(Napoleonica). Prière des Membres du Sanhédrin, Récitée dans Leur Assemblée Convoquée à Paris le Ier Jour d’Adar de l’Anée 5567 (9 Février 1807) [“Prayer of Members of the Sanhedrin, Recited in their Assembly…”].

Convened by Napoleon in 1806, the Paris Sanhedrin formulated rulings concerning civil issues faced by the newly enfranchised Jews. The present work is a prayer of gratitude from these newly emancipated Jews for Napoleon, whom many regarded as their political savior. The prayer, almost certainly composed by the great French sage David Sinzheim, expresses a wish to “aggrandize the Torah in the eyes of the nations,” nonetheless Divine assistance is requested “that we not waver left or right from the path of Your commandments and from Your words which You placed in the mouth of our fathers” (p. 11). More striking is the language of an earlier paragraph in the prayer: “Our hearts palpitate and our souls are ceased with terror lest, God forbid, we destroy the vineyard of the Lord.” (pp. 8-10). One senses the Rabbi’s trepidation that the pressure being applied by Napoleon upon the Sanhedrin would result in reformation of Torah law. See S. Schwarzfuchs, Napoleon, the Jews and the Sanhedrin ( 1979) pp. 88-114.