A letter in the handwriting and signature of Hillel Zeitlin to Rabbi Kook. Warsaw 1922.
A letter in which Hillel Zeitlin addresses Rabbi Kook with extreme titles of honor: "To the honor of the greatest priest among his brothers, Merkava L'Aadat Hechessed, one of the leaders of peace in Israel, the quintessential genius...Mohra'r Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Shalit'a...", with a request to bring Rabbi Menachem Gelbfish to an important position in Eretz Israel, and writes praises about him: "It is known that Mr. Gelbfish is one of the most respected and valuable people in Warsaw, a great scholar... well-educated in the truth and a G-d-fearing man...", he adds that he has manuscripts in Torah and wisdom, "being always a thinker in Gmara, Poskim and Kabbalah." Towards the end of the letter, Zeitlin apologizes that he cannot help that person by himself because it is difficult for him to speak peace "to all the noisy people now in Israel... because I lack that measure of kindness... from the day they chose the way of bowing down to attacks and hatred for brothers to the extent the imposition of terrible confusions and DL (enough for the wise), and bless him on the eve of Passover for the "victory of redemption in truth and not only in imagination." At the end of the letter, Zeitlin adds a few lines to the "Warrior of the Holy War in Jerusalem" - Rabbi Shlomo Molcho's regarding the article he wrote about him in "The Momment".
Throughout the letter there are corrections, wording changes, and erasures, It is possible that the letter was used by Zeitlin as a draft for the letter that was sent.
Hillel Zeitlin [1871-1942], a thinker, a great sage in the wisdom of Kabbalah, a Jewish writer and publicist, who wrote in Hebrew and Yiddish. Born in Korma in Belarus to a Chabad family from the Kapust Hasidic stream. His father died when he was a teenager, and Zeitlin left his hometown and began working as a Hebrew teacher. In his youth, he published many articles on various platforms and his writing is characterized by a constant spiritual search and it shows Zeitlin's emotional involvement in the suffering of his people. After writing for several Hebrew newspapers and periodicals, he found a permanent job in the Ha'Zman newspaper in Vilnius, and participated in the activities of the Zionist movement. In 1919, he moved to Warsaw, began writing for the largest Yiddish newspapers in the city, and became a prominent figure in the city's Jewish community.
During World War II he stayed in Warsaw. In a letter from 1940, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson writes to Rabbi Yitzhak Halevi Herzog: "About two days before I left Warsaw, my friend, the famous old writer Rabbi Hillel S. Zeitlin, visited me, and with tears in his eyes asked me to request on his behalf, that Kvod Torato would try to get the agency - who is one of its members - to send him a certificate, because his situation is dangerous. And I, for my part, ask for this." He was sent to Treblinka by the Nazis on September 11, 1942, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah 1942, holding the Zohar book And he was crowned with a tallit and tefillin, when they put him in the carriage. His entire family was also murdered in the Holocaust, and only his son, Aharon, survived, since at that time he was in the United States.
Zeitlin published thousands of articles in the Yiddish press, wrote dozens of Hebrew articles and published close to thirty books.
[1] leaf. 32x20 cm. Fold marks. Stains. Legible and clear writing. Good condition.
