The fact that women were exempted from certain affirmative laws, which become operative only at special seasons—_e.g._, the taking of the palm branch on the Feast of Tabernacles—must also have contributed to weaken their position as a religious factor in Judaism. The idea that women should vie with men in the fulfilment of every law, became even for the Rabbis a notion connected only with the remotest past. This is the impression one gains when reading the legend about Michal, the daughter of Saul, putting on phylacteries, or the wife of the prophet Jonah making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem at the three Festivals. It would indeed seem as if women were led to strive for the satisfaction of their religious wants in another direction. Yet it was said of Jewish women, “The daughters of Israel were stringent and laid certain restrictions on themselves.” They were also allowed to form a quorum by themselves for the purpose of saying the Grace, but they could not be counted along with males for this end. It was also against the early notion of the dignity of the congregation that women should perform any public service for men. One privilege was left to women—that of weeping. In Judges xi. 40, we read of the daughters of Israel that went yearly to lament the daughter of Jephthah; while in 2 Chronicles xxxv. 25, we are told how “all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations.” Of this privilege they were not deprived, and if they were not allowed to sing any longer, they at least retained the right to weep as much as they pleased. Even in later times they held a public office as mourning women at funerals. In the Talmud fragments of compositions by women for such occasions are to be found. Indeed, woman became in these times the type of grief and sorrow. She cannot reason, but she feels much more deeply than man. Here is one instance from an old legend: Jeremiah said, “When I went up to Jerusalem (after the destruction of the Temple) I lifted my eyes and saw there a lonely woman sitting on the top of the mountain, her dress black, her hair dishevelled, crying, ‘Who will comfort me?’ I approached her and spake to her, ‘If thou art a woman, speak to me. If thou art a ghost, begone.’ She answered, ‘Dost thou not know me?... I am the Mother, Zion.’ ”