Rabbi Chaim ben Moshe ibn Attar, the Or HaChaim HaKadosh, was born in Salé, Morocco, on 4 Av 5456 (1696). In his youth he studied with his grandfather, Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar the Elder, whose name he bore. At nine his family had to flee to Meknes, persecuted by a vizier hostile to the Jews. He married a relative, Fatzunyah, whose father supported him so that he could devote himself to learning.

He lived some forty years in Morocco, known mainly to the local communities. At forty-three he set out for the Land of Israel with his two wives and a group of disciples intending to found a yeshiva there, calling on Jews along the way to join them. He passed through Italy, where he printed in Livorno his Torah commentary, the Or HaChaim, which made him known throughout the diaspora. After a period of wandering in the north of the country, he settled in Jerusalem in 1742 and founded the Midrash Knesset Yisrael yeshiva.

The Or HaChaim, combining textual analysis, halacha and Kabbalah, is revered in every community, especially in the Chassidic world; the Baal Shem Tov is said to have called his soul a spark of the Messiah's. He died about a year after his arrival, on 15 Tammuz 5503 (1743), at forty-seven, and rests on the Mount of Olives.