VERY little is known of Tsevi Hirsch Kalischer's life in Thorn from the time of his arrival until the first manifestation, almost twenty years later, of his religious activism. We can presume that Gittel sustained their growing family while the rabbi enjoyed relative repose, studying and working on his manuscripts on Jewish law. Years later Kalischer would refer back to the 1830s as the time when he began to recognize ‘the holy path’. Any number of factors might have drawn him out of his insular world of abstract Torah study into the realm of politics. Although there are no records of how he came to his epiphany, an early testimony of his religious awakening has survived. One would expect this to be in a letter to a friend or teacher. To such intimates he wrote later, however, after revealing his startling insights to a total stranger, the Frankfurt banker Amschel Mayer Rothschild. Written just before his fortieth birthday in the late summer of 1836, Kalischer's letter to Rothschild marks the beginning of his dedication to hastening the arrival of the messianic age. The letter represents his initial rethinking of the whole notion of the messiah and, given his new understanding of it, his attempt to act upon his theory. It contains all of the elements and much of the text of what he later published, in 1862, as Derishat tsiyon (Seeking Zion). An analysis of the letter and the context in which it was written will show the enduring contours of Kalischer's messianic theory as well as provide clues to the forces that propelled him into action.

THE MESSIANIC THEORY

Kalischer's letter to Rothschild is a rich and complex weave of poetry, exegesis, halakhic argumentation, and pragmatic reasoning. It was written entirely in Hebrew and Aramaic, and Kalischer kept a copy for his own record. It was not a personal, intimate confession; there was no personal information in it beyond the rabbi's expressions of awe towards Rothschild, the urgency he felt in beseeching the banker to take action, his signature, and his identity as a student of Akiva Eger. Much of the letter's structure and tone resemble a learned treatise. Its principle theme is God's role in history, particularly God's dependence upon a prominent figure such as Rothschild to serve as the instrument of his will.