Magnificent Certificate of Honor for Rabbi Moshe Betzalel Tadrasavitz, with the Signature of Kabbalist Rabbi ...

Magnificent Certificate of Honor for Rabbi Moshe Betzalel Tadrasavitz, with the Signature of Kabbalist Rabbi Naftali Hertz HaLevi

Color lithograph print certificate of honor with gold decorations, granted to Rabbi Moshe Betzalel Tadrasavitz for his help establishing the Shaarei Torah Talmud Torah in Jaffa, signed by the city rabbi, the famous kabbalist Rabbi Naftali Hertz HaLevi. Jerusalem, Yoel Moshe Salomon Press, pre-1902.

The kabbalist Rabbi Naftali Hertz HaLevi was known as a great gaon and kabbalist for whom the secrets of the hidden Torah flowed within him with expertise and tremendous depth. He was born in Bialystock to his father, the rabbi and preacher Eliyahu Leib. In 1884 he immigrated to the Land of Israel from Poland. He settled in the Meah Shearim neighborhood and established a yeshivah in the city. In 1886, the Ashkenazic community was established in Jaffa, and Rabbi Naftali Hertz was sent by Rabbi Shmuel Salant and Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin to serve as its rabbi. He founded Jewish life there and in the colonies, primarily the observance of the Land-of-Israel-dependent mitzvahs, which was a new phenomenon in Judaism - since the destruction of the Temples. In Adar II/April 1891, the Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities united, and Rabbi HaLevi was appointed to head the united community with the approbation of Rabbi Yechiel Michel Pines and Yoel Moshe Salomon on behalf of the Ashkenazim, and Rabbi Aharon Shalosh and Rabbi Yaakov Meir on behalf of the Sephardim. So Rabbi HaLevi became the highest rabbinical authority in Jaffa. He was one of the major fighters against the secular-Russian culture brought by those who came in the first wave of immigration, in the form of mixed-gender dancing, public desecration of Shabbat and theater performances in Jaffa.

Rabbi Moshe Betzalel Tadrasavitz was born in 1849 in Perugina, which is in the Brisk region of Lithuania. He immigrated to Israel and settled there. His only son, David (later, "Tidhar," - in the margins of the certificate, written by hand: "memento from my father, z"l, by David Tidhar"), was born there, he was eventually known as the editor of the encyclopedia of the pioneers of the yishuv and its builders. He was involved in the establishment of Hadera, and was an active participant in the establishment of the Shaarei Torah Talmud Torah in Jaffa. It was for this involvement that the certificate before us was granted.

19x28 cm. Tears in the margins. Fine condition.