It gets better...

Last week I posted out of sheer fascination. I update now with real information (click here for original post):

If you think the getup pictured spells eccentric, wait until you hear this man’s story. His name is Yehoshua Sofer, aka Abir Aluf, aka Nigel the Warrior.

The Sofer family comes from the Bonim tribe in Yemen. They trace themselves back 100 generations to a ben sofer in `שמואל ב. They moved to Eretz Yisrael in the early 1900’s and settled in the thriving religious community in Chevron. Following the 1929 massacre the family decided to emigrate. They boarded a ship headed for New York, but were mysteriously rerouted by British mandate controlled ports to Jamaica, another British colony. This is where Yehoshua Sofer was born—or as he is know among family and friends, Nigel (with a dgimmel)—making him a true Jemenite (Jamaican Yemenite). Unbelievably this man goes on to travel the world, become a top ranked martial artist, learn the tanakh by heart, become a hard-core bresslever chossid, release a record in Jamaican dance-hall style called Chumus Mitamtem-parodying Israeli secular culture, produce instructional videos for the Israeli Army, and serve as personal bodyguard to R’Yitzhak Kaduri. Now this would be someone to interview!

Here’s just one story coming from this man of many regarding a rumor that was in constant rotation a few months ago.

When R’Kaduri heard the talk circulating that he was promised (they say by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, but there’s no proof) to live to see moshiach, he adamantly responded, “We do not theorize about the coming of Moshiach. Period.” And he never responded to the inquiries again. Coming from a man who theorized about the future on a regular basis, this statement is powerful. (Remember, this is 3^rd degree storytelling, so don’t take it hands down.)

Anyone interested in becoming the next Hebrew Warrior? Here are the a, b, c's of it. The Abir school of fighting is based on the ancient Hebrew Alphabet (not the modern one—and it’s quite different). The design—the specific way a letter is formed—represents the divine energy within each letter. Similar to Eastern schools of fighting, the pose or starting position is the essential source of energy. I question the authenticity of this tradition, but I think the claim is that imitating the letter formation in body movement draws on divine energy. (If you watch the elder R’Sofer—a blind man over 90 yrs old—in action, you’ll be more convinced that this works.) Fascinating stuff mon.