By the grace of God. I take the honor to allow myself a request of the esteemed personage or the esteemed institute who will find these the following, my manuscripts: The Preparation of Young Men, Entrance to the Gates (of the Duties of the Young Scholar), Command and Exhort and Torah Novellae on the weekly portions from the years 1939–42. Please be so kind and take the pains to convey them to the Holy Land to the following address: “Rabbi Yeshaya Shapira, Tel Aviv, Falestina (Palestine),” including with them the attached letter. If God will be merciful and I am among the remaining Jews who survive the war, I ask that you please forgive me and return it all to me, or to the Warsaw Rabbinate for Kalonymos. May God have mercy upon us, the remnants of Israel who are anywhere at all: Save us, restore us, and deliver us in the blink of an eyelid.
With profound and heartfelt thanks,
Kalonymos
On the eve of Monday, in the week of Vaera, Teveth 27, 5743 [January 3 1943].
By the grace of God. To his honor, the honored Rabbi, Rabbi Yeshaya Shapira, may he live a long, good life; Amen.
To his honor, my illustrious friend R. Avner Bienenthal, may his light shine brightly. To his honor, my trusted friend R. Elimelech Ben Porath, may his light shine brightly. To the honorable, beloved brothers and friends, who have been joined to my heart forever, may they be well.
Printing of the booklet The Preparation of Young Men, had already begun before the war, and was interrupted by the outbreak of war. Now that we are in constant peril of our lives, God forbid, I beg of you my dearest beloved, that when God helps and these booklets reach your hands The Preparation of Young Men, Entrance to the Gates (of the Duties of the Young Scholar), Command and Exhort, and Torah Novellae from the Years of Fury, 1939–42—that you endeavor to print them. This may be individually or together, as you see fittingly appropriate. Also that you deign and endeavor to “distribute them among Jacob and disperse them among Israel.” Please print in all my booklets that I beg and plead with every individual Jew to study my books, and I am certain that the merit of my holy ancestors of blessed memory will stand by him and his entire household, in the present and in the future. May God have mercy upon us.
Now, in the booklet The Preparation of Young Men that was already being printed, I displayed an inscription dedicated solely to the blessed memory of my pious, saintly wife—for at that time, things were still well with me. My mother, my guide, the saintly Rebbetzin of blessed memory was still alive; my holy son, the Rabbi of blessed memory; and his wife, my holy daughter-in-law, the Rebbetzin of blessed memory, were alive. But now, to my grief and my great woe I have lost, for my many sins, all this treasure. The light of my eyes is dimmed, may you be spared. Therefore, I request that you print the memorial inscriptions that I will record here.
God will have mercy and say “Enough!” to the suffering of the Jewish people and to my own suffering. He will give me back my dearest, most precious, modest daughter, Ms. Rechil Yehudis, may she live a long and good life; Amen. She was snatched from me on the second day of Rosh Chodesh Elul, Friday in the week of Shoftim, 5702 [August 1942].
Also endeavor to print on the frontispiece of all the books mentioned above my name with the names of my father, the holy Rabbi of blessed memory, and of my father-in-law, the holy Rabbi of blessed memory.
More, I am unable to write. May God have mercy and preserve me with the remnants of Israel, that I also merit to join in the work of printing them.
The words of your loving friend and brother, who yearns for you, who is broken and shattered with his own torments and with the torments of all the Jewish people, which are as deep as the manifold abyss and high as heaven’s heavens, who anticipates God’s salvation in the blink of an eye.
Kalonymos