Letter to Shemariah ben Elḥanan

To our great, holy, and majestic master and teacher, Shemariah, the chief rabbi, and to our master, his charming son Elḥanan, so entwined with every kind of wisdom, bound to every book with a threefold cord (Ecclesiastes 4:12)—may it never snap or fray! . . . and also to his descendants after him. For he despised all other occupations and chose the fear of the Lord and His Torah, rooted himself in the inheritance of his father, robed himself with it, and adorned himself with a wedding veil. He crowned it with a diadem, wrapped it in a coat of mail, girded it with a robe and a tiara, and adorned it with a necklace. It was ever on his tongue, constantly on his lips, the very sound of his voice. He polished it and established it for himself as an eternal rule. [ . . . ]

And to inform our mighty and majestic one, as I have informed him previously in writing—twice, thrice, and yet a fourth time—that our departure from the land of our birth, to go and dwell in the lands of Ishmael, was for no purpose other than to see the countenance of the master, for which I have longed from my earliest years. But we have not yet been able to do so; all these years, during which we have been detained in Qayrawān [Tunisia], I have informed you in writing how we have been detained.

Moreover, we have tarried to wait for the arrival of our son R. Elḥanan. When last year he arrived, we said, “There is nothing left of this year [i.e., the season for travel is almost over],” and we prepared all our needs, leaving nothing but provisions for the journey.

When the good people of the Qayrawān community realized that we had resolved to go, they began trying to convince us to stay. But I told them that all these years were enough for me; it was no longer possible for us to remain. [ . . . ] The community, however, strongly importuned us. They were very generous to us and considered us as a brother who had suckled from the breasts of the same mother. Their soul was bound up with ours, and their love for us was unconditional—praise to the One who bestows good on the unworthy, who showed us favor and kindness in the land where we resided, in their eyes and in the eyes of the governing power as well.

Even though we knew that, from their great love for us, they wished to detain us, we did not wish to stay; we did not accept their advice at all, and while we were negotiating these things with them, all of a sudden we were invited to travel to our master Judah, rosh kallah [an honorific of the Babylonian academies, “head of the row”], and to our master Joseph ben Berekhiah.

Ḥushiel ben Elḥanan