Friday, July 24, 2009

A surprising discussion of the magen david, Hebrew pronunciation and an image of an old piece of Judaica in a slightly erotic novel from 1741

In 1740 Samuel Richardson published a hit epistolary novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, a sort of sefer mussar. The novel was so popular that he published sequels, its popularity stemming not only from its literary merits, but also because despite it's premise of "virtue rewarded," it was explicit for the times. For example, there are gems like this:



In a sequel published in 1741 called Pamela's Conduct in High Life there is some interesting material for our purposes, namely a discussion of the Magen David, and some details of Hebrew pronunciation. Part of the text of Shemoneh Esrei even makes an appearance!






If this isn't enough, there's also a discussion about the meaning of the word shiloh, taking into account the views of ראב"ע and רבנו בחיי, although this is not really unusual, because of its christological import.

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