Ben Ish Chai — Rabbi Yosef Chaim הבן איש חי — רבי יוסף חיים
spiritual head of Baghdad Jewry, lawgiver of the Sephardi world
Rabbi Yosef Chaim was born in Baghdad in 5595 into a family that had led the community for generations. He held no official rabbinate, yet every Sabbath he spoke before thousands in the great synagogue, and his word was law for the Jews of Iraq, Kurdistan, Persia, India and the Far East, wherever Baghdadi merchants had settled.
His principal book grew out of those sermons. «Ben Ish Chai» is arranged by the weekly Torah portions: each opens with a kabbalistic reflection and continues with the practical laws of that week, set out so that an ordinary person can follow. The result is a code in which halakhah, custom and the mysticism of the Arizal are fused; for Sephardi communities it remains the main source of practice, and Rav Ovadia Yosef argued with it respectfully all his life.
He wrote prolifically: the responsa «Rav Pe'alim», books of parables, commentaries on aggadah, liturgical poetry, and works in Judeo-Arabic for women, so that the laws of purity and Sabbath would be known to those who had not studied.