversary of his passing.
Prayers at the gravesite were interrupted briefly while firefighters doused the flames without incident as community leaders in the city known for its rich spiritual legend and lore took the opportunity to wax metaphorical.
Playing on a well-known reference to the Arizal—the acronym he is widely known by—as a fiery lion of Torah and the teaching that a great sage’s powers are infused in the world on his yahrtzeit, Rabbi Chaim Kaplan, director of Chabad of Safed, told Chabad.org, “The great spiritual fire was reflected in a great physical fire.”
Rabbi Mordechai Siev, longtime program director of the Ascent Institute of Safed outreach and education hostel, had a slightly different take.
“It brought to mind the two pillars of fire the Ari was said to have seen leading the funeral procession of his predecessor, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, that made clear that he was to be his successor,” Siev said, in a reference to a legendary tale. “It also made a link between the recent bonfires on Lag BaOmer for the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai and the great Ari.”
It is written that just before his demise, Rabbi Cordovero, another of Safed’s famed 16th-century mystical giants, told his students that whoever would perceive two cloud pillars leading his funeral procession to his gravesite would be his successor. And the Arizal was the only one who perceived those columns.
Authorities estimated that between 25,000 and 30,000 people made the trek to Safed in northern Israel to observe the yahrzeit over the 24-hour period.
Rafael El Mikayef, 53, who spends most of his time learning in a kollel (a yeshivah for married men) says he looks forward to the trip all year “to strengthen myself, and to pray for my family, for health and for success in Torah learning.”
“You come to pray in the merit of the tzaddik [righteous person], for everything—the nation of Israel and for the whole world,” said Amnon Arnon, another who travels to the tomb nearly every year—in his case, two hours from B’nei Brak in Israel’s center. “If there is not peace in Israel, there is not peace in the rest of the world.”
In honor of the occasion, for the third consecutive year, Chabad of Safed erected a wedding-size air-conditioned tent near the tomb to provide some 6,000 sit-down meals and a place to rest, pray and learn for a wide array of visitors. A schedule of classes in Chassidus and Kabbalah, much focused on the teachings of the Arizal, are also offered for men and women.
“I haven’t really seen anything like this,” Dovid Freydin, a Chicago lawyer who timed his summer trip to Israel with his family to attend the Arizal’s yahrtzeit, said about the accommodation. “The hospitality was amazing. It was like being at a wedding. This is Chabad.”
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