Letter from to Isaac Leeser;July 01, 1850 · Isaac Leeser Digital Repository · Legacy Projects from Judaica DH at Penn Libraries

Title

Letter from to Isaac Leeser;July 01, 1850

Contributor

Isaac Leeser

Date Created

1 July 1850

Location(s)

Kingston

Philadelphia

Format

Letter. 4 page(s).

Type

Letter

Language(s)

English

Hebrew

Has Format

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/items/ark:/81431/p3d795x2p/manifest.json

Link to Colenda

https://colenda.library.upenn.edu/catalog/81431-p3d795x2p

Physical Characteristics

Unlined Paper

Fragment

Manuscript

Is Part Of

The Dropsie College Isaac Leeser Collection at the Penn Libraries

content

Kingston 1st July 5610.
My dear Mr. Leeser.
In the expectation of receiving a long letter as promised in your brief note of 26th April last, received about a week ago, I had delayed replying. The only time I now have for correspondence is Sunday, for I am too tired to take pen in hand after the business of the day is over, and writing at nights taxes my sight too much. What your affectionate regard prompted you to say of me in the Occident, under the head of Jamaica, merits my warmest thanks. A Hebrew has arisen here Hebrew; who fancy that their fathers and I are rococo, and on them your favorable and valued opinion of me has had due weight. No doubt it will operate to my advantage among some, who have lost sight of me for so many years, in other parts. If you had flattered me at all, I would not have been pleased; for truth and its followers are appreciated the more as the sands of life ? low. I really wish with you I was back “in harness,” but I see no immediate prospect of it, or indeed any appearance of it in this place. To leave this spot would not be prudential either, unless something insuring less hard work and equal pecuniary benefit were offered elsewhere. The school is going ahead, and I hesitate not to impart to you in strict confidence that I gross over $3000 p annum, with every likelihood of a large increase before the end of the year. You know the domestic and family obstacles also which clog my movements, so I need not repeat them. Now, do you think, I ought in the face of these considerations, and others of perhaps equal importance, rashly to peril the enjoyment of present advantages? Something whispers to me to remain where I am, and that the pulpit, the goal I have in view is not so distant as I suppose. The idea after all

may only be a chateau in Espagne, a day dream; yet do what I may to banish it, it still haunts my mind. Before I started my School, the Revd. Mr. Davis had carried on his for 4 ½ years and could never muster more than 14 or 15 pupils; he has now about 5 and I have 50 with some 14 or more on my list of expectancies. The opposition I have encountered is p was entirely from his party, who viewed my attempt at establishing myself in my old ? as trespass in his vested interests, a sort of Hebrew. But parents have thought differently, and truly I may say of my adversaries Hebrew. I know of a certainty that many wish to see me occupying his place, and cherish the hope; be cause they know, from the past, that I would not be the wrong man. Nor is it at all unlikely that he is casting about for something more lucrative, which his growing family renders imperative. His friends talk about raising his salary again. It is now £300 a year, with house and other perquisites. But Hebrew? The congregation is but a handful, and out of that handful, only a few are the prop of the Institution; and times are bad, with slight hopes of amendment. His engagement will expire next may. Altho' I have no children, those of my deceased brother in law are dear to me, and I should like Hebrew to be the means of advancing them in life. I am not able to do more for them at present than to give them education. After this open statement of my position, let me have the benefit of your advice and counsel. Hebrew
Before Dr. Illowy's letter came to hand, for which and the trouble you have taken I am much obliged, the Revd. Mr. DeSolla performed the Hebrew, for which purpose he came up to Kingston. I was one of the Hebrew. We had 3 Hebrew before us. That of the Hebrew in the Hebrew, of the Hebrew in the Hebrew and the one with Hebrew. Mr. DeS. made the ceremony a most impressive one, painfully so. The minute directions laid down by the two Great ? the Hebrew and Hebrew who most carefully and punctitiously? followed. The man and woman were both present; so that the mistakes which a Hebrew might have made in its delivery were avoided. The case did not come exactly within the precise enactment mentioned

by Dr. Illowy as Hebrew; for the man acknowledged that he had connections with the woman before marriage; altho' he says that he had ample grounds for believing that others had also been with her. This I firmly believe from her conduct 2 days subsequent to the divorce, when she declared her Gratitude to Mr. deSolla, and especially to me, and stated that the night following the one after the divorce was the first peaceful night's rest she had had in 15 years, and that the remainder of her life should be devoted in preparation to meet her maker. Mr. deS. read a portion of the morning service and preached in the Port: Synagogue. It is a pity his voice is weak, for his matter was good I send you a paper with an abstract of his sermon. Do not mention anything about the divorce in the Occident.
I have long ago received Munk's Palestine and acknowledged the same. I intended you to take the $2 out of the $32 last sent. If I can get a small order this ?, I will remit $25 for ? of the Books I ordered requested you to purchase on order for me, which I am daily expecting to receive, especially the Road to Faith, your Prayer Books, Henry's class Books and post Biblical History. I cannot use Miss Peixotto's Catechism—the children find it tedious. Henry's Book is better adapted for them, and as my pupils read a portion of Scripture daily, Generally 2 or 3 chapters, before school begins, and on which I comment, they become better acquainted with the historical parts of the Bible by this system than by a catechetical work. Your small and large Bibles are being asked for. I hope to sell many when they come. I have already got 5 subscribers for the Occident, names as follows. David N Martin, Hyman Cohen, Aaron DeCordova, Altamont DeCordova & Henry Solomon; the last 3 begin their subscriptions with the last volume. the other 2 with the first. I am impatiently waiting for the next numbers of the Occident to read “And yet for all that.” What a gigantic intellect has the writer of that article, and how luminous bright and powerfully

convincing are his deductions. I could not get up from its perusal after I began to read it. It was a dessert, a juicy, mellow dish of Hebrew after dinner, for on Hebrew I read it; and what is more I intend going over it a second and a third time. It is well translated too, especially when the extreme difficulty of rendering Dr. Hirsh's interminably long sentences, and his parenthetical style into another language is considered. If ancient Rabbinism could find many such commentators among modern Rabbis as Dr. Hirsh, our ancient, long derided literature would occupy a far higher position among the learned. On al how sacred and firm an historical basis does this ? rest and how undeniable are the truths which it conveys to the believing and faithful Israelite. The phases of a nation's fortunts? for thousands of years described in 3 or 4 lines, and their its sinking spirit revived and supported in affliction's darkest hour, lengthened thro' ages of unspeakable misery, by a word or two of hope and faith, Endless as Eternity, unshakable and unmovable as the foundations of the world! The ? and its exposition reminded me of what we read of the Hebrew of old with his Hebrew at his side; the former giving the latter his texts and the lesson he wished to deduce from them—whilst the latter improvised with all the fervency, fluency and fire of oriental eloquence, in which the richest imagery and boldest figures were interspersed, melting the hearts and ? the minds of the listeners, and conveying instruction at once indelible and imperishable. What a mine of intellectual wealth do those Hebrew contain. I sometimes sit over that quaint old medrash Rabba, and think how immeasur-ably superior the discourses of those glorious old Rabbais whose names figure there must have been to the fine spun prolixities of modern preachers. “And yet for all that” has been the cause of inflicting on your patience a lot of Bosh? which I will now end with the request that you will favor your readers with some more of the same beautiful sentiments and views.

Identifier

LSDCBx1FF7_14

Date

1850-07-01