I had a session
of learning the Eitz Chaim of Isaac Luria with Shimon Buso [the son of the daughter of Bava Sali]
There is a
long story involved in this. I met him in a Beit Midrash in Ramot Gimel and he
brought me to see his mother and for some reason she was immediately impressed.
While there I saw a copy of Shimon Shkop’s book on Yevamot and picked it up out
of curiosity and opened up to one essay on Tzarat HaBat.
At any rate
that began a long relationship with that family. In Those days I was spending
all my time by what is called “Navi Shmuel” which is a beit midrash built over
the tomb of the prophet, Samuel. And the daughter of Bava Sali brought her
entire family every week there to pray, and then would ask me to give to her and
each of her children and grandchildren a blessing.
I did not
know what she saw in me. Only after many years that was in NY and then returned
to Israel by the Western Wall did she reveal the secret within the hearing of
her son, Shimon.
I stayed by
Shimon Buso's home for a few months until I moved back to Safed.
I had long involved
discussions with Shimon and his mother over a period of several years.
I should mention that she held very strongly about what could be called the basic Lithuanian yeshiva approach.
I should mention that she held very strongly about what could be called the basic Lithuanian yeshiva approach.
As for Kabalah, Bava Sali never
allowed any “Mekubal” to see him.
The grandchildren of the older brother of Bava Sali, David Abuchatzeira עטרת ראשינו, go to a yeshiva in Bnei Brak called Yeshivat Avraham Kalmonovitch. That should already tell you enough. Avraham Kalmonovitch was the founder of the Mir Yeshiva in NY, pure Litvak from head to toe.
And Shimon Buso himself taught Gemara at the branch of Ponovitch in Jerusalem when Rav Shach was the Rosh Yeshiva
The grandchildren of the older brother of Bava Sali, David Abuchatzeira עטרת ראשינו, go to a yeshiva in Bnei Brak called Yeshivat Avraham Kalmonovitch. That should already tell you enough. Avraham Kalmonovitch was the founder of the Mir Yeshiva in NY, pure Litvak from head to toe.
And Shimon Buso himself taught Gemara at the branch of Ponovitch in Jerusalem when Rav Shach was the Rosh Yeshiva
The daughter of Bava Sali also
mentioned a few books that she recommends by name The Obligations of the Heart [חובות לבבות] the
first Musar book and Rav Joseph Karo’s Shulchan Aruch. She was referring to it more along the lines of keeping the laws of Written and Oral Law. She was not referring to learning specifically. Rather it is a shorthand way of saying the law as explained in the Gemara and later Rishonim as brought down in the Tur Beit Yoseph and redacted into the Shulchan Aruch. That is kind of a mouthful.
