| Today is: Wednesday, Tammuz 25, 5771 · July 27, 2011
• Passing of Rabbi Aharon Berachia of Modina (1639)
Rabbi Aharon Berachia ben Moshe of Modina (? - 1639) was an Italian Kabbalist and a student of Rabbi Menachem Azariah of Fano. At the request of the Burial Society at Mantua, he instituted rites for them. The author of many Kabbalistic works, he is perhaps best known for his work Ma'abar Yabbok, which contains mystical dissertations on purity and holiness. He also wrote additional prayers to be offered for the sick and the dead, as well as a code of conduct for their treatment. Many of the prayers recited at the gravesites of the deceased were composed by him. Tradition has it that an angel called a "maggid" would come and study with him, similar to the angel that would visit Rabbi Yosef Caro.
Said Rabbi Acha: The talk of the servants of the fathers is more desirable than the Torah scholarship of the children. For Eliezer's story, which takes up two or three pages in the Torah, is twice recounted, while many principles of Torah law are conveyed with a single word or letter Chitas and Rambam for today: | 
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