dangling apples and oranges, and the tempting grapes. And throughout
this beautiful Festival the synagogue rustled with palm branches, tied
with boughs of willows of the brook and branches of other pleasant
trees--as commanded in Leviticus--which the men waved and shook,
pointing them east and west and north and south, and then heavenwards,
and smelling also of citron kept in boxes lined with white wool. As
one could not breakfast before blessing the branches and the citron, a
man carried them round to such of the women-folk as household duties
kept at home--and indeed, home was a woman's first place, and to light
the Sabbath lamp a woman's holiest duty, and even at synagogue she sat
in a grated gallery away from the men downstairs. On the seventh day
of Tabernacles the child had a little bundle of leafy boughs styled
"Hosannas," which he whipped on the synagogue bench, his sins falling
away with the leaves that flew to the ground as he cried, "Hosanna,
save us now!" All through the night his father prayed in the
synagogue, but the child went home to bed, after a gallant struggle
with his closing eyelids, hoping not to see his headless shadow on the
stones, for that was a sign of death. But the ninth day of Tabernacles
was the best, "The Rejoicing of the Law," when the fifty-second
portion of the Pentateuch was finished and the first portion begun
immediately all over again, to show that the "rejoicing" was not
because the congregation was glad to be done with it. The man called
up to the last portion was termed "The Bridegroom of the Law," and to
the first portion "The Bridegroom of the Beginning," and they made a
wedding-feast to which everybody was invited. The boys scrambled for
sweets on the synagogue floor. The Scrolls of the Law were carried
round and round seven times, and the boys were in the procession with
flags and wax tapers in candlesticks of hollow carrots, joining
lustily in the poem with its alternative refrain of "Save us, we pray
Thee," "Prosper us, we pray Thee." So gay was the minister that he
could scarcely refrain from dancing, and certainly his voice danced as
it sang. There was no other time so gay, except it was Purim--the
feast to celebrate Queen Esther's redemption of her people from the
wicked Haman--when everybody sent presents to everybody else, and the
men wore comic masks or dressed up as women and performed little plays.
The child went about with a great false nose, and when the name of
"Haman" came up in the reading of the Book of Esther, which was intoned
in a refreshingly new way, he tapped vengefully with a little hammer or
turned the handle of a little toy that made a grinding noise. The other
feast in celebration of a Jewish redemption--Chanukah, or Dedication--was
almost as impressive, for in memory of the miracle of the oil that kept
the perpetual light burning in the Temple when Judas Maccabæus
reconquered it from the Greek gods, the Ghetto lighted candles, one on
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account