Rav Chaim Palagi was a well accomplished Rav, Rosh Yeshivah, and Chacham Bashi born in Izmir, Turkey. His father was a Torah scholar in the Yeshivah of the Chief Rabbi of Izmir, whose name was Harav Raphael Yosef Hazan. His father was a genuine Torah scholar and His grandfather was
the Rosh Yeshivah in Izmir.
Shortly after he was discovered to be a very big genius and had written many books early on, he reached a level called Moreh Zedek. This qualified him to give over Halachot for people. Eventually, he became the Rosh Yeshiva. Soon after his grandfather passed away he became the Rabbi of Izmir. He became very famous and everybody respected whatever he
said, also the Arabs of the city and even the Ruler. They made him the official leader of all of the Jewish communities of Turkey and by his word, people would be arrested or freed by the police.
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY OF RAV PALAGI
He wrote over 50 books in his lifetime. At some point, there was a big fire in his local Jewish neighborhood, in which his house caught fire as well. His students knew he had all his writings in the basement of his house. One of his students went in to save some of his writings but the majority of them were burned. Rav Palagi really took this incident very
seriously. All of these writings consisted of his life's work, therefore he became quite sad over it.
He had a son that was already grown at this time who told him, “I'm sure you remember what you wrote” because he was known to have a photographic memory. He told him we'll sit together and you will tell me overall you've written until now. Sure enough, after two years they were able to replace all the Rabbis writings exactly as before.
Like other big righteous rabbis that we're living in those times and specifically in those areas of Morocco and Turkey, he was involved not only in Halachot and Gemara, he was also involved in Kabbalah and specifically with segulot. In his books,
there's tons of segulot. It's something that he takes very seriously and has very good sources for. Many other mekubalim whose writings we still have, claim their teachings derive from Rabbi Palagi. One of Rav Palagis book on Segulot was the book of "Healing and Life"
INCORPORATING TRUE REPENTANCE INTO THE SEGULOT
Relatively, Teshuvah is something that seems so simple, but we forget it as a prerequisite before the Tikkun. It seems rather obvious but practically it's not so simple.
Some people get results with various different segulahs and their accompanying prayers. Yet they don't put this basic step upfront. A major step is the reciting of Vidui and if there's no Tachanun said, such as in the month of Nissan, he brings a few pesukim we
should say instead of that and also instructs us how to contemplate Teshuvah.
