Composite manuscript: Hebrew letters to the Jewish court of Paris by Pinchas Michael Abdallah (Gaster Hebrew MS 1207)

They sought to coerce me until I accepted the judgment that arose and was awakened with its righteous owner in the gate of assistance a reference to a court or a place of legal gathering, for there are always some sages who permitted assigning a woman to a servant as a primary intention, and not for profit; for it is not always easy in the camp for the holy Torah of the Lord to be in the exact place where everyone succeeds in establishing and upholding their words. One says "thus" and another says "so," and truth is missing from among them. Therefore, the Torah slackens and judgment is perverted, and "deaf" sages babble words that are clean and empty, appearing before the wealthy and powerful, saying, "Our lives depend on this; if we do not do their will, they will not provide our sustenance." Thus, a lack of livelihood is found—may the Merciful One save us—and this is the core of the settlement of the Land of Israel. The wealthy, possessing teshukot yafot beautiful desires (power and greed), from whom the Lord has departed—they do not show pity or mercy for the law of the Lord and His people. Their desire is to coerce and conquer the poor, and even women who are poor, into being slaves and maidservants. This existed also in the time of the First Temple and also there, after Ezra and Nehemiah Nehemiah 5, the wealthy went out to take the sons and daughters of the poor as a permitted disgrace. For this reason, I came to call out this occurrence, to know which is the straight path we should walk so that the grievances of the sages against the wealthy may be removed. We are bowed down before them, to permit for them whatever they wish, and the wealthy and the people rage against the sages, saying, "A bribe blinds the eyes of the sages and perverts the words of the righteous."

I went to the sage, Rabbi Tzadok Cohen. He said to me, "Write for me what claim you have." I wrote the essence of the matter and sent it to him. I waited and went to receive an answer, but he did not give me permission, according to the words of the scribe from the mouth of Rabbi Tzadok, to send him a letter a second time. And the response I sent to you in London, to your opponent in the arguments, the Rabbi of London, Mr. Chames likely a reference to a communal leader or rabbi of the Sephardic community in London. I said, "We came here, perhaps [there is] the Alliance Israélite Universelle among us." How did they come against me indirectly, with extortion and violence, and form a conspiracy against me? Concerning them and those like them, it is said in the Psalms, Chapter 43: "Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man." And even here they found me and surrounded me with wicked preparations, as is their bad habit to this day. It is not necessary to lengthen the words of the dispute; this is sufficient and more.

// Matters requiring Torah judgment in order

Now, I beseech you, dear beloved ones, as a father has mercy on his children, hear and I will speak, listen and I will recount in order the essence of this event pertaining to the Torah judgment. How did it happen? I sought favor in the eyes of the aforementioned good man, who brought me into this bad affair, and they destroyed my home for no violence, but because of a hidden flame. The house of David turned against me, to declare me liable in a manner of a new Torah scholar a sarcastic remark regarding the legal innovations of his opponents, a law in practice regarding the acts of God. I went to bless, for to strengthen the tribe, the act of the departed benefactor, Mr. Isaac David Joseph Ezra, who passed away—may it not be upon you—he chose me, also me, during the days of Elul to read for the elevation of his soul. This was the first cause of the intimacy, and especially during the aforementioned time that I was in the blessing, held in trust and honesty, respected and "important" honorable more than all passers-by. After a month or half a year, the one who remembers the forgotten was blessed, and I was prepared to travel to return to my home in the holy city of Hebron, may it be rebuilt and established. I fulfilled that which was incumbent upon me out of courtesy, to go and discharge my obligation to visit the beloved women, which was a kindness from them, and especially the aforementioned widow of the deceased, alas. I comforted her, and her son, and her household, and I appeased them, the appeasement of their sorrow, and especially from the many grievances of the sycophants, the haters of truth and the haters of charity and kindness, who spoke with their mouths to cause them pain and prevent them from the ways of righteousness, until they were donating things against the Lord and His Torah, saying, "If there were benefit in the commandments of tzedakah charity, as he said in my deeds, 'Wealth does not profit in the day of wrath, and charity delivers from death,' would the aforementioned Isaac not have died?" All the charity and redemptions they did and performed did not help. I said to them, "If there were power in giving charity to abolish natural death from the world, King Solomon and many like him would not have died." And so on, and there is no place to lengthen this further.