Shivchei Ha’ari is a well known book containing legends and stories regarding the life and activities of Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the great mysticist of sixteenth century Safed.
Born in Jerusalem, Luria spent the greater part of his life in Egypt. Two years before his death he settled in Safed. When he died at the young age of thirty-eight, the great Talmudicists and and mysticists of that town which then was one of the most important spiritual centers of Jewry, were his disciples and devotees. The influence he exercised on his contemporaries and upon the following generations has been immeasurably great.
The legends and stories contained in the book are mainly based on the letters sent by Shlomo Meinsterl in the beginning of the seventeenth century from Palestine abroad. In these letters Meinsterl related what he had heard of the greatness of the Ari. At first the letters were published together with other books but later different editors had added new stories, and they appeared as separate books. The book enjoyed an immense popularity and was many times reprinted. It was printed in many cities in Europe, in Istanbul, Jerusalem, Calcutta and so forth. It was published in various versions and languages. Editions appeared in Ladino, Arabic and Yiddish. Many versions of the book still preserved, hail from many countries including Yemen and Persia.
A full list of all Hebrew editions, translations and still extant manuscripts of the book has been compiled by Meir Benayahu. His work which mentions all editions of which only one copy is extant, is like all his others studies, a masterpiece.
Meir Benayahu, who is a son of Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Nissim and scientific secretary of the President of the State of Israel is one of the greatest authorities on the history and literature of non-Ashkenazic Jewry.
I hope to write more about him when I will discuss in these columns his monumental book on Azulai. Here I would only state that Benayahu’s knowledge in his fields is stupendous and so is his literary output.
In the work before us, Benayahu not only lists and describes all versions of Shivchei Ha’ari, but also traces the literary sources of the tales and legends recorded in the various editions.
It is here that I would like to permit myself a minor remark. The story of the Ari and the woman who had prevented some hens from drinking water* was according to Benayahu first printed in 1842. May we observe that it was printed earlier in the Kav Hayashar by Zvi Kaidenover (Chapter 7 and compare Sefer Hareidim, Positive Torah Commandments, Chapter 4). Also another story which according to Benayahu is first found in Chemdat HaYamin is already found in Kav HaYashar (chapter 17).
In addition to the Shivchei Ha’Ari there is another extant book of tales of Luria. It is called “Toldoth HaAri” and has never been published. Benayahu will publish a scholarly edition of it in the near future.
The Jewish Press, Friday, Nov. 10, 1961, page 11
* A woman who ceased conceiving children was told by the Ari ZAL that her sudden infertility was caused by the fact that she removed a ladder that enabled hens to drink water. When the woman returned the ladder to its place, her fertility returned (Pearl Herzog).