"היה יום קשה מאד": החיד"א ויחסיו עם משרתו – פרק בהיסטוריה של הרגשות בקרב יהודים בראשית העת החדשה

The history of emotions has gained a lot of scholarly interest, but relatively little attention has been paid in this context to Jews, and especially Jews of Islamic countries. Rather than presuming to assert how people felt in past centuries, historians seek to identify and point to documented human experiences, thus filling a lacuna in historiography. The autobiographical travelogue of R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulay (“Hida”; Jerusalem, 1724–Leghorn, 1806), written on his journey from the Ottoman East to Western Europe as an emissary of the Jews of Hebron, is an important source for understanding the emotional world of this famous rabbi, for learning about relations between a master and his servant, and for the study of the history of emotions in an age of changes on the eve of modernity. In his journal, Hida describes his behavior and feelings in a variety of situations, some scary, some comic, some impressive, but always expressing very human emotions. In this short article I focus on the confrontations between Hida and his servant, Avraham Gabai. These confrontations usually flared up when Hida found out that his servant had lost things, damaged his luggage, or embarrassed him. Gabai seems a rather simple, almost childish person: suffering abandonment anxiety, frustration, and anger on account of his lowly social status, envy, and vulnerability, all seasoned with a comic sense. Hida seems more complicated: a very sensitive person whose health was easily affected by his temperamental moods, he was almost obsessed with his image as an esteemed Sephardi rabbi and insisted on demonstrating self-control in a society that valued this virtue. In regard to his servant (whose services were indispensable), he often felt disappointment, frustration, and shame, but also concern and fondness.