Hi. I'm Alshich (well, not really, but you get the idea) and in this blog I'm going to highlight the key elements of my Peirush on the Torah that I wrote nearly a half-century ago. But first, most of you (who aren't listening...except for you, Mrs. Goldfischer...hi) don't know much about who I am. Let me introduce myself.
I, Moshe Alshich was born in 1508 in Adrianople, Turkey and I was privileged to be a student of Rav Yosef Karo in his Yeshivah there. In the early 1530's, Rav Karo left for Eretz Yisrael and I went with him, arriving in Tzfat in 1535 after several stops. After I arrived in Israel, Rav Karo ordained me as a rabbi and I served on his rabbinical court. I was a nice little rabbi but not one who anyone was going to remember- until I got my big break. I was pretty quiet but Rav Karo somehow had a revelation that one of the Seventy Facets of the Torah was imparted onto me. How did that happen? Well, here's the story, although you can believe what you want to believe.
One Motzei Shabbat, I was walking when suddenly I saw a poor man wishing his wife a Shavua Tov and then singing about Eliyahu HaNavi. His wife started criticizing him for singing, asking why he was singing when the family couldn't even put food on the table. I appreciated the man's passion for Hashem and decided to cover my face and throw a bag of gold coins into the house. Apparently Shamayim was impressed by my anonymous Tzedakah, but the Satan wanted to test me himself to see if I was really so righteous. The next Shabbat, I saw a poor person in shul who exclaimed that he was ravenous and I invited him to my house for a Shabbat meal. I gave him food but he just kept eating and eating and kept staying he was starving. Eventually I ran out of food but I told him that I would feed him more after Shabbat. The next day, I sent an ox to the Shocheit to feed this man, but I found out it was Treif. I sent another one- it was also Treif. I kept sending ox after ox and either there was some plague in my cattle or the Shocheit was hallucinating because 39 straight oxen will all slaughtered and found to be Treif. I sent number 40, and it was finally Kosher, but by the time it was prepared the man staying at my house had disappeared. (How did I get rich enough to do something like that? Uh.... good question.) The Satan admitted that I truly was righteous and the heavenly court rewarded me with one of these sketchy-sounding "Facets of the Torah."
The Shabbat after that, I overslept by a few minutes and was running late to Shul. I was so embarrassed, and it only got worse than I walked in and realized that everyone was waiting for me. Rav Karo asked me to speak. My first reaction was utter shock- Rav Karo always gave the sermon on the Parsha before davening and I had never done anything like that my entire life- but the Rav made me. As it turned out, the crowd was amazed by the incisiveness of my Dvar Torah and I gave the weekly talk on the Parsha every week for the rest of my life and my Peirush on the Torah, originally titled Torat Moshe, is based on those sermons.
I up writing commentaries on just about every book in Tanach to go along with a commentary on the Haggadah, a series of Shailas and Teshuvahs, and also a series of poems called Shaarei Tzion. My commentary's goal was to find a moral lesson in each Pasuk of Tanach, quoting the Gemara, Midrash, Zohar, and occasionally some of my contemporary commentators to make that happen. I am glad that many of my thoughts on Tanach continue to resonate until this day.
Speaking of the Zohar, I was living in Tzfat during the same time as the Arizal but the Ari HaKodesh said that my purpose in the world was to interpret the words of the Torah, not to delve into the secrets of Kabbalah, and every time I tried to go to one of his Shiurim, I fell asleep. However, I may have accidentally played a big role in getting the Ari to accept disciples when I made Rav Chayim Vital, my student who is more famous as the transcriber of the teachings of Arizal, tell me everything he could about Arizal, and after seeing how his teachings affected me even as someone whose principle focus was not Kabbalah, he gradually began to allow more people to learn under him. I can't take full credit for that (I was kind of being selfish, wanting the Arizal's teachings for myself and forcing Rav Chayim to tell me what he knew, but let's keep that aside), but it was an honor to be even a footnote of history in that regard.
I spent most of my life in Tzfat, but I later left to go to Damascus and died there around 1593. I was lucky to contribute to the Jewish world in many ways through my teaching of Torah, my Halachic rulings, and as one of the heads of the Jewish community of Tzfat, but my legacy until today is through my commentaries.
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