The spiritual work of Rabbi Yoseph Haim (1835-1909), nicknamed the 'Ben Ish Hai' because of the name of his well-known composition, is the 'Middle Pillar' in the culture of the Babylonian community in the modern era.The spiritual leader of this glorious community has left a mark on the literature of Halakha, Kabbalah, Drash, Mussar and, of course, on the piyyut and literature of his generation , all in the sixty or more essays he has written. This vast rabbinical complex reflects a philosophical world unique to him and his community, and which gave him personal literary expression in the stories he incorporated in his sermons, which he delivered on Shabbat for about fifty years.

In the chapters of this book by Rivka Kadosh, the literary-preaching enterprise of this indisputable leader of the Babylonian community is first explained, and the distribution map of the dozens of stories scattered throughout his writings is revealed. In this way, the current connection to the system is made from a key set of narrative sermons of the 'Ben Ish Hai', from which the network of ways in which these stories were spread beyond the borders of the Babylonian community to the rest of the Jewish communities can be reconstructed. The book clarifies the conceptual and poetic connections between the stories and the sermons, as well as the Kabbalistic and moral thought of Rabbi Yoseph Haim. This literary-thematological and interpretive inquiry marks the place of the 'Ben Ish Hai' in the tradition of Jewish folklore in particular and in the narrative tradition of international folklore in general.