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One day I came back from my synagogue and sat down in my room to take breakfast—a bowl of milk and some bread, instead of the compote juice and butter cake that had been my customary…
This is the book of the generations/children of man, those that were born by my hands among the Hebrew women. I came to them, I the midwife, for they are vital [Exodus 1:15–19] and give birth to a son…
In the year 5332 [1572], we went out in the fields and we passed the grave of a gentile that was more than a thousand years old. His Animus was seen on his tombstone and he tried to harm me and kill…
As for myself, I was constantly going back in my studies as well as in manners and conduct. After a while, my father decided to send me to Prague, which was a day’s journey. My older brother was also…
Although the troubles worsened and the city of Padua was in a state of turmoil [see Esther 3:15], there remained hope and divine mercy for the Jews, as not one person in the ghetto was dead or ill…
That year my wife, Hannah, became extremely ill and one Sabbath she was in a coma and close to death. At night, at the conclusion of the Sabbath, we approached her to witness the departure of the…
When [Isaac Luria] was sick, he blessed each companion with a suitable blessing for him, in accordance with the spark of his soul. R. Ḥayim Vital was not there with them at the time of the blessing…
I was in the midst of a large group of people who were there, close to a hundred people, among them scholars and heads of communities. And two men, who knew adjurations and many things, approached the…
Behold, I am aged and my eyes are dim and my hands heavy and shaky, and at a time when my strength, enabling me to remain standing upon my watch, is ebbing away—with the yoke of the…
I was the fourth [child] born and the first son, a tender darling to my father and my mother (cf. Prov. 4:3) after my mother had given birth to three daughters. My parents were worriers and trembled…