SHIVITI POSTER Kabbalistic names & BEN ISH HAI Prayer Laws Kabbalah Judaica Chai

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SHIVITI POSTER Kabbalistic names & BEN ISH HAI Prayer Laws Kabbalah Judaica Chai:
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A 9” x 12 ¾“ printed poster with a Shiviti Menorah on the right, and on the left a chart with the laws for answering Amen during the prayers according to the rulings of the Ben Ish Hai (Joseph Ḥayyim ben Elijah al-Ḥakam). In addition to the Shiviti & Amen chart, in the upper area is the verse from Psalms 128:5:

“יברכך השם מציון“ - “May the LORD bless you from Zion”.

Beneath that is a statement found in the Talmud Berachot 20a by the third-century Palestinian sage R. Yoḥanan:

\"אנא מזרעא דיוסף קא אתינא דלא שלטא ביה עינא בישא\"

“I descend from the seed of Joseph over whom the evil eye has no dominion”.

Underneath the chart is his small portrait of the Ben Ish Hai, and just above the chart are several mystical name combinations of G-d.

Yosef Hayyim

יוסף חיים מבגדאד

Yosef Hayim of Baghdad,

author of Ben Ish Hai

Born

1 November 1835

Died

30 August 1909 (aged 73)

Yosef Hayim (1 September 1835 – 30 August 1909) (Iraqi Hebrew: Yoseph Ḥayyim; Hebrew: יוסף חיים מבגדאד) was a leading Baghdadi hakham (Sephardi rabbi), authority on halakha (Jewish law), and Master Kabbalist. He is best known as author of the work on Halakha Ben Ish Ḥai (בן איש חי) (\"Son of Man (who) Lives\"), a collection of the laws of everyday life interspersed with mystical insights and customs, addressed to the masses and arranged by the weekly Torah portion.

Biography

He initially studied in his father\'s library, and, at the age of 10, he left midrash (\"school room\") and began to study with his uncle, Rav David Hai Ben Meir who later founded the Shoshanim LeDavid Yeshiva in Jerusalem. In 1851, he married Rachel, the sister of Hakham Ovadia Somekh, his prime mentor. They had a daughter and two sons together.
When Yosef Hayim was only twenty-five years old, his father died. Despite his youth, the Jews of Baghdad accepted him to fill his father\'s place as the leading rabbinic scholar of Baghdad, though he never filled the official position of Hakham Bashi. The Sephardic Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem, was founded on his advice by Joseph Shalom, of Calcutta, India—one of Rabbi Hayim\'s patrons.
Hayim clashed with the reformist Bavarian Jewish scholar Jacob Obermeyer who lived in Baghdad from 1869 to 1880, and excommunicated him.[1] Part of the contention was due to Obermeyer and Hayim\'s conflicting views on promotion of the Zohar.[2]

WorksThe Ben Ish Hai (בן איש חי) is a standard reference in some Sephardi homes (functioning as \"a Sephardi Kitzur Shulchan Aruch\") and is widely studied in Sephardi yeshivot. Due to the popularity of this book, Hakham Yosef Hayim came to be known as \"Ben Ish Hai\", by which he is referred to by many today.[citation needed] The book is a collection of homilies he gave over two years discussing the weekly Torah portion. Each chapter begins with a mystical discussion, usually explaining how a Kabbalistic interpretation of a certain verse relates to a particular halakha, and then continuing to expound on that halakha with definitive rulings.
Hakham Yosef Hayim authored over thirty other works, and there are many published Iraqi rite siddurim (prayer books) based on his rulings, which are widely used by Sephardi Jews. Amongst the best known of his works are:
Me-Kabtziel (Miqqabṣiël): an esoteric exposition of Jewish law — which he refers to often in Ben Ish Hai — providing a more detailed explanation of the reasoning underlying certain decisions. It has been speculated that Hakham Yosef Hayim\'s insistence on having all his works printed in the Land of Israel prevented this essential work from being published.
Ben Yehoyada (Ben Yəhoyadaʻ) and Benayahou: his commentary on the Talmud, considered a basic resource in understanding the Aggada (narrative sections of the Talmud).
The Responsa (Hebrew: She\'elot U-Teshuvot‎‎) Rav Pe\'alim (Rab Pəʻalim) and Torah Lishmah.
The names Ben Ish Hai, Me-Kabtziel, Rav Pe\'alim and Ben Yehoyada derive from 2 Samuel 23:20. He chose these names because he claimed to have been a reincarnation of Benayahu ben Yehoyada (described as Ben Ish Hayil, the son of a valiant man); the man in whose merit, it is said, both the first and second Holy Temples stood.
Hakham Yosef Hayim was also noted for his stories and parables.[citation needed] Some are scattered through his halakhic works, but have since been collected and published separately; others were published as separate works in his lifetime, as an alternative to the European-inspired secular literature that was becoming popular at the time. His Qânûn-un-Nisâ\' (قانون النساء) is a book filled with parables concerning self-improvement. The book, directed towards, but not limited to women, is rare since it was composed in Judeo-Arabic.[citation needed] It was last published in Israel in the 1940s.

See also

Jonatan Meir, \"Toward the Popularization of Kabbalah: R. Yosef Hayyim of Baghdad and the Kabbalists of Jerusalem\", Modern Judaism 33(2) (May 2013), pp. 147–172

Kaf HaChaim — a more discursive, and contemporaneous, Sephardi work of Halakha by Rabbi Yaakov Chaim Sofer.
Yalkut Yosef, a contemporary Sephardi work of Halakha, based on the rulings of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
Yehuda Fatiyah — a student of Yosef Chaim.
Ben Ish Hai,\" [1] - The Life & Times of Hacham Yosef Haim by Yehuda Azoulay

References

Abraham Stahl, \'Ritualistic Reading among Oriental Jews\', Anthropological Quarterly, 52/2 (1979), 115–20 p. 115; \'Jacob Obermeyer, a German Jew who lived in Baghdad from 1869 to 1880, found that many people read the Zohar although they did not understand its meaning. Elderly people told him that the custom was fairly new and not much in vogue in their youth.\'

Shiviti with Hebrew text in the form of a menorah

A reconstruction of the menorah of the Temple created by the Temple Institute. The Hebrew text of the Shiviti follows the form of such a menorah.

Shiviti (שויתי in Hebrew, also: Shivisi, in the Ashkenazic pronunciation) are meditative representations of a candlestick used in some Jewishcommunities for contemplation over God\'s name. They are usually placed over the amud - the podium from which the prayer service is led by the hazzan. A decorated parochet or mizrach tapestry, or a special illustrated page in the siddur with similar imagery may also serve the same function.

The Shiviti displays the Divine Name of God (the Tetragrammaton) followed by a representation of the Temple seven-branched candlelabrum, or more accurately, lamp-stand (since oil rather than wax was used) as described in Exodus 25:31.

Shiviti is the first word in the Hebrew text of Psalms 16:8 meaning “I have placed” and the next word is the Tetragrammaton aforementioned, which is writ large. The complete verse means “I have placed the Lord always before me”, and is written at the top. This item is meant to enable the worshipper, while praying, to assume an appropriate posture and frame of mind, not unlike the Eastern mandalatradition.

The Kabbalists observed that Psalms 67 has a sentence structure such that it may be said to figuratively represent a lamp-stand.[citation needed] The first verse is the title, and it stretches across the entire stand, marking out the burning lamps. Of the actual text which follows, the fourth, middle verse is the longest, and represents the middle trunk and the long supporting shaft. The first and seventh are the next longest, and represent the long outer branches. The remaining inner branches are of equal word length.

In Judaic art[edit]

In the 18-19th centuries this tradition turned into a whole branch of Judaic art [1]. Today, a number of Jewish artists produce various modern forms of Shiviti, sometimes merging the old Kabbalistic traditions with New Age and Far Eastern motifs.