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Ancient Kabbalistic sword which was in the possession of Rabbi Hillel of Kolomyya and then passed on to his son-in-law, the author of Lev Ivri , Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger. Hungary, 15th century. Sword with an ivory handle and metal blade engraved with pure gold letters. The letters join together to form words in Hebrew that create the Tetragrammaton, and other Names and verse excepts. The engraving of the letters was done using special craftsmanship during the blade's casting, which preserved the inscription in the best possible manner, even with the passage of hundreds of years since the sword was made, including the special gold sheen. Due to the sword's sanctity and the Names engraved on it, Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger prepared a special cloth case for it, something like a tefillin bag. He wrote his name and address in Jerusalem on the case, by hand, in a foreign language. Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger attested that this sword was found by a Jewish officer in 1848, at the height of the "Spring of Nations" war which swept through Europe demanding liberty and equality. Rebellion broke out in Hungary as well. (Hungarian Jews, as usual, were among the rebel leaders; the first victim of the rebellion was a Jew, a student at the local technological college, Heinrich Shpitzer). In the storm of the battles, the masses conquered the famous Petrovaradin Fortress (currently next to Novi Sad, Serbia). This officer discovered the exquisite sword with Hebrew letters engraved on the blade among the ruins of the Fortress. Despite rust stains on the blade, the beauty of the gold letters was not the least bit dulled. The Jewish officer understood that this was not only a historic sword, but a holy one, a sword with the Tetragrammaton engraved on it. He felt a moral obligation to bring it to one of the leading rabbis of Hungary, Rabbi Hillel Lichtenstein of Kolomyya, the leading zealot of Hungary, and disciple of the Chata" m Sofer. After about twenty years, Rabbi Hillel gave the sword to his son-in-law, Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger, author of HaLev HaIvri - one of the rabbinic leaders of Hungary and Jerusalem, and disciple of the Ktav Sofer and the Mahara"m Schick. This was to be as a protection, when he ascended to Jerusalem, which was a dangerous place in those times. Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger wrote in his book that he paid his father-in-law "A gold ring with a brilliant [diamond]" for it. Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger and his father-in-law, Rabbi Hillel of Kolomyya treated this sword with reverence. Rabbi Akiva Yosef, aside from being a halachic adjudicator, also known for his Kabbalistic greatness, published a halachic-Kabbalistic study of this sword and the holy Names engraved on it (a photocopy of this study in Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger's hand is included). In this treatise, he deliberated various theories about the source of the sword, and its beginning, and arrives at King David and his General, Yoav ben Tzeruyah. He writes that there is a tradition that Yoav ben Tzeruyah conquered Hungary and there is a nearby mountain with "Yoav ben Tzeruyah arrived until this point" engraved on one of the rocks. Another source in his study is the book Seder HaDorot which states that Methuselah had a sword engraved with the Tetragrammaton. The sword went from him to Ya'akov our patriarch, and so forth. Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger explains the reasons that brought him to write holy Names on the war swords. The first reason, obviously, was for protection and defense. The second reason was to relate the weapon's purity. Another reason was to turn the sword into a kind of amulet so that is would be permissible to carry on Shabbat, and this is also the reason - according to Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlesinger - for the relatively small dimensions of the sword, so that it would be used for other things, like cutting food, and this would make it permissible to carry. Historians of Hungarian Jewry (and also in Hungarian-Jewish folklore, ) speak