The Sage and Scribe of Modern Israel

Aleppo was a city of sages and scribes, and its sages are distinguished by the depth of their genius and the sharpness of their intellect. A sage of Aleppo hates meaningless ostentation or affection and loves clear judgment. He is sparing in speech and makes a virtue of silence. . . . It is not in [his] nature to follow the crowd; he stands by his opinions, and knows his own value. Forthright and making no pretenses to anyone, he enjoys a jest, and his talk, even on non-religious subjects, is worthy of study.

Jews have always been lucky in their sages and scribes. So dynamic was the religious-national civilization forged by the God-inspired Hebrew Bible that some of its most creative thinkers and writers continued to develop and interpret its teachings even, when necessary, in other languages and outside the land of Israel. Living among Gentile nations, Jews met and overcame every kind of challenge, nourishing in their literature the record of an ever adaptive and strengthened people.

Today, the finest of Hebrew writers continue spinning that story, and one of the very finest is the Israeli Ḥaim Sabato, born 70 years ago in Cairo, Egypt but descended from a long line of rabbis whose home was in Aleppo, Syria: a city identified by its Jews with the Bible’s Aram Tsova (one of David’s conquests).