In Rabi Yekutiel Abuchatzeira’s court in Ashdod, he sees them all — the ones who are trying to climb, and the ones who feel like giving up

Photos: Elchanan Kotler, Mishpacha archives

“You will meet the Admor in the classroom,” I was told.

“The classroom?”

“Yes, the classroom in his Talmud Torah in Jerusalem.”

“In Jerusalem?” Now I was even more confused.

Rabi Yekutiel Abuchatzeira — scion of the famed family and a rebbe in his own right — is a renowned tzaddik who leads mosdos and a popular court in Ashdod. Followers of many different stripes and types make their way to the oceanfront city to seek his counsel on matters ranging from spiritual directives to business decisions to medical dilemmas.

But our conversation takes place in a more unconventional setting, especially considering the stature of our host: Instead of his Ashdod beit medrash, which attracts a colorful crowd of Sephardim as well as many Gerrer, Vizhnitz, Satmar, and other chassidim from both the city and further afield, we’re sitting on plastic chairs in a Talmud Torah classroom in Jerusalem. Rabi Yekutiel is just as comfortable here, though — in Ashdod, too, he sits on a simple bench among his diverse crowd of mispallelim.

The cheder, which Rabi Yekutiel opened a few years back on the campus of Yeshivas ITRI in Jerusalem’s Talpiot neighborhood, is part of the Chazon Meir U’Beit Yisrael network of mosdos established several decades ago in memory of Rabi Yekutiel’s holy father and grandfather — Rabi Meir and Rabi Yisrael Abuchatzeira (the Baba Sali).

With 1,200 students in the Ashdod mosdos and another 200 in Jerusalem, Rabi Yekutiel says it “uplifts his heart” to perpetuate institutions bearing the name of his great forebears.

In a way, it’s a return to the source, because from the time Rabi Meir Abuchatzeira arrived in Eretz Yisrael in 1966, the famed Moroccan rav and rosh yeshivah refused to have talmidim, at least in an official capacity. After turning down an offer to be chief rabbi of Jerusalem, he moved to Ashdod, where he lived in purity and isolation until his petirah in 1983, predeceasing his father, the Baba Sali, by a year.

“In Morocco,” recalls Rabi Yekutiel, “my father sat with talmidim from early morning until night and demanded the maximum from them. They started their day at midnight with Tikkun Chatzot, studied Kabbalah until Shacharit at dawn, then continued on to Shas, in order, daf after daf, and at the end of the day they studied Shulchan Aruch.”

Rabi Meir was continuing the legacy that his great-grandfather, Rabi Yaakov Abuchatzeira (known as the Abir Yaakov), founded in his home in Tafilalt, Morocco, 180 years ago. “Since then,” says Rabi Yekutiel, “kol yotzei yerech Yaakov — all his offspring followed in his footsteps.”