צז.

To the honor of the President of Israel — the daughter of my eye and my heart — Mr. S.Z. Shazar

To the honor of the President of Israel — the daughter of my eye and my heart — Mr. S.Z. Shazar, whose heart has been lifted to cleave himself to the truly wise one who defends Israel for generations of eternity — to elevate them from the depths of the abyss, and who builds wondrous structures to bring into them all the displaced and the lost who roll about within the flood of insolent waters, and he implants within them daas to recognize the Creator Yisburach. A good and blessed year in good, long, healthy and pleasant years of life.

The essential honor and greatness of the kingship is specifically through humility. And the more humility the king possesses, the more his kingdom extends — for such is always the way of kingship, that it must preface humility before its honor and its greatness. "In your very place of greatness I find your humility" — to come and to speak before you what Hashem places in my heart. I am broken with utter breakings — and my heart has been overturned within me, destroyed and demolished to its very foundation. And I sigh and weep with burning tears without pause over the great loss that I have lost — with the passing of my righteous wife, may she rest in peace. I have no words to tell of her praises and to describe the greatness of the nobility of her holy soul. I console myself with her righteousness and her good deeds — that all the days of her life she merited to perform with self-sacrifice, and she sanctified the name of Hashem and the name of the true Tzadik publicly — from within poverty and distress and many bitter troubles and afflictions without measure and without equal in the world, as you know somewhat of this.

From the very depths of my heart I bless you and your brother and his son and his beloved and pleasant family — with the blessing of "Blessed be he who has come" — for he has merited to come and to prostrate himself in the dust of the holy soil of the land of our forefathers — the land of our rest and our consolation, the land of our vitality and our hope. The place of faith and the holy wisdom — to become wise and to know Hashem. May he receive blessing from Hashem and may he succeed in all that he turns to, for long and good years.

Hashem — through the multitude of the hidden recesses of His sealed and concealed ways and His conduct, hidden from all thought and all investigation — has rained upon the earth a heavy rain and a torrent of mighty waters of heresies and false faiths in these latter days. And through His abundant compassion He prepared healing and salvation in advance — and sent us a man after His own heart, whom He found favor, and He called his name Nachman — saying: "this one will comfort us from our labor and from the toil of our hands" [Genesis 5:29]. And He commanded him to build the ark of truth and faith — so that all who wish to be saved should come and enter into his chambers, and close the doors upon him, and hide in the shadow of his awesome wisdom. For who can praise and who can express the enormity of the sublimity of his heroic deeds — that he performed wondrously with his wonders, to prepare and to provide food and vitality for all the souls of Israel for every generation. That they should delight and take pleasure in the splendor and the glory and the pleasantness of his awesome Torah teachings and stories, taken from the field of the most supernal lofty wisdom that has never yet been revealed in the world — which are enduring and faithful and beneficial forever and ever. Your faithful servant, who serves you with all his heart and soul, and stands and prays always to Hashem that He have mercy upon His people — and heal and restore you speedily in all two hundred and forty-eight limbs and three hundred and sixty-five sinews, and lengthen your days and your years in goodness and pleasantness — through the merit of the Tzadik: N. NaCh. NaChMa. NaChMaN MayUman. The transcriber, Yisroel Dov Odesser

Israel Dov Odesser