Three periods have passed over me--he writes to a friend--since
I dedicated myself to Hebrew. As a youth I loved it as a Jewish
lad loves his betrothed, not because he is enamored of her
charms, but because his parents have chosen her for him; as I
grew older, I continued to love it as a Jewish man loves his
wife, not because of real affection, but because she is the only
one he knows; now that I am old, I still love her, as an elderly
Jew loves his helpmate: he is aware that she lacks many of the
accomplishments of which more educated women can boast, but, for
all that, remembering her faithfulness in the past, he loves her
also in the present, and loves her till he dies.
Guenzburg was different from most of his contemporaries in another
respect. He was a voluminous writer, but only a few of his books and
essays bear on what we now call Jewish science. Zunz, Geiger, and Jost,
seeing that Judaism was gradually losing its hold upon their Jewish
countrymen, resorted to exploring and narrating, in German, the
wonderful story of their race, in the hope of renewing its ebbing
strength.
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