With God’s help.

*Show me your ways, O Lord, and I shall walk in Your truth. Designate my heart to fear Your name.*¹⁵⁹

footnotes: ¹⁵⁹ Psalm 86:11.

This is the book Hovat haAvreikhim. Section One, which is the introduction to this book, is called Entrance to the Gates [Mevo haShearim].

*This book is the third section of the work Hovat haTalmidim and Hakhsharat haAvreikhim,*¹⁶⁰), indicating the extent to which he conceives of them as an integrated whole.and only one who has read those may read this book.

footnotes: ¹⁶⁰ Interestingly, R. Shapiro refers to all three works as one work (kuntres

Kalonymous Kalmish¹⁶¹—son of the holy rabbi, our master and teacher R. Elimelekh of Grodzisk—

footnotes: ¹⁶¹ A diminutive of Kalman.

Av Beit Din¹⁶² of Piacezno.

footnotes: ¹⁶² Head of the rabbinical court. These last words were crossed out in the manuscript, apparently by R. Shapiro when editing the work while he was in the Warsaw Ghetto and the court and community in Piacezno was no longer extant. See Figure C, below, and Reiser, 2017, 52.