Letter from Acre to His Father: Second Part

And praised be the Lord—the Sabbath came and rest came, on Friday night at five in the evening, the strong wind calmed a bit, and we sailed well on Friday, Saturday, Sunday; and on Monday, we saw Alexandria, Egypt. And the captain was fearful to enter, since he was not well acquainted with the layout of the city and its streets, and since the port has large stones, and they are not known except to those who know and are familiar, and he was afraid of those stones to enter the port at night. [ . . . ] And before we were three miles away from the city about twenty men came out toward us, and we asked them how things were with the city, and they said safe from the plague and the pestilence, praised by the Lord. And we were very happy, and we entered the city.

And the city does not have a wall and gates bolted closed, and the city is a half day’s walk in size. There is a splendid building there, and it is very old, and it is already lost and smashed and fallen on the ground, and fine and chosen houses have fallen to the earth, and big towers, and one tower big and tall that the people of the city said was from the time of Alexander the Great. And at an hour’s walk outside of the city we found a very tall column that they call the tree of Pharaoh. They said that in earlier years they found there beneath the column two forms made of copper that Pharaoh used to worship, and it stands on the seashore. And near that column, three cubits away there is a large synagogue, and many Jews pray there—a big community—and they call it Knesset Elijah of blessed memory. There are several gardens and orchards in [the city], and there is a cave under the ground and a great light in it, and everyone who is ill with something and goes there to sleep is immediately cured. We went there on Sunday, and we recited [psalms] there all day long and we prayed morning and afternoon services there, and we made a prayer for Jerusalem, because we heard that the hand of God had touched it, and there was a plague. And certainly we were very sorrowful about that bad news, and on Friday we went there and performed a great self-seclusion. And there in the synagogue is a very deep mikveh, more than a hundred cubits, and we did many immersions. [ . . . ] And we tarried in Alexandria of Egypt fourteen days until we heard, praised the Lord, as the blessed One said to the angel of destruction, “Enough,” and we were told that things were well in Jerusalem.

And we wanted to go to Jaffa, which is a distance of five hundred miles, three days [by boat], with favorable wind. In Jaffa there are no Jews at all, and from there to Jerusalem is a journey of a day and a half, and we took a ship and went, and behold the ship captain, although he was supposed to take us to Jaffa, spoiled the business and took us to Acre, and from Acre there is no way to go to Jerusalem, except under duress, as we heard that there are many gefaris.¹ And also from Acre the way is long, and there are women who are incapable of that, since from Acre to Safed is one day, and from Safed to Jerusalem five days, with dangers on the roads. And behold, when the captain took us to Acre, we thought he was evil, but God thought it was well. As we said: How can we go from Acre to Safed and from Safed to Jerusalem on long roads, and God thought well for us, because when we arrived in Acre we heard bad news that Jerusalem and Jaffa were full of the plague, and every day twelve people died in Jaffa, and in Jerusalem, just the same, perish the thought. And the great mercy that the Holy One had for us is that the captain refunded from his hand two hundred pieces of silver, so as not to take us to Jaffa, and on the contrary we would have asked to go to Jaffa with all the expense that there was, and we were surprised when he took a longer route and returned the pieces of silver. But this is also part of the mercy, for the Holy One did not want to destroy us in Jaffa, and He did all of these things. O to Him who does great miracles alone, and His mercy endures forever. And we thanked the Lord and praised Him for all the good things He did for us, that He led us on the right and straight path, though we did not intend it.

And we sailed from Alexandria, Egypt to Acre in five days, which is a very old and large city. While there are more than a hundred Jewish householders, most of the citizens are Greeks and the rest are Turks. And there is a big synagogue in it. [ . . . ] And Acre is half within the land of Israel and half out of it, and the cemetery is in the land of Israel. And they only celebrate one day of holidays, not the two days of the diaspora as outside the Land, but like Jerusalem, but on the intermediate days they practice truly as if they were in the diaspora.

And after the second day of Rosh Hashanah we went out of the city, a walk of four hours, to go to the tomb of ḥushai the Arkhite, and the whole way was full of large, tall buildings, splendid construction, some falling and some standing. And that village is called Kfar Yashiv, which is mentioned in the Zohar: “they turned to Kfar Yashiv, and in it there is great abundance, and it is of the land of Israel, and its practice is truly of the land of Israel.” And we found a few dozen householders there, and they are living well, in great freedom, and their work is sowing and harvesting, and they give tithes and burn the terumah [offering to the priests]. And this year, 1741/2, they do not sow, because it is a sabbatical year. And they have no exile, truly the way we were in antiquity in freedom and great tranquility. And certainly someone who dwells there to study Torah lives well in abundance and freedom, and the air of the land of Israel makes one wise, and sustenance is cheap. And there is water there like none other in the world. And among them there is no envy, hatred, or competition at all, because every one of them sits beneath his vine and his fig tree. And they do not wear good clothing, but only one garment, both on Shabbat and holidays, and this is because they do not seek honor for themselves.

And from that village we walked about two hours to another village named Arkhi, where ḥushai the Arkhite is buried. His tomb is in a house, and there is as high monument inside the building, and it is truly the grave of ḥushai. And this is the form of the tomb and the house where he is buried. [ . . . ] And all the beadles are buried in front of him, and people light a candle for him, and when they die, they bury them near him, and they bury them outside of the house where he is buried. And he was a companion of David’s, who overturned the advice of Aḥitophel. And we sat near the tomb on Friday, and we studied the Scriptures on it. And we sat there all Friday in great self-seclusion and studied the matter of his advice and counsel with David and studied all the psalms and penitential prayers with three-fold tears for the length of the exile and about the anger of God which He sends to our holy city of Jerusalem.

And we returned to Acre. And outside the wall of Acre is the border of the beginning of the land of Israel. There is a large and tall synagogue there, and in the past, when the city was new, it was inside the city, now that the city has been destroyed, it is outside the city, and it has twelve windows, and each window is like the entrance to the synagogue of Livorno, and it is called the synagogue of Ahab, and it is still called by the name Knesset Ahab, for there King Ahab used to pray.

After that we walked to the village of Haifa on the eve of Yom Kippur in the year 1741, and from that village came R. Ibo of Haifa, who is mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud, and he is quoted by R. Alfasi in Tractate Berakhot, and the distance from Acre to there is four parasangs [Persian unit of distance, equivalent to three or four miles], and from there to Mt. Carmel is one parasang.

And on the eve of Yom Kippur we went to Mt. Carmel, which is a marvelous mountain, large and very, very high, and its peak reaches heaven, and it truly stands in its great height. And we climbed up about two hundred cubits to a house and in front of it was a big, very high cave, fifty cubits in length and twenty cubits in width, and it is all carved into the mountain, a single stone in all four directions with earth and top. And whoever sees it will certainly say that it was built by the hand of man in its walls, which are so very square, with four corners, and every corner by itself. And this is the aforementioned cave of Elijah of blessed memory: and he went into the cave and he slept there, etc. (1 Kings 19:9). And when we entered there the spirit of God descended upon us, and we saw a very great light in our soul, etc. And this is the very cave of which it says in the Gemara that the divine presence never leaves it, and inside the cave is a small cave, also carved into the mountain from a single stone, and they say this is the place of Elijah of blessed memory [b. Megillah 19b]. And if anyone enters this cave while impure, streams of water flow from all four directions, and the cave washes itself, and that is how they know that someone impure was there. And we saw this on Yom Kippur, when a gentile came there and immediately water flowed out from the four directions of the cave, and we spent Yom Kippur there, and we brought a Torah scroll from a school there, and we celebrated Yom Kippur, and there has been nothing like it from the day, etc. [ . . . ]

And the day after Yom Kippur early in the morning we went up to the top of the mountain to prostrate ourselves on the tomb of Elisha ben Shaphat, who is buried on the top of Mt. Carmel. And when we had climbed up about a hundred cubits or more, we found a newly built church there, and they say that Elisha ben Shaphat is one of theirs, and they sacrifice vain idolatrous things to him, their gold and their silver, and in that house are only priests and those who serve Jesus and his soldiers. And we climbed higher and higher and found a small cave there, and it has one wall with a window, and that is the hollowed window to the grave of Elisha ben Shaphat. And we held prayers and recited penitential prayers there with three-fold tears about the exile of the divine presence, and we embraced its dust.

And we went back and returned to Acre and stayed there and celebrated the holiday of Sukkot with the palm branch and the citron, as given from Mt. Sinai. And now we have rented a house since the rabbi has rented one courtyard and lives in one house and he placed his yeshiva in another house, and we study Torah day and night. For this is the day we hoped for and found, thank the Lord, may it be His will that we spend our days there not to separate from it and that it not be separated from us, amen, may it be His will. Fortunate is the eye that has seen all this, certainly the soul yearns to hear this with the ear. May it be His will that you will join us soon amen, may it be His will.