Ha-Ari Synagogue

"This Shul was built after death of the Arizal in late 1500s on the site of the famous apple orchard that was here, Friday afternoon the arizal and disciples would come here to this orchard (which had a view of Meron/tomb shimon bar yochai) dressed in white and say special joyus teffilos to greet arrival of shabbos (the prerequisite to modern Kabbolas Shabbos, see Kankan Article and speech by Shnayer Leiman) so this is really place where Kabbalos shabbos was started. A famous story about Arizal took place here, at one of those gatherings, when Arizal unexpectedingly said let's go to yerushalyim, everyone was prepared to go except a few Said they wanna go home first and tell wife, then Arizal got very agitated and scrame out that the opportunity has passed. You will notice on entering that there are no Mezuzos, this is in accordance with one opinion that Shul doesn't need one because it's used ONLY for prayer and is even more holy then Study hall, so doesn't need mezuza. The shul originaly was called the Ashkenazi Ari Shul, because of those that established it and mid 1700s many eastern European jews immigrated here, however over time it now became Nussach for its Sephardi Kehilla. In famous Tzfas earthquake of 1837, the shul was destroyed and an appeal was made to rebuild, one of the benefactors was a Jewish craftsman from Galicia who made a beautiful Aron Kodesh for the Shul, engraved in it is a lion with an almost human face, this is to represent the Arizal (Ari=lion) Originally this craftsman wanted to make this an engraving of actual human face But R Shmuel Heller who was chief Rabbi of Tzfas then, forbade it because it would constitute Avoda Zara, so he changed it to this. The aron Kodesh took him 14 years to complete, also see by outer door post that further renovations were made to this shul in 1857. During war of independence many jews hid in this shul, as the Arabs would send heavy bombardments from nearby Meron, once a shell landed in courtyard of Shul, at that exact moment a Mispalel was bowing by Modi'im and the shrapnel went right over him and into the wall, as a reminder of this miracle the hole in the wall made by the shrapnel is there til today. Also see the Kisei shel Eliyahu in the shul, which originally belonged to The Sdei Chemed of Ruzhin, which gave to his daughter Nechama who didn't have children for many years, and she in turn donated it to this shul, also see in the Study hall part of the shul is alot of furniture from the shul of R Shamshon Rafael Hirsch in Germany which some was transferred here in 1936"