t
 
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 FESTIYAL STUDIES
 
 FESTIVAL STUDIES 
 
 BEING THOUGHTS ON THE 
 JEWISH YEAR 
 
 BY 
 
 ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A. 
 
 READER IN TALMUMC TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 JULIUS H. GREENSTONE 
 
 1906
 
 Printed hy Ballantyne, Hanson 6^ Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 mi 
 
 y. 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 IN GRATEFUL AFFECTION 
 
 Zo tbc flbemorg ot 
 ASHER I. MYERS 
 
 {1S4S-1902)
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Most of the contents of this volume have been 
 published over a long series of years in the London 
 Jeicnsh Chronicle. The earliest appeared in 1887, 
 the latest in 1905. Chapters IV., V., XX. and 
 XXII. have not been printed before ; the others 
 (which have been in some cases revised) are now 
 reproduced by kind permission of the editor of 
 the periodical named. 
 
 These papers were mainly written with no 
 other intention than to provide momentary en- 
 tertainment or to provoke passing thought as the 
 festivals of the Jewish year occurred. Though 
 the volume has been entitled " Studies," there is 
 nothing formal or systematic about it. But the 
 aspects of Jewish life which these papers ex- 
 press are not very often presented in English, 
 and it has seemed worth while to collect some 
 of the papers into a little vokime. 
 
 One charm the volume must possess. Some 
 beautiful renderings of medieval Hebrew poems 
 
 vil 7
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 will be found in various chapters. The trans- 
 lations on pages 12, 29-31, 98, 99, 100-101 and 
 102 are the work of Mrs. H. Lucas; those on 
 pages 58 and 82—3 are by Mrs. R. N. Salaman. 
 
 The volume is dedicated to the memory of 
 a dear friend, Mr. Asher I. Myers, the "only 
 begetter " of most of the book. It was due to 
 his suggestion that the series of papers was 
 undertaken, and it was his warm encourage- 
 ment that induced the writer to persevere. 
 
 Cambridge, August 1905.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. The Hopefulness op the Seder (Passover) . 1 
 
 II. The Poetry op Pentecost (Pentecost) . . 5 
 
 III, The Procession op the Talus (Tabernacles) 13 
 
 IV. The Book op Life (New Year) . . .19 
 V. The AnoDAB. (Day of Atonevient) ... 25 
 
 VI. PcRiM Parodies (Purim) .... 32 
 
 VII. Art on the Seder Table (Passover) . . 40 
 
 VIII. A Unique Haggadah Picture (Passover) . 48 
 
 IX. The Succah of the Bible (Tabernacles) . 56 
 
 X. Some Succahs I have Known (Tabernacles) . 63 
 
 'Kl. iVDMA D^VICTA (Fast of Ah) .... 76 
 
 XII. The Decalogue in the Liturgy (Pentecost) . 84 
 
 XIII. By the Water-side (iVeto Year) ... 91 
 
 XIV. God and "Ma's (Day of Atonement) ... 96 
 XV. Chad Gadya (Passover) 103 
 
 XVI. Uyb.ile {Tabernacles) Ill 
 
 XVII. Willows of the Brook (Tabernacles) . .119 
 
 XVIII. Queen Esther on the English Stage 
 
 (Purim) 124
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XIX. Hans Sachs' " Esther " (Piirim) . 
 XX. The Shofar {New Year) . 
 XXL Hanucah in Olden Times (Hanucah) 
 XXII. The Hallel (Festivals) . 
 
 XXIII. The Four Sons (Passover) 
 
 XXIV. Adon Olam {Daily Hymn) 
 
 PAQE 
 
 132 
 139 
 145 
 156 
 
 167 
 174
 
 THE HOPEFULNESS OF THE 
 SEDER 
 
 "God's in my home, all's well with His world" 
 — so might be written the motto of Judaism. 
 Storm might rage outside, calm reigned within, 
 when the hunted Jew had shut the door on the 
 street. "Thou preparest a table for me in the 
 presence of mine enemies; Thou anointest my 
 head with oil ; my cup runneth over." 
 
 But on the Passover eve this sense of security 
 was stronger. How characteristic of Jewish 
 optimism it is to read in various editions of the 
 Seder — that oldest of domestic services, with 
 which the Passover eve is ushered in — " They open 
 the door as a reminder that it is a Night of 
 Protection {lei shimmurim), and the door need 
 not be shut, for there is no danger to-night." 
 What splendid hopefulness ! Need one recall the 
 melancholy, the awful truth? Need one re-tell 
 how Justinian and Recared interdicted the Pass- 
 over ; how Popes and Potentates permitted riotous 
 attacks at Easter against the " desecrators of the 
 sacred Host" (or wafer); how the medieval mob 
 (with, alas, some modern imitators) made the 
 
 A
 
 2 THE HOPEFULNESS OF THE SEDER 
 
 Passover eve hideous by a foul accusation ? 
 " There is no danger to-night " — is the answer of 
 the Seder to those fears and foes. Truly there is 
 no danger to Judaism while such eternal hope 
 prevails over present despair. 
 
 The Messiah, too, is coming to-night. The 
 door is open for him. The same open door that 
 bids defiance to the dread of the night bids wel- 
 come to the radiance of the morning. The Messiah 
 is coming. So for fifteen centuries Jews have 
 hoped on every Passover. That the Messiah has 
 not come, matters nothing. " Man never is, but 
 ever to be blessed." Hope again triumphs over 
 experience. " Next year in Jerusalem." So have 
 we all said since childhood. I heard a grey-beard 
 repeating it in Jerusalem itself. " What," I said, 
 "you are here and I am here. Let us say: Next 
 year also in Jerusalem." " No," replied the cheery 
 nonagenarian, "next year in Jerusalem the Re- 
 built (Ha-benuya)." The old man firmly hoped 
 that by the following spring the Temple would 
 be restored, and he would go up with a joyous 
 throng to the Mount of the House. Two Pass- 
 overs have gone since then. The old man still 
 lives, still hopes. He wrote to me last week: "I 
 am in no mood to hurry God ; I am only 92." 
 Truly it is the faith of such as these that will bring 
 the Messiah to men. "Joy shortened the night, 
 and they were not weary," says the Alshech, in 
 commenting on the all-night sitting of the Rabbis 
 at Bene Berak when they discoursed of the de- 
 parture from Egypt.
 
 THE HOPEFULNESS OF THE SEDER 3 
 
 Is the hopefulness of the Seder a mere delu- 
 sion? The Seder gives the answer. True, the 
 hand of God has sometimes seemed short, and 
 the Passover a night of alarm rather than a night 
 of protection. Look at larger maps, said Lord 
 Salisbury once when Englishmen thought danger 
 very near. Look at larger stretches of history, 
 says the Seder when Jews despond. " Few 
 in number, with but seventy souls went thy 
 fathers down to Egypt, and now thy God hath 
 made thee as numerous as the stars." So the 
 medieval Jew read. So can we read if we have 
 eyes. Since the dispersion, the Jews have con- 
 tinuously increased in numbers. Never, since the 
 second century, have the Jews been as few as 
 when they abode in Palestine. The Seder, then, 
 has this solid fact on which to build. Persecu- 
 tions come and go, but the Jews go on. " Not 
 one only," says the Seder again, " sought to anni- 
 hilate us, but men in all generations sought it : 
 and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from 
 their hand." Saves, says the Seder, not saved. 
 
 Then comes the counterpart. If God's provi- 
 dence is unbroken, so must be Israel's confidence. 
 God's love knows no years ; so in the twentieth 
 century Israel's responsive love must be young 
 and tender as when God made her the bride of 
 His youth. " Not our fathers only did the Holy 
 One redeem from bondage, but us also with them." 
 Here vibrates the living voice of Judaism. This 
 is the true tradition, the chain whose links are 
 human hearts. " Regard thyself as one redeemed."
 
 4 THE HOPEFULNESS OF THE SEDER 
 
 Can the lover despair of Love ? Can the redeemed 
 doubt of the Redeemer ? Thus does life wait 
 upon hope: its reality conditioned by the force 
 of our belief in it. 
 
 But, says the pessimist, life is not real. Life 
 is unmeaning, it leads nowhere, it breaks off in 
 the middle, it is all path and no goal. Again the 
 hopeful Seder mitigates if it does not solve our 
 doubt. " If God had brought us to Sinai and had 
 not given us the Law {Dayenu) it would have 
 been enough for us." The path is enough, leave 
 the goal to God. Go to Sinai, leave the revelation 
 to Him. Take the good thy God provides thee, 
 the more will come. Life's increasing purpose 
 reveals itself as we go farther down the road. 
 Not to dig him a grave in the wilderness did God 
 lead Israel from Egypt, but to draw him nearer 
 to Himself, the eternal goal. " Speedily, speedily^ 
 He will build His house " rings the merry Seder 
 song. " Speedily in our days." How long, then, do 
 we expect to live if we are to see it in our days ? 
 Death looks at us nearer than does the realisation 
 of any hope. Away with such pessimism, cries 
 the final line of the Chad Oadya — the most 
 dazzling piece of optimism of all the Seder. 
 " And the Holy One, blessed be He, will come and 
 slay the Angel of Death." So, in a waking dream 
 of life everlasting, we go to our sleeping dreams 
 on the Seder night. Has the dream touched us ? 
 Has it made us hope ? If it has, it has made 
 better Jews of us.
 
 II 
 
 THE POETRY OF PENTECOST 
 
 A SENSE of grateful wonder comes over us as we 
 contrast Pentecost as it is with what it might 
 have been. Thunder and storm raged round Sinai, 
 but there is no storm-note in our Pentecost cere- 
 monies. The synagogue rested on the joyous- 
 ness, the serenity of the Revelation. Yet there 
 v-^as every temptation towards cheap and dismal 
 terrors. The synagogue might have crushed us 
 with gloomy and severe rites, as though the weight 
 of Sinai had fallen on us. But it rather lifted than 
 imposed a load, and strewed flowers rather than 
 fears in our path. 
 
 Pentecost marks the passing of spring. It was 
 not left to Wordsworth to interpret nature in terms 
 of human feeling. Jehuda Halevi long before 
 compared the varying tints of spring to the chang- 
 ing hues of a girl's eyes, and as a deep red blush 
 crept in with early summer, the earth seemed, in 
 the fancy of this Spanish- Jewish poet : — 
 
 " A fair, fond bride that pours 
 Warm kisses ou her lover." 
 
 Medieval poetry suggested to Synagogue as to 
 Church the custom of decking the House of God 
 
 6
 
 6 THE POETRY OF PENTECOST 
 
 at such a time with flowers. When the Amiclah 
 prayer was over, boys brought in fragrant bundles 
 of fresh grass, which they strewed on the floor 
 of the synagogue. Roses and Hhes first appear 
 in Jewish places of worship in the fourteenth 
 century — this particular custom of introducing 
 cut flowers being imitated from the church. But 
 the imitation was a reversion to older habits. 
 The basket of First Fruits brought to the Temple 
 by every Israelite was an exemplar of dainty 
 tastefulness : the barley was placed undermost, 
 the wheat above it; over the wheat were olives, 
 higher still were dates, while figs formed the 
 apex of the cone. Layers of leaves were arranged 
 between each kind, and clusters of grapes were 
 put round the figs to form the outside margin of 
 the basket. With such a model as this, Jewish 
 taste could not fail to be poetical on Pentecost. 
 
 A feature quite original to the Jews was the 
 arrangement round the Ark of young growing 
 trees. " On the Feast of Weeks," says the Talmud, 
 "the world is judged concerning the fruits of the 
 trees." Growing trees were therefore placed in 
 the synagogue, that men might invoke a blessing 
 on them. Or, prettier notion still, the trees were 
 declared a " memorial of the living joy of the 
 Law." 
 
 In keeping with this attempt to bring the scent 
 of the flowers and the harvest into the synagogue, 
 the Book of Ruth was included in the liturgy of 
 the day. Why do we spoil so beautiful a custom 
 by scampering through the recitation of this lovely
 
 THE POETRY OF PENTECOST 7 
 
 idyll ? It should be read, as it was once read, with 
 a preliminary benediction, or, as the Sephardim still 
 read it, in the afternoon, verse by verse, with 
 lingering tenderness. In parts of the East, the 
 boys translate Ruth into Arabic, and melodi- 
 ously sing it in the vernacular. In medieval 
 Spain, too, Ruth was translated. Many are the 
 reasons given for reading this book on Pentecost. 
 The real motive of its inclusion was its breath of 
 nature, its harvest tone, so suited to the day of 
 the First Fruits. But some authorities saw in 
 Ruth's answer to Naomi the full acceptance of the 
 Mosaic Law — " thy people shall be my people " — 
 and so it was fitting to read the story of this faith- 
 ful proselyte on the day which made proselytes 
 of all Israel. Or, again, tradition had it that David 
 was born and died on Pentecost, and the Book of 
 Ruth not only contains David's genealogy but also 
 points to that Messianic branch which shall come 
 forth from the stem of Jesse. This thought was 
 uppermost in the Jewish mind durmg the weeks 
 mtervening between Passover and Pentecost. 
 The Crusades tinged these weeks with a mourn- 
 ful longing for deliverance, and, on the other 
 hand, the Law was the deliverance, then and 
 for all time. 
 
 There is a blending of these two thoughts, 
 without, however, any echo of sadness, in the 
 oft-derided Akdamuth, or "Introductory Poem," 
 still chanted in some congregations on Pentecost 
 during the reading of the Law. There is a cer- 
 tain virile force in the eighteenth-century melody
 
 8 THE POETRY OF PENTECOST 
 
 to which the Akdamuth is sung. It is, I admit, 
 easier to perceive the poetry and beauty of this 
 composition now that it no longer holds a place in 
 the liturgy of one's own synagogue. Barbarous 
 in form, and grotesque in subject matter, this 
 composition, nevertheless, has charms. The very 
 Leviathan that it describes has at least vigour and 
 fascination. The Akdainuth is, indeed, not so 
 simply pretty as the hymn by Israel Nagrela to 
 the refrain, " My Beloved came down to his 
 Garden " — a hymn sung while the Scrolls of the 
 Law were carried in procession down the synagogue 
 on Pentecost. It is certainly less dainty than an- 
 other hymn of the Kalir type, written for the same 
 day, in which the Law speaks thus : " God Himself 
 fostered me, nigh Him He placed me, on His knee 
 he fondled me, and betrothed me to Israel." 
 Or, as Jehuda Halevi puts it — the dove, timid, 
 tractable, loving, representing Israel : — 
 
 " On eagle's wings, Lord, the dove Thou beared'st ; 
 And slie built her nest within Thine inmost heart." 
 
 Yet there is one interesting point about the Ak- 
 damuth which these other poems do not present, 
 for the AJcdamuth, being written in Aramaic, is a 
 link in the Meturgeman's chain. The Moturge- 
 man of old translated the Scripture into Aramaic, 
 and this Aramaic hymn, composed by " the pious 
 Chazan," Meir ben Isaac, a friend of Rashi, is a 
 survival of the Meturgeman's art. In the Middle 
 Ages the Ten Commandments were still translated 
 and expounded in the vernacular when they were
 
 THE POETRY OF PENTECOST 9 
 
 read on Pentecost. This is the reason why it be- 
 came customary for the Rabbi to be " called up " on 
 this festival — he expounded the Law as ho read it. 
 Hence, too, the introduction into the liturgy of the 
 Azharoth, or moral didactic poems, based on the 
 613 precepts of the Law. Such exhortations (-42;- 
 haroth) belong to the oldest introductions of the 
 Gaonate, almost certainly they begin in the eighth 
 century. Later on, the Gaon Saadia composed such 
 a poem, but the best and most popular was by 
 Solomon Ibn Gcbriol, still retained in the Seph- 
 ardic ritual, but replaced, alas, in the German by 
 far inferior work. They were recited during the 
 Musaph after the words, " by the hands of Moses." 
 A better custom was to read them in the afternoon. 
 Another poetical survival of the Meturgeman, or 
 Expounder, may be seen in the general deference 
 paid to women and children on Pentecost. It was 
 for the women that the translations were made. 
 The children were introduced to "school" for 
 the first time on Pentecost, and, appropriately 
 enough, took their first lesson in Hebrew reading 
 on that day. The pretty scene has been too often 
 described for me to repeat it. But I cannot help 
 referring to the Midrashic idea connected with this 
 first introduction of the children to the school. 
 "From the mouth of babes and sucklings," says 
 the Psalmist, " Thou didst establish strength." 
 When Israel stood round Sinai, and God asked for 
 sureties to guarantee the fulfilment of the Law, the 
 babes and sucklings, according to the Midrash, 
 answered that tJiey would be the pledge, and God
 
 10 THE POETEY OF PENTECOST 
 
 accepted their undertaking. "He who gives a 
 Scroll of the Law to the Synagogue on Pentecost," 
 says one authority, " is as though he brought an 
 offering to God at its due season." Something of 
 the same fancy may be detected also in the intro- 
 duction of the children to the House of God, in 
 sweetening the Law to them by gifts of honey- 
 cakes. 
 
 Who will write on the poetry of foods ? Pente- 
 cost would add a pleasant chapter to such a history. 
 Honey and milk were favourite ingredients, honey, 
 as we just saw, being given to the children. Milk 
 was for this occasion beloved of the adults. Cheese 
 was an invariable item of the midday meal. 
 Further, cheese-cakes were eaten at the all-night 
 sitting for prayer and song, which occurred on the 
 evening before the festival. Societies were formed 
 in the Middle Ages forarranging these watch-night 
 services and cooking the viands necessary for the 
 occasional refreshment of the company. Milk 
 and honey were appropriate enough, for the text 
 " honey and milk under thy tongue " was applied 
 to the Torah. Or, as a mystic poetically puts it : 
 During the six weeks between Passover and Pente- 
 cost blood was turned to milk, judgment to mercy, 
 and on Pentecost itself the " milk of Godly love " 
 flows abundantly. At the all-night sitting, besides 
 many other things from the Bible, Talmud, and 
 Zohar, the Song of Songs was read, for every loving 
 phrase in that collection of poems was applied to 
 God and Israel. It was a poetical thought to read 
 this song ; it was a poetical thought to introduce
 
 THE POETRY OF PENTECOST 11 
 
 on the table, both on Pentecost and Passover, 
 the fruits mentioned in its pages. The "Sinai 
 Cake" was another pretty notion — it was made 
 like a ladder with seven rungs, typifying the seven 
 spheres rent by God when He descended to 
 give the law. Less fanciful was the double 
 " Twin-loaf," which bore four heads. The " twins " 
 are the zodiacal sign for the month of Sivan. 
 But the true explanation is different. The " twin 
 loaves" commemorated the two cakes brought 
 as an offering on Pentecost. 
 
 One other feature of the Poetry of Pentecost 
 must be noted. The Giving of the Law was the 
 betrothal of Israel either with God or with the 
 Torah — for both ideas prevailed. Processions, 
 mostly imitated from current marriage rites, were 
 profusely organised in the East. Europe seems 
 never to have completely adopted this custom, 
 except in its bridal aspects. It was connected in 
 the Orient with the adoration of the reputed tombs 
 of prophets like Nahum and Ezekiel, but there was 
 nothing at all gloomy in the idea. Jews would go 
 to synagogue and read the early morning service. 
 Then, headed by a Scroll of the Law, the men all 
 armed with various weapons would ascend some 
 neighbouring hill, would read the rest of the 
 morning service on the mimic Sinai, and then 
 would ensue a sham tourney, instruments would 
 be clashed amidst a tremendous din, emblematic 
 of the great Messianic war against vice on the 
 commg day of the Lord. Sometimes in Europe, 
 as in the East, the procession occurred in syna-
 
 12 THE POETRY OF PENTECOST 
 
 gogue without the tourney, yet with dance and 
 song ; sometimes, as in Persia, the procession took 
 place in the courtyard at home and a great banquet 
 followed. 
 
 This, and much of the same character, may 
 prove how ridiculous is the supposition of certain 
 controversialists that the Law was a burden to 
 the Jews ! They concentrated round it all their 
 fancy and love. They sang gleefully as they 
 beheld its sacred pages, as they remembered the 
 life it had brought them, the spiritual serenity 
 it imparted. It was doctrine, and it was joy. As 
 Jehuda Halevi wrote : — 
 
 " The Law they received from the mouth of Thy glory 
 They learn and consider and understand. 
 ! accept Thou their song, and rejoice in their gladness, 
 Who proclaim Thy glory in every land."
 
 Ill 
 
 THE PROCESSION OF THE PALMS 
 
 Plants have a language even outside the albums 
 of sentimental girls. Mystical fancy reads into 
 the gifts of nature a symbolism of the spirit. The 
 palm-tree — closely associated with the Feast of 
 Tabernacles — had an en\blematic virtue in ancient 
 Hebrew poetry long before the Midrash likened 
 the palm to the human frame and the citron to 
 the human heart. " The righteous shall flourish 
 like the palm-tree," says the 92nd Psalm. The 
 comparison alludes both to the beauty and the 
 material value of the tree, to its stately height 
 and to its sweet fruit. Jewish poets were not 
 wanting in a healthy sense of the comeliness and 
 utility of virtue, and as the ideal Israel repre- 
 sented righteousness, so the palm became a type 
 of Israel's national and religious life. Hence 
 though the palm was by no means plentiful in 
 Palestme, it became a Judean emblem, and the 
 Romans felt that the tree was so intimately con- 
 nected with the Jews, that when they struck a 
 medal to commemorate the fall of Jerusalem, 
 Judea was represented as a forlorn woman weep- 
 ing under a palm-tree. 
 
 One city of Palestine was, however, famous for 
 
 18
 
 14 THE PROCESSION OF THE PALMS 
 
 its palms — Jericho, now palm-less, but once " the 
 city of palm-trees." It is at least a remarkable 
 coincidence that the Procession of Palms on 
 Succoth should have another association with 
 Jericho, For, at the siege of that city, the host 
 of Joshua compassed the place seven times with 
 the Ark at the head of the line, and seven priests 
 sounded seven rams' horns. The connection be- 
 tween this scene and the procession round the 
 altar on Tabernacles is obvious enough, but it is 
 impossible to say how old the circuit of the altar 
 is. Possibly it is Maccabean ; it is certainly not 
 later. When Judas Maccabeus re-dedicated the 
 altar in 165 b,c,, the people carried branches and 
 chanted hymns, among them the 118th Psalm, 
 which in Professor Chcyne's version runs thus 
 in its 27th verse : " Bind the Procession with 
 branches, step on to the altar-horns." Plutarch 
 saw in this procession a species of Bacchanalian 
 rite, but the only resemblance was that the cele- 
 brants carried boughs. In the time of the Mishnah 
 any old associations with pagan processions had 
 certainly given way to a purely religious motive. 
 Round and round the altar went the priests, sing- 
 ing " O Lord, save us now ; O Lord, save us now," 
 The wilder joyousness of the Water-Drawmg on 
 the night of the 15th, and the following five nights 
 of Tishri, with its brilliant illuminations and ex- 
 citing music, its frantic dances and acrobatic dis- 
 plays, seems indeed a survival of an old-world 
 nature revel. But this, too, was re-interpreted 
 in terms of that beautiful line of Isaiah, which
 
 THE PROCESSION OF THE PALMS 15 
 
 was foremost in the thouglits of the masses of 
 Jerusalem as they filled the golden ewers at the 
 Pool of Siloam : " With joy shall ye draw water 
 from the wells of salvation." 
 
 After the dispersion of Israel, it seems that some 
 attempt was still made to continue the old pro- 
 cession in Jerusalem itself. This was apparently 
 the case also in the Middle Ages. We read that 
 in the time of Hai Gaon it was customary to make 
 a pilgrimage to the Holy City and to walk m 
 circuit round the Mount of Olives. At the present 
 day the residents in and around Jerusalem fix 
 themselves, on the three great feasts, on coigns 
 of vantage, at windows, and on balconies, whence 
 the old Temple wall and Mount Olivet are visible. 
 This mountain is associated with the Feast of 
 Tabernacles, as indicated in the 14th chapter of 
 Zechariah, a passage which the Synagogue has 
 adopted as the Haftara for the first day of Succoth. 
 Jerusalem, however, was inaccessible to the Jews 
 in pre-Islamic times, and even later. The Syna- 
 gogue perforce replaced the Temple, and the 
 Torah became Israel's altar ; the old procession 
 was transferred to the ordinary houses of worshijD, 
 with the Torah instead of the altar as the centre 
 of the circuit. Here, however, two kinds of pro- 
 cession must be distinguished. The older was 
 what we now understand as the Circuit of the 
 Palms ; the later is what we may term the 
 Circuit of the Scrolls. 
 
 The Circuit of the Scrolls takes place, of course, 
 in the ninth day of Tabernacles (Simchath Torah),
 
 16 THE PROCESSION OF THE PALMS 
 
 and, so far as Europe is concerned, is restricted to 
 " German" congregations. On the eve of the Day 
 of Atonement the Sephardim, indeed, take the 
 Scrolls from the Ark, but there is no procession. 
 Despite its connection with David's dancing ex- 
 ploit, which his wife so grievously misunderstood, 
 the Procession of Scrolls on Simchath Torah, like 
 the Procession of the Chassidim on Friday nights, 
 is modelled rather on the marriage rites of the 
 Middle Ages than on the Temple service of ancient 
 days. In some places the Bridegroom of the Law 
 actually wore the Crown of Gold which usually 
 adorned the Sefer Torah, and, as a set-off, the 
 current bridal ceremonies were transferred to the 
 Scroll. 
 
 How unlike to this was the Procession of the 
 Palms is clear from the characteristic difference 
 that the Scroll of the Law, which was taken out be- 
 fore the circuit, was kept stationary on the Bimah, 
 while the worshippers walked round in solemn 
 array. This was one of the reasons why in medie- 
 val synagogues the Bimah, or Reading Desk, was 
 placed in the middle of the building, for had it 
 occupied any other position, processions would 
 have been robbed of their spectacular effect. " Walk 
 about Zion, go round abo'it her" (Psalm xlviii. 
 12), was the favourite text on people's Hps. " Save 
 us now," rang the Hosanna cries ; mingling prayer 
 with praise. For, to cite but one of the many 
 beautiful figures to be found in this connection in 
 Jewish books, the Hosanna sounded at once a 
 note of triumph and of wailing ; the Scroll of the
 
 THE PROCESSION OF THE PALMS 17 
 
 Law was as the banner displayed in the centre of 
 the camp, while round about it marched victorious 
 Israel, fresh from its triumph over sin won on the 
 Day of Atonement, brandishing the palm, symbol 
 of the righteousness by which sin is conquered, 
 yet chanting the mystic refrain, " I and He ; Save 
 us now," a phrase capable of many meanings, but 
 not inaptly rendered by the Mechilta, " I and Ho, 
 man and God, needed both for salvation, man's 
 effort to be like God, God's grace to remember 
 that man is but man." I have freely turned 
 this Mechilta, but I do not think that this version 
 does real violence to the spirit of the passage. 
 
 " He who has a Palm-branch yet joins not in 
 the Procession, does ill," says the Jewish rubric. 
 Self-consciousness is fatal to the picturesqueness 
 of public worship. It is not the arrogance of the 
 clergy, but the false modesty of the laity that is 
 thrusting the ordinary Jew from his share in the 
 service of the synagogue. Why there should be 
 a disposition to allow the beautiful Procession of 
 the Palms to become obsolete is hardly explicable 
 on any other ground. Perhaps the ditticulties of ob- 
 taining and storing the Lulab and Ethrog — Palm- 
 branch and citron — are partly responsible. Happy 
 will be that synagogue which shall be the first to 
 take steps to provide for every worshipper " the 
 fruit of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, the 
 boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook." 
 Nowadays to bear a Palm-branch in a West-end 
 synagogue is so rare an act that one must have 
 much courage or much conceit to join the meagre 
 
 B
 
 18 THE PROCESSION OF THE PALMS 
 
 band of the faithful processionists. Yet the 
 custom is so beautiful, so rich in spiritual mean- 
 ing, that if only more of modern Israel's valiant 
 men would respond to the signal, those of us who 
 now hold aloof might keep one another in counte- 
 nance. Let more of the stalwarts lead, and some of 
 us weaklings may pluck up the courage to follow, 
 to go in joy and reverence together round all 
 that remains to us of Zion, round the Law which 
 has gone forth from it.
 
 IV 
 
 THE BOOK OF LIFE 
 
 " Remember us unto life, King, who delightest 
 in life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life, for 
 Thine own sake, living God." 
 
 This prayer, inserted in the daily service from 
 the New Year till the great fast — from the first 
 to the tenth of Tishri — is of uncertain age. Un- 
 mentioned in the Talmud, it meets us for the first 
 time in an eighth-century collection of laws. Thus 
 its antiquity is respectable, if not venerable. But 
 the underlying idea is far older, and the metaphor 
 used carries us back to an ancient order of things. 
 
 It is plausibly supposed that the " Book of Life " 
 was a spiritual fancy corresponding to a quite 
 material fact. We have several indications that 
 at a fairly early date there was drawn up in Judea 
 a civil list, or register, in which the names of fully 
 qualified citizens were officially entered. Such a 
 practice is attested by statements and allusions 
 in Scripture, and it is probable that the figure of 
 the " Book of Life " was thence derived. To be 
 enrolled in the Book of Life would imply member- 
 ship of the divine commonwealth ; to be blotted 
 out would be to suffer disfranchisement. 
 
 From this image the step would be easy to a 
 
 19
 
 20 THE BOOK OF LIFE 
 
 book containing a record of man's doings. This 
 phase of the conception is found in the Mishnah. 
 "Know what is above thee— a seeing eye and a 
 hearing ear, and all thy deeds written in a book" 
 (Aboth. ii. 1). These three things — which, as the 
 author of the saying urges, restrain a man from 
 sin — are in essence one, and they convey what is 
 perhaps the leading principle of Judaism as a 
 discipline. Individual responsibility, with the 
 corollary of inevitable retribution ; inevitable, that 
 is, unless the wayfarer will divert himself to the 
 road of repentance, praj^er, and charity — the path 
 by which the sinner finds a new approach to virtue 
 and life. The moral is enforced in the third 
 chapter of the same collection of " Sayings of the 
 Jewish Fathers," where life is compared to a shop 
 with its open ledger of credit and debit. Here, 
 again, the idea is in germ scriptural. Sin blots 
 man out from the book, virtue sets his name there 
 in indelible ink. Malachi speaks of a book of 
 remembrance, written in his day for those that 
 feared the Lord and thought upon His name. 
 " And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord, in that 
 day when I make up My jewels." Alas! that this 
 is a mistranslation ; the Revised Version has ruth- 
 lessly deprived us of the jewels, and we must bid 
 farewell to the beautiful phrase which in the 
 Authorised Version ends the sentence of Malachi 
 just cited. But the idea is clear enough. In the 
 day of judgment — in the day wherein God will 
 make a peculiar treasure — He will account as 
 His the children who have served their Father,
 
 THE BOOK OF LIFE 21 
 
 and whoso names are inscribed in the book of 
 remembrance. And, on the other hand, just as 
 some thinfjs are written in the Book for man's 
 advantage, so are others entered to his disadvan- 
 tage. " Behokl, it is written before Me : I will not 
 keep silence, but will recompense, even recom- 
 pense into their bosom, your iniquities, and the 
 iniquities of your fathers together, saith the Lord " 
 (Isaiah Ixv. G-7). Between these two extremes, 
 between good marks for virtue and bad marks 
 for vice, stand entries which cry "aloud, not for 
 marks at all, but for mercy. In the oGth Psalm, 
 whose author has been termed "the mouthpiece 
 of oppressed and suffering Israel," the tears of the 
 trusting yet ill-faring people are put into God's 
 bottle. " By a bold figure God is said to collect 
 and treasure Israel's tears, as though they were 
 precious wine. Kay quotes St, Bernard's saying 
 ' Lacrimae poenitentium vinum angelorum'" (Kirk- 
 patrick). " Are not my wanderings, my tears, in 
 Thy book ? " continues the Psalmist. The thought 
 is as tender as it is solacing. It is even finer 
 than Lawrence Sterne's ever-memorable phrase. 
 Lawrence Sterne's accusing angel blushes as he 
 hands in a frail man's slip; the recording angel 
 blots it out with a tear. The Psalmist would have 
 man's frailties, his weaknesses, his sorrows, his tears, 
 entered in the Book of Life, as his most eloquent 
 advocates for the pity of the Judge. 
 
 Dr. Kohler says: "The origin of the heavenly 
 Book of Life must be sought in Babylonia, whereas 
 the annual Judgment Day seems to have been
 
 22 THE BOOK OF LIFE 
 
 adopted by the Jews under Babylonian influence 
 in post-exilic times." Be that as it may, the idea 
 became completely Judaised, and was turned to 
 splendid moral account. Some modern Jews are 
 apt to feel a natural but unjustifiable repugnance 
 to the notion of an annual balancing of the Book 
 of Life. Certainly, the notion is sometimes pre- 
 sented crudely in the liturgy of the New Year and 
 the Day of Atonement. Written in the Book of 
 Life on the New Year, the entry is sealed on the 
 Day of Atonement. In even more detail, a well- 
 known piyut, or liturgical poem, for the New Year 
 reproduced the old Rabbinical notion of the three 
 books : one for the thoroughly righteous, one for 
 the thoroughly wicked, and one for the intermediate 
 class who, neither righteous nor wicked overmuch, 
 can exchange hell for heaven by the blessed trilogy 
 of repentance and prayer and charity. All this, if 
 too mechanically expressed, is likely to be injuri- 
 ous. But when the Rabbis, with Abbahu in the 
 Talmud, represented God as seated at the New 
 Year on the throne of judgment, with the books of 
 the living and the books of the dead open before 
 Him, all that they meant was to impart a stronger 
 sense of gravity and a more than usual serious- 
 ness to the thoughts of men during the ten 
 penitential days. Were they untrue to human 
 nature in so doing ? They understood better than 
 we moderns that there is a time for everything ; 
 that man's conscience cannot bear the strain of 
 continuous high pressure ; that it is well for him 
 to appoint a season for self-communion, a season
 
 THE BOOK OF LIFE 23 
 
 when he can live morally and spiritually on a 
 higher plane. "The Rabbis were far from con- 
 fining the need or utility of repentance to the 
 penitential season from New Year to the Day of 
 Atonement. Very common with them is the 
 saying, ' Repont one day before thy death.' When 
 his disciples said to R. Eleazar, ' Does then a man 
 know when he will die ? ' he answered, ' The more 
 necessary that he should repent to-day; then, if 
 he die to-morrow, all his days will have been passed 
 in penitence, as it says : Let thy garments be 
 always white (Eccles. ix. 8) ' " (Montefiore). The 
 annual stock-taking of a business man docs not 
 imply that he is a careless trader during the rest 
 of the year. And the metaphor holds in the 
 spiritual world also. 
 
 "Temporal life is apparently prayed for in the 
 liturgical formula: Inscribe us in the Book of 
 Life." No doubt one form of the prayer is, as 
 Prof. Margolis says, for temporal life and prosperity. 
 It is a modern weakness on the part of Jews to 
 feel it necessary to apologise for such prayers. 
 Life, earthly and material, is a good thing ; pros- 
 perity is worth praying for. Judaism could glance 
 at the paradox : " How shall a man die ? Let him 
 live. How shall a man live ? Let him die." But 
 while accepting the Talmudic paradox as a beauti- 
 ful expression of the supremacy of the inner over 
 the outer, of spirit over matter, the eternal over 
 the mortal, Judaism did not underrate the value 
 of earthly life because it esteemed more highly the 
 worth of life everlasting. Long life on earth was
 
 24 THE BOOK OF LIFE 
 
 a blessing, and the Jewish mind did not lose hold 
 of this healthy fact under the fascination of the 
 belief that the less of earth the more of heaven, 
 the shorter life the longer immortality. And yet 
 it did, it must, regard the blessing of life rather as 
 a means than an end. A short life might be full 
 of living ; for, as the Rabbi said, some men can 
 qualify themselves for eternity in an hour. A 
 long life was, on the other hand, a fuller prepara- 
 tion, a fuller opportunity. "Rabbi Jacob said, 
 This world is like a vestibule before the world to 
 come; prepare thyself in the vestibule, that thou 
 mayest enter into the hall." 
 
 And so in certain passages of Scripture and the 
 Apocalypses the " Book of Life " transcends earthly 
 existence and identifies itself with the spiritual 
 life with God. The liturgy of the New Year also 
 reproduces this enlarged, spiritualised conception. 
 Another piyut runs: "For life eternal may the 
 faithful ones be written, may they behold the 
 pleasantness of the Lord, and find remembrance in 
 His heavenly Temple." 
 
 There is nothing childish or mechanical in such 
 hopes. It is an aspiration for the highest happi- 
 ness : a happy life on earth, a still happier here- 
 after ; here effort, there attainment ; the life of 
 man unified, harmonised, in all its parts ; the finite 
 transfigured by its absorption into the infinite.
 
 V 
 
 THE ABODAH 
 
 There stands out a clear historical fact which, 
 more than any mere theory, reveals the spiritu- 
 ality of Judaism. The biblical scheme of atone- 
 ment for sin was dependent upon the sacrificial 
 system. Atonement was, in the developed religion 
 of Israel, an inward process ; but in the Bible 
 this inward process was closely allied to an out- 
 ward sacrificial ceremonial. The outward cere- 
 monial disappeared with the Temple, yet the 
 inward process not only remained intact, it was 
 so expanded as to occupy the whole field of 
 which it had previously filled only a part. No 
 other religion has ever been so severely tried; 
 no other religion has been called upon to sub- 
 stitute prayer for sacrifice. Prayer, it is true, 
 has taken the place of sacrifice in other re- 
 ligions; Judaism alone has been faced by the 
 problem how, beginning with sacrifice, to end 
 with prayer, " We will ofier instead of bulls, 
 the words of our mouth" (Hosea xiv, 2) — these 
 words are the constant text on which the Jewish 
 liturgy of the Day of Atonement dwells. And 
 this insistence represents at once the triumph 
 of the sacrificial system and the vindication of
 
 26 THE ABODAH 
 
 spiritual Judaism — the triumph of the sacrificial 
 system inasmuch as its deeply beneficial influence 
 enabled Judaism to do without it, the vindica- 
 tion inasmuch as Judaism, put to the test, came 
 through it not merely unscathed but purified and 
 ennobled. 
 
 Simon the Just used to say : " Upon three 
 thmgs the world is based: upon the Torah, the 
 Abodah, and Charity." The Torah is not merely 
 the Law (Pentateuch), it is the whole body of 
 revealed truth and doctrine ; the Abodah, as the 
 word would be used by a High Priest such as 
 the speaker was, means the service and sacrifices 
 of the Temple, which was then, of course, still 
 standing ; Charity, in the Hebrew phrase employed, 
 expresses loving-kindness, humanity, brotherly re- 
 gard, practical and sympathetic. Thus in one of 
 the oldest passages of the Mishnah, going back 
 to the third century B.C., we already find the 
 Abodah, or sacrificial system, associated on the 
 one side with love of God and on the other Avith 
 love of man. The authors of some of the most 
 spiritual of the Psalms were Temple singers, men 
 who loved the saciificial ritual and were not only 
 able to weld that love into an intensely inward 
 religion, but even composed for use during the 
 offering of the sacrifices these Psalms which the 
 world has ever since accepted as the most potent 
 means of bringing man's soul into communion 
 Avith God. 
 
 Is it so difficult for us to understand this 
 alliance of the outward with the inward ? If it
 
 THE ABODAH 27 
 
 is, the reason can only be that we have lost 
 something of our Judaism. But, in actual fact, 
 wo do not experience the difficulty suggested. 
 Contrast, for instance, the Hebrew word teshubah 
 (Return) with its imperfect English equivalent 
 repentance (Regret). Regret or contrition is an 
 essential element in atonement ; but Return 
 (amendment) is an equally essential element. 
 An inward feeling of contrition, translating itself 
 into an outward fact of amendment — the two 
 being bound together by the tender love and 
 pity of God who stretches forth His hand to 
 the contrite and helps him, expects him, to turn 
 from his evil ways and live. Mere acts of prac- 
 tical reparation, without the underlying sense 
 that sin estranges man from God, may be a 
 poor atonement, but a sense of sin unaccom- 
 panied by practical reparation is still poorer. 
 
 So we can perceive in the Abodah of the Day 
 of Atonement the same union of ideas. As de- 
 scribed in the Mishnah, the Abodah was at once 
 a ritual of hand and heart. The sacrifices were 
 elaborate, but not more so than the confessions. 
 Adorned with all the art that olden Israel 
 knew, the Abodah must have been a magnificent 
 spectacle, moving and impressive. It was ritual- 
 ism at its highest. The bulls and the goats, 
 the incense and the oblations, the ablutions and 
 the sprinklings — these stand out in the Abodah of 
 the Day of Atonement. But equally impressive 
 is the threefold confession solemnly pronounced 
 by the High Priest — the confession of sin on
 
 28 THE ABODAH 
 
 behalf of himself, the Priestly order, and the 
 whole house of Israel. "He laid his two hands 
 upon the goat and confessed, speaking thus : ' 
 God, Thy people, the house of Israel, have sinned, 
 worked iniquity and transgressed against Thee ; I 
 beseech Thee by Thine inctfablo Name to pardon 
 the sins, iniquities, and transgressions which Thy 
 people, the House of Israel, have committed against 
 Thee, as is written in the Law of Moses Thy ser- 
 vant. For on this day shall he make an atone- 
 ment for you, to cleanse you from all your sins 
 before the Lord.' " 
 
 There is no need to elaborate the scene. The 
 Mishnah in its simple, effective style pictures it 
 to us inimitably. " And the priests and the people 
 who stood in the Fore-court, when they heard the 
 ineffable Name coming forth from the mouth of 
 the High Priest in holiness and purity, knelt down, 
 prostrated themselves and fell upon their faces, 
 saying, ' Blessed be the Name whose glorious 
 kingdom is for ever and ever.' And he was careful 
 to finish the pronunciation of the Name while 
 they were reciting this response ; and he then said 
 unto them, 'Ye shall be clean,'" completing the 
 text (Leviticus xvi. 30), which had been interrupted 
 at the pronunciation of the Name by the reveren- 
 tial response of priests and people. 
 
 The scene reproduces itself in part in the modern 
 synagogue. In part only, for much of it is a mere 
 memory. Never, however, was memory more in- 
 spiring, more exquisitely utilised. The very word 
 Abodah, which once meant the Temple service itself,
 
 THE ABODAH 29 
 
 now means the Synagogue ritual in which that 
 service is affectionately and touchingly described. 
 Step by step, the Synagogue Abodah follows the 
 Temple Abodah, and though the sacrifices are 
 absent and the " ineffable Name " is no longer 
 pronounced, yet the solemnity remains and is 
 marked by the prostration of the whole congre- 
 gation — rare indeed in the synagogue. Prostra- 
 tion is not universal on the Day of Atonement ; 
 it seems to have been early abandoned in Pales- 
 tine and retained only in Babylon. At all events, 
 the practice in modern times varies. The solem- 
 nity of the Abodah is absolutely independent of the 
 practice, for here again Judaism does not depend 
 upon specific ceremonies, even though it employs 
 ceremony so largely and so successfully. 
 
 There is one great change, however. In olden 
 times the Temple Abodah ended in a cheerful 
 note. The people, aglow with spiritual joy, had 
 sought pardon and humbly believed that it had 
 attained it. Hence a psean of glad thanksgiving, 
 a glorious eulogy of the High Priest in the beauty 
 of his holiness, concluded the ceremonial. The 
 Synagogue has retained the ptean, but allows it to 
 fade away into a sadderchime. For, after all, the 
 olden scene has been described, not witnessed. 
 Memory with the Jew always has a bitter taste ; 
 it reminds him of a lost happiness. We hear but 
 do not see. 
 
 " Happy he that day who saw 
 How, with reverence and awe 
 And with sanctity of mien, 
 Spuke the Priest : ' Ye shall be clean
 
 30 THE ABODAH 
 
 From your sins before tlie Lord ' ; 
 
 Echoed long tlie holy word, 
 
 While around the fragrant incense stole. 
 
 Happy he whose eyes 
 
 Saw at last the cloud of glory rise, 
 
 But to hear of it afflicts our soul." 
 
 There is genuine pathos in this note of the 
 medieval poet, Solomon Ibn Gebriol. But though 
 we feel the pathos, we must not yield to it. Just 
 as the Temple Abodah of the past has given place 
 to the Synagogue Abodah of the present, just as 
 the olden sacrifices have been transformed and 
 transfigured into our modern prayers — these like 
 those, and even more than those, a heart worship 
 — so while we realise what we have lost, we must 
 not omit to realise what we have gained; the 
 future is with us as well as the past. And thus 
 the gifted translator (Alice Lucas), from whom 
 Ibn Gebriol's just cited verse has been taken, ends 
 off the song : — 
 
 " Ever thus the burden rang 
 Of the pious songs, that sang 
 All the glories past and gone 
 Israel once did gaze iipon, — 
 Glories of the sacred fane, 
 Which they mourned and mourned again, 
 With a bitterness beyond control. 
 Happy he whose eyes 
 Saw (they said) the cloud of glory rise, 
 But to hear of it afflicts our soul. 
 
 Singers of a bygone day 
 Who from earth have passed away, 
 Now ye see the glories shine 
 Of that distant land divine,
 
 THE ABODAH 31 
 
 And no more (entranced b}- them) 
 
 Mourn this world's Jerusalem. 
 
 Happy ye who, from that heavenly goal, 
 
 See, with other eyes 
 
 Far than ours, such radiant visions rise. 
 
 That to hear of them delights our soul." 
 
 Thus is rebuilt on the reverent memories of the 
 pcost the not less reverent dreams of the future. 
 Can we realise such dreams ? Abodah in various 
 forms has its day and passes ; but while stvvice 
 (for that is the literal meaning of Abodah) remains, 
 the servant need not despair of the nearness and 
 love of the Master. Service atones; on service 
 the world stands.
 
 VI 
 
 PURIM PARODIES 
 
 There is but one step from the sublime to the 
 ridiculous. As Scott remarks, and as psycholo- 
 gists confirm, the inclination to laugh is the most 
 uncontrollable when the solemnity of time and 
 occasion renders laughter peculiarly improper. 
 Making sport of sacred things is by no means 
 identical with what in modern times we call irre- 
 verence. This type of humorist is less scoffer 
 than lover; his laughter arises rather from an 
 excess of reverence than from a defect in it. 
 Nowadays men dare not parody sacred things. 
 Not only they do not, they dare not; in former 
 ages men not only dared, they did it. We have 
 to be very careful in our demeanour towards a 
 stranger to whom we pay an occasional visit of 
 ceremony; we must put on company manners, 
 and avoid behaviour arguing familiarity. With 
 a dear and intimate friend we can act otherwise. 
 An intimate friend knows that we respect him, 
 and we may relax into momentary disrespect 
 without sacrificing our friendship. In fact, if he 
 is constantly in our thoughts, so constantly in- 
 deed that we have few thoughts which are not 
 of him or about him, how can we seek the 
 
 32
 
 PURIM PARODIES 33 
 
 relaxation of ridicule except by making sport of 
 him ? — a sport that soon finds its level, and 
 makes way for renewed tokens of regard. 
 
 The same considerations apply, with due modi- 
 fication, to the case of religious observances. The 
 more men's minds are full of their faith, the 
 more inclined they are to poke fun at it. The 
 mirth is harmless and transitory, the faith deep- 
 seated and permanent. Men must laugh, and 
 they laugh at what interests them most. In 
 the pre-Protestant age, the monks themselves 
 connived at the buffooneries of the Lord Abbots 
 of Misrule, Boy Bishops, Presidents of Fools, or 
 whatever else the mock representatives of the 
 highest ecclesiastics were called. True, these 
 saturnalia belong to an old-world order of spring 
 customs which go back to ancient Babylonia 
 and beyond it. But our interest in the survival 
 of such customs in the Middle Ages is psycho- 
 logical rather than historical. Readers of Sir 
 Walter Scott's " Abbot," or of Mr. Frazer's " Golden 
 Bough," must be acquainted with the length to 
 which these medieval saturnalia were carried : the 
 disrespect to authority which authority itself en- 
 joyed for the nonce, what seems to us the blasphemy, 
 the scurrilous imitations even of church hymns, 
 the caricatures of the most sacred rites — conduct 
 so shocking to our sense of decency, mainly, it 
 is to be supposed, because our faith also has 
 become a matter of mere respectability, of what 
 Tom Brown called "kid-glove go-to-meeting eti- 
 quette," which cannot relax itself without coming 
 
 c
 
 34 PURIM PARODIES 
 
 entirely to pieces. Jews have needed their carni- 
 vals also. They, too, on mirthful occasions, have 
 been known to appoint sham and not over soft- 
 mouthed individuals as pseudo-Rabbis, in whom 
 was vested the inalienable right of laughing at 
 sacred things, caricaturing the prayer-book, and, 
 to them most enjoyable prank of all, ridiculing 
 the real Rabbi, imitating his tricks of speech 
 and manner and gait, reproducing his pet weak- 
 nesses, and altogether taking it out of him for 
 the respect so cordially shown at other times. 
 
 Carnival merry-makings have held a conspicu- 
 ous place in all religious systems, for laughter is 
 not after all blasphemy, nor is burlesque deadly 
 sin. David before the Ark, staid and venerable 
 Rabbis at the Ceremony of the Water-drawing 
 during the feast of Tabernacles, did not hesitate 
 to fall in with popular sentiment. On the Re- 
 joicing of the Law at the present day, many 
 synagogues in Russia and even in England — syna- 
 gogues, of course, of the old-fashioned type — are 
 the scenes of uproarious merriment, harmless yet 
 noisy. It must be remembered that Jews are only 
 now beginning to differentiate severely between the 
 sacred and the secular. In the Middle Ages such 
 a distinction was impossible ; it would certain!}- 
 have been unintelligible if made. Life in all its 
 parts was equally holy, equally profane. The Jew, 
 therefore, never hesitated to bring the world into 
 the synagogue ; and are we so sure that he was 
 wrong and we right ? If he took the world more 
 into the synagogue than we, he also carried the
 
 PURIM PARODIES 85 
 
 synagogue more often into the world. Be that 
 as it may, Judaism had its carnivals, chief among 
 them Purim. It is not intended to describe here 
 all the forms of masking and mumming in which 
 overpent emotions found expression. Attention 
 wUl be limited to literary parodies, though to do 
 justice to so curious a theme would need far 
 more space than can well be afibrded. 
 
 Systematic scientific treatment seems out of 
 place; but those who cannot relax their critical 
 severity even on Purim may find in Steinschneider's 
 bibliography enough to satisfy the most ravenous 
 thirst. We must be content with sipping the 
 sparkling cup ; stronger heads are needed to drain 
 it to the dregs. 
 
 The Purim parodies may be classed roughly 
 under two heads; those which caricature the 
 Rabbinical style of argument and those which 
 parody the prayers. The former are extremely 
 funny ; the latter are clever, but too little to our 
 present taste to make much quotation desirable. 
 Thus we have imitations of the Hallel (Psalms 
 cxiii-cxviii) in praise of wine, beginning appropri- 
 ately, but indecorously, Hallelujayin, " Praise ye 
 Wine." ("From the rising of the sun unto the 
 setting thereof we will praise it in our mouths."). 
 Even the Nishmath prayer is converted into an 
 anacreontic ode with scarcely the change of a word. 
 The Selichoth, or propitiatory prayers, are likewise 
 drawn upon to add to the store of amusement; 
 so changed is our feeling in the matter that we 
 cannot tolerate quotation of specimens.
 
 36 PURIM PARODIES 
 
 More legitimate and amusing are the parodies 
 of tlie Talmudic method ; the caricatures are absurd 
 enough, but they are at least as funny as they 
 are foolish. Only those who have some know- 
 ledge of the Rabbinic style of reasoning can fully 
 appreciate the merits of these parodies, but the 
 following passages in imitation of the Passover 
 Haggadah speak for themselves: "Whoever has 
 not done these three things on Purim has not done 
 his duty — and these are they, Eating, Drinking, 
 and Dancing." ..." Everyone who is thirsty, let 
 him come in and drink." " In what differs this 
 day from all other days ? On other days you may 
 drink, on this day you must" ..." He who 
 drinks oftenest and deepest is most to be praised." 
 ... "It happened once with Rabbi Old Wine 
 and his associates that they ate and drank at the 
 Purim feast all day and night, until they all 
 fell under the table with their cups in their hands. 
 On the morrow, their disciples found them in this 
 condition and said, ' Our masters, the time for 
 the morning meal has arrived.' " So the parody 
 follows the service line by line, with witty flashes 
 and amazingly clever burlesque. Take the follow- 
 ing : " R. Cask said, for seventy years I have re- 
 joiced on Purim, but I was never in a position 
 to prove that the feasting should last for three 
 days and three nights until R. Old Wine taught : 
 It is written ' from grief to joy and from mourn- 
 ing to holiday' (Esther ix. 22); now, just as the 
 grief and fasting lasted for three days, so the 
 joy and merry-making must last for three days.
 
 PURIM TARODIES 37 
 
 R. Pitcher said seven days, for the days of mourn- 
 ing (for the dead) continue for seven days. Tlio 
 wise men say notliing, but eat and drink until 
 the Messiah comes." The Passover service con- 
 cludes, " Next year we hope to be in Jerusalem ; " 
 the parody, with very slight alteration of the 
 Hebrew, closes with the aspiration, "Next year 
 we hope to drink double." 
 
 These specimens must suffice. Just as the 
 Passover service is the Seder for Id shimmurim 
 (Night of Watching), the parody is termed the 
 Seder for lei shiccurim (" Order of Service for the 
 Night of Drunkenness "). Besides these paro- 
 dies of the Seder there are imitations of the 
 Mishnah described as Tractate Purim. "On the 
 eve of the 14th Nisan, we must remove all Ie(tvcn 
 from our houses" — so runs the opening passage 
 of the Mishnah Pesachim. "On the eve of the 
 14th Adar we must remove all ivater from our 
 houses," is the version of the parodist. It is a 
 prime sin to drink water on Purim. If it rains 
 it is an omen of evil to the world, but woe betide 
 the unfortunate Israelite who fails to shut his 
 windows to exclude the untimely showers. One 
 other quotation from the comic Mishnah nmst 
 end our selection. In the Book of Proverbs 
 (xxxi. 6) occurs the text, " Give strong drink unto 
 him that is ready to perish," but the word trans- 
 lated " ready to perish " may also be rendered " to 
 him that is losing." Several Rabbis, in the parody, 
 were sitting over their wine and indulging in a 
 game of dice for the whole night long, until their
 
 38 PURIM PARODIES 
 
 disciples came and said : " Venerable masters ! tlie 
 time has come for you to perform your Purim duties 
 and to drink the apportioned quantity of wine." 
 One of the company did not partake, because he 
 was downcast at the loss of his money which had 
 occurred during the play. Thereupon one of his 
 friends remarked that when he lost money on 
 Purim he only drank the deeper, because it is 
 written, "Give strong drink to the man who is 
 losing." 
 
 A word of warning is perhaps necessary. It 
 may be hastily inferred from the passages given 
 above, as well as from others perforce omitted, 
 that medieval Jews were intemperate and their 
 Rabbis bon-vivants. No inference could be more 
 false or ludicrous. The whole point of the cari- 
 cature is that it is addressed to temperate men, 
 and the fun derives from the ascription of rollick- 
 ing winebibbing to men who taught, both by 
 precept and example, the lesson, not of total 
 abstinence, but of moderation and temperance in 
 its true sense. 
 
 Of the writers of the parodies, some were learned, 
 more of them witty, most of them reverential. 
 We cannot altogether justify them; all carnivals 
 tend to excess. Why, then, has it been thought 
 necessary to describe these parodies, to quote some 
 few extracts from them, and to include them in 
 this series of Festival Studies? Because, without 
 reference to them a whole aspect of the Jewish 
 character would be missed, and an incomplete 
 picture presented. For these parodies are in no
 
 PURIM PARODIES 89 
 
 sense vulgar or coarse. There is not a word in 
 them for which we need blush, though much in 
 them surprises and offends our taste. They show 
 us the Jew so absorbed in Judaism that his wit 
 assumes the shape of imitation, that supreme form 
 of flattery. He imitates what he knows and likes 
 best when he wishes to amuse himself and be 
 happy. Whether at the bottom of it all there 
 lies a deep-seated critical attitude, a lack of intel- 
 lectiud reverence, is a possible question to raise. 
 What is certain is that there was no religious 
 irreverence ; at most it was the disrespect of 
 familiarity, a disrespect which is not easily dis- 
 tinguishable from warm affection. If we are less 
 able to see this, it may be because, as Brutus 
 said to Lucilius ("Julius Ca3sar," iv. 2): — 
 
 " When love begins to sicken and decay, 
 It usetli an enforced ceremony ; 
 There are no tricks in phiiu and simple faith." 
 
 It may even be that our present ceremonious- 
 ness is nearer to irreverence than was the easy 
 familiarity of the past. But I am explaining not 
 justifying. I would not wish the old uncere- 
 moniousness back.
 
 VII 
 
 ART ON THE SEDER-TABLE 
 
 The barest Seder-table is beautiful on the Pass- 
 over eve ; it may be poor, but it cannot be 
 mean. Beauty is inherent in the Seder service, 
 and though the charm may be homely, its home- 
 liness is necessarily graceful. But it is neverthe- 
 less strange and regrettable that we no longer 
 add to the spiritual charm of the Seder an 
 artistic beauty also. The fact is strange and 
 regrettable. Strange, because the tendency of 
 modern fashion is to improve and elaborate the 
 table appointments used at everyday meals. 
 Regrettable, because we can never develop a 
 Jewish decorative art unless there is regenerated 
 a wide demand for objects of beauty, designed 
 for such occasions of domestic religion as the 
 Seder night. 
 
 Of old, Jewish taste was seen at its best on 
 the Passover eve. Not only was this taste shown 
 in the making of artistic things, but also in their 
 selection. There have come down to us many 
 beautiful relics which were not made by Jews, 
 but the selection and treasuring of these beauti- 
 ful things by Jews afiford collateral evidence that 
 our medieval brethren often had true artistic
 
 ART ON THE SEDER-TABLE 41 
 
 feeling. And a good many of the objects were 
 actually the work of Jewish hands. 
 
 In the first centuries, Jews followed the Gra3C0- 
 Roman fashion of freemen, reclining on couches 
 at their more important meals. Hence the use 
 in more recent times of cushions for, at least, 
 the "master of the house," on the Passover eve 
 — the festival of freedom. In the Benguiat col- 
 lection, now in the National Museum, Washington, 
 there are two such cushions, made in Samacor 
 (Bulgaria) in the sixteenth century. The material, 
 as described by Drs. C. Adler and J. M. Casanowicz, 
 is green silk, which is richly embroidered in gold. 
 It may be pointed out that in the designs of 
 these objects there is nothing specifically Paschal. 
 It often happened that beautiful things were 
 reserved and appropriated for certain specific oc- 
 casions, and only thus became closely associated 
 with those occasions. The medieval Jew acquired 
 some beautiful brocade or embroidery, and set 
 it aside for the Seder night. A similar remark 
 applies to the ewer and basin of brass repousse 
 and chased work assigned in the Benguiat collec- 
 tion for Seder use. Some of the table-covers, 
 the table - centres, the covers for unleavened 
 cakes and bitter herbs, found in various collec- 
 tions, belong to the same category ; but others 
 were distinctly made for Passover. Some of 
 these table-centres (especially those of German 
 provenance) are adorned with scenes from the 
 story of the Exodus or from the ceremonies of 
 the Seder. On some, again, the Festival Sancti-
 
 42 ART ON THE SEDER-TABLE 
 
 fication (Kiddush) is inscribed. Specific covers 
 for the cakes and herbs are found chiefly in 
 Germany and the Levant, They are of different 
 materials, linen and silk being naturally chosen. 
 The Benguiat collection contains a very fine speci- 
 men. It is of purple-coloured silk, embroidered 
 in silver and gold, and was made in Chios (Asia 
 Minor) in the eighteenth century. It measures 
 twenty-one by nineteen inches, and was used as 
 a cover for the bitter herbs. In South Germany 
 we find many towel-shaped covers for the un- 
 leavened cakes; emblems from Adam and Eve 
 down to the building of the Temple are figured 
 thereon. An interesting inscription on some 
 of these is the name of the Jewess who worked 
 the embroidery. The only Seder-cover shown 
 at the Anglo-Jewish Exhibition was of German 
 origin. 
 
 More popular were the Seder dishes. Of these 
 many fine examples are extant in public and pri- 
 vate collections. They were made everywhere, and 
 of all materials— glass, china, majolica, silver and 
 gold, pewter. The Hamburg Museum possesses 
 one of Persian style (date, 1776). Round the 
 outer margin is inscribed the rhymed summary 
 of the Seder service ; on the inside margin are, in 
 Hebrew, the words : " He who relates much con- 
 cerning the Exodus is praiseworthy." One pictured 
 by Dr. Frauberger is probably Dutch. It is made 
 of pewter, richly inlaid with silver chasings and 
 borders. Here, again, we find the rhymed sum- 
 mary, but much more. The "four sons" of the
 
 ART ON THE SEDER-TABLE 43 
 
 Seder are pictured, and on the margin arc a 
 series of grotesques partly derived from the 
 Chad Gadya. Another, which belonged to Mr. 
 F. D. Mocatta (pictured by Mr. F. Haes), is of 
 faience work, and contains the Kiddush and the 
 rhymed summary with vignettes. Yet another 
 fine specimen (containing the same inscriptions 
 as last described and also four vignettes of 
 scenes in the Seder service) is preserved at 
 Washington. It was " made by Jews of Spain 
 in the thirteenth century, and glazed in Italy in 
 the sixteenth century." 
 
 Special mention must be made of a Passover 
 dish exhibited at the Albert Hall by Madame 
 Hartog (Cat. No. 1602). The dish was engraved 
 by the donor, who presented it as a wedding gift 
 to the exhibitor's grandmother, 120 years before 
 1887, the date of the Albert Hall Exhibition. In 
 an illuminated Haggadah (service for the Passover 
 eve) in the British Museum (Add. 27,210) an in- 
 scription shows that this was also a wedding gift. 
 Jewish art would be much encouraged were such 
 presents more usual nowadays. An allusion has 
 just been made to the illuminated Haggadahs, 
 which constitute so important an element in the 
 art of the Seder-table. From the rough pen-and- 
 ink sketches found in Geniza fragments of the 
 Haggadah at Cambridge, down to the latest quaint 
 woodcuts of cheap modern editions, the Seder 
 service has been pictorially embellished through- 
 out the ages. As early as 1526 (Prague) we have 
 printed editions containing woodcuts. Long be-
 
 44 ART ON THE SEDER-TABLE 
 
 fore and long after that date illuminated manu- 
 scripts of the Haggadah abound, the finest being 
 the Crawford MS. (still awaiting publication from 
 Mr. F, Haes's magnificent photographs) and the 
 Haggadah of Sarajevo (edited with many fine illus- 
 trations by Mijller, Schlosser, and Kaufmann, 
 Vienna 1898). The last-named work may be 
 commended to those who are in search of an 
 elegant and appropriate wedding-gift. Some good 
 specimens of Haggadah illustration will be found 
 in the Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. vi., pp. 143 on- 
 wards. The frontispiece of that volume is derived 
 from the Sarajevo Haggadah, which latter (like 
 the Crawford) is, I am strongly convinced, of 
 French origin. 
 
 Some of the other artistic ornaments of the 
 Seder-table have still to be noted. Dishes and 
 bowls for holding the bitter herbs are fairly 
 common. One in the Benguiat collection is of 
 chased brass-work, made in Venice in the fifteenth 
 century. Another (Frauberger) is a splendid bowl 
 with four feet, elaborately chased. One exhibited 
 at the Albert Hall is made of Jerusalem (black 
 Moabite) stone. "This stone," as we are re- 
 minded in J. Jacobs and L. Wolfs Catalogue 
 of the Anglo-Jewish Exhibition, " is black during 
 the day, grey at night, and changes to blue with 
 red spots during summer." A rarer object is the 
 Charoseth wheel-barrow, with tongs, a form which 
 seems restricted to Italy. Enamelled saucers 
 with silver spoons, are oftener found. Antique 
 china cups for the salt-water, small silver stands
 
 ART ON THE SEDER-TABLE 45 
 
 for the roasted eggs, are, naturally, not infrequent. 
 Quite uncommon is a special glass and plate 
 for counting oft' the ten plagues from the wine 
 cup. The specimen in the Washington Museum 
 is extremely beautiful and might be copied with 
 advantage. 
 
 The art of the Seder-table perhaps attains its 
 best in the wine cups. In the Benguiat collection 
 are a set of twelve wine glasses to be used by the 
 participants in the Passover service. They are 
 of cut glass with gilded rims, and are engraved 
 with scenes from human life ; one represents a 
 woman at the loom, another a sailing vessel, 
 others a rural idyll, a harvesting scene, a coun- 
 try homestead, a landscape, a chariot race, a house 
 with its inhabitants, a hunting scene. (Hunting 
 scenes are a popular illustration in the illuminated 
 Haesradahs). This set was made in the seventeenth 
 century; the height of each glass is 4J inches, 
 diameter 1| inches. Many Jewish families reserve 
 some of their glass and china solely for Passover 
 use, but such a brilliant set as this could scarcely 
 be matched. Of the metal wine cups it is un- 
 necessary to speak. Beautiful specimens abound 
 in all metals and all shapes, circular, hexagonal, 
 mug-shaped with covers, and so forth. The 
 chasing and designs are often elaborate. Allu- 
 sion may be made to two rarities. The cup of 
 Elijah is sometimes made double, one within the 
 other. The motive for this, I fancy, must be 
 that the Elijah cup was designed for a twofold 
 purpose: (a) it is for Elijah, expected on the
 
 46 ART ON THE SEDER-TABLE 
 
 Passover eve ; (6) it is for any unexpected guest. 
 Hence the cup may have been made double to 
 allow that, in emergency (6), purpose (a) might 
 still be provided for. Another curiosity may be 
 seen in the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Dusseldorf. 
 This cup has four sets of notches on the margin : 
 one notch, two notches, three notches, four notches. 
 Evidently the celebrant of the Seder was expected 
 to turn the cup after each use of it, and the notches 
 enabled him to keep record of the "four cups," 
 of which he (like all present) had to partake. 
 Finally, an artistic object often found on the 
 Seder-table is the illuminated Omer-Book. "Count- 
 ing the Omer" (Leviticus xxiii. 15) begins on the 
 second night of the Passover, and, as the counting 
 is often done at the Seder, such beautifully orna- 
 mented little scrolls appeared in some medieval 
 homes on the Passover. 
 
 What is the moral of it all ? The olden Jews 
 understood better than we do two important 
 things. First, sameness means loss of interest. 
 They reserved specific objects of beauty and 
 utility for specific occasions, and thus heightened 
 the interest which those occasions aroused as 
 they came round in annual course. Secondly, 
 they realised that to honour God one must 
 sometimes spend one's substance. Social festivi- 
 ties need not, should not, absorb all our 
 means. Our home religion cries aloud for its 
 share. True it is that warm-hearted religion is 
 quite consistent with a simple, unadorned Seder- 
 table. But what is not consistent is that we
 
 ART ON THE SEDER-TABLE 47 
 
 should reserve all our simple unadornment for 
 the Seder-table. 
 
 " Honour the Lord with thy substance, 
 And with the first fruits of thine increase." 
 
 (Proverbs iii. 9.) 
 
 Each Jew, according to the gift of his hand, 
 should beautify the table whereat he recites with 
 recurrent joy the moving story of God's love for 
 our fathers and for us.
 
 VIII 
 A UNIQUE HAGGADAH PICTURE 
 
 One of the pictures in the richly ilkiminated 
 Haggadah of Sarajevo gives a real shock to Jewish 
 susceptibilities. In what Prof. Kaufmann regarded 
 as the " German " type of Haggadah illustrations, 
 the historical pictures begin with the patriarch 
 Abraham. This is a natural starting-point. The 
 whole story of the servitude in Eygpt and the 
 consequent rescue depends, in the Bible, on the 
 covenant between God and Abraham. 
 
 But in the Sarajevo Haggadah, which shows 
 " Spanish " influence, the historical series starts 
 earlier. The first two folios represent scenes from 
 the biblical narrative of the creation. The explan- 
 ation of this retrogression in time has been easily 
 found. The Haggadah opens with the Festival Sanc- 
 tification {Kiddush), and naturally the Sabbath 
 form of the sanctification is also included. Now, 
 the initial paragraph of the Kiddush is a literal 
 quotation from Genesis i. 31-ii. 3: "The Sixth 
 Day ; thus the heavens and earth were finished and 
 all their host," and so forth. This passage might 
 well offer a direct suggestion to an artist to depict 
 the stages of the six days' creation, culminating in 
 the Sabbath Day of Rest. 
 
 48
 
 A UNIQUE HAGGADAH PICTURE 49 
 
 The artist has distributed the events of seven 
 days into eight scenes, arranged in tAvo sets of four 
 each. The first depicts chaos ; the Spirit of God 
 hovers as a golden flame, rising from out primeval 
 waters. Second comes the separation between light 
 and darkness. Under a round arch, the space is 
 divided into two halves by a vertical line, to the 
 left of which a deep black patch indicates the dark- 
 ness, while to the right a far paler patch repre- 
 sents the light. In the third picture (Second Day) 
 the separation between the waters is portrayed ; 
 from the sky there stream downwards bright rays, 
 emblematic, doubtless, of the Divine influence. 
 The fourth picture (concluding the first foho, and 
 representing the work of the Third Day) repeats, 
 as do the sixth and seventh pictures, these 
 streaming rays which descend from above in the 
 shape of a spreading cone. In this fourth picture, 
 we are shown the separation of water from land, 
 the earth bristling with trees and shrubs. Fifthly, 
 we have the work of the Fourth Day ; the sun and 
 moon and stars appear above the picture proper, 
 and arc repeated in the sixth picture (Fifth Day). 
 Birds are at the top of the round globe, fish at the 
 bottom, while between are the wild beasts amid 
 which a lion occupies a prominent place. The 
 seventh picture (Sixth Day) repeats several of 
 the previous details, but adds the creation of 
 man, a somewhat dwarfed figure. Finally, in an 
 eighth picture, appears a unique illustration — alto- 
 gether unparalleled, so far as I know, in Jewish 
 manuscripts, though Dr. R. Gottheil has recently 
 
 D
 
 50 A UNIQUE HAGGADAH PICTURE 
 
 suggested a parallel. In the picture to whicli I 
 refer we see a human figure, young and beard- 
 less, clothed in an ample robe, hooded and red. 
 The figure is seated in repose under a trefoil 
 canopy — and this figure is apparently meant to 
 represent God. The editors of the Sarajevo Hag- 
 gadah feel no doubt whatever that such is the 
 artist's intention. 
 
 If so, the picture is unique, or at all events a 
 great rarity, and proves conclusively one of two 
 things: (a) The artist was a Christian, or, more 
 probably, (6) the artist was a Jew copying slavishly 
 a Christian model, the un-Jewish character of 
 which was, for some reason, not perceived by 
 him. It cannot be argued, as Prof. D. H. Mtiller 
 seems to argue, that the picture is quite un- 
 christian in origin because God, in Christian art, 
 appears as an old, bearded man. For though 
 this is true of developed Christian art, as we are 
 now most familiar with it, it is not true of the 
 more primitive Christian types. In the earliest 
 Christian art, as seen in the Roman catacombs, 
 no attempt was made to represent God in full 
 human shape. He appears as a hand holding out 
 to Moses the two Tables of Stone. This — as a 
 mere figure of speech — may be found also in the 
 Midrash. It is reproduced in a popular, but re- 
 grettable, poem still recited in many synagogues 
 on Simchath Torah. It was not till the age of 
 Charlemagne that Christian artists became profuse 
 in their pictures of God as a full human figure. 
 The artists adopted two opposite plans. To express
 
 A UNIQUE HAGGADAH PICTURE 51 
 
 the Divine unchangeableness, they showed God 
 either as a beardless youth — perennially young ; 
 or as an old man, with virile strength and un- 
 impaired vigour, " They " (the scriptural writers), 
 " saw in Thee both age and youth. Thy hair now 
 grey, now black." So runs a famous line in the 
 Hebrew " Hymn of Glory." The whole hymn is 
 built up of sensuous images, to which a mystic 
 turn is given. The " Hymn of Glory " is a fine 
 poem, and the author guards against all possible 
 misapprehension by the emphatic caution : " They 
 figured Thee in a multitude of visions, yet behold 
 Thou art One under all images." Still, marvellously 
 powerful as the " Hymn of Glory " is, it is impos- 
 sible, from a Jewish standpoint, not to prefer the 
 " Hymn of Unity " for the third day of the week, 
 with its uncompromising, completely Jewish pro- 
 test : " On Thee there falls nor age nor youth ; nor 
 grey hairs nor black tresses." It is unnecessary to 
 trace the further development of the pictorial 
 representation of God in later Christian art. 
 Briefly put, the liistory was this : In the fifteenth 
 century pictures of God as a bearded old man, 
 finally replace the beardless, youthful types. The 
 figures usually wear the triple Papal crown — a 
 quaint detail ! Italy, in the Renaissance era, shows 
 us every phase of the a3sthetic struggle. We see 
 the symbolical hand, we see the three persons of 
 the Trinity as figures of equal age. God the 
 Father often, again, assumes a small form hidden 
 behind clouds; sometimes the figure is painted 
 oti' the main picture to imply distance. Then
 
 52 A UNIQUE HAGGADAH PICTURE 
 
 we reach Michelangelo's noble works. The awe, 
 the majesty of deity, are expressed in a muscular, 
 large-limbed, giant stature ; a wildly-flowing beard 
 conveys the impression of cosmic movement. 
 Raphael, Titian, and, above all, Albrecht Durer, 
 developed and modified Michelangelo's ideals, ex- 
 celling him in serenity, but never in sublimity. 
 
 Summing up the influence of these vain, if 
 beautiful, attempts to make the invisible visible, 
 to compress into finite bounds the infinite, incor- 
 poreal Spirit — can it be doubted that Judaism 
 has been the better, the purer, without such futil- 
 ities ? To picture God as man lowers both. On 
 the one hand, man cannot hope to perfect in him- 
 self the manly type if God and not man is the 
 perfection of that type. On the other hand, God 
 loses all that makes Him God, if He is after all 
 representable as perfect man. " God is not man," 
 then let art and poetry beware of suggesting 
 such a false identification. It is not the least 
 of our many obligations to Maimonides that he 
 so unswervingly re-inforced in the Middle Ages 
 the prophetic conception of God as a pure Spirit. 
 The anthropomorphic language of Scripture and 
 Midrash were, once for all, allegorised aAvay for us 
 by the Sage of Cairo. 
 
 Hence, it is so strange, so intolerable, to find in 
 the Sarajevo Haggadah the picture which is the 
 subject of these lines. In Jewish illuminated 
 manuscripts, as a rule, God is altogether omitted 
 by the artist. Perilously near to the sensuousness 
 of the Sarajevo artist is, at first sight, the work of
 
 A UNIQUE HAGGADAH PICTURE 53 
 
 another illuminator of the Haggadah, described by 
 M. Schwab. In this manuscript an " outstretched 
 arm " is depicted. The hand firmly clasps a sword. 
 M. Schwab apparently cites Exodus vi. 7 in ex- 
 planation, but the artist cannot have meant to 
 show us God's arm. It is an angel's arm that he 
 has drawn, for in one of the three repetitions of 
 this picture, in the same Haggadah, the sworded 
 arm is clearly held over a representation of the 
 city of Jerusalem, and the reference must be, not 
 to Exodus, but to I. Chronicles xxi. 16. In the 
 Sarajevo Haggadah itself, the artist everywhere 
 (except in the case of the " Sabbath Rest "), avoids 
 any representation of God. In Abraham's offering 
 we see a hand in the sky, but, though in Christian 
 art, until the eleventh century, the hand typified 
 God, the intention, probably, is here to show us 
 the hand of the angel who intervenes in Genesis 
 xxii. In the burning bush we see merely angelic 
 wings, shimmering with gold, while death is in- 
 flicted on the first-born of Egypt by a super- 
 natural influence represented by rays. In the 
 Revelation on Mount Sinai, Moses is the main 
 figure, and we see nothing in the heavens but a 
 horn, which projects from the clouds. All these 
 features of the Sarajevo Haggadah strengthen the 
 view that only in the Creation series — a series 
 quite unusual in Jewish MSS. — a direct Christian 
 model was followed in sheer inadvertence. 
 
 In a Dutch MS. of the Haggadah — illuminated 
 in the eighteenth century — we have the only set of 
 illustrations known to me in which the scenes of
 
 54 A UNIQUE HAGGADAH PICTURE 
 
 the Chad Gadya arc depicted. God slays death, 
 and the artist shows us a skeleton prone under a 
 vivid flash of forked lightning. In several MSS. 
 the scene of the Sinaitic Revelation is adorned 
 above with the first Hebrew word {anochi) of 
 the Decalogue on the concave surface of a semi- 
 circular halo. Comparable with this is the 
 Tetragrammaton in a complete halo (sometimes 
 re-inclosed within a triangle) which frequently 
 occurs in mural Church paintings, and in Chris- 
 tian art generally. 
 
 The Jewish record is thus, on the whole, a good 
 one. But we must do more than maintain our 
 record. We must become, in this respect, even 
 more rigid Puritans than we have been in the 
 past. In particular, we must refuse to admit 
 figures of any kind whatsoever into our synagogue 
 decoration, lest our artists be tempted to give first 
 symbolical, and, finally, sensuous hints of the 
 Creator. The danger is not only from the artistic 
 side. At the present moment the atmosphere of 
 religious thought is tainted with all sorts of scien- 
 tific and philosophical shams, which would per- 
 suade us that there are natural and metaphysical 
 justifications for impairing the spirituality of 
 God. It was not easy to arrive at the abstract 
 conception of the Divine spirituality, and to 
 retain the spiritual kinship between God and 
 man while discarding all human attributes from 
 our Father in Heaven. Judaism, alone, among 
 the religions prevalent in Europe, did arrive at 
 this conception, and Judaism must permit no
 
 A UNIQUE HAGGADAH PICTURE 55 
 
 tampering with its cardinal principles — the unity 
 and spirituality of God. In this respect, at least, 
 Judaism represents the highest ideal attained by 
 religion. Let us see to it that we maintain 
 the ideal in untarnished simplicity. "Ye saw 
 no manner of form when God spake unto you in 
 Horeb " <^Deut. iv. 15).
 
 IX 
 
 THE SUCCAH OF THE BIBLE 
 
 The Succah of the Bible was simply a rude erec- 
 tion intended for watchmen in gardens and vine- 
 yards, for soldiers in war, for cattle, and even as a 
 temporary protection against the sun for workers 
 in the fields. It was of the same type as the little 
 lodge erected by the modern fellaheen in Palestine. 
 Some sticks or tree trunks, arranged mostly as a 
 tripod but sometimes as a square, and covered 
 with an old mat as an awning, constitute, at the 
 present day, frail sleeping apartments for guardians 
 against thieves and jackals. 
 
 The Succah of the Hebrews had, however, a roof 
 of branches. Jonah exceptionally used a kikayon 
 ("gourd"), really the Egyptian kiki. We have 
 full information that, at all events, at the Feast of 
 Tabernacles, the Jews gathered olive branches, 
 pine branches, palms, and myrtles to serve as 
 coverings for their temporary huts. This was done 
 after the exile (Nohcmiah viii. 8), and was long 
 continued. In Talmud times vines were used, but 
 only when severed from the growing stems, or 
 straw, which was taken from the wheat and barley 
 granaries. From the vines Avere still hanging 
 clusters of grapes, and so, too, when other fruit- 
 
 66
 
 THE SUCCAH OF THE BIBLE 57 
 
 trees were utilised, the boughs, though dead, re- 
 tained their pendent burdens. One can easily 
 understand how these last were procured, but 
 whence did Nehcmiah's contemporaries obtain 
 their material ? They required a good deal. They 
 set the huts on the roofs of their houses, in the 
 courts, in the precincts of the Teraple, and in the 
 open spaces near two of the city gates. 
 
 Nehemiah tells us that the people went to the 
 " Mount " for their trees. The Mount was clearly 
 Olivet. But what a falling-ofF is there! The 
 mountain, which rises gloriously to the east of 
 Jerusalem, is now almost bare of trees. Here and 
 there may be seen a fine old olive, but only at the 
 deeper slope leading to the northernmost height 
 do " the trees spread into anything like a forest." 
 As to the palms, they never can have grown pro- 
 fusely on the Judean hills, which are too cold to 
 nurture this tropical plant. There may have been 
 palms in gardens, but there are no traces of these 
 now. Even Jericho, the " City of Palms," has 
 scarcely a tree which has not been freshly planted 
 within the past generation. There are still, how- 
 ever, a good many palms in the maritime lowlands, 
 and it may be that, at no distant date, Palestinian 
 palms will come from the Jewish colonies in 
 numbers as great as when the medieval Christian 
 pilgrim from the Holy Land was known as a 
 " Palmer." In the valley of Hinnom, according to 
 the Mishnah, there were indeed a few Palm trees 
 called Tsini. To return to the contrast between 
 the Olivet of the past and of to-day, the Mount,
 
 58 THE SUCCAH OF THE BIBLE 
 
 with the two gigantic cedars once crowning its 
 summit, under which the pigeons were sold, its 
 dark oHve-yards, its masses of figs and pines and 
 myrtles, must have been a favourite pleasure 
 ground. Figs and myrtles are still fairly abund- 
 ant, and by the brook Kedron is a fine group of 
 olives, while the so-called Garden of Gethsemane 
 still retains eight very ancient olive trees, their 
 trunks gnarled and their foliage scanty. Though, 
 then, these remains still recall the former beauty 
 of the mountain, though its slopes are green in 
 the spring and offer a pleasing contrast to the 
 stony barrenness of the other hills, yet the present 
 state well illustrates the Jewish legend that the 
 Shechinah (or Divine Glory) when it left the 
 Temple lingered but awhile on the slopes of Olivet, 
 and then flitted away to the wilderness. 
 
 *' Wlien the Shecliinah from that erring throng 
 Alas ! withdrew, yet tarried in the track, 
 As one who ling'reth on the threshold long 
 And looketh back. 
 
 Then step by ste-p in that reluctant flight 
 Approached the shadow of the city wall, 
 
 And lingered yet upon the mountain height 
 For hoped recall." 
 
 Is there truth, too, in the final hope ? — 
 
 " Behold Thou comest as the dawn of day ! 
 
 Shechinah ! changeless, to illume the night ! 
 Thou, who art a lamp upon the way, 
 ^Vllo art a light ! " 
 
 The Succah, type of God's providence, the res- 
 toration of Israel from its fallen estate, restrains
 
 THE SUCCAH OF THE BIBLE 59 
 
 one from the pessimism which the present pros- 
 pect of Ohvet induces. But when the Shechinah 
 returns to Israel, it will be not to a mountain 
 on a local site, but to a world in Avhich, by the 
 combined effort of righteous humanity, every 
 mountain and hill shall be made low, and rough 
 places plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be 
 revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the 
 mouth of the Lord hath spoken it (Isaiah xl. 4). 
 
 There is a famous passage in Amos (ix. 11) 
 in which the Succah is the type at once of 
 Israel's loneliness and of God's love. This utter- 
 ance has puzzled the commentators, but I think 
 that I can explain it from something that I saw 
 in Judea. " In that day," says Amos, " I will 
 raise up the Succah (' tabernacle ') of David that 
 is fallen and close up the breaches thereof." 
 Now it does seem that the prophet is mixing 
 his figures. As Professor Driver remarks, Amos 
 first speaks of a Succah, but immediately, by 
 referring to the " breaches " changes the figure 
 to a fortress. But the herdsman of Tekoa may 
 be right after all. In the vineyards, besides the 
 temporary hut {succah), was constructed the 
 stone tower (niigdal), which was very substantial. 
 These towers were preserved from season to 
 season, and were used as storehouses. Of this 
 kind must have been the Succah of Genesareth 
 mentioned in the Talmud, intended for the olive- 
 yards. That it was strongly made is clear from 
 the fact that it was turned to permanent domestic 
 uses. But the point of Ames's metaphor is yet
 
 60 THE SUCCAH OF THE BIBLE 
 
 to be explained. When I was in the vineyard 
 at Moza, near Jerusalem, I was shown a solid 
 building made of stone. It had a domed roof, 
 was very substantial, yet was put together en- 
 tirely without mortar or cement of any kind. 
 You see everywhere stone huts of this kind, but 
 the one I examined most closely recalled to me 
 the words of Amos. For this large, solid stone 
 hut (which cost 100 francs — a large sum there) 
 had a stone staircase running up the outside. 
 On mounting this, one came to the roof, on 
 which was placed a genuine Succah, an alcove 
 covered with Arabian vines, poor as to fruit, but 
 excellent as to shade. It was wonderful to note 
 how cool this was, how wide the prospect, how 
 admirable a look-out for a watchman by day. 
 At night the lower edifice is curiously warm, 
 and is a fine protection against the heavy dew 
 and frequent cold. I think that Amos had just 
 such a structure in mind when he foretold that 
 God would raise up the fallen tabernacle and close 
 up the breaches thereof. The same kind of structure 
 throws new light on Isaiah iv. 6, as the reader will 
 easily see by turning up the passage. So, too, 
 with the 31st Psalm. God's shining face, like 
 brooding wings, shelters the faithful from the 
 storm of human passions, as in a Succah from the 
 heat, and from the wind and rain as in the more 
 solid stone covert on which it was set. 
 
 " Oh, how great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up 
 
 for them that fear Thee. 
 Which Thou habt wrought for them that put their trust 
 
 in Thee, before the suns of niert.
 
 THE SUCCAH OF THE BIBLE 61 
 
 In the covert of Thy presence shalt Thou hide thciu from 
 
 the plottings of man. 
 Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion (succah) from 
 
 the strife of tongues ! " 
 
 The " Land " indeed throws light on the 
 "Book." 
 
 The story is told in the Talmud of a voyage 
 made by some Rabbis during the week of Taber- 
 nacles. One built a Succah aloft in the mast of 
 the vessel, and another laughed. But the scoffer 
 was wrong, for the strength of Judaism lies in its 
 power to rise above circumstance and to trans- 
 fer to changed sets of conditions the religious 
 emotions originally aroused in altogether differ- 
 ent environments. In our time, the Succah is 
 rapidly becoming a mere symbol. Once lived 
 in, the Succah is now mostly an ornament of 
 the synagogue, visited at most once for a brief 
 space. But the change from an abode to an 
 ornament is consistent with our still using the 
 symbol as an expression of the conviction that 
 God's Providence was not for a day but for all 
 time. Jews have lived in towns instead of tents 
 for nearly twenty centuries, yet amid their town- 
 life the Succah may recall them to bygone days 
 when their touch was closer with Nature and 
 Nature's God. 
 
 And try to picture the sensations of settlers 
 in the new Jewish agricultural colonies as the 
 Feast of Tabernacles approaches. They are re- 
 newing history, a function which Jews all the 
 world over are called upon to fulfil. But these
 
 62 THE SUCCAH OF THE BIBLE 
 
 settlers are in a peculiarly dramatic situation. 
 They have accomplished their new exodus, and 
 strangers under strange skies in Argentina or 
 strangers still in a land once the home of their 
 fathers, they must hereafter perform a pilgrimage 
 towards a beckoning land of promise. In their 
 wilderness they live in booths at the prescribed 
 season of the year, confident that God is with 
 them still, that as His providence sheltered their 
 fathers so will it shelter them now. To us, 
 also, the symbolical Succah may convey the 
 same lesson, impart the same hope.
 
 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 My earliest Succah was my mother's. In those 
 days — how many years ago I do not care to 
 count ! — my summer holiday lasted exactly nine 
 days a year. We needed no train to take us to 
 our country destination — wo just stepped into 
 our little city garden. In brief, our one and only 
 annual outing was spent in our Succah, and we 
 young boys and girls enjoyed our change of scene 
 far more than I have relished longer and more 
 distant excursions in recent years. It has been 
 said that the pleasures we make for ourselves are 
 fuller and fairer than the pleasures which are 
 given to us. Perhaps this is why we loved our 
 Succah — for we made it ourselves. We did not 
 employ a professional carpenter to put in a single 
 nail, or plane a single beam. We bought rough 
 logs and boards at the city timber yard, which 
 was never rebuilt after the fire of a quarter of 
 a century ago. We planed the logs and grazed 
 our fingers, but the pain did not count. Though 
 all these preparatory stages occurred a fortnight 
 beforehand, the actual building operations never 
 began until the night when the great Fast was 
 over. Old traditions clung to us, and somehow 
 
 63
 
 64 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 we knew that it was a special merit to close the 
 Day of Atonement, hammer in hand, putting in 
 the first nail of the Succah, passing as the Psalmist 
 has it " from strength to strength." 
 
 Our Succah was much admired, but no critics 
 wore more enthusiastic than we were ourselves. 
 It goes without saying that we had many visitors, 
 for people in those days had a keen eye for a 
 Succah. People who neglected us all the year, 
 rubbed up their acquaintanceship as Tabernacles 
 came round. We did not wonder that our Succah 
 was popular, for we really believed that our archi- 
 tectural design was an original one, and I retained 
 that notion until only a few days ago, when an 
 old illustrated jargon book, printed in Amsterdam 
 in 1723, was cruelly placed in my hands, and on 
 page 45 I beheld to my chagrin the picture of just 
 such a Succah as ours Avas. We put it together 
 in this fashion. Four upright beams were con- 
 nected at the top and at the bottom with cross 
 bars of wood, and thus was obtained a hollow 
 shell of substantial strength. Our next step was 
 to put in the flooring. How we wasted our wood 
 by ingeniously cutting the boards just three- 
 quarters of an inch too short ! But that difficulty 
 was overcome, after many councils of war, and 
 we then put on the roof, not flat, but sloping. 
 The sloping roof was a great conception. It did 
 away almost entirely with the rain difficulty, for 
 the water glided off the thick leaves at the top 
 and saved us from the necessity of tarpaulins or 
 glass superstructures. Most people make the
 
 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 65 
 
 Succala roof flat and then build a sloping wooden 
 or glass frame above the roof. Our plan was not 
 only prettier, but it enabled us to remain in our 
 Succah without closing the top in all but very 
 heavy showers. We had a tarpaulin ready in case 
 of exceptional rain, but I can only recollect one 
 or two occasions on which we scaled the garden 
 walls and placed it in position over the greenery. 
 But our master-stroke lay in the walls. There 
 were no walls at all ! A few lines of stout string 
 made a lattice-work on which we fixed thick 
 layers of fragrant myrtle branches and laurel 
 leaves. The effect was fairy-like, and we did 
 not spoil it by attempting to "paint the lily." 
 The only decorations which we introduced were 
 clusters of grapes, which trailed their luscious 
 path along the very walls, a few citrons in their 
 own early amber-yellow, which hung from the 
 bright roof, and an odd chrysanthemum or two 
 still growing in their mould, which added the 
 necessary streaks of colour. All this was not so 
 costly as it may sound, for we bought in very 
 cheap markets, and saved much of the wood from 
 one year to the next. 
 
 Over the way, our neighbours had their Succah 
 too. This was also very pretty, and many pre- 
 ferred it to ours. It belonged to a more conven- 
 tional and ornate type, for it was really a sort of 
 summer-house which stood all the year and was 
 dis-roofed when Tabernacles drew nigh. We boys 
 used to like to have a hand in their decorations as 
 well as m our own, though it went to our hearts
 
 66 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 to see the beautiful apples and pears betinselled 
 with wrappers of gold and silver paper. The 
 gilder in those days was the only " proper " beauti- 
 fier. Then, reams of coloured papers were cut 
 into strips and twined into chains. Finally, 
 out came the samplers which the girls worked 
 with tlieir own fingers. These samplers con- 
 tained the Succah benedictions embroidered and 
 crocheted in the drollest of droll Hebrew letters, 
 but somehow as they were brought out year by 
 year, and were hung in position on the walls with 
 the Mizrach facing the West, a silence of mingled 
 gladness and tenderness fell upon them all. It 
 seemed like a stock-taking of past memories, and 
 a renewal of past, forgotten loves. But we loved 
 best our own little bit of nature unadorned. 
 
 Sadly lacking in ornament, whether natural or 
 artificial, was a Succah which many of my readers 
 will recollect. It belonged to a remarkable man 
 now dead. He had more piety than pence. He 
 occupied three or four rooms on the top floor 
 of a tall house in Be vis Marks, and he had not 
 even a square foot of open space. Must he 
 therefore be robbed of the mitsvah of sitting 
 in his own Succah, nay, of sleeping in it? 
 Perish the thought ! A convenient trap-door in 
 one of his garrets suggested an ingenious plan. 
 He first raised the trap-door, removed the sky- 
 light — which was very ricketty and easily de- 
 tached — and hung sheets round the hole, the 
 sheets trailing to the ground and beyond, and 
 catching the feet of unwary visitors. Of course
 
 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 67 
 
 we all would go and see this old gentleman every 
 Tabernacles. He refused admittance to none, 
 whether you could comfortably squeeze yourself 
 m was your business not his. You plodded your 
 weary way up five or six flights of stairs and 
 stumbled through a hole m the sheetings. If 
 you have never before seen the sight that greets 
 you, prepare for a surprise ! You would find no 
 furniture in the room but a simple chair bedstead. 
 One wall contained nothing but a red handker- 
 chief on which was imprinted a fancy picture of 
 Jerusalem with Moses and Aaron on either side 
 of the Ten Commandments, while olive branches 
 figured in all possible and impossible corners of 
 the picture. The other wall was filled with a 
 hugfe scroll on which, with his own hand, he had 
 written out at great length the wonders of the 
 Leviathan on which the good shall hereafter feed. 
 But the most amazing thing was the host himself. 
 He would be so seated that his head and shoulders 
 were directly under the very aperture in the roof. 
 He was near-sighted, but when he espied you, 
 eagerly would he seize your arm and push you 
 into the place which he vacated, so that you too 
 had your head under the centre of the hole while 
 you recited the proper blessing. Of course he 
 slept in his queer Succah every night, and equally 
 of course he had an annual cold in the head for 
 at least three months afterwards. 
 
 Such humble constructions were almost invari- 
 ably the result of poverty. One well-known case 
 occurred in which a Succah was built on a small
 
 G8 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 balcony outside the first-floor window of a house 
 in Amsterdam, if I remember accurately. The 
 poor owner could not help himself. He could not 
 act like our previous friend, for he did not live 
 at the top of the house. So he just opened the 
 window slightly at the top and slipped into the 
 crevice half-a-dozen long sticks parallel to one 
 another. (He was a stick-dealer by profession). 
 Then he opened the lower half of the window, 
 squeezing it up as tight as it would go. This 
 lower part of the window he left open the whole 
 week, for the Succah was made by covering the 
 projecting sticks with leaves. The man who 
 lived on the ground-floor was not a Jew, and 
 beheld his first-floor neighbour's arrangements 
 with astonishment. He remonstrated in vain, so 
 he went to the magistrate for redress, and a 
 summons was granted. The case came on just 
 the day before Tabernacles, and the decision was 
 a good joke, well remembered by many. " You 
 are robbing this man of his light," said the magis- 
 trate, " and I give you just eight days in which 
 to remove the obstruction." The Jew readily 
 promised that he would obey the order of the 
 court, which he did when the festival was over. 
 
 But one unsightly Succah that I knew, owed 
 its ugliness to the owner's stinginess. He was 
 very rich, but was a thorough miser. He made 
 his Succah small to save his hoarded shillings; 
 and he made it unattractive lest too many visitors 
 should present themselves. He constructed the 
 walls out of old packing-cases, and did not take
 
 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 09 
 
 the trouble to erase the inscriptions daubed upon 
 them. As you approached his Succah your eyes 
 were greeted with the legend : " This side up with 
 care," " Empty crate, to be returned," and so forth. 
 The inscription that puzzled me most ran thus: 
 " Dog-hooks not to be used." I never knew what 
 a dog-hook was, and it only occurred to me to 
 look while writing these reminiscences. I find 
 from Lloyd's Dictionary that a dog-hook is a kind 
 of iron bar, or wrench, for opening iron-bound 
 cases; but a German toy-dealer tells me they are 
 really hooks for cranes that are used chiefly for 
 hoisting barrels but not suitable for slenderly 
 made cases. This miserable man was one of 
 the first I knew to apply to Baron Lionel de 
 Rothschild for laurel branches to cover the roof 
 of his Succah. Even in those days the Roths- 
 childs never refused any such application, though 
 the scale on which the branches are supplied is 
 now far more extensive. I believe that special 
 bushes and trees are planted at Gunnersbury to 
 meet the ever-growing demand on Tabernacles. 
 Many a poor East-End Jew, who would otherwise 
 be forced to forego the pleasure, is thus enabled to 
 build his Succah. But I do not quite see why 
 some of my West-End friends also avail them- 
 selves of Mr. Leopold de Rothschild's princely 
 generosity. 
 
 I have mentioned some humble Succahs, let me 
 introduce my readers to a very beautiful one 
 which might be seen a few years ago at the 
 Hague.
 
 70 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 Mr. D. Polak Daniels, a Warden of the Jewish 
 congregation in the Hague, and a member of the 
 Mimicipahty and of the County Council for South 
 Holland, is undoubtedly the owner of one of the 
 handsomest Succahs that have ever been built. 
 This notable Succah, which stands in the spacious 
 garden in his residence in the Spuistraat, was 
 built nearly forty-five years ago by Mr. Daniels's 
 father-in-law. It is almost square, and con- 
 structed of wood and painted glass. The internal 
 decorations are extremely handsome and tasteful, 
 the prevailing colour being light blue. The 
 coloured glass is very fine. The Succah is so 
 constructed that when taken to pieces the panels 
 of two of the sides form a box in which all the 
 other parts are deposited. There is an interesting 
 episode in connection with this Succah, the fame 
 of which has spread beyond the confines of the 
 Hague. During the lifetime of the late Queen 
 of Holland this Succah was mentioned at her 
 Majesty's dinner table. Queen Sophia was well 
 versed in Jewish history and observances, and she 
 expressed a wish to see Mr. Daniels's Succah, it 
 being then the Feast of Tabernacles. The request 
 was of course complied with, and on the following 
 afternoon the Queen paid her visit, which lasted 
 half-an-hour. In the course of conversation with 
 her host her Majesty displayed her Jewish know- 
 ledge. She asked Mr. Daniels, for instance, 
 whether he was a Cohen, and whether the 
 Cohanim still adhered to the prohibition against 
 touching a corpse. Although contrary to Court
 
 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE liNOWN 71 
 
 etiquette to partake of refreshments, her Majesty 
 made an exception in this case, in order to carry 
 out the custom of eating and drinking in a 
 tabernacle. On taking leave the Queen laugh- 
 ingly said to Mr. Daniels : " I take your word for 
 a great deal, but you cannot make me believe 
 that your ancestors in the desert lived in such 
 splendid booths as this." AVhat a contrast this to 
 one poor fellow I knew who turned his shop- 
 shutters into walls, and a few old flat baskets into 
 roofing, rather than have no Succah at all. 
 Indeed, there is room for both kinds of service 
 to God, for the wealthy and the poor. If the 
 service is cheerfully rendered, who knows which 
 finds the more acceptance ? 
 
 Yet I came out not to preach, but to jot down 
 some memories of Succahs I have known. In 
 my youth, the public Succah was not yet a 
 popular institution. There was a rather fine one 
 erected in the courtyard of Bevis Marks Snoga, 
 but of that more anon. It must not be forgotten 
 that if the city synagogues had no Succahs, the 
 Rav's was an excellent substitute. Wlien I first 
 remember it, it was already large and substantial, 
 with a fire-stove in it and, if I recollect truly, it 
 was lit by gas. Old Dr. Adler received his guests 
 with patriarchial courtliness, and the flow of 
 learned discussion and of casual gossip on com- 
 munal affairs was ceaseless. A fine feature in the 
 late Rav's character — which his son inherits — was 
 his cheerfulness. It was at a notable breakfast to 
 the communal magnates given by Dr. Adler in his
 
 72 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 Succah that the idea of the United Synagogue 
 first took practical form. Opposite, on the other 
 side of Finsbury Square, stood Jews' College, with 
 a pretty Succah in a small glass conservatory 
 on the stairs. I must have seen it during my 
 father's tenure of the principalship, but only re- 
 member it as it was when Dr. Friedlander suc- 
 ceeded him. My experience has proved that 
 Succahs are mostly made by those who have least 
 room. 
 
 The Succah of the Bevis Marks Synagogue is 
 the only one I have ever seen in which a dis- 
 tinction was made between rich and poor. But, 
 after all, those who paid for the mitsvah deserved 
 to get something for their money. There was, in 
 fact, a reserved compartment for the wardens and 
 officials and the high-born aristocracy, while the 
 plebeians flocked into a larger and less ornate 
 Succah which stood in front of the other. In my 
 days the Sephardim did not build many private 
 Succahs, the only ones I remember were those 
 of Mogador and Gibraltar Jews, a stately specimen 
 being that of Dayan Corcos in Bury Street. A 
 fine old gentleman he was. Always dressed in 
 Moorish costume, with a flowing white satin tunic, 
 a crimson or yellow sash, and a red fez or a 
 turban, he cut a splendid figure. He often 
 welcomed me as a boy and gave me Mogador 
 cakes, shaped like rings, the chief ingredient used 
 in their concoction being almonds. But to return 
 to Bevis Marks. The Succah was not a per- 
 manent brick building as it is with other syna-
 
 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 73 
 
 gogues nowadays, still less was it used all the year 
 round as the minister's drawing-room, a use made 
 of the Tabernacle in a West-End synagogue. 
 The Bevis Marks Succah was taken down piece 
 by piece and stored in a shed through the year, 
 side by side with an old obsolete fire-engine. 
 Even in my youth the memory of the oldest 
 inhabitant failed to recollect a single instance 
 in which this fire-engine had been used. The 
 Succah was pieced together every year; it was 
 very strong, but, as I hinted before, was much 
 more like a Succah than the brick constructions 
 in the West-End synagogues nowadays, but these 
 last are yearly becoming more beautiful, more 
 bower-like. Well, the one I am now dealing with 
 was painted green outside, but the inside was not 
 pretty. The smaller reserved compartment was 
 much more gorgeous, of course. But the larger 
 public section had no proper greenery on the 
 roof, for the covering was made of wickerwork. 
 Though this was economical it was not aesthetic. 
 I believe that it has been altered in recent years. 
 But the most interesting feature of the Bevis 
 Marks Succah was Mr. Belasco, the beadle. His 
 tall, burly form recalled the pugihstic heroes 
 which his family had produced in the past ages 
 of the glorious prize-ring. This Mr. Belasco, 
 however, was as good-humoured as he was big. 
 Naturally, as there was no other public Succah in 
 the neighbourhood, many Tedescos (German Jews) 
 contrived to squeeze themselves into the company 
 of the blue-blooded. Mr. Belasco enjoyed tracking
 
 74 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 
 
 out the intruders. "These Tedescos are welcome 
 to enter," he said, "but they shall have none 
 of my olives." Let me explain. Mr. Belasco 
 used to go round with a small keg of Spanish 
 olives — even the olives were Sephardic — and per- 
 mitted every hidalgo to insert his fingers and take 
 one of the tempting morsels. This would go on 
 merrily till Mr. Belasco came to an undoubted 
 Tedesco. "You are not a Portugee," he would 
 say. " yes, I am a Portugee," was the response. 
 Mr. Belasco was not taken in by the insinuating 
 smile of his all-confident interlocutor. "If you 
 are a Portugee, say Sheuiang Yisrael" came the 
 crushing rejoinder. The mere Tedesco would at- 
 tempt to repeat the first line of the Shema', but 
 would almost invariably say Yitrael for Yisrael 
 — a common mistake of Ashkenazim who try to 
 read in the Portuguese style. This new Shibboleth 
 of Mr. Belasco's always succeeded in weeding out 
 the interlopers, but much ready wit was displayed, 
 and altogether every one enjoyed the scene im- 
 mensely. 
 
 For the present I must break off here. I have 
 forgotten to tell many things : how, for instance, 
 one friend of mine reserved his finest tapestry for 
 decorating his Succah walls and locked it up all 
 the year. (This is recommended in the Talmud.) 
 Another man I knew made an elaborate crown of 
 leaves and flowers and fruits and suspended it 
 from the ceiling of his dining-room to remind him 
 of the Succah which he did not possess. The 
 smallest Succah of the pretty type that I ever
 
 SOME SUCCAHS I HAVE KNOWN 75 
 
 entered was Mr. Berricays'. It was one of the 
 
 daintiest objects on view at the Anglo- Jewish 
 Exhibition. But we must beware lest we allow 
 the Sucoah to find its way exclusively to 
 museums. The Sucoah is an antiquity, but it 
 must not become a mere object of curiosity to 
 antiquarians. It has not yet exhausted its vital 
 possibilities.
 
 XI 
 
 "JUDtEA DEVICTA" 
 
 Any one who is familiar with ancient and medieval 
 forms of mourning has no difficulty in under- 
 standing the methods chosen for celebrating the 
 Fast of the Ninth of Ab, the anniversary of the 
 destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, Just as 
 joy was exhibited by floods of light and music 
 and song, by white or bright coloured attire, by 
 merry greetings, by indulgence in meat and wine 
 and other cheering food, by sitting on soft and 
 luxurious cushions, sorrow was displayed by gloom 
 and the absence of melody, by black dresses, by 
 silent rencontres of friends, by sitting on the ground, 
 by a vegetarian and strictly non-alcoholic diet, and 
 a measured one at that. " All the signs of mourn- 
 ing for the dead are to be observed on the Ninth 
 of Ab, but all the signs are to be intensified." It 
 is sometimes supposed that the use of black 
 draperies is restricted to the Sephardic synagogues. 
 This is by no means true. In many German con- 
 gregations similar signs of grief prevailed in the 
 Middle Ages, and still linger on here and there. 
 Thus, at Frankfort, where they had no special 
 curtain for the Ark for use on this day, they turned 
 the ordinary one inside out, and set it with its 
 
 76
 
 "JUD^A DEVICTA" 77 
 
 embroidered face to the wall. The worshippers 
 put on mourning garb and suspended from their 
 hats long black streamers, which they caught up 
 in their hands. But it was chiefly in the Orient 
 that black luxuriated on the Ninth of Ab. To 
 the Moslem, black is hateful : he wears it only 
 when in deepest grief. The Jew is forced to wear 
 black all the year round in the East, excepting of 
 course the "protected" inhabitants of the coast 
 towns. It is no special thing, then, for a Jew to 
 appear in the Mellah decked in black ; to show 
 his grief on the Ninth of Ab, he decks his syna- 
 srogue, too, in the same dismal attire. He takes 
 the Scroll of the Law from its silver case, removes 
 the bells and beautified mantle, and substitutes 
 a black serge wrapping, simple in its mournful 
 wcirdness. In fact, this part of the Ninth of Ab 
 rite is, I feel convinced, derived from Moslem and 
 not from Christian example ; it came from the 
 East, not from the West. Surely it cannot be 
 doubted that the dirges, too, are Eastern in type, 
 that the abandonment to grief, as shown in tearful, 
 movinsf, unmelodious tunes, is but an echo of the 
 Oriental tendency to self-pity. But the Jew has 
 never been a mere imitator, and here, too, he in- 
 troduces something of his own nature. He sets 
 some of the Ninth of Ab dirges to merry tunes 
 and sings joyously between his tears, for he has 
 orone through a real life and knows its incessant 
 contrasts. This admixture of the merry with the 
 miserable is found on the Ninth of Ab all the 
 world over, and it says much for the reality of
 
 78 "JUDtEA DEVICTA" 
 
 Judaism. Judaism is indeed a living copy of life, 
 and it showed its marvellous power to win men's 
 love through their humanity in the tradition that 
 just as the Temple fell on the Ninth of Ab, so the 
 Messiah would come again on that self-same day. 
 Of course the merry notes are rare on this 
 anniversary. Yet art is never absent. The tricks 
 of the Cantor in the Middle Ages were worthy of 
 the actor. Indeed, a Jew gifted with a voice and 
 emotional power, having no other outlet to his 
 talent, was perforce compelled to insinuate some 
 of the devices of the stage into the synagogue. 
 With slow step the Cantor would advance in front 
 of the Scroll sighing, like a love-lorn tenor in the 
 opera: "Mourn, O Law, for thy beauty is veiled 
 to-day," or he would take a handful of ashes and 
 strew them in the Ark murmuring, "Ashes in 
 place of garlands." But in the evening the 
 theatrical element was even more marked, and I 
 am not using theatrical in a disrespectful sense. 
 The candles were lit for evening prayer droned to 
 dirgeful tunes. The Cantor would be seated on 
 the steps leading up to the Ark. The beadle then 
 would go round and extinguish all the candles, 
 leaving but one to give a dim religious light at 
 the small table by which the Cantor would lie 
 prostrate as he read the " Lamentations of Jere- 
 miah." Now was his opportunity. If he has 
 power to move an audience to tears, now he will 
 use it ! But stay, before he begins, a white-haired 
 elder rises and says, in the vernacular, Arabic, 
 Spanish, or English as the case may be: "Thus
 
 "Jud^^:a devicta" 79 
 
 and thus many years are passed since the First 
 Temple fell, thus and thus many years since the 
 Second Temple was destroyed, yet are we not 
 saved. Woe unto us, we have sinned. Each of 
 us in whose days the Temple is not again built up 
 is as he in whose days the Temple was destroyed." 
 Tears and groans greeted this announcement. Let 
 it not be held strange that the vernacular was 
 used, for curiously enough the use of the vernacular 
 has long been common on the Ninth of Ab. The 
 Sephardim in London, of course, would not dream 
 of translating the Haftara into English, but they 
 do translate it verse by verse into Spanish on 
 this fast day. It is still translated (with the Book 
 of Job) into Arabic in Cairo and Morocco. Then 
 came the "Lamentations." The Cantor began in 
 a whisper, but a whisper that could penetrate. 
 Gradually his voice rose, until as the end came 
 near, its full volume swelled forth in dire, dis- 
 tressful tears. As he proceeded the congregation 
 punctuated his lines with sighs of " Woe ! Sorrow!" 
 or with the exclamation, " O God, remember." 
 Perhaps he would go a step further. He would 
 place the Scroll, not on a desk or table, but on the 
 recumbent back of a fellow-worshipper who would 
 kneel in front of him — further type of Zion's glory 
 trailing in the dust. 
 
 At home, before this scene was enacted — and 
 now I am talking of Jews all the world over — 
 there came a fitting preparation. Many Jews 
 imagine that the delivering of homilies in the 
 home is un-Jewish, but this is mere ignorance.
 
 80 "JUD^A DEVICTA" 
 
 The home sermon was a familiar Jewish institu- 
 tion in the Middle Ages; as, indeed, was street 
 preaching in the Jewish ghettos. Well, on the 
 eve of the Ninth of Ab, the final meal before the 
 fast began was partaken with every sign of mourn- 
 ing ; barefooted, seated on the ground, with ashes 
 around and on his lips, the father would address 
 his household in a few sad words. Then they 
 would eat mourners' food : especially eggs and 
 lentils, because, as the poetical explanation had 
 it, " eggs have no mouth, and our grief is too 
 strong also for words." In medieval Babylon the 
 Jews wore no shoes all day on this anniversary ; 
 they did not even wear them in the afternoon, 
 but in the time of the Geonim carried their shoes 
 with them in their hands to afternoon prayer on 
 the Ninth of Ab, and only put them on when the 
 fast was quite over. But Jews were often gifted 
 with good sense; and in the Middle Ages when 
 the non- Jewish rabble jeered at the sight of the 
 barefooted Jews, R. Joel Levi, of Wurzburg, in 
 1220, ordained that this rite was not to be observed 
 except within the precincts of the Jewish quarter. 
 If the fast fell on a Sunday, then on the Saturday 
 evening they would go to synagogue in their boots, 
 but would remove them, no doubt with a woeful 
 clatter, when the Cantor began. I must not omit 
 one point. In the Middle Ages an official called 
 the Schul-Klopfer used to summon people to 
 synagogue by knocking at the doors of the con- 
 gregants' houses, and also by blows dealt at the 
 door of the synagogue. But on the eve and
 
 "JUD^A DEVICTA" 81 
 
 morning of the Ninth of Ab this summons was 
 omitted, though at the afternoon service the 
 ordinary habit was resumed. Friend met friend 
 in silence, and, most marked token of all, those 
 who were called up to the Law were not saluted 
 with the customary greeting as they completed 
 the Mitsvah. 
 
 To describe the way in which they passed the 
 time not spent in the synagogue, is easily done 
 in a few lines. They did little work, and less 
 reading. There is evidence that it was occasionally 
 found difficult to restrain the idle consrreg"ation 
 from mdulging in frivolous occupations to while 
 away the dreary time. But, on the other hand, 
 some spent the whole night and day m synagogue, 
 as on the Day of Atonement, but curious to tell 
 no weird legends have grown up round the Black 
 Fast, as they have round the White. Perhaps this 
 is because the Jews on the former occasion them- 
 selves visited the graves of the dead, and thus 
 there was no room for ghostly intruders among 
 the living, as on Kol Nidre night. Why did 
 the Jews visit the cemeteries ? First, no doubt, 
 because of the general mourning complexion of 
 the whole celebration, but there was another 
 reason. Especially in the East, pilgrimages are 
 made on this day to the supposed graves of 
 departed prophets and other Jewish worthies 
 of remote or nearer antiquity. Here is a 
 beautiful instance of solidarity. No doubt many 
 Jewish ascetics in the Middle Ages and in Tal- 
 mud times wished to go further. They wished 
 
 F
 
 82 "JUDtEA DEVICTA" 
 
 so to link their griefs with those of their fathers 
 that they sought throughout their lives to retain 
 tokens of sorrow as memorials of the destruction. 
 The visits paid to the tombs on the Ninth day of 
 Ab belong to the most poetical of these memorials. 
 Some may call them superstitious : I think myself 
 that poetical is the right word to use. For on 
 the Ninth of Ab, the Midrash tells us, the Patri- 
 archs move in their graves with grief, and weep 
 at the sight of their children's exile. In Kalir's 
 beautiful dirge, Jeremiah is represented as stand- 
 ing at the Cave of Machpolah where the Patriarchs 
 lie buried. Kalir opens thus : — 
 
 " The Prophet standing by the fathers' graves, 
 With soul o'erwhelmed he speaks^ for solace craves ; — 
 How can ye lie at rest, Ijeloved ones, 
 While sharpened swords consume your captive sons ? 
 Where now, O fathers, lurks your merit rare 
 In that vast wilderness of land laid bare ? 
 They cry each one with lamentation sore 
 For children banished, sons that are no more ; 
 They pray imploring with a cry for grace, 
 To Him who dwelleth in the realms of space. 
 Ah ! where is now God's promise made of old ? 
 ' I will not my first covenant withhold.'" 
 
 One by one the Fathers rise and implore God's 
 help on behalf of his sorrowing children. At last 
 this gracious message of God is given in response 
 to their pleading : — 
 
 " Turn, O ye perfect ones, 
 Unto your rest again ; 
 I will fulfil for you 
 All that your hearts desire
 
 "JUDtEA DEVICTA" 83 
 
 Down unto Babylon 
 With you My Presence went, 
 Surely will I return 
 Your sons' captivity." 
 
 These feelings may be shared surely by all Jews 
 even though they do not all dream of a future 
 Return, even though they do not all long for the 
 restoration of Zion's glory. If Christians could 
 for centuries join the Jews in celebrating the 
 Ninth of Ab, surely the most lukewarm of us may 
 find his heart fanned at least into a momentary 
 Love for Zion by the thought of what our fathers 
 suffered in order that we might survive to-day.
 
 XII 
 
 THE DECALOGUE IN THE LITURGY 
 
 The restoration of the Ten Commandments to 
 their place in the service of the synagogue is one 
 of the most notable of recent reversions to the 
 past. There are now several synagogues in London 
 alone in which this charter of social and religious 
 virtue is recited from the pulpit every week. The 
 Talmud says : " Of right they should read the Ten 
 Words every day. For what reason do they not 
 read them? On account of the cavilling of the 
 heretics, so that they might not say : These only 
 were given to Moses on Sinai." How strangely 
 the wheel turns round in human thought ! The 
 modern " heretic," in the guise of the Higher Critic, 
 often singles out the Decalogue as the very thing 
 that he thinks was not given to Moses at all. 
 I do not share this doubt, for I have never seen 
 adequate reason for doubting the Mosaic date 
 of the Decalogue. 
 
 Though the Ten Commandments were dis- 
 charged from the liturgy. Rabbinical fancy retained 
 them by the interesting and ingenious discovery 
 that the Decalogue is embodied in the Shema'. 
 The details are somewhat forced, but the main 
 thought is natural and true. The whole Torah, so
 
 THE DECALOGUE IN THE LITUKGY 85 
 
 far as concerns its moral contents, can be evolved 
 from almost any one of its characteristic passages. 
 With regard to the liturgical use of the Decalogue, 
 I hardly know what to infer from the fact that the 
 Ten Words seem in the early Middle Ages to have 
 been sometimes written on separate little scrolls. 
 I saw one at Cairo, taken from the Geniza, and 
 reference is made to such scrolls in the Responses 
 of the Gaonim. Possibly the Nash papyrus is 
 of the same character. 
 
 Not only was the Decalogue read from the 
 Scroll of the Law twice a year as the regular 
 Sabbath portion, when the turn came for the 
 20th chapter of Exodus and the 5th chapter of 
 Deuteronomy, but, naturally, the Ten Words were 
 also chosen for the Pcntateuchal lesson on the 
 Feast of Weeks. According to Dr. Biichler we 
 must, however, reverse the cause and effect. He 
 ingeniously shows that in the normal sequence of 
 the Triennial reading of the Law, the Decalogue 
 fell to Pentecost in the second year of the cycle. 
 Hence the traditional association of Pentecost with 
 the giving of the Law. In Palestine, the Pentecost 
 lesson began with Exodus xx., but the Babylonian 
 custom resembled our own, and Exodus xix. was 
 included. In accordance with the Triennial cycle, 
 the Decalogue in Deuteronomy fell sometimes on 
 the New Year's day, and the Samaritans read the 
 Ten Commandments not only on Pentecost but 
 also on New Year. The Commandments were 
 translated verse by verse into Aramaic. Of course, 
 such translation accompanied all the readings from
 
 86 THE DECALOGUE IN THE LITURGY 
 
 the Pentateuch, but the Decalogue enjoyed special 
 rights in this respect. The Midrash says that 
 every Commandment was spoken at Sinai in 
 seventy languages, so that all the world could hear 
 and understand the divine revelation. It is not 
 inconceivable, from the long Aramaic additions 
 after each Commandment which are found in the 
 Machzor Vitry, that the custom of translating the 
 Decalogue into Aramaic was continued in medieval 
 France. It is extremely probable that the Aramaic 
 piyutim Akdaviuth Millin and Yetsih PithgaTti are 
 a survival of this custom. Arabic replaced the 
 Aramaic in Yemen and elsewhere. The special 
 liturgical value attaching to the reading of the 
 Decalogue is further shown by the general prac- 
 tice of using a special " niggun " (or cantillation), 
 and also of standing during the public reading of 
 the passage. Some pietists always stand while the 
 Pentateuch is being read, but the general habit is 
 to remain seated. One finds some authorities 
 offering a curious objection to the custom, except 
 on Pentecost and a few other occasions. The 
 person called to the Law was wont to bow during 
 the recital of the benediction when he ascended 
 the reading-desk. Now if the congregation were 
 also standing, it would appear as though he 
 were bowing to his fellow-worshippers, and this 
 was regarded as objectionable. Yet the custom 
 of bowing to the Wardens is not confined to 
 the Sephardim, and politeness seems to have 
 prevailed against the scruple just mentioned. 
 Be that as it may, none of these ecstatic displays
 
 THE DECALOGUE IN THE LITURGY 87 
 
 of feeling prevalent on the Rejoicing of the 
 Law ever appear to have occurred on Pentecost. 
 The flowers and the fruits which decorated the 
 synagogue gave a festive air to the scene, but 
 the occasion was too serious for indulging in the 
 wilder displays associated with the Rejoicing of 
 the Law, 
 
 An extensive liturgical use of the Decalogue was 
 made by the poetanim, as in Kalir's Kerohah for 
 the second day of Pentecost. This is a metrical 
 commentary on the Ten Commandments, and 
 a fine translation of parts of the hymn is given 
 by Zunz. Of another type were the numerous 
 Azharoth, which contained a summary of the 613 
 precepts mto which the Pentateuchal commands 
 were grouped. According to the Gaon Nachshon's 
 enumeration there are actually 613 words in the 
 Decalogue, but there was, apart from any such 
 numerical motive, a natural desire to include the 
 whole of the Law in the homilies for the Feast 
 of Weeks. In the all-night service celebrated 
 in some homes on the previous evening, a sec- 
 tion from every Sedrah is read, and the motive 
 is the same. According to one Midrash, the 
 Decalocfue Avas written on the two tables of stone 
 with long intervals, which gave space for adding 
 all the rest of the precepts. These fancies grew 
 up luxuriantly. It was felt, for instance, that 
 the stones on which such precious words were 
 written could not have been of ordinary material, 
 but, to say the least, were made of diamond. 
 The chips out out during the engraving were
 
 88 THE DECALOGUE IN THE LITURGY 
 
 enough to enrich Moses for Hfe. There is no 
 doubt a homiletical meaning in Midrashim of this 
 class, a meaning so clear that it is superfluous to 
 offer any help to the reader. The Decalogue was 
 a source of wealth and of life : it enriched man- 
 kind and gave it vitality. 
 
 Have the Ten Commandments become obsolete ? 
 Are not the great principles " Love God," " Love 
 man," enough ? Let me answer in the words of 
 Miss Wordsworth, taken from her excellent little 
 book on the Decalogue : " No doubt, any one who 
 truly loved God and loved his neighbour would 
 abstain from the acts forbidden m these Com- 
 mandments ; but, on the other hand, how easy it 
 is to profess religious feelings in the abstract and 
 never to bring our acceptance of a general prin- 
 ciple to bear on the particular instances at all? 
 . . . . The Inquisition professed great 'love' for 
 the souls of those whom it tortured. ... In 
 fact, of not one of the Commandments can it be 
 said that a mere general profession of love to 
 God and man can be substituted for it. The 
 ingenuity which the human mind displays, the 
 sophistries which it employs in order to make 
 what is supposed to be expedient seem right, the 
 delicate shading by which it veils a disgraceful 
 or undutiful act, the artifices to which it con- 
 descends, the self-flatteries which it is capable of 
 where conscience is concerned, can only be met 
 by plain, simple, distinct laws with great principles 
 behind them such as we meet with in the Ten 
 Commandments." All honour, then, to those who
 
 THE DECALOGUE IN THE LITURGY 89 
 
 strove in the past and strive in the present to 
 make the Decalogue a living force in the liturgy 
 of the synagogue. 
 
 A reference has been made, or rather a hint 
 given, to certain modern controversies regarding 
 the re-introduction of the Decalogue into the 
 regular liturgy. In all these matters, however, 
 controversy has a way of softening with time into 
 forbearance. And, in a very similar case, the 
 Middle Ages supply a splendid instance of mutual 
 toleration. The Jewish traveller, Benjamin of 
 Tudela, visited Egypt in the latter part of the 
 twelfth century, and he reports as follows : " Here 
 are two synagogues, one of the congregation of 
 Palestine, called the Syrian, the other of the Baby- 
 lonian Jews. They follow ditferent customs regard- 
 ing the division of the Pentateuch into parashioth 
 and sedarim. The Babylonians read one 2^cirasha 
 every week, as is the custom throughout Spain, 
 and finish the whole of the Pentateuch every year 
 (annual cycle). But the Syrians have the custom 
 of dividing &WQ\:y imrasha into three sedarhn, thus 
 completing the reading of the whole Pentateuch 
 once in three years (triennial cycle)." And now 
 note what follows. Despite this important liturgi- 
 cal difference, says Benjamin, "they uphold, how- 
 ever, the long-established custom to unite the two 
 congregations and to pray together on the Re- 
 joicing of the Law, and on the feast of Pentecost, 
 the day of the Giving of the Law." 
 
 We should be the better nowadays for something 
 of this medieval tolerance. " The law which Moses
 
 90 THE DECALOGUE IN THE LITURGY 
 
 commanded unto us is a heritage of the congrega- 
 tion of Israel." Jew may differ from Jew, but on 
 two days in the year Jew and Jew may and must 
 unite. Brother must rejoice with brother in the 
 Law; brother must stand by brother while the 
 Decalogue is again read on the day associated with 
 memories of Sinai.
 
 XIII 
 BY THE WATER-SIDE 
 
 "And Thou wilt cast (Heb. Tashlich) all their sins 
 into the depths of the seas " — thus runs a line in 
 the lyric epilogue to the book of the prophet Micah. 
 A curious Jewish ceremony has attached itself to 
 this text, deriving its very name (Tashlich) from 
 the first word of the Hebrew original. On the 
 afternoon of the Jewish New Year Festival it is 
 still the custom for very many to betake them- 
 selves to the sea-shore, or to some river or flowing 
 brook, to invoke the forgiveness of sin, while re- 
 peating verses such as Micah vii. 19. 
 
 Now it is quite true that the ceremony received, 
 and to a certain extent deserved, ridicule and con- 
 demnation. For some who observed the custom 
 would cast pieces of bread and other objects into 
 the water, or shake out their garments into it, as 
 though physically transferring their sins into the 
 scapegoat river. With their usual religious in- 
 sight medieval Rabbis, who were the first to know 
 of the custom, denounced and prohibited this 
 materialisation of a symbolical rite. For it estab- 
 lished a fictitious connection with superstitions 
 which have hardly anything in common with itself. 
 Occasional or periodical expulsions of diseases and 
 
 91
 
 92 BY THE WATER-SIDE 
 
 sins by placing puppets in boats let loose to drift 
 seawards— with such heathen ideas which have 
 continued to modern times, Tashlich has no real 
 connection. In ancient Babylonia we read, on the 
 other hand, of casting into the waters tablets on 
 which were inscribed men's trespasses. With this 
 again Tashlich cannot be associated, except in so 
 far as both imply a symbolical cleansing from sin. 
 In the later Middle Ages, Tashlich was explained 
 by a Midrash in which figure Abraham and Isaac 
 — the two heroes of the New Year Festival in the 
 Jewish liturgy. Abraham, so runs the legend, was 
 on his way with Isaac to Moriah when the Satan 
 presented himself in the guise of an exceedingly 
 meek old man. " Foolish man," said the Satan to 
 Abraham ; " canst thou really believe that God 
 has commanded so wicked a sacrifice as thou art 
 about to oflfer ? " Abraham knew from these 
 words that the man must be the Satan, desirous 
 of turning him from obedience to God ; so he re- 
 buked the old man, who departed from him. Then 
 the Satan returned disguised as a shining youth. 
 Addressing Isaac he said : " Knowest thou not 
 that thy foolish old father is leading thee to 
 death ? My son, follow him not, for he is old and 
 witless." Isaac repeated these words to Abraham, 
 who explained the true character of their inter- 
 locutor. The Satan again left them, but hurried 
 on in advance, and transformed himself into a 
 stream of water, broad and deep, stretching across 
 their road. The patriarch and his son plunged 
 straight in, and the water covered them to the
 
 BY THE WATER-SIDE 93 
 
 neck. Then Abraham recognised the place and 
 knew that there was no natural river there at all. 
 " It is the Satan," cried Abraham. " Beshrew thee, 
 thou Satan, and get thee gone." And the Satan 
 fled, finally discomfited. Obviously, this story has 
 nothing to do with TasJdich ; it became, however, 
 usual to find such a connection and to explain the 
 custom as designed " to call to mind the efficacy 
 of the oftering of Isaac." But the Midrash and 
 the theory have some points of interest. For, we 
 can see that the Jewish consciousness was quite 
 alive to the difficulty presented by the character 
 of the Akeda (literally the binding of Isaac). It 
 put into " the Satan's " mouth a thought which 
 often troubled Jewish readers of Genesis, and it 
 mitigated the difficulty by directing attention less 
 to the trial than to the tried, resting less on what 
 God asked than on what Abraham and Isaac were 
 prepared to do, pointing to the unbending fidelity 
 of the father and the loving assent of the child. 
 The Akeda thus became the type of Israel's loyalty 
 under trial and suffering. " Remember, God, the 
 binder and the bound," is the refrain of a popular 
 New Year's hymn. It was a pathetic appeal 
 to the " merit of the fathers," though Israel had 
 little need to rest its appeal on the past. Through- 
 out the ages, Israel went on faithfully rendering 
 himself up a willing sacrifice. When Israel is 
 true to the virtues of the fathers its appeal to 
 their merits is efficacious because unnecessary. 
 
 Of praying by the water-side we occasionally 
 hear in the Bible. Moses sang his song by the
 
 94 BY THE WATER-SIDE 
 
 shores of the Red Sea ; Jonah uttered his thanks- 
 giving on a Mediterranean coast. " By the rivers 
 of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, 
 when we remembered Zion." Israel could not 
 sing the songs of Zion there, but could weep, 
 "and tears," said the Rabbi, "are an ever-open 
 gate to the mercy-seat," More interesting, how- 
 ever, than these odd references, are the evi- 
 dences we find of a fondness for praying by the 
 water-side. Tertullian speaks of the orationes 
 morales of the Jews, i.e. open - air prayer- 
 meetings by the river bank or seashore. Philo 
 tells us that in times of stress, the Alexandrians 
 prayed at the seashore, that being the purest 
 place. Josephus quotes a remarkable decree of 
 Hahcarnassus (on the S.W. coast of Asia Minor). 
 It runs thus : " The decree of the Halicarnassians. 
 Before Memnon the priest, the decree of the 
 people, upon the motion of Marcus Alexander, 
 was as follows : Since we have ever a great 
 regard to piety towards God and to holiness, 
 following the people of the Romans, who are 
 the benefactors of all men, and what they have 
 written to us about a league of friendship and 
 alliance between the Jews and our city, that 
 their sacred rites and accustomed feasts and 
 assemblies may bo observed by them; we have 
 decreed, that as many men and women of the 
 Jews as wish to do so, may celebrate their 
 Sabbaths, and perform their holy rites, accord- 
 ing to the Jewish laws, and have their places of 
 prayer by the seaside, according to the customs
 
 BY THE WATER-SIDE 95 
 
 of their forefathers; and if any one, whether 
 a magistrate or private person, hinders them 
 from so doing, he shall be liable to a fine, to 
 bo paid to the city." 
 
 It has been suggested that Jews preferred 
 the shore because they required water for their 
 many ritual purifications. But the theory is 
 unsatisfactory. In Palestine the synagogues were 
 in the centre of the cities, and even in the 
 coast towns were situated on the highest points 
 attainable, and must thus have been as far as 
 could be from the actual shore. But in heathen 
 environments, an extra-mural site was preferred. 
 In a typical Greek city, the Temple would 
 occupy the central position, and the whole life 
 of the people would turn round it. To avoid 
 idolatrous contamination, the Jew would place 
 his synagogue outside the walls. But the ancient 
 cities in Asia Minor followed the line of sea or 
 river. An extra-mural site would therefore often 
 be identical with the shore of river or sea.
 
 XIV 
 
 GOD AND MAN 
 
 No consistent structure of justification by faith 
 or works is raised in the Jewish Atonement 
 liturgy. " What shall we say, how shall we 
 justify ourselves ? . . . Thy right hand, O God, 
 is stretched out for the penitent." Do your 
 best and leave the rest to God, is the sum 
 of the day's teaching. Human regret and 
 amendment, prayer and promise, condition, as 
 it were, God's pardon ; they do not command 
 or earn it. The forgiveness of sins is God's 
 prerogative, but He has shown man the way to 
 Him. 
 
 Judaism often refuses to accept either of two 
 alternatives, but tries to accept both, to dis- 
 cover a higher harmony reconciliatory of oppo- 
 sites. To hold that " good deeds " make easy 
 and certain the path to heaven may land us 
 in a mechanical system of external rites, and 
 weaken the consciousness of sin. Penitence may 
 degenerate into penance. 
 
 On the other hand, it is not well for man to 
 rest too completely in the belief that atonement 
 is a mere phase of the divine grace. It is not 
 well for man to take the statement of Exodus
 
 GOD AND MAN 97 
 
 xxxiii, 19: "I am gracious unto those to whom 
 I am gracious, and I show mercy unto those 
 to whom I show mercy," as a complete enun- 
 ciation of the relation of God to His erring 
 world. Judaism is right in building also on a 
 human foundation ; in planting on firm earth 
 the feet of the ladder by which man's soul may 
 ascend heavenwards. 
 
 The Hebrew word for repentance is Teshuhah, 
 which Hterally means return. Other elements 
 in repentance are son^ow, or regret (the literal 
 meanmg of repentance), and change of heart 
 (the Greek metanoia), both of which are ex- 
 pressed in confession of sins. But the Hebrew 
 word Teshuhah, or return, " emphasises the 
 last aspect of repentance : its practical result. 
 The issue of repentance must be a return from 
 transgression, from the overstej^jping of right, 
 from the straying aside out of the path of 
 righteousness into the devious byways of sin, 
 back once more into the straight road of duty 
 and unselfishness and love. True repentance is 
 no mere momentary spasm of remorse : to be 
 worthy the name it must intlueuce and leave 
 its mark on character, and therefore upon action 
 and upon life " (Montefiore). 
 
 Again, the antithesis may be put in this 
 way. God is transcendent ; that is, He is high 
 above and outside the world of man, God 
 is unsearchable, unreachable. God's nature is 
 too unlike man's for him to use, unless in a 
 figurative sense, anthropomorphic language in
 
 98 GOD AND MAN 
 
 describing the Deity. As Jehuda Halevi, when 
 in this mood, sang in a hymn for the Day of 
 Atonement : — 
 
 " God ! whom shall I compare to Thee, 
 When Thou to none canst likened be ? 
 Under what image shall I dare 
 To picture Thee, when everywhere 
 All Nature's forms Thine impress bear ? 
 
 Can heart approach, can eye behold 
 Thee in Thy righteousness untold ? 
 Whom didst Thou to Thy counsel call, 
 When there was none to speak withal. 
 Since Thou was first and Lord of all 1 " 
 
 Push this to its logical outcome, and Judaism 
 deserves the taunt : " See how far off is the 
 God of the Jews from them, they address Him 
 like slaves, they figure Him as an autocrat 
 standing aloof, without human sympathies." But 
 Judaism does not push the thought to its logical 
 consequences. Such passages as the one just 
 quoted simply emphasise the folly of likening 
 God too much to man. The old sarcasm that 
 men in all ages have made God in their own 
 image hardly applies to the Jewish poets at 
 their best. But Jehuda Halevi did not close 
 his hymn without abandoning this lofty, trans- 
 cendent theory. He built a bridge across which 
 the penitent may find his way, not easily or 
 surely, but tentatively and with many a stumble. 
 This bridge is Righteousness ; from one point 
 of view it is the divine Law which lowers God 
 to Sinai, from another it is man's obedience
 
 GOD AND MAN 99 
 
 and service which raise him to the hill-top. In 
 the same hymn our most inspired new-Hebrew 
 poet sings : — 
 
 " Thy righteousness we can discern, 
 Thy holy law i)rocIaiui and leai-n. 
 Is not Thy presence near alway 
 To them who penitently i^ray, 
 But far from those who sinning stray?" 
 
 This leads to the other side of the contrast. 
 Does this last line look as though Jehuda Halevi 
 thought little of sin ? Judaism, whether for 
 good or ill, if it erred at all erred on the side 
 of branding the sinner. No, our liturgical poets 
 did not make light of sin ; for, as another Jewish 
 poet of Spain wrote in a sublime meditation 
 (also found in the liturgy of the Day of Atone- 
 ment) : — 
 
 " Tliou, God, art the Light 
 That shall shine in the soul of the pure ; 
 Now Thou art hidden by sin, by sin with its clouds 
 
 of night. 
 Now Thou art hidden, but then, as over the height, 
 Then shall Thy glory break through the clouds that 
 
 obscure, 
 And be seen in the mount of the Lord." 
 
 Would that the whole of this inspiring poem, 
 " The Royal Crown " of Solomon Ibn Gebriol, 
 could be faithfully rendered into English ! Fine 
 thought is here, and fiery phrase, stanzas instinct 
 with God, dark with a consciousness of sin, 
 bright with confidence in God's mercy. The
 
 100 GOD AND MAN 
 
 boldest figure in the poem I may venture to 
 expand and paraphrase thus : — 
 
 *' When all without is dark, 
 
 And former friends misprise ; 
 From them I tiirn to Thee, 
 And find love in Thine eyes. 
 
 When fill within is dark. 
 
 And I my soul despise ; 
 From me I turn to Thee, 
 
 And find love in Thine eyea. 
 
 When all Thy face is dark, 
 
 And Thy just angers rise ; 
 From Thee I turn to Thee, 
 
 And find love in Thine eyes." 
 
 What a wealth of religious beauty, what an 
 armoury of spiritual force, is provided in one 
 single poem of Nachmanides, written also for the 
 Day of Atonement. First mark this thirteenth- 
 century poet's sense of sin; Nachmanides, so far 
 from slurring it over, almost over-deepens the 
 darkness of its cloud. 
 
 " Now conscience-stricken, humbled to the dust. 
 Doubting himself, in Thee alone his trust, 
 He shrinks in terror back, for God is just — 
 How can a sinner hope to reach the King ? " 
 
 But here the Jewish road turns. God is merci- 
 ful, if the sinner is conscious of his guilt. He 
 offers His grace freely, for when man has 
 worked out his own salvation in part, with 
 what bountiful mercy does God finish the recon- 
 ciliation which man has so weakly, so inefficiently
 
 GOD AND MAN 101 
 
 begun ! Naclimanides, of courso, held with 
 all other exponents of Judaism, that the true 
 reconciliation only ends with amendment, that 
 a noble life counts more than an eloquent 
 prayer. But in this hymn he lays his stress on 
 feeling; he sees that man's fulfilment can never 
 equal his ideals ; the task is greater than his 
 power of accomplishment. And so Nachmanides 
 speaks of confession, of the sinner's new dis- 
 position to right, rather than of any possible 
 proportion between bettered act and penitent 
 intention. Thus he continues : — 
 
 " Oh, be Thy mercy in the balance laid, 
 To hold Thy servant's sins more lightly weighed, 
 Wlien, hia confession penitently made, 
 He answers for his guilt Ijefore the King. 
 
 Thine is the love, God, and Thine the grace. 
 That holds the sinner in its mild embrace ; 
 Thine, the forgiveness, Inidging o'er the space 
 'Twixt man's work and the task set by the King." 
 
 And beyond the doctrine taught, would hymns 
 like this, and many others which fill the Day of 
 Atonement liturgy, fail to move the worshippers' 
 hearts, could they but understand them ? These 
 hymns are not designedly didactic, only inci- 
 dentally do they lay down the Jewish belief on 
 sin and atonement, on God and man ; they are 
 in essence the cry of contrite and beautiful souls, 
 yearning for God, for His presence, for His light, 
 a cry alas ! all but inarticidato to-day. But 
 still we may echo where we cannot sing our- 
 selves. Fain would one believe that many a Jew,
 
 102 GOD AND MAN 
 
 pouring out his heart before the Lord on the Day 
 of Atonement, may feel the power and echo 
 the aspiration of the following lines, written by 
 Jehuda Halevi for the great day. Nowhere, 
 not even in Newman's famous hymn, are the 
 relations between God and man more inspiringly 
 expressed in so few lines : — 
 
 " So lead me that I may 
 Thy sovereign will obey. 
 
 Make pure my heart to seek Thy truth divine ; 
 When burns my wound, be Thou with healing near, 
 Answer me, Lord ! for sore distress is mine, 
 And say unto Thy servant, I am here ! 
 
 would that I might be 
 
 A servant unto Thee, 
 
 Thou God by all adored ; 
 
 Then, though by friends out-cast, 
 
 Thy hand would hold me fast, 
 
 And draw me near to Thee, my King and Lord."
 
 XV 
 
 "CHAD GADYA" 
 
 " Then came the Holy One, blessed be He, and slew 
 the Angel of Death that slew the slaughterer 
 that killed the ox that drew the water that 
 quenched the fire that burned the stick that 
 beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the kid 
 which my father bought for two zuzim. One 
 only kid, one only kid" {Chad Gadya). Thus 
 runs the last paragraph of the famous "Song 
 of the Kid," "now known," as Mr. G. A. Kohut 
 rightly says, " to have been borrowed from, or 
 fashioned after, a popular German ballad, the 
 prototype of which seems to have been an old 
 French song." 
 
 The anonymous author who, at the close of the 
 sixteenth century, appended the "Song of the 
 Kid " to the Passover Haggadah, was a true poet. 
 He not only saw that beneath this jingle lay a 
 deep symbolical motive, but he perceived, too, 
 that this motive was identical with the central 
 idea of the whole narrative of the Passover which 
 precedes it. 
 
 Some readers will at once shake their wise 
 heads at this suggestion. They will urge that 
 the whole thing is a child's story, that it has
 
 104 "CHAD GADYA" 
 
 many parallels in the literature of tlie nursery, 
 and that to laboriously seek a moral in trifles 
 of this kind is like crushing a butterfly under a 
 steam hammer. 
 
 Now if it were indeed true that the Chad 
 Oadya or any of its parallels had been current 
 for ages in the ranks of Jewish children, I 
 should be the first to protest against allegorising 
 away its lisping quaintness just because the 
 poem had crept into our liturgy. But what are 
 the facts ? First and foremost, there was hardly 
 such a thing as a Jewish child-literature at all. 
 This is not strange when one remembers that 
 the unravelling of fables, riddles, and parables 
 was regarded by Jews of all ages as work not 
 for children, but for the wisest of men. The 
 Jew always liked his folk-lore to have a moral, 
 and this in itself made it hard for such folk-lore 
 to be the property of the child. This remark 
 applies to others besides Jews. It must not be 
 forgotten that only in modern times have iEsop 
 and Bidpai fallen into the possession of the 
 young. They were once the food of philosophers, 
 not the pap of infants. So little of child-literature 
 is there in Jewish records that one can scarcely 
 discover even one genuine Jewish lullaby. The 
 " Cradle Songs " printed in the Jevnsh Encydo- 
 'pedid fully confirm this conclusion. Hence I 
 feel quite unable to assent to the view of Mr. 
 Kohut and most others that the Chad Gadya 
 is "simply a Jewish nursery rhyme." 
 
 Not only is it impossible to produce from Jewish
 
 "CHAD GADYA" 105 
 
 sources any nursery parallels to Chad Gadya, 
 but of Clcad Oadya itself only the remotest hint 
 has been discovered, even in the literature of 
 Jewish adults, until the close of the sixteenth 
 century. I am not now alluding to hymns or 
 parables of the cumulative type, for in Dayenu 
 we have what is probably a rather old form, of 
 which one may detect a clear trace in the 
 Midrash Rabbah. There is also a faint simi- 
 larity between CJmd Gadya and the following 
 Talmudic parable : " A mountain is strong, Iron 
 cleaves it ; Iron is strong, fire melts it ; Fire is 
 strong, water quenches it; Water is strong, 
 clouds absorb it ; Clouds are strong, the Wind 
 scatters them ; the Wind is strong, the Body 
 carries it ; the Body is strong, Fear rends it ; 
 Fear is strong. Wine overpowers it ; Wine is 
 strong, sleep conquers it ; Death is stronger than 
 all, yet Cliarity dclivereth from Death " {Baha 
 Bathra, 10a). Yet the parallel between this and 
 Chad Gadya, the one a moral 2^^''^<-'^^^^ the 
 other an animal fahle, is only remote. In the 
 Talmudic parable the ideas of Nemesis and of 
 the Divine Providence arc equally absent. The 
 fact that Chad Gadya is composed in Chaldaic, 
 is no proof of antiquity. Several similar jeux 
 d' esprit were written at various late dates in 
 similar mongrel Aramaic — in fact, the other 
 addition to the Haggadah, the "I know one" 
 cumulation, also drops into Aramaic occasionally. 
 That the Chad Gadya is late is probable also 
 from the peculiarity that the whole is full of
 
 106 "CHAD GADYA" 
 
 marked assonances amounting almost to genuine 
 rhymes. No old Chaldaic composition presents 
 this feature so prominently. It is possible that 
 the translator wrote in Chaldaic because he 
 wished to give an antique look to his modern 
 rendering of a non-Jewish song. But it is not 
 difficult to suggest another reason why the 
 translator of the Chad Gadya chose Aramaic 
 rather than Hebrew as his medium. It will be 
 remembered that the Seder opens with a pas- 
 sage in Aramaic. What more natural than for 
 the interpolator of the Chad Oadya to close the 
 Seder with a passage in Aramaic also ? There 
 is even some distant similarity in the message 
 given by the two passages. An opening sentence 
 of the Haggadah reads : " This year we are 
 slaves, next year may we be free." The closing 
 phrase of the Chad Gadya runs : " Then came 
 the Holy One, Blessed be He, and slew the 
 Angel of Death." In both the idea of Providence 
 is paramount : the idea that in the good time 
 to come troubles will cease and God's rule on 
 earth be established. 
 
 It is, I am well aware, a matter of profound 
 difficulty to explain the original growth of cumu- 
 lative stories. But in point of fact, the Chad 
 Gadya is, from the Jewish standpoint, precisely 
 one of those cases in which the origin of the 
 poem is of less import than the interpretation 
 put upon it by those who admired and cherished 
 it, and converted it into a devotional hymn. It 
 was not a spontaneous creation of the people,
 
 "CHAD GADYA" 107 
 
 but a late literary adaptation set in an archaic 
 and artificial idiom, and modified from its origi- 
 nal, as we shall see, in a very curious and 
 sophisticated way. Possibly the child element 
 had something to do with its introduction into 
 the Haggadah — it may have seemed justifiable 
 to adapt a nursery rhyme for use in a ser- 
 vice designed for children. But I doubt this. 
 First there is no evidence whatever that the 
 adaptor ever knew the poem as a nursery song; 
 secondly, the difficult idiom is hardly one which 
 would have been chosen for children; and 
 lastly the jingle appears at the very ter- 
 mination of the service, when the children are 
 mostly asleep. In the seventeenth century it is 
 the moralist and maggid, not the mother and 
 nursery-maid, that use the Cliad Gadya as a 
 familiar theme. 
 
 Now as to the sophistication. Many writers 
 have pointed out numerous parallels to the Chad 
 Gadya, and lately that promising young scholar, 
 Mr. G. A. Kohut, has Avritten well and learnedly 
 on the subject. But I think that most of these 
 collectors of parallels have missed a remarkable 
 fact, pointed out, if I remember aright, by M. 
 Gaston, Paris, in 1872. Yet the fact is of the 
 first importance in understanding the motives 
 that led to the introduction of the Chad Gadya 
 into the Passover-service, 
 
 In most of the real parallels to the Chad 
 Gadya, there is much stress laid on the unwill- 
 ingness of the various forces to play the parts
 
 108 "CHAD GADYA" 
 
 allotted to them. To cite one instance only, from 
 the nearest parallel to Chad Gadya, viz.: "The 
 old Woman and her Pig"— "Cat! Cat! kill rat; 
 rat won't gnaw rope ; rope won't hang butcher ; 
 butcher won't kill ox; ox won't drink water; 
 water won't quench fire; fire won't burn stick; 
 stick won't beat dog; dog won't bite pig; piggy 
 won't get over the style — and I shan't get home 
 to-night." This is a typical instance ; and the 
 refusal of the various characters to act, their 
 resistance, is of the very essence of this and 
 parallel stories. But in Chad Gadya the position 
 is absolutely reversed. In that poem the agents 
 display no manner of unwillingness to perform 
 the work of destruction, to exhibit their mastery 
 over their inferiors. They act after their kind. 
 The writer of Chad Gadya might have been 
 compiling a Midrashic expansion of the fiftieth 
 chapter of Jeremiah : (verses 17-29), " Israel is a 
 scattered sheep ; the lions have driven him away : 
 first the King of Assyria devoured him, and last 
 this Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, hath 
 broken his bones. . . . Therefore, I will punish the 
 King of Babylon . . . Slay all her bullocks ! . . . 
 I will kindle a fire in his cities. ... A sword 
 is upon the Chaldeans. ... A drought is upon 
 her waters and they shall bo dried up. . . . 
 the wild beasts of the desert shall dwell there." 
 In the Chad Gadya, as in Jeremiah, the char- 
 acters play the part of destiny, they are links in 
 the chain of causes and effects, at the end of 
 which is the divine will, directing and controlling.
 
 "CHAD GADYA" 109 
 
 if not now, at all events in some good time to 
 come. 
 
 This remarkable and wholly unique feature of 
 the Chad Gadya, its treatment of the various 
 agencies as acting willingly, or if unwillingly 
 only so in the sense that they are moved by an 
 inexorable and fatal necessity to do their part — 
 this, I maintain, clearly solves the enigma of the 
 presence of the poem in the Seder - service. 
 Every enemy of Israel, in the adaptor's theory, 
 acts after his kind, destroying Israel and Israel's 
 other destroyers. But yet all these fatal forces 
 are really in the control of God; they are His 
 instruments, and in the end will be blunted by 
 His love for His world. Israel is undoubtedly, 
 in the adaptor's view, the kid, the hero of the 
 concatenated drama. 
 
 Equally, without doubt, the introducer of 
 Chad Gadya into the Haggadah meant to typify 
 by the other characters successive rulers of the 
 destiny of the world. But it is absurd to hold 
 that the writer intended the allegory to be ex- 
 plained literally and in detail. Lebrecht in 1731, 
 published an elaborate solution of the Enigma, 
 as he and many others termed it. The Kid is 
 Israel; the two coins, Aaron and Moses (who 
 were the means by which the father, God, bought 
 the kid, Israel, from Egypt) ; the Cat is Assyria ; 
 the Dog, Babylon ; the stick, Persia ; the Fire, 
 Greece, or rather Macedonia ; the Water, Rome ; 
 the Ox, the Saracen power; the Butcher, the 
 Crusaders; the Angel of Death, Turkey, whom
 
 no "CHAD GADYA" 
 
 God will in the end destroy, and then restore 
 the Jews to Palestine. How modern this last 
 suggestion seems. 
 
 Lebrecht's fanciful explanation has won more 
 general acceptance than it deserved. It is cer- 
 tainly far-fetched and unconvincing. But Chris- 
 tian Andreas Teuben fell into the opposite error 
 when, in his quaintly-named pamphlet Chad Gadya 
 lo Israel, he denied that the story has anything 
 to do with Israel. In its origin, certainly it 
 had no such connection, but the adaptor of it 
 for the Passover Liturgy clearly did have before 
 his mind a panorama of the History of Israel 
 and the world as Israel was affected by it. As 
 to the details of the application, Teuben rightly 
 says : " As many Jews, so many explanations." 
 The ten plagues have been ingeniously read 
 into the Chad Gadya, and so has the sacrifica 
 of Isaac. It is not wonderful that preachers 
 and maggidim have offered innumerable explan- 
 ations of the Chad Gadya. The poem is in 
 truth a summary of the Enigma of Life, and 
 who shall claim that he possesses the one 
 and only clue to that great mystery ? The solu- 
 tions of the riddle form another Chad Gadya 
 more hopelessly involved than the one which 
 they started out to unravel.
 
 XVI 
 
 MYRTLE 
 
 English poets have not extracted much fragrance 
 from the myrtle, probably because the shrub does 
 not grow wild in the British Isles. Byron preferred 
 the youthful forehead garlanded with myrtle and 
 ivy to the older brow crowned with laurel : — 
 
 " talk not to me of a name great in story, 
 The days of our youth are tlie days of our glory ; 
 And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty 
 Are worth all your laurels, tho' ever so plenty." 
 
 But Milton calls the berries of the myrtle 
 " harsh and crude." The prettiest allusion to 
 the myrtle in an English lyric occurs in Mar- 
 lowe's " Passionate Shepherd," but here it almost 
 seems that the exigencies of rhyme led to its 
 introduction. The Shepherd invites his fair one: 
 " Come live with me and be my Love," and 
 among other inducements he offers : — 
 
 " There will I make thee beds of roses 
 And a thousand fragrant posies, 
 A cap of flowers and a kirtle 
 Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle." 
 
 Some attribute these lines to Shakespeare, 
 
 who more than once pictures Venus and Adonis 
 ui
 
 112 MYRTLE 
 
 lovG-making in a myrtle grove. Every one re- 
 members, too, the beautiful lines beginning : — 
 
 " As it fell upon a day 
 In the merry month of May, 
 Sitting in a pleasant shade 
 Wliich a grove of myrtles made ; 
 Beasts did leap, and birds did sing, 
 Trees did grow, and plants did spring ; 
 Everything did banish moan, 
 Save the nightingale alone." 
 
 In Tennyson's " Sweet Little Eden " also : — 
 
 " Fairily-delicate palaces shine 
 Mixt with myrtle and clad with vine." 
 
 The Roman poets, more accustomed to the 
 wild species of the myrtle — for it is found every- 
 where in the Mediterranean region — made better 
 play with the dark green shrub. The Greeks 
 held it sacred to Aphrodite, and crowned with 
 it the victor in a bloodless fight. Myrtle bushes 
 are usually low, but sometimes they attain, as 
 in the Lebanon, to a height of twelve feet, thus 
 qualifying for the description "tree." The most 
 southern range of Lebanon is named "Jebel 
 Rihan," the mound of myrtles. Myrtle flowers 
 are white, the berries become blue - black or 
 purple; the Talmud calls the colour black. The 
 poets of Italy and Greece, however, fall far 
 behind the Jewish in their fanciful treatment 
 of the myrtle. And this is natural enough. 
 The fragrant leaves of the evergreen add aroma 
 to the entwined palm branch on the Feast of 
 Tabernacles, and Hebrew poets of all ages have
 
 MYRTLE 113 
 
 used the myrtle as a type of sensuous sweet- 
 ness. There is something Eastern in this. 
 From myrtle a wine is made, and before the 
 introduction of other spices like pepper, it 
 was a favourite condiment in Oriental cookery. 
 The Arab mother still stuffs her infant's couch 
 with myrtle leaves, and bathes her babe's soft 
 flesh in water distilled with myrtle oil. Graetz 
 held that the verse in Psalm cxviii. usually 
 rendered : " Fasten the festal victim with cords to 
 the horns of the altar," ought to run " Bind yc gar- 
 lands with myrtles unto the horns of the altar." 
 
 Whether this be right or not, the myrtle has 
 been a favourite festive emblem with Jews. 
 In Jehuda Halevi's love poems we often come 
 across the myrtle. Myrtles were used in ancient 
 Judea in the festoons above the bridal canopy, 
 and Rabbis danced before the marriage proces- 
 sion bearing myrtle branches. When the custom 
 grew up of crowning the Scrolls of the Penta- 
 teuch on the day of the Rejoicing of the Law, 
 coronets of myrtle as well as of silver and gold 
 were used. It was not till after the fourteenth 
 century that the conventional metal " crown " 
 for the Scrolls was added as a regular ornament. 
 The person " callcd-up " to the Law was crowned 
 with a myrtle wreath on Simchath Torah, the 
 day of the Bridegroom of the Law. Though 
 after the destruction of the Temple the bridal 
 crowns were for awhile abolished, we find the 
 custom reappearing in the Middle Ages. On 
 the Sabbath after the wedding, the bridegroom 
 
 H
 
 114 MYRTLE 
 
 was crowned with myrtles. This accounts for 
 the prominence of myrtles in Jehuda Halevi's 
 songs, intended for liturgical use on such occa- 
 sions. In one of these songs, he calls the happy 
 young husband's joyous group of friends "his 
 canopy of myrtles." When the bride's name 
 happens to be Esther (Hadassa, or Myrtle), the 
 poet luxuriates in the image : — 
 
 " To Myrtle, myrtles waft a breeze, 
 Tlie pangs of love-sick love to ease." 
 
 It is said that the large Jewish betrothal 
 rings, such as one sees at South Kensington, 
 held sprigs of the same plant ; and a keen- 
 scented friend of mine has told me that he 
 can still detect the faint odour of myrtle in 
 one of the old rings. Verily, " Many waters 
 cannot quench love." Perhaps equally imagina- 
 tive are the pious Jews who reserve the myrtle 
 from the Lulab for use in a dried condition, 
 as " sweet-smelling spice " at the " habdala " on 
 Saturday nights. 
 
 If we go back from the medieval Hebrew poets 
 to the Midrash, quaint thoughts on the myrtle 
 reward our search. All of these may also be 
 found in the liturgy for the Feast of Tabernacles. 
 The Midrash treats the myrtle not so much 
 from the poetical as from the emblematic and 
 moral side. Myrtle typifies Jacob and Leah, 
 and of course Esther. " ' Myrtle ' which spreads 
 fragrance as Esther spread grace ; ' Myrtle ' which 
 fades not in winter, but is fresh always." Esther's
 
 MYRTLE 115 
 
 real name (as already mentioned) was " Myrtle." 
 Zunz long ago pointed out that Jewesses in the 
 Middle Ages wore fond of borrowing their names 
 from flowers. Flora, Myrrha, Bliimchen, Rosa, 
 Fiori, and others of the same style, often occur 
 in early Jewish name-lists. To return to the 
 Midrash on Myrtle: "Just as the myrtle has 
 a sweet odour and a bitter taste, so Esther was 
 sweet to Mordccai and bitter to Haman." (Else- 
 where, the Rabbis speak of the myrtle as taste- 
 less. They are thinking of different varieties, 
 as may be seen from the Talmud Succah, folio 
 31b. The aromatic taste of the myrtle -berry 
 may be understood when one remembers that 
 the eucalyptus and clove belong to the same 
 order as the myrtle.) " Bitter and sweet will 
 join as dainties for His palate, who stood among 
 the myrtles," sings Kalir, in allusion to this 
 Midrash and to Zechariah i. 8, where the 
 angel-warrior on a red horse stood in a glen of 
 myrtles beneath Mount Olivet. The liturgy also 
 uses the Midrashic parallel of the myrtle to the 
 eye. The citron atones for heart-sins, the palm 
 for stiff- backed pride, the willows for unholy 
 speech, the myrtle for the lusts of the eye. 
 The comparison to the eye is peculiarly apt. 
 Not only does the elongated oval leaf of some 
 species resemble the eye, but when held up to 
 the hght, it looks not unlike the iris. This 
 effect is produced by the little oil-dots in the 
 leaf. The Rabbis, like the Targum, explained 
 the " boughs of thick trees " of Leviticus xxiii. 40,
 
 116 MYRTLE 
 
 to mean thick - leaved myrtles with clustering 
 berries, though for ritual use too many berries 
 were unlawful. Nehemiah (who, however, men- 
 tions both "thick trees" and "myrtles," viii. 15), 
 and Josephus (Antiq., III. x. 4) bear witness 
 that myrtles were associated with the festival 
 of Tabernacles. The last-named authority in- 
 forms us that the myrtles were carried in the 
 hand, a fact not clearly stated, though implied, 
 in Leviticus. It was because of this custom 
 that Plutarch confused the Jewish feast with a 
 Dionysian rite, for the devotees of Dionysus, or 
 Bacchus, carried wands wreathed in ivy and vine 
 leaves, topped with pine-cones. "Bearing wands 
 wreathed with leaves, fair boughs and palms, 
 after the manner of the feast of Tabernacles, 
 they offered up hymns of thanksgiving," says 
 the author of the Second Book of Maccabees 
 (x. 6) of Judas and his men. 
 
 One other Talmudic thought must be men- 
 tioned, for it leads us back to Isaiah: "He who 
 has learned and fails to teach is like a myrtle 
 in the desert " {Rosh Hashana, fol. 23a). 
 
 " Full many a flower ia born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its fragrance on the desert air." 
 
 Isaiah, in his picture of the return from the 
 Babylonian exile, paints the whole desert as a 
 garden filled with joyous men. Nature becomes 
 a worthier scene for the redemption. The desert 
 is not merely dotted with oases, as Marti ex- 
 plains; it is transformed into one vast, well-
 
 MYRTLE 117 
 
 watered garden, filled with myrtles in place of 
 thorns. Thus the wilderness stretching between 
 Babylon and Judea was to share in the renewal 
 of the heavens and the earth. The change was 
 to occur on a mighty scale, that all the earth 
 might see and wonder. If the desert was so 
 transtigurod what (though the prophet does not 
 add this) must be the glories of the new Canaan ! 
 
 *' The poor and needy seek water and tliere is none, 
 
 And their tongiie faileth for thirst; 
 I the Lord will answer tlieni, 
 
 I the God of Israel will not forsake them. 
 I will open rivers on the bare heights, 
 
 And fountains in the midst of the valleys ; 
 I will make the wilderness a pool of water, 
 
 And the dry land flowing springs. 
 I will plant in the wilderness the cedar. 
 
 The acacia, the myrtle, and the oleaster, 
 I will set there the fir, the pine and the cvpresB ; 
 
 That they may see and know and consider 
 That the hand of the Lord hath done this, 
 
 And the Holy One of Israel has created it." 
 
 (Isaiah xli. 17-20.) 
 
 And so again, when the trees wave their boughs 
 and nature and man combine to sing a new song 
 to the Lord, 
 
 " Ye shall go out with joy 
 
 And be led forth with peace, 
 The mountains shall break forth liefore you into singing, 
 
 And all the trees shall clap their hands. 
 Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, 
 And instead of the brier the myrtle. 
 And it shall be to the Lord for a name. 
 An everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.'' 
 
 (Iv. 12-13).
 
 118 MYRTLE 
 
 Yet we are told that the poets of the nineteenth 
 century first taught men the lessons of nature. 
 The ancient prophet felt the parallel between 
 human moods and natural phenomena. Isaiah 
 was not the least of those who experienced this 
 analogy, and in the lines just cited the poetry 
 of the mja'tlo reaches its noblest flight.
 
 XVII 
 
 WILLOWS OF THE BROOK 
 
 It is antecedently improbable that a sad associa- 
 tion was intended in tlio case of any of the 
 emblems chosen for the Feast of Tabernacles, 
 pre-eminently a season of joy. The " willows of 
 the brook " were no less cheering than the palm, 
 the myrtle, or the fruit of a goodly tree. The 
 " weeping willows," which arc beloved of the 
 writers of dirges, and form a pensive refrain to 
 poems like the " Lady of Shalott," have only this 
 of melancholy about them, that they may form 
 dark bowers and encircle black pools. The 
 willows referred to in Scripture are mostly to 
 be identified with poplars, such as still occur, 
 rather extensively for a treeless land, in the 
 lower part of the Jordan valley. The poplar, 
 like the willow, grows best in damp soil. 
 
 " Upon the willows in the midst thereof 
 We hanged our harps." — Psalm cxxxvii. 2. 
 
 Here the reference may be to the willow 
 proper (the SaMx Bdbylonica), rather than to the 
 Popidus Enphratica. In Isaiah xliv, the willow 
 is probably the " willow of the brook " which,
 
 120 WILLOWS OF THE BROOK 
 
 unlike the grasses and unflowering herbs that 
 only spring up in full crop after the early rain 
 in Syria, luxuriantly adorns the water-courses 
 and the Dead Sea Valley. 
 
 " Fear not, Jacob, My servant, 
 And thou Jesliurun, whom I have chosen ; 
 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty 
 And streams upon the dry ground : 
 I will pour My spirit i:pon thy seed, 
 And My blessing upon thine offspring. 
 And they shall spring up among the grass 
 As willows by the water-courses ; 
 One shall say, I am the Lord's 
 
 And another shall call himself by the name of Jacob." 
 
 (Isaiah xliv. 2-4.) 
 
 Many writers render Araba in this passage 
 also " poplar " and not " willow." The meaning 
 is anyhow clear. It is the true Zionism that the 
 prophet enunciates, a spiritual revival in which 
 Israel wins the world to God, for the last two 
 lines allude to the proselytes who are to enjoy the 
 streams of God's love with and through Israel. 
 
 A probable identification (originally suggested 
 by Schwarz), sees in the " Brook of the Willows " 
 (Isaiah xv. 7), the Wadi-el-Ahsa, north of Kerak. 
 This was the " Valley of the Waterpits," between 
 Edom and Moab, where Elisha wrought his 
 miracle (II. Kings iii. 16), of the rain, blood-red 
 in the ditches, as the morning sun shone on the 
 water. The prophet Ezekicl, too, had a fine 
 reference to the willow, though it is doubtful 
 whether he does not mean the " vine." It occurs
 
 WILLOWS OF THE BROOK 121 
 
 in the 17th chapter of Ezckiel, in the parable of 
 the two eagles. The " Great Eagle " (Nebuchad- 
 nezzar) " came into Lebanon and took the highest 
 branch of the cedar " (Jehoiachin). This was in 
 590 B.C. or thereabouts. Then the " Great Eagle" 
 took of the seed of the land (Zcdckiah), " placed 
 it by great waters, and set it as a willow tree." 
 It grew and "became a spreading vine," which 
 treacherously bent its roots and branches towards 
 another " Great Eagle " (Egypt) thus earning de- 
 struction at Nebuchadnezzar's hand. The figure 
 is not clear. But Zafzafa (the word here ren- 
 dered " willow ") occurs nowhere else in Scripture, 
 and though the similar Arabic word signifies 
 " willow " it seems best to take it in Ezckiel in a 
 generic sense as "plant." In Ezckiel xix. 10, we 
 read of a " vine planted by the waters " and it 
 may well be that Zafzafa is also a " vine." For 
 why should the King of Babylon devote such 
 pains to the cultivation of a willow and how 
 would it transform itself into a vine ? 
 
 The willow called Zafzafa differed from the 
 Araha ; the former was not lawful for use on 
 Tabernacles. Its leaf was round and the edge 
 serried, while the Araha had an elongated leaf 
 with plain edges. The Zafzafa is thus rather a 
 poplar than a willow in the Talmudic view, and 
 Raslii (on Ezckiel xvii. 5) translates Zafzafa by 
 peuplier. It grew in the valleys between the 
 hills rather than by perennial streams, and thus 
 did not fall within the category of " willows of 
 the brook" (Leviticus xxxiii. 40).
 
 122 WILLOWS OF THE BROOK 
 
 On the first day of the festival a jubilant 
 procession made its way to Mozah (a forty 
 minutes' walk from Jerusalem), and masses of 
 Avillows were gathered for the decoration of the 
 altar. There are few willows now in Mozah, but 
 the Arabs bring them to Jerusalem from Hebron 
 and the South in baskets. The willows were 
 used in Temple times for decorating the altar 
 as well as for the bundle including the "four 
 kinds." They were placed round the altar, piled 
 so that the tops overhung and formed a kind of 
 canopy, while the procession passed round. We 
 have a survival of this custom in the use of the 
 willows (hoshaana) on the seventh day of Succoth 
 {hoshaana rabbi). That the beating or shaking 
 of the leaves had a symbolical meaning cannot 
 be doubted. The exact significance is, however, 
 doubtful. It is usually held to typify the end 
 of the harvest, the fall of the leaves from the 
 trees and the approaching nakedness of winter. 
 It may be so, but one might prefer to detect a 
 more joyous implication, the willow being (as in 
 Isaiah) an emblem of resurrection rather than of 
 death and decay. Mr. Frazer would no doubt 
 suggest a very different explanation. 
 
 It cannot be said that the willow was turned 
 to an altogether fascinating use either by the 
 Midrash, or by the authors of the Piyutim. The 
 latter, indeed, are entirely dependent on the 
 former, and show no originality. The " four 
 species " typified man : the palm is the spine, 
 the myrtle the eye, the willow the mouth, the
 
 WILLOWS OF THE BROOK 123 
 
 citron the heart. Again the willow typifies 
 Rachel. Just as the willow withers before the 
 three other kinds, so Rachel died before her 
 sister. This is sufficiently melancholy. More 
 neutral is the use of the tAvo sprigs of willow as 
 an emblem of the two scribes of the Sanhcdrin. 
 The willow, again, often typifies God, the rider on 
 the arahuth, in the heavens (Psalm Ixviii.). The 
 more hopeful note is also struck in comparing 
 the willow to Joseph, " the brother bought as a 
 slave," with a play perhaps on the word meaning 
 " pledge." Joseph eventually saw the light. 
 
 The bearing of the willows is, according to 
 another Piyut, to save Israel " from the flame of 
 glowing coal." The allusion is to the saving 
 efficacy of prayer. Best of all is the Midrashic 
 idea that the four kinds exemplify God's use for 
 all his creatures. The citron has odour ( = good 
 deeds) and taste ( = Law) ; the palm (date) has no 
 odour but has taste ; the myrtle has odour but 
 no taste, the willow has neither taste nor odour. 
 God bids Israel bind them together, they help 
 out the deficiencies of one another. So if Israel 
 be but bound firmly in a fraternal whole, each 
 individual has his place. The willow, poor 
 destitute, shares, at all events, in the general 
 good, even if it contrilmte nothing but its pre 
 sence. ' They also serve who only stand and 
 wait."
 
 XVIII 
 
 QUEEN ESTHER ON THE ENGLISH 
 STAGE 
 
 No English play on the subject of Esther 
 matches the romantic beauty of the drama 
 which Racine wrote in 1689 for the nuns of 
 St. Cyr. Nor is there an English Esther as 
 genially artistic as the heroine of the nineteenth 
 century tragedy which delighted the audiences 
 of Grillparzer in Vienna. For all that, the 
 English dramas recording the story of Ahasuerus 
 and his Queen possess many features of unusual 
 interest. Some of these plays may be dismissed 
 with a bare mention. In Francis Kirkman's 
 compilation, " The Wits, or Sport upon Sport," 
 published in 1673, there is a feeble scene, con- 
 sisting of forty-six lines in all, in which the 
 fate of Haman is enacted. The author was 
 probably Robert Cox, a prolific writer of drolls, 
 but his " Ahasuerus and Esther " contains no 
 wit whatever. Another very poor effort was 
 Thomas Brereton's " Esther, or Faith Triumphant " 
 (1715). This was an adaptation of Racine's 
 play, but it was never performed on any stage. 
 A like fate befell John Collett's "Esther, a
 
 ESTHER ON THE ENGLISH STAGE 125 
 
 Sacred Drama" (1806), for Baker informs us 
 that this play was also denied a public hearing. 
 Cox's little interlude was no doubt meant to 
 be introduced between the items of a longer 
 programme, and it probably was often used on 
 the stage. 
 
 For a really interesting English Esther we 
 must go back to an earlier period. From an 
 entry of Henslowe we learn that on June 3, 
 1594, a scriptural drama called "Hester and 
 Ahasuerus" Avas performed in London by the 
 Lord Chamberlain's players, a company which 
 then included Shakespeare himself. It is not 
 clear which play is alluded to by Henslowe, 
 for there were more than one in vogue at the 
 time of which he speaks. There is first the 
 curious play printed in German in 1G20, but 
 obviously older, and certainly English in origin. 
 This "Comedy of the Queen Esther and the 
 Haughty Haman" was one of the plays which 
 were produced in various parts of the Continent 
 by a troupe of strolling actors who hailed from 
 Emrland and did so much to foster dramatic 
 art abroad. If England now borrows so many 
 of her plays from the foreigner, the debt was 
 paid in advance in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and 
 seventeenth centuries. This particular Esther 
 was performed in many Continental towns and 
 before sundry German princes. It is an in- 
 teresting literary phenomenon, for it belongs to 
 a type representative of the great struggle made 
 by the Morahty play to resist the supremacy
 
 126 ESTHER ON THE ENGLISH STAGE 
 
 of the newer form of drama, such as became 
 dominant at the close of the Elizabethan period. 
 Like another drama to be mentioned later on, 
 this plays marks the transition from the ecclesi- 
 astical to the secular drama. 
 
 But its interest for Jews is even stronger 
 than this. A notable character in the play is 
 the Clown, called in this instance " Hans Knap- 
 kase." This name establishes a link on the 
 one hand with the Shakesperian fools, and on 
 the other hand with the burlier buffoons be- 
 loved of Continental audiences and of Jews. 
 The funny man of the Jewish jargon plays is 
 simply lifted from such characters as Hans 
 Cheeseboy. The clowns of many such plays 
 were named from articles of food. Thus in 
 Holland the clown was named Pickelherring (a 
 familiar figure also in Jewish jargon plays), in 
 France Jean Potage, in Italy Signor Maccaroni, 
 in England Jack Pudding, and in Germany 
 Hans Wurst. In this play performed by English 
 actors the clown, Hans Knapkase, has a " fat " 
 part. No doubt the nature of the fun was 
 suggested by the subject, for it will be re- 
 membered that Ahasuerus and Vashti could not 
 agree as to the mutual relations (so far as 
 obedience is concerned) between husband and 
 wife. There is a really humorous scene between 
 Hans and his good lady, in which blows are 
 freely exchanged. Mrs. Hans comes off com- 
 pletely victorious, and Hans makes his exit, 
 walking meekly behind her carrying her basket.
 
 ESTHER ON THE ENGLISH STAGE 127 
 
 Hans, outside the domestic circlo, is a truculent 
 personage ; he is the carpenter-hangman. He 
 builds the gallows for Haman, and also acts as 
 executioner. The play has no literary merit, 
 but of course it does not fairly represent the 
 English original ; it rather looks like the mere 
 skeleton of the play, jotted down, and tilled 
 in by the editor for German readers. But the 
 play is amusing, and certainly is better than 
 the one seen by the Abbe Coyer during a visit 
 which he paid to Amsterdam in 1759. The 
 Abbtj reports that Ahasuerus did nothing in 
 this play but eat and sleep. In each of the 
 three acts he had a banquet, and as the curtain 
 rose he was invariably asleep on his throne. 
 Haman was a fearsome criminal, who expired 
 on the gallows in melodramatic agony. We felt 
 very sad, says the Abbd, but suddenly Mordecai 
 brought our souls back to gaiety by dancing 
 a merry Sarabande with two Rabbis in front 
 of the gallows. The three dancers were nuiffled 
 up in black tunics, and the performers resembled 
 three coal-sacks moving in heavy cadence. 
 
 The comedy described above was performed 
 by English actors in Germany certainly as late 
 as 162G, for on July 3rd of that year it was 
 given in Dresden. The Englishmen's Esther 
 must have been very popular, for Hans Sachs' 
 earlier play on the same subject could not hold 
 out against it. But we have direct information 
 that Valentin Andreae composed an Esther to 
 rival the foreign importation. Our present
 
 128 ESTHER ON THE ENGLISH STAGE 
 
 purpose must, however, carry us back to England 
 itself, where we know of a very fine " Interlude " 
 on the subject of Esther first published by 
 William Pickering and Thomas Hacket, book- 
 sellers, in 1561. 
 
 The author of this beautiful work cannot be 
 identified, but the " Godly Queene Hester " re- 
 mains to sing his anonymous praises. Mr. Israel 
 GoUancz kindly drew my attention to Grosart's 
 reprint of this semi-Morality play ; it has recently 
 (1904) been again reprinted by W. W. Greg. In 
 the German plays of the Reformation period, 
 Esther was a favourite medium for hurling satire 
 at the Pope and all his works, Haman's fall 
 having clear attractions for those who wished 
 no good to the Vatican. In the " Godly 
 Queene Hester " a similar phenomenon presents 
 itself, but the satire is social, not theological. 
 First, here is an extract from the title-page 
 (with modernised spelling) : — 
 
 "Come near virtuous matrons and women kind, 
 Here may ye learn of Hester's duty, 
 In all comeliness of virtue ye shall find 
 How to behave yourselves in humility." 
 
 The names of the players : — 
 
 Prologue . 
 
 . Pride. 
 
 Assewerua 
 
 . Adulation. 
 
 Three Gentlemen 
 
 . Ambition. 
 
 Aman (= Haman) . 
 
 . Hardy dardy 
 
 Mardocheus 
 
 . A Jew. 
 
 Hester 
 
 . Arbona. 
 
 Pursuivant 
 
 . Scribe.-
 
 ESTHER ON THE ENGLISH STAGE 120 
 
 This list of characters consists partly of real 
 persons, partly of personifications — thus the play 
 is an intorincdiato stage between the Morality 
 and the drama proper. The satiric touches 
 to which I havo already referred are hurled at 
 Haman, but they are directed in truth against 
 the Ministers of Henry VHI. Once, as Grosart 
 points out, the author forgets himself, and allows 
 Ambition angrily to lament that the country, 
 despite excessive taxation, is not prepared for 
 war with France or Scotland ! There is good 
 reason for holding that the dramatist wrote 
 between 1525-29, and designed his play as 
 a somewhat fierce attack on Cardinal Wolsey. 
 The audience must have seen that the gibes 
 at Haman (Aman) were meant for the great 
 Court circles of their own day. There is one 
 curiosity to which I must draw special attention. 
 Pride and Adulation both make their wills, and 
 leave all their evil qualities as a bequest to 
 Haman. Now, in 1703, there was printed in 
 Hebrew a burlesque Will of Haman, in which 
 he bade his children to abstain from giving 
 charity, because it is not profitable, and to 
 avoid robbing the poor because they possess 
 nothing worth stealing. May we find the origm 
 of this Hebrew fancy in the play now before 
 us ? Space prevents me from lingering over the 
 many beauties of this " Godly Queene Hester," 
 But there are three things that must be said. 
 Mr. Grosart holds that though Hester fills the 
 title role, she sinks into insignificance in the 
 
 I
 
 130 ESTHER ON THE ENGLISH STAGE 
 
 play itself. This is hardly the case. The 
 dramatist gives a spirited picture of womanhood 
 in his Hester. As Grosart himself points out 
 Hester reminds one of Lady Jane Grey. This 
 is Mordecai's description of her : — 
 
 " A pearl undefiled, and of couscience clear, 
 Sober, sad, gentle, meek and demure, 
 In learning and literature profoundly seen 
 In wisdom, eke semblant to Saba the Queen." 
 
 And in several passages Hester is the type of 
 a noble ideal. My second point relates to 
 Hardy-dardy, the fool of the play. The words 
 " Hardy-dardy " are simply a reduplication of 
 " hardy," meaning a rash fellow, a dare-devil. 
 In his "wise unwisdom and uncanny rashness 
 of speech" Hardy-dardy recalls the fools of 
 Shakespeare. His smart tongue and ready 
 phrase are quite Shakesperian. It would be 
 strange did it prove, as Mr. Grosart hints, that 
 Shakespeare derived some of his inspiration from 
 this delightful interlude. My third point is this. 
 In the Jewish Purim plays, Haman, while he 
 is not by any means whitewashed, is never- 
 theless rather the object of ridicule than of 
 vindictiveness. But in the English " Interlude " 
 Haman is an unmitigated villain. As Mr. Greg 
 well says, it is he who is the incarnation of all 
 the vices, for though Pride, Adulation, and Am- 
 bition appear in person on the scene, it is to 
 Haman and not to them that these vices belong. 
 They are milk-and-water rogues compared to him. 
 There is one other English presentation of
 
 ESTHER ON THE ENGLISH STAGE 131 
 
 Esther to which a few lines must be devoted. 
 On Handel's birthday (February 23rd) in 1732, 
 the Esther Oratorio was performed for the first 
 time by the children of the Chapel Royal, at 
 the house of their leader, Bernard Gates, in 
 Westminster. The libretto owed something to 
 Alexander Pope and to Arbuthnot, but their 
 handiwork is disfigured by the alterations and 
 additions made by Humphreys. The words are 
 not, of course, wanting in charm, but there is 
 little of Pope's grace or of Arbuthnot's wit to 
 be detected. The lyrics are more or less de- 
 rived from Racine. The Oratorio seems to have 
 been at once successful, for in the same year 
 it was performed at a subscription concert at 
 the " Crown and Anchor " Tavern and again at 
 the room in Villiers Street. The performers 
 were very notable people. Gates himself was 
 eccentric enough, but the people of most interest 
 to us are the boys who sang the chief parts. 
 First there was Beard, famous afterwards as a 
 vocalist and actor, and as the manager of the 
 Covent Garden Theatre. Charles Dibdin wrote 
 that " taken altogether, Beard is the best English 
 singer . . . his voice is sound and male, power- 
 ful, flexible, and extensive." Handel especially 
 composed for Beard some of his finest tenor 
 parts, among others those in " Israel in Egypt," 
 the " Messiah," and " Judas Maccabfeus." The 
 part of Esther Avas sung in 1732 by the boy 
 John Randall, who subsequently became Professor 
 of Music at Cambridge University.
 
 XIX 
 
 HANS SACHS' "ESTHER." 
 
 Nuremberg was aglow with enthusiasm in 1894 
 in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Hans 
 Sachs' birth. In his native city some of his 
 homely dramas were enacted, and the spectators, 
 among whom I was fortunate enough to find 
 myself, could readily understand the hold which 
 the shoemaker and poet had won on the hearts 
 of his contemporaries. There is no character- 
 drawing, no analysis of motives in Hans Sachs' 
 plays. But there is humour and movement, 
 and, above all, good morals. In his secular 
 dialogues he delineates the common life of his 
 day, and though the humour is rough it is 
 hearty, and the satire if simple is sincere. He 
 allowed less scope to his fancy in his Shrove 
 Tuesday dramas, but his vividness, his medieval 
 combination of buffoonery with reverence, im- 
 parted to the sacred or mystery plays a new 
 lease of life towards the middle of the sixteenth 
 century, not only in Germany, but all over 
 Europe. 
 
 Hans Sachs wrote two dramas on the sub- 
 ject of Esther. Of the version which appeared 
 in 1559, nothing will be said on the present 
 
 182
 
 HANS SACHS' "ESTHER" 133 
 
 occasion. But his earlier " Esther," Avritten in 
 1536, is, as far as I know, the oldest complete 
 dramatisation of the biblical story, for the Eng- 
 lish "Interlude," though perhaps a few years 
 earlier, is not a complete play. I cannot quite 
 agree with Schwarz that the play shows poor 
 dramatic technique. Sachs throughout fits bis 
 material to the resources of his stasre. Thus. 
 he skilfully omits the second banquet given by 
 Queen Esther, he makes no attempt to represent 
 Mordecai's triumph, and the negotiations between 
 Esther and Mordecai on the action to be pursued 
 by the former, at the critical moment of Haman's 
 plot, are cleverly contrived as occurring behind 
 the scenes. But it must be confessed that the 
 material is clumsily divided. There are three 
 Acts to the play, with about 160, 220, and 390 
 lines respectively. Schwarz, again, overstates the 
 slavish fidelity of Sachs to his scriptural original. 
 Certainly the biblical narrative is closely fol- 
 lowed, but several of the dramatis personam 
 have no counterpart in the Bible. Here it is 
 interesting to note that Sachs' list of the char- 
 acters appended to the play does not quite 
 correspond with the characters as they appear 
 in the body of the drama. The point, how- 
 over, is that of his thirteen characters some 
 have an unauthorised prominence, while two 
 are altogether without biblical warrant. These 
 are the Herald and the Fool. Sachs alwa3's 
 begins and ends his sacred plays with a Herald 
 or some such character. In his " Adam and
 
 134 HANS SACHS' "ESTHER" 
 
 Eve," a Cherub appears in the Herald's place. 
 In his " Esther," the Herald enters and bows, 
 welcomes Ahasuerus' guests, then exits to in- 
 troduce the King himself. At the close, the 
 same Herald delivers a long summary of the 
 incidents which have been portrayed, and passes 
 a moral judgment on them all. Wives must 
 learn from Vashti's fate that it is dangerous to 
 defy their husbands; Esther is a model of 
 modesty and sweetness ; Haman, a fearful warn- 
 ing against deceit and cunning; Mordecai, a 
 type of the faithful God-fearer; the King, of 
 the virtue of justice. 
 
 " Als denn wirt uns Got audi gross maclien. 
 Das unser ehr grun, blu und wachs, 
 Das wunschet zu Nurnberg Hans Sachs." 
 
 The play is written throughout in rhymed 
 couplets. 
 
 More interesting still is the Fool. He has 
 some of the usual qualities of the buffoons of 
 the " Fastnacht," or Carnival plays (by the way 
 Hans Sachs describes Purim as a Jewish " Fast- 
 nacht "). The Fool has a great love for eating 
 and drinking, just as his prototypes in the 
 Shrove Tuesday mysteries. In Sachs' " Esther " 
 the Fool is always hovering round the royal 
 table, and when Esther invites the King and 
 Haman to a feast the Fool audibly smacks 
 his lips in anticipation of the good things 
 coming, which Esther prepares with her own 
 hands. Again Sachs' Fool is greedy and grasp-
 
 HANS SACHS' "ESTHER" 135 
 
 ing, after the wont of his class. When the 
 King bestows on Esther the property of Haman, 
 the Fool interposes with a claim for a share 
 in the spoil. Give me, he cries, Haman's red 
 riding boots, that I may strut in them on feast 
 days, and rouse the envy of the poor fellows 
 who have no such leggings. The Fool, again, 
 shows very little generosity of feeling. When 
 Haman is down and has to conduct Mordecai's 
 triumph the Fool taunts him unmercifully; 
 when tinally the fallen favourite is led oft' to 
 the gallows, the Fool heads the procession with 
 unmannerly jeers. This is a blot not only on 
 the play but on the poet. But, for all this, 
 the Fool of Hans Sachs is unlike those of the 
 common " Fastnacht " plays. Like Shakespeare's 
 Clowns, under a mask of folly he wears a heart 
 of wisdom. He warns the King solemnly of 
 the futility of yielding to Haman's cruel pro- 
 posals, he protests wisely and well. His wit 
 has a very biting eftectiveness, and he never 
 spares his royal master. 
 
 " Weisst nit ? man jacli vor alten zeitten, 
 Ein geher man solt esel reyten." 
 
 Thus, in many important points, Hans Sachs' 
 " Esther " departs from the biblical original. 
 The same is the case in details, some of which 
 have been already indicated. At Ahasucrus' 
 feast there are knightly sports. At table, the 
 King boasts of his wealth and the beauty of 
 Vashti, and the Major-domo, who is named
 
 136 HANS SACHS' "ESTHER" 
 
 Amnon, assents with a flattering smile — an 
 original touch of the dramatist's. The Fool 
 tells the King that Vashti will not come, for, 
 says he, when women get together at table they 
 become so refractory that not even a pear-stalk 
 will they spare for their husbands. The King 
 consults two instead of seven councillors. A 
 display of brides is made throughout the king- 
 dom, and Mordccai introduces Esther to the 
 Chamberlain. He bids her, m prophetic terms, 
 unknown to Scripture at this point, to conceal 
 her Jewish origin, for who knows what God 
 may intend from her exaltation ? When the 
 King falls in love with her, Esther at first 
 modestly declines the crown as too honourable 
 a distinction. She soon renders her husband 
 signal service, by reporting the plot of Theresh 
 and Bigthan. In her report she describes 
 Mordecai as her relative, an un-biblical feature. 
 Hans Sachs, strangely oblivious of this inter- 
 polation, subsequently follows the Bible in 
 making the revelation of the relationship at 
 the Queen's banquet. Haman's plot against 
 the whole Jewish people is based by Sachs not 
 merely on the biblical motive of personal re- 
 venge, but also on Haman's national rancour 
 against the descendants of the enemies of his 
 race — the Amalekites. Instead of ten thousand 
 talents, Haman offers the King ten hundred- 
 weights of silver as a bribe. When Esther 
 presents herself before the King, who is sur- 
 rounded by his court, she excuses her delay
 
 HANS SACHS' "ESTHER' 137 
 
 in stating her petition till the banquet on the 
 plea that the King's gracious reception of her 
 had overcome her too much to permit of further 
 speech. Haman resolves to build the gallows 
 on his own initiative ; he is not prompted by 
 his wife as in the Scripture. The play ends 
 (except for the Herald's speech), with a sum- 
 mons to a dance. 
 
 " Mach auflF, spielman, ein zuchting reyen, 
 Auflf dass wir iins alle erfrewen." 
 
 Despite these many deviations, Schwarz is 
 so far right that Hans Sachs' " Esther " is, on 
 the whole, nothing but a dramatisation of the 
 Bible story. The discrepancies are indeed set 
 out by Schwarz himself, in his able essay on 
 " The Esther Dramas of the Reformation Era," 
 an essay to which I am much indebted. Hr.ns 
 Sachs' work, taken altogether, produces a very 
 pleasing effect on the reader. It is destitute 
 of the lyric beauty of Racine, but it is truer 
 to human nature. There is no hidden motive 
 in it. It is an attack neither on the Jews nor 
 on the Pope. Several Esther dramas, in Latin 
 and German, were satires on Roman Catholicism. 
 But Hans Sachs, thouiih an ardent admirer 
 of Luther, does not here use Esther as a con- 
 troversial weapon in aid of " the Wittenberg 
 Nightingale." The simplicity and homeliness 
 of the Nuremberg shoemaker long made Hans 
 Sachs unpalatable to the German lovers of 
 " learned " poetry. But since Goethe re-dis-
 
 138 HANS SACHS' "ESTHER' 
 
 covered him, his repute has gone on growing, 
 until it is now perhaps higher than is just. 
 But his plays, of one class of which " Esther " 
 may be taken as a type, are pure and vivid, 
 full of a charm imparted by the most honest 
 and direct means.
 
 XX 
 
 THE SHOFAR 
 
 " Shall the trumpet (Shofar) be blown in a city 
 and the people not be afraid ? " (Amos iii. 6). 
 
 The Shofar, or Ram's-horn, is one of the 
 most primitive of musical instruments. Ancient 
 Israel may have adopted the lyre and cittern 
 from Greece, though there is good reason to 
 think that the Jews were under no such obli- 
 gations to foreign influences in music as they 
 were in some other branches of art, such as 
 architecture. At all events the Shofar was a 
 native instrument. At first it had no exclu- 
 sively religious associations, such as the an- 
 nouncement of the Jubilee and the approach 
 of the Ark, but was blown on secular occasions 
 as well on royal accessions, in assemblies, for 
 signals in battle, by Avatchmen on the towers. 
 The Shofar, however, has been appropriated by 
 the Synagogue for solemn uses on the New 
 Year and on some other days associated with 
 the penitential season. It is still the only 
 musical instrument heard within the walls of 
 a largo majority of Jewish places of worship. 
 
 Such appropriation is a natural evolution. 
 We see a somewhat similar process in the case 
 
 130
 
 140 THE SHOFAR 
 
 of the " fringes " on the tallith. The tallith was 
 originally a four-cornered, toga-like outer gar- 
 ment ordinarily worn in the East. Being no 
 longer used as part of the daily costume, the 
 tallith was retained as a vestment during prayer. 
 Ecclesiastical vestments are often mere survivals 
 of ancient fashions. The case of the Shofar 
 is not quite parallel, for the Bible specifically 
 ordains the blowing of the Shofar on the festi- 
 val now more commonly known as the autumnal 
 New Year. 
 
 We no longer retain in England one of the 
 most effective of Synagogue rites, though in 
 some parts of the Continent the rite still holds. 
 The congregation stands at silent worship dur- 
 ing the long Mussaf prayer on the New Year. 
 Thrice the stillness is broken by the piercing 
 blasts of the Shofar. The effect is indescribably 
 weird. 
 
 But even without this aid to the solemnity, 
 the Shofar, as we are accustomed to it in this 
 country, is arrestive enough. Its shrill, unme- 
 lodious notes resemble nothing of our common 
 music. It is a harsh intruder on the light 
 melodies which most of us love. Just such an 
 impression must Amos have made on the soft 
 livers of Samaria and Jerusalem. His wild looks 
 and uncouth bearing must have been as repul- 
 sive to them as their unrighteous ease in Zion 
 was odious to him. As Amaziah, the court 
 priest, complained of Amos, " the land cannot 
 bear all his words," and the shepherd prophet
 
 THE SHOFAR 141 
 
 was thrust back to his sycomores. But Israel 
 was not all court priest, and though Amos may 
 have failed to make an immediate impression, 
 he began the process of creating that serious 
 element in the people which realised in its 
 life the prophetic ideals. The prophet never 
 wins many hearers at once. As rare as the 
 prophetic gift itself is the gift of understanding 
 a prophet's message. But from Amos until 
 the destruction of the first Temple, there was no 
 break in the line of prophets to lift up their voice 
 like the Shofar and tell their people their sin. 
 And a remnant of Israel was always ready to 
 listen. It was no vain boast that a Psalmist 
 uttered some five centuries later : — 
 
 " All this is come upon us : 
 Yet have we not forgotten Thee, 
 Neither have we dealt falsely in Thy covenant." 
 
 Israel's long-drawn out loyalty, Israel's devotion 
 to God, persistent despite temporary lapses, is the 
 truest comment on this text. 
 
 Reverting to the metaphor used by Amos, the 
 trumpet-call to a threatened city, we find in it 
 the idea which the Synagogue now most closely 
 connects with the Shofar on the New Year. There 
 are — as the meditation ascribed to Saadiah shows 
 — other ideas in plenty : the Creation, the Bind- 
 ing of Isaac, the Revelation on Sinai, the Pro- 
 clamation of God's Kingship, the final Day of 
 Judgment, the Resurrection, and the Messianic 
 Redemption. All these sublime thoughts are asso-
 
 142 THE SHOFAR 
 
 ciated in Scripture with the Shofar, and find their 
 due place in the liturgy of the New Year. But 
 Maimonides rightly throws chief stress on the idea, 
 " Ye sleepers, awake ! " In his ear the Shofar 
 sounds the call to seriousness. " Leave vanities, 
 turn to realities." You cannot trip through life 
 to dance music. Amid the dainty trills of the 
 flutes, the Shofar sounds harsh alarm for war. It 
 is a moment for heroism. Many a man shows 
 himself possessed of unsuspected courage when a 
 sudden danger summons him to defend hearth 
 and home. The same courage is needed for 
 defending the citadel of God, which enshrines the 
 earnest purposes of life, for confronting the stern 
 realities which the prophets of Israel confronted, 
 and which made them sometimes look sourly on 
 life's gaieties and lightheartedness. 
 
 " He heard the sound of the Shofar and took 
 not warning ; his blood shall be upon him ; 
 whereas if he had taken warning he should have 
 delivered his soul " (Ezekiel xxxiii. 5). Woe to 
 the city that hears the signal and remains un- 
 moved, lulled to that security which is mortals' 
 chiefest enemy by the comfortable cry, " Peace, 
 peace, when there is no peace." 
 
 " I am pained at my heart ; 
 My heart is disquieted within me ; 
 I cannot hold my peace. 
 For thou hast heard, my soul, the Shofar, 
 The alarm of war." 
 
 When Jeremiah thus exclaimed, it was not so 
 much because he was himself afraid. He was
 
 THE SHOFAR 143 
 
 restive because he could not communicate the 
 contagion of his fear. " I set watchmen over 
 you, sa}dng, Hearken to the sound of the 
 Shofar; but they said, We will not hearken." 
 Jeremiah's contemporaries thought his politics 
 unpatriotic because ho prophesied disaster. They 
 would not respond to his alarms. And so 
 Jerusalem had to fall into the hands of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar. So, too, must the Zion of our 
 modern hope fall if we be deaf when the Shofar 
 summons us to repair the breaches in our wall, 
 to set right the wrongs which our policy of 
 drift has connived at if not created. " Ye 
 sleepers, aAvake ! " 
 
 " Bring me back in penitence to Thee, but not, 
 Lord, by means of chastisement." Thus prayed 
 a Rabbi of old. Happy the man who can find 
 his way back to God by a less painful path than 
 the road of chastisement. But happy he, too, 
 whom the Lord chastiseth into penitence. Un- 
 happy he who is chastised in vain, who learns 
 nothinc: from his trials, who hears the dansfer 
 sigfnal but is not afraid, or fears for an instant 
 and then forgets, who 
 
 "Being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two 
 And sleeps again." 
 
 The Shofar must make us afraid, it must im- 
 pose on us the lacking emotions of awe before 
 the mystery of life, of reverence before the 
 majesty of God. " I will give them one heart 
 and one way, that they may fear Me for ever;
 
 144 THE SHOFAR 
 
 for the good of them and their children after 
 them." Not a fear that makes us shrink, but a 
 fear that makes us serious ; the fear of the Lord 
 which is the beginning of wisdom for us and for 
 our children after us.
 
 XXI 
 
 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 
 
 Feasts in the Middle Ages wore a strong family 
 likeness to one another. The forms of enjoy- 
 ment were few, and taste was forced into a 
 Hmited number of channels. But there was 
 some differentiation. There were three ele- 
 ments in joy, each of which had a local habi- 
 tation of its own : in the synagogue, in the 
 public hall, and in the home. The three were 
 always associated, but all the features were not 
 equally pronounced. Each of the minor feasts 
 chose one element as its characteristic. The 
 Rejoicing of the Law was a synagogue function, 
 Purim filled the streets and the Communal Hall, 
 Hanucah held the home as its peculiar scene. 
 
 Women made holiday on the Feast of Light, 
 some for eight days, some — who regarded a 
 week's holiday as an unpardonable excess — only 
 rested on the first and the last days of the 
 feast, but all ceased their usual occupations at 
 eventide, while the lights were burning. At 
 an earlier period the illuminations were more 
 public. I am not alluding merely to the illu- 
 mination in synagogue, which has remained a 
 never interrupted rite. But in the Middle 
 
 145 K
 
 146 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 
 
 Ages, when Jews lived in special quarters of 
 the town, the lamps were often set outside the 
 doors or at the windows. In Venice the Jews 
 would embark on gondolas and row through 
 their district, greeting each illuminated house 
 with a benediction and a merry Hebrew chorus. 
 Venice and its bridges were an eternal source 
 both of fun and of trial. For the " Cohanim " 
 were placed in a sorry plight when a death 
 occurred. The bridges joined the whole Jewish 
 quarter, and it was held by many that the 
 presence of a corpse in any one house " defiled " 
 all houses. Hence the " Priests " were forced 
 to pass many a night in the open air, in snow 
 or rain, spanning Venice with a dolorous " Bridge 
 of Sighs." 
 
 But it early became the rule to reserve the 
 Hanucah lights for the interior of the house. 
 We can easily see that an external lamp would 
 invite extinction. The Gaonim already felt it 
 necessary to permit Jews to forego the duty of 
 " publishing the miracle " and light their rooms 
 rather than their streets. Nay, the practice 
 may be traced even further back, to early 
 Roman days. It is obvious that this trans- 
 ference helped to make Hanucah a domestic 
 celebration. But it led to a further develop- 
 ment of great interest in the history of Art. 
 Illumination was common to many medieval 
 ceremonies. By the beginning of the fourteenth 
 century, Jews had acquired the habit of placing 
 family candles in the synagogue, in memory of
 
 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 147 
 
 the dead, on the Day of Atonement. On every 
 festival it was customary in some parts to bear 
 a huge torch in front of the Scroll of the Law. 
 There were, further, societies of young men who 
 devoted themselves to illuminating the syna- 
 gogue on all appropriate occasions. Or, again, 
 in Germany, in the fourteenth century, at a 
 Berith Milah, candles were always lit. Maharil 
 tells us of a case of the initiation of twin boys 
 in Mayonce, on which occasion " they lit twenty- 
 four small candles and two great ones," which, 
 he adds, " were double the usual number." 
 
 Naturally the feast of Hanucah had distinc- 
 tive traits, but the prevalence of illumination 
 at other times helped to spur on the medieval 
 Jews to give the Hanucah lights a special prestige. 
 If the date given in the Strauss Catalogue be 
 accurate, then as early as the twelfth century 
 goldsmiths applied their nascent feeling for art 
 to the construction of ornate Hanucah lamps. 
 One of that date seems to have been found at 
 Lyons in the excavations of the old Jewish 
 quarter. The metal used is bronze, and the 
 shape of the lamp is triangular, like the fronton 
 of the Roman Church. On this the lamps lie 
 flat, but it was more usual, until the eighteenth 
 century, to construct the lamp with eight up- 
 right stems or branches, with another extra 
 stem to bear the " Shamash " or attendant liirht. 
 It may be well to remind readers of the pur- 
 pose served by this extra candle or oil-flame. 
 Fu-st, it was there to serve as the " lighter," and
 
 148 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 
 
 thus obviate the necessity of kindling one hght 
 from another, an act forbidden by some ancient 
 authorities. But its chief function was to pro- 
 vide a light that might be "used." If the 
 illumination was indoors, it would scarcely be 
 possible that the family should refrain from 
 seeing, and perchance reading, by the aid of 
 the Hanucah lamps. Yet this was opposed to 
 the ritual law. Hence, the "Shamash" was 
 placed higher than the rest of the lights, or 
 in a conspicuous position at the side, certainly 
 not in the same line. This gave a fresh oppor- 
 tunity to the artist. In another of the Strauss 
 specimens, the lamp, standing on lions and bear- 
 ing the figures of heroes and many symbolical 
 devices, is surmounted by Judas the Maccabee; 
 in his right hand he holds a sword, and in his 
 left he bears the head of the vanquished Lysias. 
 Copper, gold, silver, bronze, were all employed 
 in these lamps. The Renaissance clearly had 
 some influence on Jewish taste. For, besides 
 the usual Hebraic emblems, such as the two 
 tables of stone, cherubs, several architectural 
 reminiscences of the Temple, vines and bells, 
 flowers and pomegranates, lions and eagles, the 
 widow's cruse of oil, the seven-branched cande- 
 labrum, all for the most part in relief — besides 
 these and the favourite grotesques beloved of 
 Jewish art, there is an occasional specimen of 
 an altogether different kind. One of the Strauss 
 lamps boars classical mythological emblems, the 
 centre being adorned with a Medusa head!
 
 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 149 
 
 Surely, the Renaissance penetrated fitfully even 
 into the Ghettos. 
 
 Such costly works of art were not, as might 
 he thouglit, the rare property of the rich. That 
 they were common is clear from the very large 
 number of extant specimens in various collec- 
 tions. Moreover, as the domesticity of Hanucah 
 grew, the lamp became a prized ornament of 
 many homes. An early eighteenth - century 
 authority, who is the spokesman of the ordinary 
 middle-class Jew of his day, insists that every 
 one should possess a silver Hanucah lamp, or 
 at least the " Shamash " .should be of precious 
 metal. Of course, the very poor must have 
 contented themselves with loss expensive ware. 
 Some, indeed, used egg-shells, perhaps because 
 of the mention of egg-shells in the Mishnah 
 dealing with the Sabbath lamp, or in memory 
 of the eight eggs which a Rabbi flung into the 
 air on the feast of the "Water-drawing" at 
 Tabernacles. Although a distinction was drawn 
 between the biblical and the post-biblical feasts, 
 still Jews transferred the customs of one class 
 to the other. At first, indeed, Hanucah was 
 observed exactly like Tabernacles. The Second 
 Book of the Maccabees tells us that, on Han- 
 ucah, booths were built and palm-branches 
 borne, the Hallel was sung, and in other respects, 
 such as the Reading of the Law, the parallel 
 was, and is still, maintained. So, too, in the 
 choice of haftaras for the feast, the idea is 
 uppermost that Hanucah, like Tabernacles, was
 
 150 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 
 
 a " Period of Joy." Some modern Jews are 
 indignant that in the formula for lighting the 
 Hanucah lamps, a phrase is used implying that 
 "God commanded" the illumination of Jewish 
 houses at the Maccabean festival. A medieval 
 Italian Rabbi was once asked the same question. 
 His answer shows that a good deal of common 
 sense lies in the responses of Talmudists. " I 
 notice," he said, "that an order has just been 
 issued by His Grace the Duhe ; but the Duke did 
 not issue it at all." It may safely be said that 
 those JeAvs who can see a divine authority for 
 Purim and only a human sanction for Hanucah 
 are suffering from a serious attack of spiritual 
 twist. 
 
 The social concomitants of the Feast of Lights 
 were, like the feast itself, entirely domestic. 
 Even the special foods show this. Cheese and 
 milk foods predominated, for Judith, whose 
 truculent heroism was associated with Hanucah, 
 had, in the Jewish version of the tale, carried 
 cheese in her wallet when on her perilous visit 
 to Holofernes. Other foods were garlic, and a 
 kind of stew called in the Orient Ssflng, re- 
 stricted to the first day. The evening meal 
 took place while the lights brightened the home, 
 or soon after the allotted half-hour had elapsed. 
 Spirited hymns and table songs were specially 
 written, among others by Ibn Ezra himself, for 
 the occasion. The father then assembled his 
 children and told them the story of the Macca- 
 bean struggle. Drinking was rare, but an extra
 
 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 151 
 
 glass was neither forbidden nor rejected. The 
 hymns were most prolonged on the eighth night, 
 for the children were encouraged to save up 
 the unburnt remnants of oil from night to 
 night and make a long holocaust on the final 
 evening, while psalms and songs resounded. 
 These songs had their special Hanucah tunes in 
 the eighteenth century, and no doubt the home 
 tended greatly to foster that Chazanuth which 
 we wrongly identify entirely with the syna- 
 gogue. Every one remembers how Bernstein, in 
 his charming novel, Vdgcle der Maggid, repre- 
 sents Golde as repeating at home all the 
 Chazan's trills and twirls. The home, too, re- 
 placed in a sense the synagogue on Hanucah 
 in another function. As I have shown else- 
 where, house to house begging was discouraged 
 by the medieval Jews. But at Hanucah the 
 practice was allowed, for the feast was a domestic 
 rite in which the poor might participate by 
 going round collecting doles from every house- 
 hold. Of course, Hanucah too was the time 
 for giving presents to teachers : it is even prob- 
 able that their chief income was derived from 
 the Hanucah gifts. I say little here about the 
 synagogue rites on Hanucah, for they are the 
 same now as in the past. But as Hanucah was 
 essentially a woman's feast, certain other points 
 must be added. This was a favourite period 
 for the exchange of gifts between the father of 
 a betrothed maiden and the bridegroom elect. 
 I think it may be worth while, as showing
 
 152 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 
 
 several things, among them the licence allowed 
 to women on Hanucah, to quote the 13 th 
 Article of the Statutes of the Jewish congrega- 
 tion at Avignon. The following regulation is 
 dated 1779: — 
 
 " Women and servants shall not carry nor ac- 
 company to the door of the men's synagogue 
 children under the age of four years old, except 
 at the moment of the sale of the Mitsvoth. In 
 the latter case, the said children shall be made 
 to quit immediately before the reading of the 
 Pentateuch ; but they may again come in to 
 join the procession when the Scroll is taken 
 back to the Ark. They may also come during 
 the Blessings of the Cohanim. Should any child 
 be brought in at any other time by women, the 
 father of the child shall pay a fine of 20 livres. 
 Nevertheless, women may enter the synagogue on all 
 the eight nights of Hanucah." 
 
 The other amusements of the feast were all 
 domestic in essence. There were no dramas 
 for Hanucah until very modern times, and these 
 later Hanucah plays do not emanate from 
 Russia, but from Germany and, strange to tell, 
 from America, Acting has only recently be- 
 come a home pastime. With the Jew, his 
 performances of plays were in the Communal 
 Hall on Purim and at weddings, not in the 
 home. Hence, I take it, the absence of dramas 
 from the Hanucah delights. Riddles, acrostics, 
 arithmetical puzzles, gematrias, extravagant 
 enigmas called Ketowes, to which the number
 
 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 153 
 
 forty-four — the total of the lights burned during 
 the whole eight days — was the answer, these 
 and similar mild joys reveal that the keynote 
 of the feast Avas domestic calm and family 
 quietude. In the fifteenth century, however, the 
 game of cards invaded the home, and almost 
 superseded all other amusements with Jews as 
 it did with Christians. In many communal 
 enactments forbidding the fascinating game as 
 an ordinary thing, Hanucah was almost invari- 
 ably placed among the permitted times. A 
 curious extension was given to this licence in 
 the eighteenth century, for many argued that the 
 freedom to play cards on Hanucah endured for 
 eight working days, and that the two Sabbaths 
 which sometimes intervene must be deducted. 
 The addition of two days was made every year, 
 even when there was but a single Sabbath 
 during the feast. Schudt tells us that the chief 
 Hanucah card games were loo and a I'omhre. 
 He adds that many Christians were scandalised 
 at this card-playing, as Hanucah often comes near 
 Christmas, just as Purim, the other card-playing 
 period, coincided roughly with the Passion. In 
 England this objection would not have been felt, 
 for at the University of Cambridge the students 
 in Milton's time were expressly permitted to play 
 cards on Christmas. Jews, in point of fact, were 
 often very deferential to Christmas. They sent 
 presents to Christian friends on that festival, 
 and, a generation ago, the Smyrna Jews went on 
 Christmas day to church to escort a popular
 
 154 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 
 
 Consul. Far earlier, two centuries back, in 
 Venice, Jews visited their Gentile friends at 
 Christmas and sang and played with them to 
 help them to make merry. 
 
 Though cards tended to monopoHse the fair 
 field of recreation, two other games have held their 
 own on Hanucah. With one, the arithmetical 
 riddles, or Ketowes, I have already dealt. The 
 other was the Teetotum., or Trendel, as it is 
 called abroad. With what delight did Dukes (then 
 in London) write to Leopold Low at Szegedin, 
 under the date September, 1864: "I have seen 
 a toy in London called a Teetotum. It is ex- 
 actly like a Hanucah Trendel, with English 
 letters instead of Hebrew on it. But why it is 
 called by its peculiar name no one can tell me." 
 Of course, the name comes from the letter T, which 
 is inscribed on one of the four sides of the 
 toy : thus " T Totum," or T, takes all This re- 
 minds me of the noted Latin epigram, addressed 
 by the boy to the twirling Teetotum : " Te totum 
 amo, amo te, Teetotum." 
 
 It is a very ancient game, known to the 
 Greeks and Romans. But why was it specially 
 favoured on Hanucah? No answer has ever 
 been given to this natural question. It may 
 be that the Teetotum was regarded as a very 
 innocent form of gambling, if that be not alto- 
 gether too harsh a word to use. Many pious 
 people never played cards or any other game of 
 chance, but they may have felt that so simple a 
 game as this was lawful enough. But I can now
 
 HANUCAH IN OLDEN TIMES 155 
 
 supplement this with a new suggestion. The 
 Teetotum is still in parts of Ireland the chief 
 indoor recreation of the peasantry at Christmas- 
 tide. Now it is well known that such games 
 seldom change their seasons. I should not 
 wonder if the Teetotum was a favourite toy else- 
 where at Christmas. If so, the Jews may have 
 transferred it to Hanucah. For they never in- 
 vented their own games, except those of the 
 intellectual species, such as Hanucah Ketoives. 
 The Ketowts even gave rise to a folk proverb : 
 " Zechus Owes, Kein Ketowes," i.e., I suppose, the 
 merit of the fathers is not the solution of life's 
 riddle. Indeed, the moral of Hanucah is, after 
 all, that Judaism must rely on present effort by 
 the children as well as on the past merits of 
 their sires, if it is to remain in any true sense 
 a " Feast of Light."
 
 XXII 
 
 THE HALLEL 
 
 Driven from Russia by a local outbreak of in- 
 tolerance, a certain Jew arrived in London just 
 before the Passover of 1840. A scholar of the 
 old-fashioned type, he also belonged to a branch 
 of the Chassidim, whose Judaism is tinged with 
 emotion, though it is not necessarily based (as 
 is sometimes supposed) on ignorance. Our immi- 
 grant, who afterwards attained to a position of 
 some eminence in the Anglo- Jewish community, 
 inquired into the rituals prevalent in the various 
 London synagogues, and found only one (Bevis 
 Marks) in which the Hallel (Psalms cxiii.-cxviii.) 
 figured as part of the service for the Passover 
 eve. The Hallel was for him a significant factor 
 in the religious life. Hence he attached himself 
 to the above-named Scphardic congregation with- 
 out hesitation and with what proved lifelong 
 loyalty. 
 
 The Hallel has, no doubt, associations with the 
 Passover. The group of six Psalms which com- 
 pose it is known in Rabbinical sources as " the 
 Egyptian Hallel." The second Psalm of the 
 group (Psalm cxiv.) — " an exquisite little poem 
 ... for perfection of form and dramatic vivid-
 
 THE HALLEL 157 
 
 ness almost if not quite unrivalled in the Psalter " 
 (Kirkpatrick) — presents the great memory of* the 
 Exodus from Egypt, and uses it not as a memory 
 but as an encouragement. 
 
 " When Israel went out of Egypt, 
 The house of Jacob from a people of strange 
 
 tongue, 
 Judah became His sanctuary, 
 And Israel His dominion. 
 
 The sea saw, and fled : 
 The Jordan turned backwards. 
 The mountains skipped like rams, 
 The little hills like lambs." 
 
 Then with that poetic vision in which present 
 and past are interwoven, the Psalmist asks : — 
 
 " What aileth thee, thou sea, that thou fleest 1 
 Thou Jordan, that thou turnest back ? 
 Ye mountains, that ye skip like rams ? 
 Ye little hills like young sheep ? " 
 
 The answer to these rhetorical questions displays 
 inimitable art. God's wondrous deeds in the 
 past are made the prelude to the author's sense 
 of the same divine mercy in the present. Hence 
 the answer is no longer a direct reference to 
 history. Earth feels God's presence now as 
 then ; earth, whose " stubborn elements " are 
 transformed now as then into means of suste- 
 nance and salvation. 
 
 " Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, 
 At the presence of the God of Jacob ; 
 Who turneth the rock into a jiool of water, 
 The flint into a springing well."
 
 158 THE HALLEL 
 
 The providence which we recognise is this con- 
 tinuous providence ; the miracles that move us 
 are those marvels of a far-off time which, as the 
 Synagogue liturgy beautifully puts it, " renew 
 themselves day by day." When the "special 
 providence" passes over into the general, the 
 perennial God is in His heaven and all is right 
 with the world. 
 
 This idea, which most modern expositors read 
 into the structure of the Psalm, was also read into 
 it by the Rabbis. " Reading into " a biblical 
 passage is sometimes fraught with mischief ; here, 
 however, the result is all gain. Why did Israel 
 leave Egypt ? asks the Rabbi ; and thinking of 
 the first lines of the quotation made above, he 
 answers. For the sake of the Law which Israel 
 was destined to receive. There is a chain binding 
 events. So, with more daring, the latter Psalms 
 in the group were interpreted by some Rabbis of 
 the future Redemption, of the Messianic age. In 
 Psalm cxv. we have a rather gloomy picture 
 of the grave, of Sheol, the underworld, here 
 termed " silence " ; where " the dead praise not 
 God, nor any that go down into silence." It is 
 extraordinary how blind we are to the greatness 
 of the Psalter. It is (or ought to be) easy 
 enough for us to realise the possibility of the 
 soul's communion with God when it is a common- 
 place of our Judaism to regard the soul as an 
 immortal emanation from the divine soul. But to 
 arrive at such a possibility while holding human 
 life as temporary and mortal — the human soul
 
 THE HALLEL 159 
 
 living out its full life in bodily coils — here was a 
 grand effort of spiritual force to which what 
 other name can wo give than inspiration ? When 
 this Psalm was written, in the second century 
 B.C., Israel was in the throes of a great transfor- 
 mation. The immortality of the soul was a 
 doctrine which was just finding acceptance in 
 Judaism under Hellenic influence. But the idea 
 was so compatible with Judaism, was so spirit of 
 its spirit, that once adopted it was indissolubly 
 bound up with the faith. It is possible that we 
 witness the very transition in the Hallel itself. 
 Contrasted with the " silence " of Sheol of Psalm 
 cxv., it it hard to resist the suggestion that in 
 Psalm cxvi. the sacred singer has in his mind 
 the life which ends not in Sheol, but begins 
 there. 
 
 " Return unto thy rest, my soul ! 
 For the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee. 
 
 For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, 
 Mine eyes from tears, my soul from death. 
 
 I will walk before the Lord, 
 In tlie land of the living." 
 
 To interpret thus is perhaps to " read in " what is 
 not there ; to interpret otherwise may be to 
 " read out " what is there. 
 
 Mention has been made of the structure of the 
 Hallel, and something more must be said on the 
 subject. For just as the first Psalms of the 
 group point to thanksgiving, so does the last of 
 the six. Psalm cxviii. is the very chmax of
 
 160 THE HALLEL 
 
 jubilant praise. Based on an old refrain, as old 
 as the heart and voice of Judaism, 
 
 " give thanks to the Lord, for he is good : 
 For His lovingkindness endureth for ever," 
 
 the Psalm calls upon assembled Israel, laymen 
 and priests, to pour forth their joyous praise. 
 It is clearly a Dedication hymn ; we can hear the 
 procession moving on its way to the restored, re- 
 consecrated Temple. Solos by the leader, refrains 
 by responsive choirs, some stanzas thrown anti- 
 phonally from those within to those without the 
 sacred precincts, until the gates of righteousness 
 are opened and the godly host enters. Every 
 line, every phrase, has its associations stirring or 
 pathetic. To read it is a liberal education in 
 religion ; to read it as it should be, and happily 
 is read, in the Synagogue, is religion itself. For 
 the Temple has not been reached by a primrose 
 path of dalliance. Israel has been through the 
 valley. Humiliation, strife, a terrible conflict, 
 have preceded victory. Martyrs have fallen, but 
 " Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of 
 His saints " — a text which has enabled many a 
 hero to die for an ideal, fearless of man when 
 God was on his side. 
 
 " I called upon the Lord in straits, 
 The Lord answered me with enlargement. 
 The Lord is on my side ; I will not fear : 
 What can man do unto me ? " 
 
 Here speaks the Jewish soldier, the Maccabean 
 warrior, with high praises of God in his mouth
 
 THE HALLEL 161 
 
 and a two-odged sword in his hand, stern to win 
 the fight, and reluctant to claim the glory of it, 
 sinking self in the cause, man in God. 
 
 " Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, 
 But unto Thy name f,'ive glory, 
 For the sake of Thy love and Thy truth." 
 
 It is very probable that this whole 118th Psalm 
 is Maccabean in date. It certainly echoes the 
 ideals of that heroic age ; reproduces its fierce 
 energy, its lowly trust. " God is Lord, and hath 
 given us light," may even point to the Hanucah 
 illuminations. But it is not on small points 
 such as this that one rests the belief in the 
 Maccabean origin of the Psalm. " It breathes 
 the very spirit of Judas, the hero, even as it 
 celebrates his dedication of the purified Temple : 
 that is the ' Day which the Lord hath made,' 
 and Israel is the ' corner-stone ' " (Montefiore). 
 
 When Judas Maccabeus rededicated the Temple, 
 we are told, the Jews celebrated a feast after the 
 model of Tabernacles. The connection between 
 the Hallel and Tabernacles is quite obvious, as 
 has been incidentally shown in some of the 
 earlier of these " Studies." From the Hallel 
 were derived the " Hosannas," the festal cry with 
 which the priests encircled the place of burnt- 
 offering as they bound the sacrifice with cords, 
 even unto the horns of the altar. And year by 
 year, as the Feast of Ingathering comes round, 
 and the autumn harvest has fulfilled the hopes of 
 spring ; when the fruition of Tabernacles has 
 
 L
 
 162 THE HALLEL 
 
 followed the promise of the Passover ; when, 
 after a long-drawn-out struggle with the lower 
 self in the solemn penitential period, the higher 
 self has by God's grace prevailed, the Hallel 
 sounding the whole gamut of trust and despair, 
 dejection and triumph, agony and release, with 
 praise running through the whole, retells to Israel 
 the story of his chequered national life, rejected 
 by the builders yet become the corner-stone of 
 God's house, taunted as a people God-forsaken 
 yet secure in God's love, drinking the dregs of 
 affliction yet bearing the cup of salvation to 
 his lips. 
 
 " Israel, trust thou in the Lord ! 
 (He is their help and their shield.) 
 
 house of Aaron, trust in the Lord ! 
 (He is their help and their shield.) 
 
 Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord ! 
 (He is their help and their shield.)" 
 
 "The Lord hath been mindful of us : he will bless us ; 
 He will bless the house of Israel ; 
 He will bless the house of Aaron. 
 He will bless them that fear the Lord, 
 Both great and small." 
 
 A national history, yet more than national. For 
 with Israel and Aaron's house " those who fear 
 the Lord " are associated. " Those who fear the 
 Lord " are, as many moderns, following the Rabbis, 
 hold, none else than the proselytes to Judaism. 
 And so in the midst of the Hallel rings out
 
 THE HALLEL 163 
 
 the 117th Psalm, a Psahii which transcends 
 nationahty and absorbs within its scope the 
 whole of mankind. 
 
 "0 praise the Lord, all ye nations ; 
 Laud Him, all ye peoples ; 
 For His kindness is mighty over us, 
 And His truth endureth for ever. 
 Praise ye the Lord." 
 
 " The shortest of the Psalms," as Dr. Kirkpatrick 
 well puts it, " is one of the grandest. Its invita- 
 tion to all nations to join in praising the Lord 
 for His goodness to Israel is virtually a recogni- 
 tion that the ultimate object of Israel's calling 
 was the salvation of the world." When Israel 
 truly recognises this, the Hallel will again re- 
 ceive its antiphonal setting, Israel leading the 
 song, with the world as answering chorus. The 
 ministering angels, say the Rabbis, desired to 
 sing Hallel to God when the Egyptians were 
 overwhelmed at the Red Sea. But God refused. 
 " Shall ye sing praises unto Me, while My children 
 are sinking in the sea ? " Israel can sing no 
 true Hallel while its mission to God's other 
 children is ignored or even belittled. 
 
 Nor is this world-embracing idea restricted to 
 the 117th Psalm. The Hallel opens with the 
 thought. Psalm cxiii. summons the servants of 
 the Lord to praise His name, which is blessed 
 from the rising of the sun to the going down 
 thereof. One cannot fail to recall the similar 
 phrase in Malachi (i. 11): "For, from the rising
 
 164 THE HALLEL 
 
 of the Sim even to the going down of the same, 
 My name is great among the Gentiles ; and in 
 every place incense is offered to My name and a 
 pure offering ; for My name is great among the 
 Gentiles, saith the Lord." In Malachi there is a 
 deep and biting sarcasm in the thought ; for the 
 Israel of his day is perfunctory and even con- 
 temptuously indifferent, while the rest of the 
 world, with varying rituals and creeds, is in 
 essence true and loyal to God. But in the 
 Hallel there is no sarcasm ; the nations are 
 bidden to praise, but Israel, the servant of God, 
 leads. Psalm cxiii. opens : — 
 
 " Praise ye the Lord. 
 Praise, ye servants of the Lord. 
 Praise the name of the Lord." 
 
 And in Psalm cxvi. comes Israel's loyal accept- 
 ance of this honourable servitude : — 
 
 " O Lord, truly I am Thy servant : 
 I am Thy servant, the son of Thine handmaid : 
 Thou hast loosed my bonds. 
 I will offer to Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, 
 And will call upon the name of the Lord. 
 I will pay my vows unto the Lord, 
 Yea in the presence of all His people ; 
 In the courts of the Jjord's house, 
 In the midst of thee, Jerusalem. 
 Hallelujah!" 
 
 All this is in Psalm cxvi. the answer to the 
 question : " What shall I render unto the Lord 
 for all His benefits towards me ? " All His
 
 THE HALLEL 165 
 
 benefits: for as Psalm cxiii. so finely puts it, 
 God is in heaven yet condescends to think 
 of man. 
 
 " The Lord is high above all nations, 
 And His glory al)ove the heavens. 
 
 Who is like unto the Lord our God, 
 
 That hath His seat on high, 
 
 Yet humbleth Himself to behold 
 
 The things that are in heaven and earth. 
 
 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, 
 
 And lifteth up the needy from the dunghill ; 
 
 That He may set him with princes, 
 
 Even with the princes of His people. 
 
 He maketh the barren woman to keep house, 
 
 A joyful mother of children. 
 
 Hallelujah ! " 
 
 Israel's God is transcendent. He is not to be 
 measured by man's fiuitude. But though trans- 
 cendent, high above earth and man, He is not 
 far off. Outside the world, He is also in it. 
 He loves to intervene in human affairs. He con- 
 descends to interest Himself in man's concerns. 
 To this qualification of the transcendental view of 
 the divine nature we shall return in the chapter 
 on " Adon Olara." 
 
 And it is this divine sympathy with humanity 
 that prompts man's praise of the Highest. The 
 Jew singing the Hallel, to melodies varying with 
 the festival but with unvarying zest and sincerity, 
 thinks of God in this twofold aspect of aloofness 
 and proximity, but chiefly of him in the latter 
 aspect. And so our Ru.ssian immigrant loved
 
 166 THE HALLEL 
 
 the Hallel. He could not spare it from the 
 Passover eve. He had suffered, God had saved 
 him. He could not but praise. All sacrifices 
 shall cease in the world to come, said the Rabbi ; 
 but, he added, the sacrifice of thanksgiving shall 
 endure for ever and ever. Hallelujah !
 
 XXIII 
 
 THE FOUR SONS 
 
 The Episode of the Four Sons stands out, even 
 amid the many felicities of the Passover Seder, 
 as a supremely happy instance of insight into 
 human nature. The Law, we are told, speaks 
 of four types of children : the Wise, the Wicked, 
 the Simple, and the Son Who Cannot Ask. 
 Three of the four are questioners, only one is 
 dumb. Is not this the right proportion ? Man 
 has been defined as this animal or that — 
 certainly three-fourths of man is a questioning 
 animal. The three sons who ask in varying 
 phraseology questions concerning the Passover, 
 represent all the inquisitive phases of the 
 human intellect. But only one of the three — 
 the " simple son " — asks his question without bias 
 or motive. A full half of us aro wanting in this 
 single-hearted directness. A motive lies behind 
 our questions, whether it be a good or an evil 
 motive. The distinction between the wise son 
 and the wicked does not lie in their questions, 
 but in their ultimate aims. The wise son has 
 the truer philosophy, for his question — " What 
 is this Passover for iis?" — leads him not from 
 but to his kind. The wicked — with his cynical
 
 168 THE FOUR SONS 
 
 question, " What is all this for you ? " — demands 
 of life its secrets ; he would pluck out its mystery 
 in order to tell us in the end that he stands out- 
 side our petty joys and pains. He is wicked, 
 not because he scoffs or doubts, but because 
 in the struggle in which he might bear a hand 
 he stands outside. 
 
 This was partly the reason, I should think, 
 why, in most of the illustrated copies of the 
 Passover Haggadah, the wicked son is depicted 
 as a soldier, armed with deadly weapons. In 
 the Middle Ages the Jews had a bad opinion of 
 militarism, an opinion derived from bitter ex- 
 perience. The soldier was the foe of society, 
 not its friend. The wise son, naturally enough, 
 wears a sedate beard, and holds himself like a 
 serious sage in ample academic robes. The 
 simple son stands in a careless attitude supported 
 by a shepherd's staff, the voiceless son holds 
 his hands in the air. 
 
 The source of this whole Episode of the Four 
 Sons is the Midrash (Mechilta) and the Talmud 
 (Palestinian). In the Bible four expressions are 
 used with regard to the duty of narrating the 
 story of the departure from Egypt. These are : 
 Deuteronomy vi. 20 ; Exodus xii. 26 ; Exodus 
 xiii. 14; Exodus xiii. 8. These passages, as the 
 Midrash saw, fit roughly the four characters, but 
 much ingenuity has been wasted in explaining 
 the details. (For those who are interested in 
 the matter, it will suffice to say that the key 
 to the chief difficulty is found in the fact that
 
 THE FOUR SONS 169 
 
 the Jerusalem Talmud read us for yoic in Deut. 
 vi. 20 ; this reading is found in many of the 
 oldest MSS. of the Haggadah.) I do not pro- 
 pose to discuss these details, but one point has 
 somehow been missed by most commentators. 
 It will be observed that, in replying to the 
 wicked son and to the son who does not know 
 hoAv to ask, the self-same text is quoted. Why 
 is this ? Are the wicked and dumb on a level ? 
 The Kolbo rej)lies in the affirmative, for he who 
 knows not how to ask, who is so indifferent that 
 his curiosity remains dormant when he sees the 
 table prepared for the Passover service, such a 
 one does not belong to the class for whom God 
 would work a miracle like the redemption from 
 Egypt. There is a deep truth here, and it is 
 a fine rebuke to those who decry intellectual 
 curiosity. The Kolbo would tell us that theirs 
 is the sin, if the young are so dead to the call 
 of religion that they have no impulse to ask a 
 question about it. 
 
 Educationists have often remarked on the 
 change which comes over a child between, say, 
 its eighth and fifteenth years. At first, the child 
 is always asking questions ; later on he asks far 
 fewer, lastly he asks none. Why ? Because 
 while the child can and will ask, the parent 
 cannot or will not answer. It is the first step 
 that costs. It is the greatest possible mistake 
 to repress questions, to put the child off with 
 " Wait till you are older." You thus stunt the 
 natural growth of an inquiring mind. The young
 
 170 THE FOUR SONS 
 
 child asks all sorts of questions about God and 
 the Bible, and many parents give either answers 
 that they know to be false, or give no answers 
 at all. Hence the phenomenon of the deadly 
 transformation of childish curiosity into adult in- 
 difference ; the boy asks, the lad no longer cares. 
 
 The Passover Haggadah ought to teach Jewish 
 parents a wiser policy. If there is one fact 
 generally understood regarding the Passover 
 Home Service, it is that the child has a special 
 part and right in it. Possibly the very title of 
 the service is derived from the Four Sons. The 
 name Haggadah, or narrative, perhaps originated 
 in a text (quoted above), in which is formulated 
 the duty of telling the child the story of the 
 Redemption: "And thou shalt tell (higgadta) 
 thy son in that day. saying, It is because of 
 that which the Lord did for me when I came 
 forth out of Egypt " (Exod. xiii. 8.) Admittedly, 
 the term Haggadah may, in the present case, be 
 only a particular use of the word in its ordinary 
 meaning of exposition or narration of the Scrip- 
 tures. The body of the Passover Haggadah is an 
 exposition of certain texts from Deuteronomy xxvi. 
 Moreover the term Haggadah is not applied to 
 the Passover service in the Mishnah, but is only 
 so used in the Babylonian Talmud. Still, the 
 connection between the title and the text just 
 cited is too close to be ignored, and one may rest 
 firm in the belief that the child gave the name 
 to the rite of which he is the hero. 
 
 We scarcely maintain in modern times the
 
 THE FOUR SONS 171 
 
 prominence due to the child on the Passover 
 night. In the first place, so far as England 
 is concerned, the child is hardly ever allowed 
 his old privilege of asking his questions in the 
 vernacular. The painful recitation of a set 
 paragraph in difficult and archaic Hebrew does 
 not arouse that vivid, real interest which would 
 be produced by encouraging the child to put 
 a few simple questions spontaneously in the 
 child's mother tongue. It is unnecessary to 
 enter historically into the point ; it is unnecessary 
 to explain how, in the medieval French rite as 
 used also in the then French-speaking Anglo- 
 Jewry, the first paragraphs of the Haggadah were 
 translated into French. Nor need I recall the 
 passage in the Maharil, which informs us that 
 in the early fifteenth century the children of 
 the Rhinelands used German in the Passover 
 Haggadah, not only without rebuke but even 
 with warm approval. One modern fact is worth 
 a library of historical allusions. In Jerusalem I 
 observed that the Arabic-speaking Yemenite Jews 
 made their children ask their questions in Arabic, 
 and I have since bought a copy of their Haggadah 
 (printed in Jerusalem) in which the only Arabic 
 part of the book is a shortened summary of 
 the child's questions and the father's answers (a 
 dozen lines in all), and this part is printed in 
 far larger letters than the rest. It is very signi- 
 ficant that in this Yemenite prayer book we 
 are quite clearly informed that : " It is iisual for 
 the child to ask in Arabic."
 
 172 THE FOUR SONS 
 
 Such wisdom seems beyond us in modern 
 England. And we commit another folly. The 
 ancient prescriptions are full of directions against 
 delay in beginning the Haggadah. The table 
 must be set by day, so that the Seder can begin 
 directly night falls, and so forth. All this was 
 for the benefit of the children. In England, as 
 in foreign parts, we are far too late in beginning 
 the Haggadah. The children are always asleep 
 before the end because of this tardiness, and also 
 because we (in common with foreign Jews) have 
 changed the good old Mishnaic custom in which 
 the whole Haggadah preceded supper, and was 
 not cut into two by the meal. It is altogether 
 indefensible to defer the synagogue service on 
 the second night merely in order to say the 
 Blessing of the Omer. In many editions of the 
 Haggadah the Blessing of the Omer will be 
 found. Why ? Because it is best on the Pass- 
 over night to say this Blessing at home and not 
 in the synagogue. Adults may, as of old, sit 
 up till midnight or dawn to discourse of the 
 departure from Egypt, but the Seder is for the 
 children also and first of all, and the synagogue 
 service on the Passover should on both nights 
 begin and end as early as possible. 
 
 These are not trifles; they display a pitiful 
 indifference to the child. We must make 
 Judaism once more interesting to young Israel, 
 must arouse curiosity and frankly and fully 
 satisfy it. True we must discriminate ; what is 
 suitable to one child of one age is not suitable
 
 THE FOUR SONS 173 
 
 to every child of every age. The wise son in 
 the Episode is alone he to whom the law of 
 Aphikomon is explained. The Aphikomon was 
 one of the after-dishes which followed the chief 
 dish, some dessert or bonne louche. Now, in the 
 Mishnah which treats of the Passover one of 
 the last paragraphs refers to this A2)hikomon. 
 Hence, when the parent is bidden to tell the wise 
 son about the law of Aphikornon, the meaning is 
 that nothing is to be withheld from him, he 
 must be told everything from alpha to omega. 
 Some children, no doubt, must be treated more 
 tenderly, and not introduced to the whole story 
 at one sitting. But the child, of whatever age 
 and intellect, must be allowed or made to ask, 
 and must be answered truthfully, though the 
 answer must be adapted to the child's capacity. 
 That capacity is greater than many of us think. 
 The mother who deals most faithfully with her 
 children in this respect is the least hkely to find 
 a " wicked son " in her nest. She is indeed the 
 Virtuous Woman, whose " children shall rise up 
 and call her blessed."
 
 XXIV 
 
 "ADON OLAM" 
 
 The medieval Hebrew hymn, " Aden 01am " 
 (•■' Lord of the Universe "), runs as follows in the 
 Rev. S. Singer's prose version (" Authorised 
 Daily Prayer Book," p. 3). 
 
 " He is Lord of the Universe, who reigned ere any creature 
 
 yet was formed : 
 At the time when all things were made by His desire, then 
 
 was His name proclaimed King. 
 And after all things shall have had an end, He alone, the 
 
 dreaded one, shall reign ; 
 Who was, who is, and who will be in glory. 
 And He is One, and there is no second to compare to Him, to 
 
 consort with Him : 
 Without beginning, without end : to Him belong strength 
 
 and dominion. 
 And He is my God — my Redeemer liveth— and a rock in my 
 
 travail in time of distress ; 
 And He is my banner and my refuge, the portion of my cup 
 
 on the day when I call. 
 Into His hand I commend my spirit, when I sleep and when 
 
 I wake ; 
 And with my spirit, my body also : the Lord is with me, 
 
 and I will not fear." 
 
 A great German writer said : " To understand 
 a poet you must go to the poet's land." That 
 this oft-quoted maxim is true, need not be dis- 
 
 174
 
 'ADON OLAM" 175 
 
 piited. You cannot understand the Greek 
 dramatists unless you know something of the 
 life of Athens in the fifth century B.C. You 
 miss half the moaning of Shakespeare unless you 
 are familiar with the England of Elizabeth. 
 
 So is it to a large extent with the Bible. The 
 land throws light on the Book. In some cases 
 the Book is unintelligible without a knowledge 
 of the land. Who can appreciate the message 
 of Jeremiah, unless the political situation of 
 Jeremiah's day is realised ? 
 
 Thus the maxim is true. But there is another 
 side on which it is not so true. What if the 
 poet's land be the human heart ? In that case, 
 the only historical or geographical knowledge 
 required is a knowledge of one's own heart. A 
 whole series of the poems which have most 
 moved humanity have been anonymous. There 
 are many Psalms whose authorship and date 
 are not known with precision. These Psalms 
 speak to us with the voice, not of this or that 
 poet, but with the voice of poetry itself. The 
 personality of the authors is veiled in mystery, 
 yet the Psalms touch our innermost personality. 
 
 Among the later hymns of the Synagogue. 
 written almost entirely in the Middle Ages, there 
 are many fine lyrics whose authors we know well, 
 whose names and careers are as familiar as their 
 work. In the Jewish Service Book, Ibn Gebirol 
 and Jehuda Halevi are well represented ; gifted 
 poets both, who added immortal songs to Israel's 
 golden treasury. From the Arab culture of
 
 176 "ADON OLAM" 
 
 Moorish Spain, these writers drew ornament and 
 style wherewith to re-gikrisrael's harp, tarnished 
 with disuse, yet ready to respond again to the 
 inspired artist's touch. To appreciate the genius 
 of these poets, it is useful to know their careers 
 and the conditions of their age. But the finest 
 poem added to our Kturgy since Bible times, the 
 most popular, the most commonly used, is anony- 
 mous. Research, keen and constant, has so far 
 failed to discover the author and date of the 
 hymn " Adon 01am." All that we can assert with 
 confidence is that " Adon 01am " belongs to the 
 Gaonic age, but we cannot even assign the 
 century which saw its composition. Do we feel 
 this as loss ? Nay, we can quite understand 
 " Adon 01am," despite our ignorance of its date or 
 authorship. The beauty of its form, the sim- 
 plicity of its language, the sublimity of its 
 thought, all these clearly recognisable qualities 
 are not more insistent than is the personal 
 appeal which it makes to every Jewish heart and 
 mind. It is at once elevated and tender. It pro- 
 nounces in its opening lines the lonely majesty 
 of God ; it ends off with the most human of 
 human cries. 
 
 But before we come to the internal beauties of 
 the hymn, a little more must be said of its ex- 
 ternals. The Hebrew of" Adon 01am " is metrical, 
 and every line ends with the same sound. Both 
 these features mark off the medieval from the 
 biblical Hebrew poetry. In the Bible there is 
 artistic form, rhythm, a harmonious modulation
 
 "ADON OLAM" 177 
 
 of phrases, a parallelism of lines, but there is no 
 discernible rigidity of metro, and there is certainly 
 no regular rhyme. Medieval Hebrew poetry thus 
 assumed meretricious fetters to its freedom, and 
 I venture to doubt whether the genius of the 
 Hebrew language will ever regain its full beauty 
 and power in the poetical realm so long as 
 Hebrew writers misapply to Hebrew the uncon- 
 genial restraints of rhyme and scansion. But 
 there are masterpieces which must give the critic 
 pause, for in a hymn such as " Adon 01am " rhyme 
 and metre prevail, yet no evil results; on the 
 contrary, one can detect good. For the metrical 
 form, with its regular recurrent beats, has wedded 
 " Adon 01am " to simple melody such as all can 
 sing. The tunes composed for " Adon 01am " are 
 among the happiest efforts of Jewish composers, 
 and of Jewish adaptors of other people's tunes. 
 
 Again, externally, " Adon 01am " has gained 
 enormously by a happy accident. Baer, the 
 great commentator on the Jewish liturgy, tells 
 us that he does not know how this accident 
 occurred, and he rather seems to retrret it. If 
 you will turn to page 3 of the " Authorised Daily 
 Praj'cr Book," you will see that the Hebrew of 
 " Adon 01am " contains, in the Ashkenazic version, 
 ten lines, but originally " Adon 01am " contained 
 twelve Imes, all of which are still used in the 
 Spanish and some other rites. One is tempted 
 to think that these extra lines are an inter- 
 polation, but if (as seems likely) they are 
 original, then never was there a more fortunate 
 
 li
 
 178 "ADON OLAM" 
 
 instance of maiming. The extra or omitted 
 lines belong between lines 6 and 7 of our version. 
 Here is an exact translation of the expunged 
 verses : " Without comparison, similitude, diver- 
 sity, mutation, conjunction, or divisibility, great 
 is He in power and excellency." Every one of 
 these terms is technically metaphysical, and some 
 of the corresponding Hebrew words are so late 
 that they are most probably medieval formations. 
 Heine must have been thinking of these omitted 
 lines, and of another dogmatic hymn, " Yigdal," 
 when he uttered his famous sarcasm that the 
 Jews pray in metaphysics. So wonderful, how- 
 ever, is the change effected in the whole character 
 of "Adon 01am" by the suppression of these 
 technical lines, that some will be surprised to 
 be told that " Adon 01am " is a dogmatic hymn 
 at all. Yet the main charm of " Adon 01am " lies 
 in the subtle manner in which Jewish dogmatics 
 are associated with the very simplest spiritual 
 emotions. 
 
 What are the dogmas that "Adon 01am " enun- 
 ciates ? In the first four lines we have a 
 picture of God, the eternal God, existing before 
 the creation of the world, existing still when the 
 world shall cease to be. Between the eternal 
 past and the eternal future comes the world of 
 time. Here we have purely Jewish dogmatics. 
 Aristotle held that the world was eternal, Judaism 
 held that it was created. It is God alone who 
 is eternal. Further Judaism conceives of God 
 as Something apart from His world. This, put
 
 "ADON OLAM" 179 
 
 into philosophical language, is what is meant by 
 saying that Judaism regards God as transcen- 
 dental. He transcends man and the universe, 
 God is incomparable, the mind cannot grasp or 
 define him. He is " deep, deep, beyond all fathom- 
 ing; far, far, beyond all measuring." He contains 
 space, space does not contain Him. Now, if 
 Judaism had ended there, we should, indeed, 
 have a great God, but a God so far removed from 
 humanity, so unapproachable, that an intimate 
 spiritual relation between man and His Maker 
 would be impossible. In fact, this is where 
 Mohammedanism has ended. In Mohamme- 
 danism God is so transcendental, so removed from 
 the world of man, so completely an Abstraction, 
 that communion between the human soul and 
 the divine loses much of its emotional value. 
 Mohammedanism has thus produced no psalm or 
 hymn which has been incorporated mto the 
 Western world's spiritual store. But, on the 
 other hand, the opposite extreme is equally 
 dangerous. The immanent God dwells within 
 the human soul as well as within the world. If 
 you push the transcendental theory too far, 
 God becomes an abstraction ; if you push the 
 immanent theory too far, God becomes incarnate 
 in man. 
 
 Thus, at the one extreme stands Mohamme- 
 danism, and at the other Christianity. Judaism 
 stands between. God, in the Jewish view, is at 
 once transcendental and immanent ; He is not 
 man, yet man is akin to Him : He is high above
 
 180 "ADON OLAM" 
 
 the world, yet is nigh to them that call upon 
 Him. The Law brings God to man ; prayer 
 brings man to God. The revelation of God to 
 man is the ladder by which God descends to 
 man, by which man rises to meet God as it were 
 half-way. Jewish theology is, in many respects, 
 a harmony between oppositos, and in no respect 
 is it so succossful as in its harmony between the 
 orandeur of God and the lowliness of the human 
 soul, between the Father in heaven and the child 
 on earth. To quit these difficult speculations, it 
 is almost astounding to notice the feHcitous ease 
 with which " Aden 01am," starting with a most 
 transcendental view of God, refuses to rest there, 
 but assumes a more and more immanent theory 
 as it proceeds. It is less a harmony than 
 transition. The God who stands high above 
 creation is the One into whose hand man com- 
 mits himself without fear. The Majestic King 
 is also the Redeemer. The great lone God is a 
 Refuge in man's distress. He does not merely 
 raise a banner, He is the Banner; He does not 
 only hold out the cup of salvation. He is the 
 consummate Cup. Let us now examine some 
 of the figures and phrases of " Aden 01am " more 
 closely. 
 
 God was before the world. God will be after 
 the world — yet : " At the time when all things 
 were made by His desire, then was His name 
 proclaimed King." God reigned, but was only 
 known as King when man was there to pro- 
 claim Him. God is, as it were, effectively King 
 
 a
 
 "ADON OLAM" 181 
 
 when man acknowledges His kingship. And 
 so, according to the Rabbis, the first duty of 
 the IsraeHto is to accept the Divine Kingship — 
 the duty which is fulfilled in words when the 
 worshipper on reciting " Hear, Israel, the Lord 
 our God, the Lord is One," follows this up with 
 the response: "Blessed be the name of the 
 glory of His Kingdom for ever and ever." This 
 response does not occur in the Scriptures but 
 was the form of adoration used in the Temple 
 when God's name was pronounced. But the 
 duty is only half-fulfilled by verbal homage. 
 The Jew must accept " the yoke of the kingdom " 
 in deed as well as in word. In humble obedience, 
 in eager service, in willing self-sacrifice, he must 
 manifest allegiance to his King. His life must 
 so reveal the effects of His reign over him that 
 all the world will yearn to enter His service, and 
 the Lord may in truth be King over all the 
 earth, the ultimate goal attained, and He reign- 
 ing alone supreme. It is a responsibility as 
 glorious as it is grave that " Adon 01am " implies. 
 We enthrone God when we are loyal to Him ; 
 we dethrone God when we arc faithless. As the 
 Rabbis said, if the community of Israel, fails to 
 bear the yoke of the kingdom, with its privi- 
 leges and obligations, then it profanes God's 
 name. The dignity and significance of God's 
 Kingship is lowered if they who should be the 
 first among His subjects are first among His 
 rebels. Though God reigns on despite such 
 disloyalty, the world is relegated to that primeval
 
 182 "ADON OLAM" 
 
 chaos in which God was, yet no man lived to 
 proclaim Him King. But God "dwelleth amid 
 the praises of Israel." 
 
 Then " Adon 01am " proceeds to enunciate the 
 dogma of the Divine Unity : " And He is One, 
 and there is no second to compare to Him, to 
 consort with Him: Without beginning, without 
 end : To Him belong strength and dominion." 
 The dogma of the unity, expressed in these 
 unequivocal terms, remains specifically the dis- 
 tinguishing mark of Judaism. But though " Adon 
 01am " is in this matter uncompromisingly Jewish, 
 there is nothing of particularism in the whole 
 poem. " Adon 01am " is not only one of the most 
 Jewish, it is also one of the most universalistic 
 of the medieval Hebrew hymns. " Yigdal " is a 
 dogmatic hymn, which contains articles of creed 
 which many Jews do not accept ; " Adon 01am " is 
 an expression of the Judaism of the undivided 
 house of Israel. But more than this. Though 
 thoroughly Jewish, " Adon 01am " is also human- 
 itarian. God is One, and as a corollary mankind 
 is one. In all the wealth of images by which 
 "Adon 01am" illustrates God's love and providence, 
 the appeal is never racial; it is God's children 
 that the hymn has thought for. It is note- 
 worthy that " Adon 01am " derives one of its finest 
 phrases from Job — itself, perhaps, the most uni- 
 versalistic book in the Bible. Job, in the depth 
 of his sorrow, exclaimed : " I know that my Re- 
 deemer liveth," and this phrase is taken up, in 
 a different sense, perhaps, in " Adon 01am " : "And
 
 "ADON OLAM" 183 
 
 He is my God — my Redeemer liveth — a Rock 
 in my travail in time of distress." 
 
 In understanding this figure of the Rock, one 
 must not think of the sea, for the figure is taken 
 from the hills. In Palestine the fortified places 
 are all on heights, in fact the chief cities lie on 
 hill slopes. The Rock of " Adon 01am " is such 
 a mountain-stronghold, whither the men of the 
 plains could flee for refuge from their foes. 
 Steadfast as the hills, the Divine Rock is im- 
 movable, impregnable. Then, God is also a 
 Banner, a rallying point fixed on one of these 
 mountain - heights, calling the fugitive home, 
 cheering the weak-hearted, at once an incentive 
 to courage and a symbol of safety. And these 
 figures are finely rounded off with the phrase: 
 " He is the portion of my cup whenever I call," 
 the cup of salvation, of good fortune, and happi- 
 ness, such as God holds ready, if man will but 
 ask for it, or take it from Him unasked, and set 
 it to his lips. 
 
 And now we reach the most affecting stanza 
 of all. We began with the majestic God, we 
 end with the lowly human soul, brought 
 nigh to God by simple faith in Him. " Into 
 His hand I commend my spirit, when I sleep 
 and when I wake; and with my spirit, my 
 body also: the Lord is with me and I will not 
 fear." 
 
 This concluding section of the hymn has led 
 to the suggestion that " Adon 01am " is a night 
 prayer, and it is very probable that this is the
 
 184 "ADON OLAM" 
 
 case. In some liturgies, the only occasions on 
 which " Adon 01am " is sung are certain solemn 
 evenings, such as the Eve of the Day of Atone- 
 ment. Many Jews recite "Adon 01am" every 
 night, just before retiring to rest, and the habit 
 is a very good one. So, too, "Adon Olam" is 
 the hymn used at the death-bed. The soul falls 
 asleep cheered by these words of simple faith, 
 upborne by the sure hope that the awakening 
 will be in presence of the Father. 
 
 Yes, it is a simple faith : it is also the final 
 word of religion. All other doctrines of Judaism 
 are ingredients of the religion, but they are all 
 mere handmaids to this master doctrine — this 
 simple faith of the child in God's unity, eternity, 
 and love. It is the faith of the child who goes 
 to sleep in its mother's arms. The fluttering 
 fears of the dark are soothed by its full assur- 
 ance that the mother is there. Its sense of the 
 mother's presence bridges over for the child the 
 awful chasm between consciousness and uncon- 
 sciousness. Its sense of the mother's presence 
 is its only link between night and morning. 
 What are we all but children in this respect? 
 Nay, what are we at all, unless we be as 
 children? Grown-up men and women we are 
 not, if we have lost our child-like confidence in 
 the Father's eternity and love. 
 
 " So runs my dream : but what am I? 
 An infant crying in the night ! 
 An infant crying for the light 1 
 And with no language but a cry."
 
 "ADON OLAM" 185 
 
 But why does Tennyson use the figure as an 
 expression of despair ? We can only approach 
 God with an infant-cry ? But it is just this 
 pitiful infant-cry that goes quickest to the 
 Father's heart. So men must cast off pride before 
 God ; they must go to Him, not as those who see, 
 but as those who grope ; not as those who know, 
 but as those who trust. Life is a riddle, and the 
 grave is an abyss which no philosophy can span, 
 But does not each morn give the lie to the fears 
 of yesternight ? Can we not, like the child, find 
 in the sense of the eternal presence of our loving 
 Father, the assurance of our own immortahty ? 
 Does not His eternity link with eternity our 
 fleeting days and nights ? Each morning reveals 
 that the night has passed. And when the long 
 night comes, which has no morning for us on 
 earth, shall not our simple faith make easy for 
 us the passage to that heavenly day which has 
 never a night to it ? As a fine version of the 
 last stanza of " Aden 01am " runs : — 
 
 " To Him my spirit I consign : 
 Asleep, awake, I will not fear ; 
 My body, too, I do resign ; 
 I dread no evil ; God is near." 
 
 Printed by BALLANTTur, Hanson &' Co. 
 Edinburgh d^ London
 
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