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David U Moshe, Morocco

Description

Parallel shrine in Israel in Canaan neighborhood of Safed

I came to the grave of the Moroccan holy man Rabbi David And Moshe entirely consumed by doubts: Not only is the whole business of prostrating oneself on holy men's graves foreign to me (if magic and mysticism at all, I'm more into readers of coffee grinds and Tarot cards), but also it turned out that in the apartment in the workers' housing project in the Canaan neighborhood, a modest neighborhood at the edge of Safed that for 36 years now has been a pilgrimage site, there isn't even a single grave to save one's soul. This is because Rabbi David AndMoshe (whose name, incidentally, David VeMoshe in Hebrew, is apparently a corruption of David Ben Moshe, David Son of Moshe), is still buried in the Atlas mountains. At the entrance to the compound (outside there's a scorched, sooty bay for lighting candles), is a place for the ritual washing of hands "for the glorification of our parents' soul" and a sign bearing a grave warning to women not to enter when they are ritually impure - that is, when they are menstruating or recently gave birth. I am greeted warmly by Ami Ben Haim, 37. He lives with his father in the apartment that serves both as a residence and a pilgrimage site. The father and householder is Avraham Ben Haim ("he's sleeping now"), whose life changed completely in 1972 when the above-mentioned holy man visited him in a dream and commanded him to "establish for him a place to be in" - without even bringing his bones to Israel. The courteous son takes us inside, into a room that has the appearance of a synagogue, where plywood shelves groan under sacred books around a kind of marble slab in the center resembling a tombstone with two slots for slipping in donations. Alongside the dummy tombstone - a photograph of the real grave in Morocco.

Morocco

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