Eleh divre ha-berit (These Are the Words of the Covenant)

These are the words of the covenant as a statute for Jacob, as an everlasting covenant for Israel; the Almighty spoke but once—and He will never alter His law—through the Torah and the ruling which will issue from the mouth of the righteous religious court of the Holy Community of Hamburg—may God protect it. The great acknowledged religious authorities in the lands of Germany, Poland, France, and Italy, and the lands of Bohemia, Moravia, and Hungary, have supported them. All of these have responded and exclaimed: “The following matter is by the decree of the angelic hosts and by the word of the holy ones—to render null and void the new religion (which some ordinary, simple individuals, who are not Torah scholars, have invented out of their own minds)—to establish fresh customs that are not in accordance with the law of Moses and of Israel. Accordingly, the outstanding halakhic authorities, saintly and holy men, the rabbis of renown, have risen up to drive in a peg in a trustworthy place, finding an unprotected plain and fencing it all around, to establish a prohibition against three sins which they have committed at the cost of their own lives, these being as follows:

It is prohibited to alter the order of prayer established by custom within Israel, from the early morning benedictions up to after the prayer ‘It is incumbent upon us to praise’; and a fortiori, that one may not abridge it.

It is prohibited to recite this order of prayer in any language other than in the sacred tongue, and any prayer that is printed in a form not in accordance with the established rite, and with our customs, is disqualified from use and it is forbidden to pray from it.

It is prohibited to play on any musical instrument in the synagogue on Sabbaths and festivals, even where the instrumentalist is a non-Jew.”

Happy is the man who listens to the decree of the Sages, the righteous religious Court, and to the words of the outstanding saintly and holy religious authorities, and let a person not separate himself from the congregation, so that he may walk in the path of the goodly. He who guards his soul will distance himself from such innovations so as not to transgress their words—Heaven forbid!—in accordance with the adage of our Sages of blessed memory: “Beware of the glowing coals of the wise,” etc. What God-fearing man is there who has no fear of the words of the forty saintly and holy ones of the Most High that are sealed in this book, and will not take pity upon his own soul and the souls of his household?

by order of the righteous religious court of the holy community of hamburg.

Printed in Altona in the year 5579 [1819]

By the partners, the brothers Messrs. Samuel and Judah Bon Segal, privileged royal literary printers.

Now we had hoped against hope that those men would pay heed to these words of ours, and that they would listen to the voice of their teachers, to whom alone it is befitting to express an opinion on all topics relating to matters involving prohibited and permitted things, and from times of yore the residents of our city, the joyful city, have listened to the voice of their teachers, who have said to them: “This is the path; travel upon it!” We thought for a certainty that the power we wield now is as it always has been in the past, and that people would not have the temerity to rebel against the words of our mouths.

But we hoped in vain, for these men rebelled against the advice tendered to them and became spiritually impoverished by their sin, and they erected for themselves, in great haste, a house of prayer which they called a “Temple,” and they have published a liturgical rite for Sabbaths and festivals, by reason of which all those who are currently sick have become sick; our eyes have streamed with tears for the shattering of our people, for they have added to and derogated from the rites of prayer at their whim; they have omitted the early morning benedictions and the blessing to be recited over the Torah, and they have also canceled “A psalm of praise of David” and the verses of song, and they have wantonly interfered in regard to the texts of the blessing associated with the recital of the Shema; and, in the evil of their hearts, they have abridged the texts of the passages: “There is none to be compared unto You,” “To the God Who rested,” “God, Who is Lord,” and “True and firm.” They have, moreover, printed the major part of the prayers in the German language, rather than in the sacred tongue; and worse than all this is an evil malady—that they have omitted all those places where the belief in the ingathering of the exiles is mentioned.