to the King and the nobles will respect you. The
Jews are as numerous as the sands of the sea and the stars in the
sky; they do not shine like the stars, but everyone tramples on them
as on the sand. The wind scatters the seeds of different trees, and
none asks from where the most beautiful tree has its origin. Why,
then, should there not rise among us a Cedar of Lebanon, instead of
thorn-bushes?"

The man under whose inspiration the proclamation was written, calling
the Polish Jews to turn their faces to where the light of the future
was dawning, met, eye to eye, the man with his face set toward the
past and darkness.

This man was a newcomer from Spain, and settled in Szybow. His name
was Nehemias Todros, the descendant of the famous Todros Abulaffi
Halevi who, famous for his Talmudistic learning and orthodoxy and
knowledge, was afterwards carried away by the gloomy secrets of
Kabalists, and helping it with his authority, was the cause of the
most dreadful error among the Jews from which any nation can suffer.
The tradition says that the same Nehemias Todros who had a princely
title, Nassi, was the first to bring to Poland the book, Zohar, in
which was explained the quintessence of the perilous doctrine, and
from that day there comes from Poland the mixture of the Talmud with
Kabalistic ideas which has influenced very badly the minds and the
lives of the Polish Jews. History is silent regarding the quarrels
and fights aroused by this innovation among the people who were in a
fair way of emerging from the darkness which surrounded them, but the
traditions, piously preserved in the families, tell, that in the
fight, which lasted a long time and was very obstinate, between
Michael Ezofowich, for a considerable period a Polish Jew, and
Nehemias Todros, a Spanish newcomer, the first was vanquished.
Consumed with grief caused by the sight of his people returning to
the old false roads, crushed by intrigues set afoot against him by
the gloomy adversary, he died in his prime. His name descended from
generation to generation of Ezofowichs. They were all proud of his
memory, although in time they understood less of its importance. From
that time dated the great authority of the Todros and the gradual
diminution of moral influence exerted by the Ezofowichs. The last
ones being driven out by those fresh from the field of waste, social
activity, they turned all their abilities in the direction of
business, with the aim of incre