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4 - Nação and Kahal: A Religious Community in the Making

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Summary

Let the truth never part from your mouth, for God loves the truth and those who speak it and abhors mendacious lips. Thus, He is called, by one of His attributes, God of Truth. Do not say out of mockery anything other than what you know and hold in your heart, for you will acquire a bad name and reputation and, when you do speak the truth, you will not be believed and you will be held in low esteem. So always deal very truthfully so that they will similarly deal with you. Thus you will acquire a good reputation and name which is worth more than riches, as Solomon says (Prov. 22: 1).

Do not scorn the advice of old and wise men. Because of their large experience with the things of this life, it is sounder than that of young men. Listen to them attentively. If they give you advice about your business, accept their counsel; if the matter does not concern you, always try to remember what they said so that you can take advantage of it on another occasion. Do not trust your own opinion for you can easily deceive yourself …

My son, always keep in mind where you come from and who you are, so that you will never grow arrogant, as God abhors arrogance. Be humble toward everyone, which is a very pleasing virtue to Him. Never boast about yourself, for praise from one's own mouth is despicable.

DR PEDRO GOMES DE SOSSA

THROUGHOUT the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Antwerp colony of Portuguese merchants was designated a natie (nation). In fact, in Antwerp all colonies of foreign merchants—those of Spain, of Lombardy, of Genoa, and of Lucca—were known as ‘nations’; and so was the nation of stevedores. In Antwerp, it seems, the term ‘nation’ denoted a group on the margin of society proper, structurally less integrated than the guilds but more fully recognized than incidental associations. In Portugal during the same period New Christians were frequently referred to as homens da nação (men of the nation). There, it seems, the term ‘nation’ had an even less well defined meaning.

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Reluctant Cosmopolitans
The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam
, pp. 165 - 224
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2000

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