Q&A: Did the Chida Arrange His Bones …?
Did the Chida Arrange His Bones …?
Question
I saw a video in which Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, speaking casually, tells an Italian Jew who took part in transferring the Chida’s bones from Italy for burial in the Land of Israel, how in Israel, on the mission of Rabbi LeZion Nissim, Rabbi Eliyahu went with so-and-so and so-and-so and received a small box from the pilot …
There was also a fresh corpse there that had been flown in, and the family took the body and left the coffin. Rabbi Eliyahu and those with him put the small box into the large, respectable coffin, opened it, and it turned out to be jumbled bones, etc.
He turned to the Chida: “Arrange your bones,” and with a great noise the Chida arranged himself …
The skull at the head, etc.
In the large coffin in which he was ultimately buried.
Afterward I saw on Wikipedia that they bring this in the Chida entry, and even cite part of the video as a source.
Does the Rabbi buy this?
Rabbi Eliyahu is not known as a bluffer …
???
Answer
I don’t know whether he is known as a bluffer, but here it seems like a bluff to me.
Discussion on Answer
Hello Rabbi,
I also saw the video today
(here at minute 12
It’s hard to say it’s a bluff — would Rabbi Eliyahu lie like that! Especially when he knows he’s being filmed.)
I think Rabbi Chaim Vital also tells something similar about the Ari, that when they took him to the ritual bath house for purification,
they were afraid to immerse him …
and called out, “Sir, immerse yourself …”
He got up, immersed, and returned to his death …
(Or was it about the Ramak? I don’t remember … the Rabbi probably knows better than I do.)
Is that made up?