Ma'avar Yabok
1549 CE–1639 CE · Acharonim · Modena
R. Aaron Berechiah of Modena (d. 1639) authored Ma'avar Yabok — the foundational text for Jewish death-and-mourning ritual practice across all Sephardic, Italian, and a wide swath of Ashkenazi-kabbalistic communities. The work treats the cycle from the visit to the dying through burial, shivah, the eleven months, and the first-year practices, weaving together halacha, Lurianic Kabbalah, and specific prayer texts.
A leading disciple of R. Menachem Azariah of Fano (the Rama mi-Fano), Berechiah was an active member of the Hevrah Kadisha of Modena; the tikkunim (prayer-services) he composed for the moments of death, burial, and yahrzeit became standard in the Italian-Sephardic world and were adopted by Hasidic and many Sephardic mourning rites. He also wrote Ashmoret HaBoker (a Lurianic dawn-vigil tikkun) and Bigdei Aharon.
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ModenaמודנהNorthern Italy — Este duchy
What they did here
Lived and worked in Modena; studied under R. Hillel of Modena and R. Menachem Azariah of Fano. Active member of the Modena Hevrah Kadisha. Composed Ma'avar Yabok and Ashmoret HaBoker here. Died in Modena 1639.
About Modena
Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, was refounded as the Roman colony of Mutina in 183 BCE. Its Romanesque cathedral, with the Torre Civica and Piazza Grande, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Pope Adrian III died near Modena in 885 and was buried at the nearby abbey of Nonantola. After Ferrara passed to the papacy in 1598, Modena became the main seat of the Este dukes, and it had a notable Jewish community: the kabbalist Aaron Berechiah of Modena (d. 1639) wrote Ma'avar Yabbok, an influential book of prayers and teachings on the sick, the dying and the dead, and the scholar Abraham Rovigo was born there around 1650.
Works
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