Chalom Messas

Shalom Messas (Hebrew: שלום משאש) was a Sephardic rabbi and scholar who served as Chief Rabbi of Morocco, and later as Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem.

Biography

Messas was born in Meknes, Morocco in 1909. He was the son of Rabbi Mimoun Messas and his wife, Rachel. In his youth, he studied with his father and with Rabbi Yitzhak Sabag, Dayan and Rosh Yeshiva in Meknes.

Messas also attended an Alliance Israélite Universelle school. He was a promising Torah prodigy at a very young age, and was a leading student of Morocco's Chief Rabbi Yehoshua Berdugo. The Messas family is an old one, with roots deep within Spain and Portugal. Shalom Messas was appointed Chief Rabbi of Casablanca at the young age of 36; he later served as Chief Rabbi of all Morocco. In 1978, then Israeli Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef asked Rabbi Messas to come to the holy city and become its Chief Sephardic Rabbinical authority. When he departed for Israel, Messas was escorted to the airport by Morocco's King Hassan II himself, who requested that the Rabbi bless him one last time before his departure, and with that was his last official act in Moroccan.

Ovadia Yosef consulted with Messas in matters of Jewish law and scholarship, often citing him as his support in issuing bold ''halachic'' decisions.

Messas worked on important matters of ''Halacha'' right up to his last days. He was said to be very exact in preserving Sephardic customs, and would work full days and nights to try to find a Halachic way to solve the issue at hand. As an author of many books, he wrote his first significant scholarly work, ''Mizrach Shemesh'' in 1930, and his last work, ''V'Cham HaShemesh'' was written in 2002.

Messas died on Shabbat ''Hagadol'' (April 12), 2003, at the age of ninety. He was buried in Har HaMenuchot in Jerusalem. His many works include: ''Mizrah Shemesh'', ''Tevouot Shemesh'', ''Shemesh Umagen'', ''Beit Shemesh'' and ''Veham Hashemesh''.

He also edited and published the following books:
* ''Divre Moshe'' by Chief Rabbi Moses ben Abraham Berdugo, called "Mashbir"
* ''Divre Mordechai'' by Rabbi Mordechai Berdugo, Hamarbitz
* ''Torot Emet, Me Menuhot, Rav Peninim'' and ''Messamehe Lev'' by his great-great-great-grandfather Rabbi Raphael Berdugo
* ''Lev Mevin'' and ''Penei Mevin'' by Rabbi Mimoun Berdugo
* ''Edout Beyaakov'' by his great-grandfather Rabbi Yaacov Berdugo.
* ''Divre Chalom'' by his grandfather also named Rabbi Chalom Messas.
* ''Guevoul Binyamine''
* ''Divre Yossef''

See also

* David Messas (his son).

References

External links

Family Tree

{{DEFAULTSORT:Messas, Shalom
1909 births
2003 deaths
Chief rabbis of Jerusalem
20th-century Moroccan rabbis
Sephardi rabbis
20th-century rabbis in Jerusalem
People from Meknes
Moroccan writers
Burials at Har HaMenuchot
21st-century rabbis in Jerusalem
Chief rabbis of Morocco