Letter from Moses N. Nathan to Isaac Leeser;March 06, 1863
- Title
- Letter from Moses N. Nathan to Isaac Leeser;March 06, 1863
- Author
- Moses N. Nathan
- Contributor
- Isaac Leeser
- Date Created
- 6 March 1863
- Format
- Letter. 6 page(s) on 6 sheet(s).
- Type
- Letter
- Language(s)
- English
- Has Format
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3hd7pd03/manifest.json
- Link to Colenda
- https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3hd7pd03
- Physical Characteristics
- Unlined Paper
- Manuscript
- content
-
96 Orange St.
Kingston Jam: 6th March1863.
My dear Mr. Leeser.
I duly acknowledge your last 2 letters, and the receipt of Occidents and 3 copies of the printed Edition of the Pentateuch. You must like all good and loyal citizens of the great Republic, submit to the difficulties of the present situation. When so much paper is required for Green Backs and other numerous varieties of notes, issued for the maintenance of public credit, the Editor of the Occident should not grumble at the rise in price of printing material. Sacrifices are indispensable on the part of every individual when so glorious a war for the redemption and freedom of the negro race, and the subjugation of white rebels is to be brought to a triumphant close.
When that object is accomplished, your self denial, tho' it may involve you in pecuniary losses, will be appreciated; and congress, when personally appealed to, will, doubtless, especially the republican part of it, recompense you with a grant from the public treasury. Your petition cannot fail of being signed by all the Jewish population throughout the States, and public virtue will thus meet its own reward. I have not yet had time to peruse the article to which you direct my attention. My time is so occupied with my school, owing to the Shamash of the Congregation; my assistant Hebrew teacher, having left for California, that I have had no leisure. Our new minister, Mr. Myers, has got himself into a dilemma with some of the big wigs of the Synagogue, in consequence of his many refusal to sanction the calling up to the Sepher, of people married to Christian women, and colored women to boot. You can have no conception of the falling off in this particular congre-gation from various causes within the last twenty years. Its numerous members have dwindled down to a mere handfull; but the pride and arrogance remain as of old; and tincture all their acts, to which had feelings, towards all who venture to differ from the rulers in opinion, largely add their share. As for the minister of the other Synagogue, De? the least I say of him the better. I am not a Hebrew
work out for the Occident, if my liver permits. Moses, it is evident could not have imposed on the 2 ? tribes the duty of going over the Jordan Hebrew but only Hebrew armed for war; and therefore he uses the latter; whereas Joshua could, as commanded, decline to forage for them, and compel them to manage their own commissariat. The sacred text is not strained to meet acord with this explanation but rather removes the difficulty of accounting in what way the people subsisted, until the ? fell.
I have formed an acquaintance with a Dr. Daniell—of the British army, a man of wonderful knowledge in all matters relating to Africa, where he passed 18 years of his life. He is a great scholar, not alone in the studies appertaining to his profession, but in others, and is esteemed an authority in England in philology, ethnology, botany, &c. A bosom friend of Professor Owen the Eminent naturalist. We had a delightful evening's talk till 12 o'Clock last night, and that is how I spent my Purim. He possesses monotheism, but believes in the Bible, not I think, in the Testament.
The war, I see, continues to linger. The termination cannot however be very distant, and I hope it will end as I wish.
It may however become more complicated by the defiant attitude of one of the belligerents towards the French Emperor. The English Government is not hypocritical. Your charge is not just. If it had intervened, I incline to think with Lords Palmerston and Russel that the north would have raised such an overwhelming force as would have crushed the south at once Hebrew applies as well to nations as individuals. England has enough on her hands in meeting the hungry cravings of her starving operatives without putting her fingers into her neighbour's dish. I call their neutral action wise and humane, and it will prove to be so in the long run. The feelings of the English government & nation too are with the south, and the ravings of Bright & Cobden and the anti- slavery party are ineffectual to change them. I am alive to the short comings of my native country, but they are in this matter it is not obnoxious to the abuse lavished upon it by the people of America.
My wife and mother join with me in affectionate wishes & regards
Yours Sincerely
M N Nathan
but I would surprise you, were I to often the budget of doings and sayings of this man. Judaism is in a bad state here, spirit of religion is utterly wanting, with no one competent to rouse it from the torpor into which it has fallen. We have had here a certain Rabbi Alfendri from Smyrna, his mission here was a failure; we are too poor ourselves, and have too many indigent ones in our midst, to contribute to the claims (?) of such travelling gentry. Why don't they stop at home? We hear of the doings and writings of Mr. De Solla, late of Montego Bay, against Mr. Morais. Can't you send me some of that precious productions? Are you not going to use your pen in defense of scripture against Bishop Calendo? Benisch has come out manfully, but altho' he has answered some points admirably, I do not like all he has written. The wood, water, and pasture question he has handled ably. I am, just to keep my hand in, maintaining a correspondence on the subject with a xtian clergyman; and made the word Hebrew the my study, at his request. I cannot agree that it means equipped, or harnessed, in gist, or armed, but ? think it signifies victualled or provisioned from Hebrew the abdomen. The Bible says Hebrew; Does that imply that they had no food at all except the Hebrew? I should say that Hebrew means cooked or prepared provisions, and Hebrew being joined to it, an act of preparation or cooking is inferred, the same as Hebrew to Hebrew before the latter becomes Hebrew. Hence the Israelites might
not have had Hebrew, and get the onions, leeks garlic, and Cucumbers as vegetables, and the melons and dates as fruits might have afforded them a plentiful supply of food for the Hebrew belly or stomach, and hence they were Hebrew. In Joshua chap: i 11 the people are ordered Hebrew, whilst in verse 14 the Reub: Gad: through: are told Hebrew Hebrew ye shall pass over victualled, ergo, you must furnish your own commissarist. Again in IV.12 it is written they passed over Hebrew provisioned, and in the following verse Hebrew in fighting tr?, or armed for war. In Judges VII.II the Hebrew could not have been the armed men, or they would have been called sentinels, patriots, or piquets, whose duty is always Hebrew; and in verse 19 they are properly named, Hebrew which you have rendered sentinels. These Hebrew must consequently have been the suttlers whose place or station was outside the lives, and not within them with the soldiery. If this view can be maintained, it disposes of the objections of those who assert that the people had no food but the Hebrew. God did not lead them thro' a fertile country like the Hebrew, but into the Hebrew; yet that unpro-ductive waste had no terrors for them, they had no immediate fears of hunger, for they were Hebrew furnished with food, tho' not with Hebrew cooked food. If rationalists must be satisfied and shown demon-stratively that the multitude was not in a starving condition, my exegesis will convince them. This hasty sketch I may possibly - Identifier
- LSTCAT_item99
- Date
- 1863-03-06
Part of Letter from Moses N. Nathan to Isaac Leeser;March 06, 1863
Moses N. Nathan, “Letter from Moses N. Nathan to Isaac Leeser;March 06, 1863”, 1863-03-06, Isaac Leeser Digital Repository, accessed September 7, 2024, https://judaicadhpenn.org/legacyprojects/s/leeser/item/67151