Image via Wikipedia//The citadel of SafedOne day before Shabbat, on a very busy day, I opened and couldn't stop finishing this book about the city of Safed. Lots of interesting cultural and historical facts, written in a simple and modest way, with many explanatory pictures. I've been several times there, as well as in Meron, but now I wish I can go again and think more about what I've found out.
A symbolical competitor to Jerusalem, Safed is mentioned in Zohar as the place where the dead will arise and assemble at the time of the resurrection. One of the most populated cities at the end of the 16th century, it played continously an important role in the process of Torah dissemination.
Victim of earthquakes, pandemics or Arab riots, the city of Safed was a city of refuge for various Sephardim groups and since the 18th century, of Hasidim escaping the Europe of pogroms, but also for great names of Judaism, as Baba Sali, R' Shlomo Eliezer Elfandan, R'Chaim of Czernovitz.
The same force of spiritual attraction was represented by Meron, another important point on the map of Zohar scholars. Two are the moment considered appropriate to visit Meron if a lover of Zohar: ten days before Shavuos and ten days before Rosh HaShanah.
An interesting journey in a very inspiring place, although only mental for the moment.
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