‘Ets ḥayim (Tree of Life)

For I heard slander, fear was on every side [see Psalms 31:14], as the son of the despised maidservant slanders the son of the mistress, saying, “Those miserable Jews, they had a single language from time immemorial, and their language is the holy tongue, and they had a patrimony, and now it is forgotten from their mouths and from the mouths of their seed completely [see Deuteronomy 31:21], and the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right (2 Kings 17:9), saying with a full mouth, all this nation from every quarter were stricken with blindness and strove to find the entrance [see Genesis 19:4, 11].¹ They have made it a law and a statute from this day onward not to teach Jewish youth the grammar of the holy tongue, since they know that it destroys their state of judgment in learning.” There were many other words of revilement and insults of this kind.

When I heard the enemy curse and revile, I was moved for the honor of my Creator and the honor of His Torah, which is desecrated by our sins, and I answered the revilers, saying, “May ashes be in the mouth of that enemy. For you have nothing in this branch of knowledge except what you stole from ancient Hebrew books of the highest sanctity, such as the sage R. Abraham Ibn Ezra [(1089–1167)], and [David] Kimḥi [(1160–1235)], and the books of the great R. Judah [Ibn ḥayyuj (ca. 945–1000)] the first grammarian, and the books of R. Jonah [Ibn Janaḥ (ca. 990–1055)] and the Efodi [Profayt Duran (ca. 1350–1433)], and many like them, from the sages of Israel and the Talmud. They knew the sanctity of the Talmud, which is based on golden foundations, the law of the grammar of the holy tongue, to the extent that they said that the holy rabbi, that man of God, R. Ashi and the members of his yeshiva, when they sealed the Talmud with the holy seal, they sealed together with it another book, which deals with the science of vocalization and the grammar of the holy tongue.” [ . . . ]

All this is to say that two different factors are combined here. [ . . . ] It is only because the long and bitter exile has overcome us, as from day to day the hearts diminish, and they have not had the ability to teach their children the knowledge, that our ancient forefathers, especially the German pietists, have therefore decided to draw their sons to the Talmud alone and to accustom and educate them to follow that holy book, for everything in it is wisdom and fear of God in a single place, and it is the true bread and sustenance on account of which we can live among the gentiles. Nevertheless, outstanding individuals in every generation who have filled their bellies with the bread of the Talmud, the shewbread which is always before God, have also learned the science of linguistics among all the other kinds of wisdom. They also wrote books; each shall be commended according to his intelligence [see Proverbs 12:8].

After all those many days, this lowly generation has arisen, orphans of orphans, and this knowledge has been completely forgotten, especially in the country of Germany. It is as though the content of these books is sealed, and there is none among us who knows [whether the letter shin should have a dot on] the right or the left, how to conjugate or construct verbs, and this matter has led to much contempt and wrath against the princes and the peoples [see Esther 1:18]. Therefore, [ . . . ] I was zealous for the Lord of hosts [see 1 Kings 19:10] and I said that the time has come to act and take off [see Psalms 119:126] some time from my studies to peruse the books written by early and more recent rabbis. I also visited the gates of the gentiles who embarrass themselves. [ . . . ]

Behold I have risen to open three gates and to put into writing in brief form only the general principles of this science, in the manner of give-and-take, and in the language to which the young men of Israel are accustomed. This will enable them to discover the principles of this science, as it is not good for a man to be bereft of this wisdom because of the mockery of the nations as mentioned above. For it, too, is a fundamental aspect of, and an introduction to, the foundation of the Torah, especially for the members of our generation, a generation that is pure and wise in its own eyes, who in any event waste a lot of time in new, external [secular] studies that have only recently been printed. For this science is in any case something for which one is rewarded, even though the constant study of this science is not correct at all.