H. J. Polotsky was my teacher at the Hebrew Universityof Jerusalem for four years in the 1930s and myfriend and mentor and scholarly critic for 53 years.It is difficult for me to speak or write about himwithout a measure of personal involvement and indeedemotion. In the humanities he was a polymath, as astudent of languages he was, I believe, withoutparallel in this generation. He could appear austereto those not well acquainted with him; he was a manof few words but many thoughts and greatprofundities. His style in all languages wasexquisite and witty; his letters were invariablyfull of humour and his aphorisms pithy, widelyadmired, and never forced. He did not suffer foolsgladly, but he mellowed with age and developed muchtolerance even towards the majority of mankind whocould contemplate his mastery with awe – yet neveremulate it. While he and I lived in the same city,Jerusalem, for five years only, we were in wellnighconstant communication by letter (more about thatcorrespondence, in part now published, anon), bymeetings (often extending over many weeks), and inmore recent years by telephone. When I was in error,even in senectute, he could be assharply reproving as he had been towards theimmature undergraduate – and such frankness was notonly welcomed, but it had always been of the veryessence of our relationship. In a book ofreminiscences of Jerusalem in the 1930s I hadwritten of the difficulty of envisaging a futuredeprived of his guidance and counsel and hadexpressed the hope that such a contingency would notarise until senility had numbed the blow for me.Alas, this was not to be: he died shortly before his86th birthday. When his son telephoned me with thesad news on 10 August 1991, I found some consolationin the task of editing his letters in the mannerprescribed by him earlier; and that book waspublished just six months after his death.