Ben Ish Chai

Yosef Hayyim יוסף חיים מבגדאד
Yosef Chaim of Baghdad, author of Ben Ish Hai
Born	(1835-11-01)1 November 1835
Died	30 August 1909(1909-08-30)

Yosef Chaim (1 September 1835 – 30 August 1909) (Iraqi Hebrew: Yoseph Ḥayyim; Hebrew: יוסף חיים מבגדאד) was a leading Iraqi hakham (Sephardi Rabbi), authority on halakha (Jewish law), and Master Kabbalist. He is best known as author of the work on Halakha Ben Ish Ḥai (בן איש חי) ("Son of Man (who) Lives"), a collection of the laws of everyday life interspersed with mystical insights and customs, addressed to the masses and arranged by the weekly Torah portion.

He initially studied in his father's library, and, at the age of 10, he left midrash ("school room") and began to study with his uncle, Rav David Chai Ben Meir who later founded the Shoshanim LeDavid Yeshiva in Jerusalem. In 1851, he married Rachel, the sister of Hakham Ovadia Somekh, his prime mentor. They had a daughter and two sons together.

When Yosef Chaim was only twenty-five years old, his father died. Despite his youth, the Jews of Baghdad accepted him to fill his father's place as the leading rabbinic scholar of Baghdad, though he never filled the official position of Hakham Bashi. The Sephardic Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem, was founded on his advice by Joseph Shalom, of Calcutta, India—one of Rabbi Chaim's patrons.

Chaim clashed with the reformist Bavarian Jewish scholar Jacob Obermeyer who lived in Baghdad from 1869 to 1880, and excommunicated him. Part of the contention was due to Obermeyer and Chaim's conflicting views on promotion of the Zohar.