י

The general matter is that these two aforementioned men denigrated him o.b.m. with all types of degradation etc., and he bore it all, and did not want to reveal to them in any way who he was, and he deceived them intentionally and confused them very, very much, until they would degrade him every time for his changing accounts each time. One time he spoke with them, until it seemed clear to them that he was from Lagorna (-a city on the Italian border), and afterwards they saw that it was not so, and they degraded him very, very much; and one time he spoke with them, and it seemed to them that he is the son of the Kamarner, that is, the son of the Maggid of Kamarner, who was in a great quarrel then, as is well known, and afterwards, in middle of the conversation, he o.b.m.

began to curse the Kamarner. And they scolded him: "Behold he is your father!" And they saw that they still have not figured him out. And every time he had a different name, and with every name they called him, he answered them and came to them. Suddenly they would let out from their mouth and call: "Yishayuh," in order to test him if he is the son of the Kamarner whose name was Yishayuh, and he of blessed memory came immediately to them, and it seemed to them that certainly he's the son of the Kamarner, and they said to him: "You are certainly the aforementioned's son." And he replied to them and proved to them that he is not his son. In the meantime they began to speak of the gift that the Kamarner sent to his son, and he o.b.m. began immediately to request and implore there that they should show him his gift, and they saw again that he is his son, and afterwards they spoke with him more, and he (Rabbainu -in the Hebrew there is a typo - they) cursed him, and they were very very shocked/confounded, and they came with great anger, and they degraded him very, very much; and when they asked him: "Why do you say now that your name is such, and afterwards - a different name, and so too with the name of your origins (-place)?" And he answered them likewise, "That every single name is according to the attribute and the Sefirah (-Divine attribute) which it incorporates etc., and I, Baruch Hashem, am replete with all of them. And everything that transpired in this matter, vast amounts of pages would not suffice to relate it. And he o.b.m. would wake them up sometimes from (their) sleep, and begin speaking with them, until they came to great anger, and they began to curse him more and to degrade him severely.

And on the day preceding the holy Shabbos they came from the Mikvah ("house of immersion"), and he o.b.m. was lying on the bunk barefoot, without a belt and without a formal ("top") hat, and he asked them: "Why is it that the whole week my body is light and I do not have heaviness, but now I have very great heaviness, to the extent that I can almost not get up from this spot?" And they answered him: "Because every erev (day proceeding) Shabbos Kodesh (-holy) this neshama (-soul) ascends above, and the extra neshama comes down, but by you your neshama went, and the extra neshama you do not merit to receive,  therefore your body remains like a stone." And he replied to them: "Oy (-woe) upon you! That even on a simple matter like this you do not know what to answer." And he requested from them that they should receive him for Shabbos by them, but they did not want. And on Shabbos they received the man that was with him, by them for Shabbos, but him they did not want to receive, and he was forced to eat dairy foods, because they did not want to eat meat there; just they (-the two men) had some shoachet (-ritual butcher).

And also on Shabbos they had a very great dispute with them, and they wanted to push him out, because he entered by them even though he did not eat with them, and they started to fight with him, until they wanted to push him out, and there was a great commotion there; and also in the morning, it was also like that. The general matter was, that he o.b.m. acted intentionally, and he allowed himself to be degraded with all types of shaming, and he said to the man that was with him that these degradations would be a great benefit for him on the way there (-to Israel) and on the way back, because the greatness of the enormity

of the huge impediments that he had in going to the Land of Israel, is impossible to fathom, or to measure, or to relay, and it was not possible (for Rabbainu) to come to the Land of Israel except through this littleness, as was heard afterwards from his mouth explicitly. And he said, that if he did not have these degradations and the littleness, it would not have been possible for him to come there in anyway; and he said, that he saw that he was forced to remain there in Istanbul, that is, to die there, but this littleness and the shaming saved him, because before one comes to the Land of Israel etc. as mentioned above. Afterwards Rabbainu o.b.m. ordered the man that was with him, that he should give to the aforementioned men who denigrated him as mentioned above, from their food, and beverages, and various dishes, that they had with them, to give them from everything.

And these men traveled to their homes, and they did not want to take a letter from Rabbainu to his home, just from the man that was with him they took a letter, and Rabbainu placed his letter inside the letter of the aforementioned man, and these men wanted to open the letter of the aforementioned man, perhaps they will be able to understand from it some matter of Rabbainu o.b.m., who he is and where he's from, but they were not able to find the letter by them, because it disappeared from them (from) where they placed the letter, and the letter did not come to their hands until they came to the kamer (-inspection room) in Volichai (-a city on the Romanian border), when they found the letter by them, and they saw from the letter, that this had been Rabbainu o.b.m.. They saw and were positively astounded and very confounded (-Psalms 48:6); and that man who degraded him copiously as mentioned above, came to his home and passed away very close to his arrival.