Part 14

THIS Feast of the Law all your gladness display, To-day all your homages render. What profit can lead one so pleasant a way, What jewels can vie with its splendour? Then exult in the Law on its festival day, The Law is our Light and Defender.

My God I will praise in a jubilant lay, My hope in Him never surrender, His glory proclaim where His chosen sons pray, My Rock all my trust shall engender. Then exult in the Law on its festival day, The Law is our Light and Defender.

My heart of Thy goodness shall carol alway, Thy praises I ever will render; While breath is, my lips all Thy wonders shall say, Thy truth and Thy kindness so tender. Then exult in the Law on its festival day, The Law is our Light and Defender.

FESTIVAL PRAYER BOOK. (_Trans. I. Zangwill._)

SIMCHAS TORAH

LECHAYIM,[76] my brethren, Lechayim, I say, Health, peace, and good fortune I wish you to-day. To-day we have ended the Torah once more; To-day we begin it anew, as of yore. Be thankful and glad and the Lord extol, Who gave us the Law on its parchment scroll.

The Torah has been our consolation, Our help in exile and sore privation. Lost have we all we were wont to prize: Our holy temple a ruin lies; Laid waste is the land where our songs we sung; Forgotten our language, our mother-tongue; Of kingdom and priesthood are we bereft; Our Faith is our only treasure left. God in our hearts, the Law in our hands, We have wandered sadly through many lands. We have suffered much; yet, behold, we live Through the comfort the Law alone can give.

Two thousand years, a little thing when spoken; Two thousand years tormented, crushed, and broken Seven and seventy dark generations Filled up with anguish and lamentations! Their tale of sorrow did I unfold, No _Simchas Torah_ to-day we’d hold. And why should I tell it you all again? In our bones ’tis branded with fire and pain. We have sacrificed all. We have given our wealth, Our homes, our honours, our land, our health, Our lives――like Hannah[77] her children seven―― For the sake of the Torah that came from heaven.

And now, what next? Will they let us be? Have the nations then come at last to see That we Jews are men like the rest, and no more Need we wander homeless as heretofore, Abused and slandered wherever we go? Ah! I cannot tell you. But this I know, That the same God still lives in heaven above, And on earth the same Law, the same Faith, that we love. Then fear not, and weep not, but hope in the Lord, And the sacred Torah, his Holy Word.

Lechayim, my brethren, Lechayim, I say! Health, peace, and good fortune I wish you to-day. To-day we have ended the Torah once more; To-day we begin it again, as of yore. Be thankful and glad and the Lord extol, Who gave us the Law on its parchment scroll.

J. L. GORDON. (_Trans. Alice Lucas and Helena Frank._)

THE MACCABEAN WARRIORS

They were ready either to live or die nobly.

1 MACCABEES 4. 35.

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AND King Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, and that each should forsake his own laws. And he sent letters unto Jerusalem and the cities of Judah that they should profane the sabbaths and feasts, pollute the sanctuary, and build altars and temples and shrines for idols; and whosoever shall not do according to the word of the king, he shall die. And he appointed overseers over all the people, and he commanded the cities of Judah to sacrifice, city by city. And they did evil things in the land; and they made Israel to hide themselves in every place of refuge which they had. And they rent in pieces the Books of the Law which they found, and set them on fire. And wheresoever was found with any a Book of the Covenant, and if any consented to the Law, the king’s sentence delivered him to death.

And in those days rose up Mattathias, a priest from Jerusalem; and he dwelt at Modin. And he had five sons, John, Simon, Judas (who was called Maccabaeus), Eleazar, Jonathan. And he saw the blasphemies that were committed in Judah and in Jerusalem, and Mattathias and his sons rent their clothes, and put on sackcloth, and mourned exceedingly.

And the king’s officers, that were enforcing the apostasy, came into the city Modin. And many of Israel came unto them, and Mattathias and his sons were gathered together. And the king’s officers spake to Mattathias, saying, ‘Thou art a ruler and an honourable and great man in this city, and strengthened with sons and brethren; now therefore come thou first and do the commandment of the king, as all nations have done, and the men of Judah, and they that remain in Jerusalem; so shalt thou and thy house be in the number of the king’s Friends, and thou and thy children shall be honoured with silver and gold, and many rewards.’ And Mattathias answered and said with a loud voice, ‘_Though all the nations that are under the king’s dominion obey him, and fall away every one from the religion of their fathers, yet will I and my sons and my brethren walk in the covenant of our fathers_.’ And Mattathias cried out in the city with a loud voice, saying, ‘Whosoever is zealous for the Law, and maintaineth the Covenant, let him follow me.’

Then were gathered together unto them every one that offered himself willingly for the Law. And all they that fled from the evils were added to them, and became a stay unto them. And they mustered a host, and pulled down the altars; and they pursued after the sons of pride, neither suffered they the sinner to triumph.

_Selection from_ 1 MACCABEES 1. 41‒2. 48.

THE FEAST OF LIGHTS

KINDLE the taper like the steadfast star, Ablaze on evening’s forehead o’er the earth, And add each night a lustre till afar An eightfold splendour shine above thy hearth. Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre, Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn; Chant psalms of victory till the heart takes fire, The Maccabean spirit leap new-born.

EMMA LAZARUS.

THE MENORAH

DEEP in his soul he began to feel the need of being a Jew. His circumstances were not unsatisfactory; he enjoyed an ample income and a profession that permitted him to do whatever his heart desired. For he was an artist. His Jewish origin and the faith of his fathers had long since ceased to trouble him, when suddenly the old hatred came to the surface again in a new mob-cry. With many others he believed that this flood would shortly subside. But there was no change for the better; and every blow, even though not aimed directly at him, struck him with fresh pain, till little by little his soul became one bleeding wound. These sorrows, buried deep in his heart and silenced there, evoked thoughts of their origin and of his Judaism; and now he did something he could not perhaps have done in the old days――he began to love his Judaism with an intense fervour. Although in his own eyes he could not, at first, clearly justify this new yearning, it became so powerful at length that it crystallized from vague emotions into a definite idea which he must needs express. It was the conviction that there was only one solution for this moral misery――the return to Judaism.

The Jew of to-day had lost the poise which was his fathers’ very being. This generation, having grown up under the influence of alien cultures, was no longer capable of that return which he had perceived to be their redemption. But the new generation would be capable of it, if it were only given the right direction early enough. He resolved, therefore, that his own children, at least, should be shown the proper path. They should be trained as Jews in their own home.

Hitherto he had permitted to pass by unobserved the holiday which the wonderful apparition of the Maccabees had illumined for thousands of years with the glow of miniature lights. Now, however, he made this holiday an opportunity to prepare something beautiful which should be for ever commemorated in the minds of his children. In their young souls should be implanted early a steadfast devotion to their ancient people. He bought a Menorah, and when he held this nine-branched candlestick in his hands for the first time, a strange mood came over him. In his father’s house also the lights had once burned in his youth, now far away, and the recollection gave him a sad and tender feeling for home. The tradition was neither cold nor dead――thus it had passed through the ages, one light kindling another. Moreover, the ancient form of the Menorah had excited his interest. Clearly the design was suggested by the tree――in the centre the sturdy trunk, on right and left four branches, one below the other, in one place, and all of equal height. A later symbolism brought with it the short ninth branch, which projects in front and functions as a servant. What mystery had the generations which followed one another read into this form of art, at once so simple and natural! And our artist wondered to himself if it were not possible to animate again the withered form of the Menorah――to water its roots, as one would a tree. The mere sound of the name, which he now pronounced every evening to his children, gave him great pleasure. There was a lovable ring to the word when it came from the lips of little children.

On the first night the candle was lit and the origin of the holiday explained. The wonderful incident of the lights that strangely remained burning so long, the story of the return from the Babylonian exile, the second Temple, the Maccabees――our friend told his children all he knew. It was not very much, to be sure; but it served. When the second candle was lit, they repeated what he had told them; and though it had all been learnt from him, it seemed to him quite new and beautiful. In the days that followed, he waited keenly for the evenings which became ever brighter. Candle after candle stood in the Menorah, and the father mused on the little candles with his children till at length his reflections became too deep to be uttered before them.

Then came the eighth day, when the whole row burns, even the faithful ninth, the servant, which on other nights is used only for the lighting of the others. A great splendour streamed from the Menorah. The children’s eyes glistened. But for our friend all this was the symbol of the enkindling of a nation. When there is but one light, all is still dark, and the solitary light looks melancholy. Soon it finds one companion, then another, and another. The darkness must retreat. The light comes first to the young and the poor――then others join who love Justice, Truth, Liberty, Progress, Humanity, and Beauty. When all the candles burn, then we must all stand and rejoice over the achievement. And no office can be more blessed than that of a Servant of the Light.

THEODOR HERZL. (_Trans. B. L. Pouzzner._)

THE STORY OF THE MACCABEES

IT is good for Jewish lads to include warriors of their own race in their gallery of heroes, to be able to say, ‘My people has produced its brave men equally with the Greeks and the Romans’.

But still better it is for them to feel that these brave men drew their courage from the purest of all sources, from a passionate love for their religion, from a veneration for the good and the true and the morally beautiful. The Maccabees boldly faced overwhelming odds, not for their own selfish ends, but in a spirit of self-sacrificing fidelity to the holiest of all causes. They threw themselves upon the enemy in the temper that takes the martyr to the stake; they did it not for gain or glory, but solely for conscience’ sake. They felt that God was calling to them, and they could not hold back. Theirs was a unique effort. Others had, it is true, displayed an equally noble courage on the battle-field. But what they had fought for was their fatherland and their mother tongue, their hearths and homes. To fight for Religion was a new thing.

The little Maccabean band was like a rock in the midst of a surging sea. Standing almost alone in their day, the heroes beat back the forces that threatened to involve all mankind in a common demoralization. They kept a corner of the world sweet in an impure age. They held aloft the torch of true religion at a time when thick darkness was covering the nations.

MORRIS JOSEPH, 1903.

CHANUCAH HYMN

ROCK of Ages, let our song Praise Thy saving power; Thou, amidst the raging foes, Wast our shelt’ring tower. Furious they assailed us, But Thine arm availed us; And Thy word Broke their sword When our own strength failed us.

Kindling new the holy lamps, Priests approved in suffering Purified the nation’s shrine, Brought to God their offering. And His courts surrounding Hear, in joy abounding, Happy throngs Singing songs With a mighty sounding.

Children of the Martyr-race, Whether free or fettered, Wake the echoes of the songs Where ye may be scattered. Yours the message cheering, That the time is nearing Which shall see All men free, Tyrants disappearing.

G. GOTTHEIL.

PURIM[78]

THERE was a certain Jew in Shushan ... whose name was Mordecai.... And he brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter ... and when her father and mother were dead, Mordecai took her for his own daughter.... And Esther was taken unto King Ahasuerus into his house royal ... and the king loved Esther ... and she obtained grace and favour in his sight....

After these things did King Ahasuerus promote Haman, and set his seat above all the princes that were with him. And Haman said, ‘There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from those of every people, neither keep they the king’s laws: therefore it is not for the king’s profit to suffer them. If it please the king let it be written that they be destroyed ... both young and old, little children and women, in one day.’ And the king said unto Haman, ‘The people is given to thee to do with them as it seemeth good to thee’.

Now, when Mordecai knew all that was done he rent his clothes ... and charged Esther that she should go in unto the king to make supplication unto him for her people――‘Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall relief and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place: and who knoweth whether thou art not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?’ ... Esther bade them return answer unto Mordecai, ‘So will I go in unto the king ... and if I perish, I perish....’

Then Esther the queen ... said, ‘If I have found favour in thy sight, O king ... let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request; for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain and to perish....’ Then spake the king Ahasuerus, ‘Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?’ And Esther said, ‘An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman’.

Then said one of the chamberlains, ‘Behold also, the gallows which Haman hath made for Mordecai, who spake good for the king (and saved the king’s life) standeth in the house of Haman’. And the king said, ‘Hang him thereon’. So they hanged Haman.... And the king said, ‘Write ye also to the Jews as it liketh you, in the king’s name....’ The Jews had light and gladness and joy and honour. And whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had gladness and joy....

... Therefore do the Jews ... make the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting ... and of sending gifts to the poor.

BOOK OF ESTHER.

SERVANT OF GOD

SPIRIT and flesh are Thine, O Heavenly Shepherd mine; My hopes, my thoughts, my fears, Thou seest all, Thou measurest my path, my steps dost know. When Thou upholdest, who can make me fall? When Thou restrainest, who can bid me go? _O 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!_

Fain would my heart come nigh To Thee, O God, on high, But evil thoughts have led me far astray From the pure path of righteous government. Guide Thou me back into Thy holy way, And count me not as one impenitent. _O 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!_

Contrite and full of dread, I mourn each moment fled, ’Midst idle follies roaming desolate: I sink beneath transgressions manifold, That from Thy presence keep me separate, Nor can sin-darkened eyes Thy light behold. _O 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!_

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. _O 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!_

YEHUDAH HALEVI, 1140. (_Trans. Alice Lucas._)

HYMN OF GLORY

SWEET hymns and songs will I indite To sing of Thee by day and night―― Of Thee, who art my soul’s delight.

How doth my soul within me yearn Beneath Thy shadow to return, Thy secret mysteries to learn!

And even while yet Thy glory fires My words, and hymns of praise inspires, Thy love it is my heart desires.

Thy glory shall my discourse be; In images I picture Thee, Although Thyself I cannot see.

O Thou whose word is truth alway, Thy people seek Thy face this day; O be Thou near them when they pray.

O may my words of blessing rise To Thee, who, throned above the skies, Art just and mighty, great and wise.

My meditation day and night, May it be pleasant in Thy sight, For Thou art all my soul’s delight.

JUDAH THE PIOUS, 12th cent. (_Trans. Alice Lucas._)

V

THE VOICE OF WISDOM

_THUS saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord who exercise loving kindness, judgement, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord._

JEREMIAH 9. 23‒4.

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_HE that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see? He that instructeth the nations, shall not He correct, Even He that teacheth man knowledge?_

PSALM 94. 9‒10.

GOD, WHOM SHALL I COMPARE TO THEE!

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?

Hearts, seeking Thee, from search refrain, And weary tongues their praise restrain. Thyself unbound by time and place, Thou dost pervade, support, embrace The world and all created space.

Deep, deep beyond all fathoming, Far, far beyond all measuring, We can but seek Thy deeds alone; When bow Thy saints before Thy throne Then is Thy faithfulness made known.

Thy righteousness we can discern, Thy holy law proclaim and learn. Is not Thy presence near alway To them who penitently pray, But far from those who sinning stray?

Pure souls behold Thee, and no need Have they of light: they hear and heed Thee with the mind’s keen ear, although The ear of flesh be dull and slow. Their voices answer to and fro.

Thy holiness for ever they proclaim: The Lord of Hosts! thrice holy is His name.

YEHUDAH HALEVI. (_Trans. Alice Lucas._)

GREAT IS TRUTH

GREAT is Truth, and stronger than all things. All the earth calleth upon Truth, and the heaven blesseth her; all works shake and tremble, but with her is no unrighteous thing.... Truth abideth, and is strong for ever; she liveth and conquereth for evermore.... She is the strength, and the kingdom, and the power, and the majesty, of all ages. Blessed be the God of Truth.

1 ESDRAS 4. 35, 36, 38, 40.

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TRUTH is the seal of God.

TALMUD.

THE RIGHT LIFE

IT hath been told thee, O man, what is good, and what the Lord doth require of thee: only to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.

MICAH 6. 8.

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WOE unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

ISAIAH 5. 20‒2.

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THE proper study of a wise man is not how to die, but how to live.

A man who desires to help others by counsel or deed will refrain from dwelling on men’s faults, and will speak but sparingly of human weaknesses. But he will speak at large of man’s virtue and power, and the means of perfecting the same, that thus men may endeavour joyously to live, so far as in them lies, after the commandment of reason.

BENEDICT SPINOZA, 1674.

THE GOODNESS OF GOD’S WORK