Page 25 - Nachlaot Very Advanced RA1 130918
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Very Advanced Level – רמה מתקדמת מאד
Congregation Beit Yitzhak
The Kurds who settled in Nachlaot were the builders of Jerusalem. They were more
familiar than all others with the stones used in building. They were familiar with
every stone!
One hundred years ago a group of Persian Kurdish Jews arrived in Jerusalem.
They sailed here and endured an arduous journey. On the same ship were Rabbi
Yitzhak Calipha and his sons. During the sailing, Rabbi Calipha died. The Ship's
Captain instructed that the body be thrown overboard. This was the instruction of
the Turkish authorities: that it was forbidden to bring a corpse to land. The
immigrants requested that the Captain build a wooden crate. They put Rabbi
Yitzhak wearing his ritual fringes in the crate, wrote on the crate,"Jerusalem, the
Holy City", and threw it to the sea.
After some time, the members of the community received a letter from the
Jewish community in India that said that the crate with the deceased had reached
Calcutta and had been buried there.
When they settled in Nachlaot, the brothers bought a plot of land on which
they built homes and another plot that they dedicated to the building of a synagogue
to be named after their father. The entire community volunteered to help in the
construction but they had no money. One of the respected members of the
community had an idea. He dug a cistern, filled it with rainwater, and sold the
water to the local Arabs or to the Arabs in the neighboring village of Sheikh Bader.
The price was "a building stone for a bucket of water". Thus the synagogue was
built.
The synagogue has twelve windows symbolizing the twelve tribes; three steps
to the stage (where the prayer leader and the Torah reader stand) symbolizing the
three Patriarchs; and one step at the entrance to the sanctuary symbolizing the One
G-d.
The high entrance-way to the sanctuary was built so that walking into the
sanctuary would result in an act of bowing.
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