Today, May 27, a cheerful group of volunteers from the Porto Jewish community, mostly American citizens, carry out a deep clean of the Isaac Aboab cemetery, following the example of many local congregations worldwide that regularly organize volunteer clean-up sessions to clear overgrowth and document grave markers.
Taking care of burial grounds is considered a profound, selfless mitzvah (a commandment or good deed), as a cemetery is considered holy ground and a permanent resting place. Maintaining these sites is a fundamental moral and religious duty.
In Jewish tradition and Hebrew, a cemetery is referred to as Beit HaChayim, which translates to "House of Life". It emphasizes that the soul is eternal and that death is not an end, but a transition to another dimension of life; a gentle euphemism for a place of burial, focusing on the continued spiritual existence of the deceased rather than their physical death, and it reflects the belief in the future resurrection of the dead.
For two different reasons, the name of the current cemetery of the Porto Jewish community inspires deep respect among the community members. It is the first cemetery since angry mobs, with the approval of Portuguese elites, destroyed the old Jewish cemetery in Portugal's second largest city in 1497. Isaac Aboab of Castile (1433–1493) was a towering rabbinical scholar, philosopher, and the last Gaon of Castile in Spain.
Following the Alhambra Decree, Aboab led a delegation to negotiate safe harbor for Spanish exiles and he settled in Porto, where he died seven months later. His funeral oration was delivered by his distinguished disciple, the mathematician and historian Rabbi Abraham Zacuto.
A reenactment of his funeral can be found in a film produced by the community, recounting an event as tragic as it is real, entitled "The 2000 Jewish Exiled Children".
Known as one of the greatest rabbinical minds of his era, he served as head of the Yeshiva in Toledo and later in Guadalajara. He authored several important texts, including a collection of homilies titled Nehar Pishon (Constantinople, 1538) and supercommentaries on the Torah commentaries of Rashi and Nahmanides.
One can imagine the sentimental impact that the arrival and death of the Gaon of Castile in Porto had on the city's then extensive Jewish community. He didn't arrive alone, but together with 30 other prominent Jewish Spanish leaders. The elite of world Jewry were in Porto at that time.
The current cemetery of the Jewish community of Porto is, more than a colossal work of engineering and architecture, a space that recalls Isaac Aboab, Abraham Zacuto, and the grandeur that Portugal once possessed.
The Porto metropolitan area has approximately 1.8 million inhabitants, while the city proper is home to about 250,000 to 260,000 residents. There must be no more than a handful of people living today who don't even know who Aboab and Zacuto were.
