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[Editorial remark: In compliance with the repeated requests of our friends
we render a translation of the preceding letter from the Hebrew as it appeared in No. 35
of the Israelite. The high sounding phraseology must not be misunderstood, as the
letter is written in classical Hebrew, in which language the poetic-hyperbolical style is
the most beautiful.]
To my friend, the eminent sage, whose name is known in the gates of renown
and praise, the teacher Isaac M. Wise, may his light beam, Rabbi of the Holy Congregation
of Israel, Cincinnati.
Peace unto thee eminent champion! I have attentively listened and I heard
a voice calling on the heights: Arise and let us go up on Mount Zion! -- And I thought to
hear the voice of the shouts of war, the one calling, "What of the night!"
Is not Zion's daughter forgotten as the dead from the heart?
All her lovers abused, forsook and deserted her,
And like a widow she sits lonely in the valley of weeping
And sings elegies for her sons who are gone and lost.
And I said thou who callest, who art thou? Art thou ours or our enemy's. I
listened attentively, listened again and when I again heard the voice--behold it was the
voice of my friend which spoke and said "Who is it that should ascend the mountain of
the Lord and who else should stand in the holy place, if not we". All the sons of the
stranger and of the uncircumcised heart shall not ascend the holy mountain says the Lord.
I have called to set watchmen upon the walls of Zion's daughter, that there vanish not
from Israel those who remember the Lord. My mind revived on hearing this. Like the sound
of harps and flutes this voice reached my ears and I said, may thy power increase and thy
strength grow greater; though Isaac is thy name, and thy hand is on all, thy voice is
Jacob's voice.
Hear this ye learned divines, awake and rise, do you not see or not hear
that also to you is directed the call, rise and let us go up to the house of the Lord,
rise, prepare a way in the wilderness, level a path in the desert to our G-d.
Though my hands are feeble, my feet are tied with bonds, I am not of those
who are learned for a combat, am no champion, and no scribe; still I shall not abstain
from following after the call of my friend calling in the mountains and with thee I shall
raise my voice and call in the streets of Israels cities: "Rise let us ascend the
mountain of the house of the Lord."
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