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I was born in July, 1626, in the French city of Tartas to my father Christopher de Lis and my mother Elisabeth de Pas. She nursed me with her own milk, taught, educated, and held me on her own lap…
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…
I am the man they call, at times, mem-bet-aleph, which are the [Hebrew] initials of Michael ben Abraham. At other times I am called aleph-mem-koph: Abraham Michael Cardozo. I am of the Marranos of…
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…
When the Lord enlarged the border of the Jewish people, and they increased and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with knowledge of the Lord [see Exodus 1:7; Isaiah 11:9] by the…
I, David, son of King Solomon of blessed memory, from the Khibur Desert, arrived at the gate of the State of Rome on the fifteenth day of the month of First Adar in the year 5584 [1524]. A…
A scion from Portugal by the name of Solomon Molkho sprouted forth from the trunk of Israel [see Isaiah 11:1] and spent his youth among the scribes of the king—where they had been scattered since the…
The tale of the Generation of the Land is a sad tale. Reflecting about the source of the depression that the situation in Israel instills in me, I can only ascribe it to expressions of ethnocentric…
Even after the mourning period was over, when the flat was finally empty and my father and I locked the door and were alone together, we hardly talked to one another. Except about the most essential…
R. Isaac ben Abraham ben Judah ‘Akrish, may he rest in peace, from exile in Spain and Naples, said that he would not receive the proud waters [of baptism; see Psalms 124:5], and was driven out…