Bidspirit auction | (HIRSCH, SAMSON RAPHAEL)   GELLA

(HIRSCH, SAMSON RAPHAEL)   GELLA HIRSCH Four Autograph Letters Signed, written to her son, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (and family), in Judeo-German, with some Hebrew and German. Three of the letters are each a page-and-a-half; the fourth letter is larger and has SR Hirsch address panel on verso. (English translation of one letter accompanies the lot). Hamburg, 1849-59.      PROVENANCE:   By direct family descent from Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, to the consignor.     These four letters highlight the warm, family relationships that lay behind R. Hirsch’s rabbinic acumen.     In one letter, Gella Hirsch (1786-1860) asks her son if her young grand-daughter Sophia has grown many teeth. Born in 1852, Sophia would grow up to marry R. Salomon Breuer, R. Hirsch’s heir to the Frankfurt community.     In another letter, Gella describes an impending apartment move and sends “a thousand kisses” to her great-grandson Pinkas Guggenheimer. A note is attached from Hirsch’s sister Therese, chiding him for not writing to their mother more often.     Often signing as “your mother and grandmother, ” the contents of these letters are directed toward both R. Hirsch and his children and were likely read aloud to the entire family.     For R. Hirsch, investment in family life was a barometer of one’s spiritual success. “Jacob is the family man blessed with children; hardworking, serving, weighed down by cares… This privilege is to him the highest prize, the greatest achievement” (Commentary, Genesis 32:8).     For another example highlighting R. Hirsch’s strong sense of the importance of family see his Pentateuch with personal inscriptions, sold Kestenbaum Sale 91, Lot 60.