מכתב: ENA 2557.151

This is to inform you - may God... (keep) you- that we arrived in Messina in safety and good health - for which we must thank God, and not ascribe it to our own merit or good deeds -  after we had passed eight days on our journey. For a rainstorm kept us back in Baqṭas (Patti). We paid the Christian skipper of the boat a fare of two rubācis less one quarter and stipulated that he should let us disembark at the lighthouse near Messina - the town is, indeed, visible from it. 

We embarked on Friday night, in the company of a Jew, a Kohen, from Salerno, and were at sea until... day, when we arrived at Baqtas (Patti). There, however, a rainstorm befell us, and we stayed until Friday. We boarded the boat again in the morning and arrived at a place called Milāṣ (Milazzo). There, the above mentioned Jew, along with Isaac, the son-in-law of Giovanna's son, disembarked and continued their travel by land. The Christian skipper told us that we would not reach the lighthouse - the place where we had agreed that he would let us off - before Sabbath and added that we could disembark there whenever we arrived, but that he could not take a shortcut. As I was afraid of desecrating the Sabbath, and of other things (as well), I took another boat for two-thirds of a rubācī, and we arrived in Messina on Saturday. 

On the following Sunday, I inquired about my uncle Mevasser and found him there. He did not fall short (of his family duties), and we stayed with him. Then, I inquired about Ben Sitlun and Ben Barukh and found them. Ben Sitlun said:  ‘I shall take care of your fare, and you will go up (i.e. to Egypt) with me, if God wills.’ Then, I consulted my uncle and Ben Sitlu(n) about Moses' travel, and they said: ‘There is nothing to be gained by it. He had better go back to his father’. But he insisted on setting out with me, so that he would not come back empty-handed. Thus I am uncertain with regard to him, and I have not received a letter from you giving instructions, or about your well-being, as might be expected. Now, please do not neglect to send a detailed letter with information about your well-being and that of my mother and my brother, and do not worry about us, for we are well. 

Ben Sitlun let me copy the commentary on Eruvin by Rabbenu Nissim for him, and most of the people in the town have asked me to serve as a schoolmaster in his house, for the town lacks everything. Were not the town unfit for you to live in (, you could find a good job here). 

However, the town is mediocre; one cannot live here. (... Here, it requires an) effort to study and to pray. Since we arrived, there has been no public prayer in the afternoon and the evening, while the morning prayer is said before dawn; at daybreak, they are already through with it. If we lived here..., we would miss the prayer; and it is impossible to walk in the streets here because of the (dir)t . 

[After dealing with some sundry items, the writer asks his parents not to worry too much about their absent sons and, in particular, not to fast too much for them it was customary to fast as a means of enhancing the efficacy of prayer for relatives on travel. He then reiterates a medical prescription for his mother, which he had previously sent from Palermo, and concludes with a series of greetings, which shows that the community in Mazara must have included quite a number of scholars.] 

Address : 

To our dear Father - may God keep him with His never ceasing watch-Joseph, the teacher, b. Peraḥya Yijū -God is his protector! From his sons Peraḥya and Moses, who are longing for him. May salvation be near!