Reife nach Pennsylvanien
Reife nach Pennsylvanien (Stuttgart,1756) is the title in German of Mittelberger's work, Journey to Pennsylvania.
The word for
journey in German is reise, which becomes Reife from the convention of the long s.
Also called a ligature, the long s has no bar through it, which at
first seems to substitute f for s. In type setting there is also a
greater need for s. It however appears immediately to the eye as Reife so that in its original the title is almost Reiff nach Pennsylvanien. Muhlenberg spells Reiff as Reiss and Reif. He gives Reif in the name of "George Reif, Jacob Reif's son" (Journals III, 344, c. 1780). Reiss however denotes the widowed Anna Reiff and her son Jacob where the Church Record says, 'Widow Reiss, mother of Jacob Reiss, was buried January 8, 1753" (Journals I, 352). Conrad Reiff was of course the target of several pages of fulminations in Mittelberger's Journey (see 110f) that makes this confusion interesting. That any of this seems peculiar can be perused at will online here.
It's one thing to seek such matters out, it's another for them to summon you, as this. Take for instance the restraint of the world so utterly present in these Mennonite and pietistic writings, whatever that comes to mean. If Reiff is a Reise, a journey, a Reife upon his Journey, as Mitteberger's title, the Hebrew word for Hebrew, both man and language, is also journey, "a passer-through...one who takes into account that which is outside of himself, and so "does not the world made visible run the risk...of becoming an idol?" (Marc-Alain Ouaknin, The Burnt Book, 73). It speaks to the valley of passengers of Ezekiel 39 who hold their noses as they pass through. This journeyist, immigrant to many lands and internal landscapes reife nach Pennsylvanien.
Reife nach Pennsylvanien (Stuttgart,1756) is the title in German of
Mittelberger's work, Journey to Pennsylvania. The word for journey in
German is reise, which becomes Reife from the convention of the long s.
Also called a ligature, the long s has no bar through it, which at first seems
to substitute f for s. In type setting there is also a greater need for s. It
however appears immediately to the eye as Reife so that in its original the
title is almost Reiff nach Pennsylvanien.
Muhlenberg spells Reiff as Reiss and Reif. He gives Reif in
the name of "George Reif, Jacob Reif's son" (Journals III,
344, c. 1780). Reiss however denotes the widowed Anna Reiff and her son
Jacob where the Church Record says, 'Widow Reiss, mother of Jacob Reiss,
was buried January 8, 1753" (Journals I, 352). Conrad Reiff was of course
the target of several pages of fulminations in Mittelberger's Journey
(see 110f) that makes this confusion interesting. That any of this seems
peculiar can be perused at will online here.
It's one thing to seek such matters out, it's another for them to summon you,
as this. Take for instance the restraint of the world so utterly present in
these Mennonite and pietistic writings, whatever that comes to mean. If Reiff
is a Reise, a journey, a Reife upon his Journey, as Mitteberger's title,
the Hebrew word for Hebrew, both man and language, is also journey,
to cross over, or pass through, "a passer-through...one who takes into account that which is
outside of himself, and so "does not the world made visible run
the risk...of becoming an idol?" (Marc-Alain Ouaknin, The Burnt Book,
73).
What is the visible and the invisible world? The highest authorities are best.
Take Emmanuel Levinas who says, invisibility "is a way of signifying quite
different from that which connects exposition to sight...it is the very
transcending characteristic of this beyond that is signification." (Otherwise,
100). In a word, what is the invisible before "showing itself in the
said," in the present "always already in the past behind which the
present delay is," "straiting with its furrows the clarity of the
ostensible?" What is the invisible? It is "a responsibility with
regard to men we do not even know," it is a responsibility for my neighbor
(100). " This incommensurability with consciousness, which becomes a trace
of the who knows where, is not the inoffensive relationship of knowing
in which everything is equalized, nor the indifference of spatial contiguity;
it is an assignation of me by another, a responsibility with regard to men we
do not even know."
This journey speaks also to the valley of passengers of Ezekiel 39 who hold their noses as they pass through. This journeyist immigrant to many lands and internal landscapes reife nach Pennsylvanien, who evokes new worlds, gold agues, the ages of Jerusalem, is also the subject of inquiries, appearing as Forward Blue Superposition I, Colonia, and more or less everything that appeared at Gobbet.
