Letter: T-S 13J21.17

In a Hebrew poem, composed by me, which I sent to you - I hope it will arrive - I  said: "Let my limbs be joined to my aged husband, and fruit will appear: a son of his old  age" Perhaps God will fulfill your wish, when you come here - and then there will be three girls! - but God will nourish them. I can imagine how grieved you were when my  sister did not become pregnant despite the many medicines. If you were here, I would fix  her pregnancy, by my life, even after she had ceased to bear children. However, nothing  avails against the judgment of Fate. Thus, my wife never became pregnant without taking  medicines. On the other hand, at the request of the Seventh, I made a recipe for Abraham, the little beggar from Acre, but it did not help; he died and his boy was left an  orphan - God ordains.  

Dowries in this country are very expensive. I gave my son-in-law, R(abbi) Samuel,  son of R. Moses, son of R. Samuel, the Longobardian (Italian) merchant, the following:  324 pieces of gold; a pound of silver; a brocade robe; two silk robes; two woolen garments;  two Greek pounds of ornaments; ... a silken handbag; four tunics; two cotton robes;  ten long and short turbans; a bed with a canopy; a round cupboard, decorated with paintings; a copper ewer, washbasin and dipper; rings of gold and silver; blankets; servants;  carpets; altogether two hundred dinars. It is God who caused this. When I left you, I  had no money - "I shall not die, but live and recount the works of the Lord.

Please take notice - may God prolong your life - that every letter accompanied with  a gift never arrives. I used to send "mulberries," ribes, barberries, Gentiana leaves and  essence, absinthe and other medicinal plants, which have a very high price in your  country, and this is the reason my letters do not arrive ...  

I am astonished that it is not easy for the elder Abū Zikrī and the elder Abū Naṣr b. Iṣhāq to favor us here in the Land of the Romans with a Hebrew letter God knows, not one year has passed, nor will pass, without letters coming from me to you. As against  your one letter, there are five addressed to you personally by me, namely: 1. This one,  which I am about to deliver to its bearer; 2. From the royal city; 3. From Chios; 4. From  the army camp, from Jaffa; 5. From Rhodes. I thought that at least one of the four would  arrive. 

 Perhaps God will let you see the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy about the removal of the  daily sacrifice and bring about, in my life and in yours, what your late father has expressed  in a song of his for ushering out the Sabbath - I sent it to you with your sister's son -:  My living God will gather in my chicks, etc. 

As for me, I am in the best of health, as Caleb said to Joshua ("I am as strong this day  as I was on the day that Moses sent me.") If you come here, as you intend to, you will  not long regretfully for anything you left there; as Joseph said to our father Jacob ("Come  down to me; tarry not ... and I shall nourish you.") God has favored me and replaced  my losses. I have built a house worth 200 dinars, and I possess 400 barrels of wine, each  measuring 10 timāya- I have written about all this to Yaḥyā and his brother, my  brother-in-law, and to all our friends, in both Hebrew and Arabic. I am well liked here,  successful in my profession, and honored by the leaders of... Thanks and praise  to God.  

Should you really come, please bring my books, which I left behind with you. As a matter of fact, I have asked our commanders to take along any medical books for me, from  Aleppo or from Damascus, which might fall into their hands. According to what we have  heard, they have already taken Antioch.  

You ask about Abu 'l-Ḥasan, the son of the daughter of my paternal uncle. I have  already written in ten letters that he died in Constantinople, in the house of Abū ‘Alī, the  son-in-law of the Ḥāvēr al-Baghdādī, the pancake maker. It is reported that he left  money, textiles, and promissory notes. I was sorry to learn about the misfortune of the daughter of my paternal uncle. God knows, had it not been for the insecurity of communications, I would have sent help not only to her, but to the whole family. I have sent  a letter of condolence to the elder Abū Zikrī on the death of his mother, his aunt, and her  son Abu 'l-Faḍl. Hamawi and his son wrote you a letter of thanks and friendship together with this my letter to you. In future, do not address him as teacher; he is a rabbi, and his  son has studied with R. Hillel and he himself was a student of my grandfather and of  R.... He is now in Pa(l)ia, which is as distant from Seleucia as Cairo is from the  Fayyūm. He married off his son there. This is a place which has everything in the world just like the Fayyūm. He serves them as rabbi, preacher, judge, and as head of the community. They are about fifty families. May God bless them. Hamawī and his son visit us  frequently. Fahd, the son of al-Ṣahrajti, and his son have died. Only his wife, the daughter of Ben Shumailē, is still alive. Please inform his brother, my lord R. Solomon.  

I kiss your hands and your eyes, and so do Korasi and her little ones, my father  (or: brother)-in-law, Hamawī, his son and his wife. I kiss the eyes of my sister, and  (greetings to) the son of my paternal uncle, my paternal aunt and his sisters, and to any one who asks about me; also to the cousin of my mother in Alexandria.  

I have written to him and to you to send me a quarter of a dirham of seeds of mallow,  mandrake, and althaea, for we do not have any of these. So far, I have not received a  thing.  

Written on the first day of the month of Av in the year 1448 (of the era of the documents).