FullReads

It was evening; all members of the family were dressed as though for a journey, with shoes on their feet and staves in their hands. They stood round the covered table on which the roasted lamb smoked in a dish surrounded by bitter lettuce. The ancestral wine-cup was filled with wine, and white unleavened bread laid on a plate close by.

After the head of the family had washed his hands, he blessed the gifts of God, drank some wine, returned thanks, and invited the others to drink. Then he took some of the bitter herbs, and ate and gave to the others. Then he read from the book of Moses a passage concerning the significance of the feast. After that, the second cup of wine was served, and the youngest son of the house stepped forward and asked, according to the sacred custom, “What is the meaning of this feast?”

The father answered: “The Lord brought us with a strong hand out of the Egyptian bondage.”

As he drank from the second cup, he said, “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.” They then all sang the 115th Psalm, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give the praise, for Thy truth and mercy’s sake. Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God?”

Thereupon a blessing was pronounced on the unleavened bread and the roasted lamb, and they sat down to eat, in a state of contentment and with harmless talk. The old Eleazar spoke of past times, and contrasted them with them the present: “Man born of a woman lives but a short time, and is full of trouble; he cometh up like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth hence like a shadow, and continueth not. A stranger and a sojourner is he upon earth, and therefore he should be always ready for his journey as we are, this holy evening.”

The eldest son Jacob, who had come home in the evening after a journey, seemed to wish to say something, but did not venture to do so, till the fourth and last cup was drunk.

“But, my children,” continued Eleazar, “not only is Israel unsettled and roaming on the earth, but all nations are in a state of wandering. The difference between them and us is that their gods are mortal, while Israel’s God lives. Where is Zeus, the god of the Greeks? Where is the Romans’ Jupiter? Where are the Egyptians’ Isis, Osiris, and Ptha? Where is the Woutan of the Germans, the Teutates of the Gauls? They are all dead, but Israel’s God lives; He cannot die. We are at any rate in Canaan, in our fathers’ land, even if Zion is no longer ours, and we cannot forget the goodness which the Lord has shown us.”

The last cup was drunk, and after another psalm the festival was at an end.

“Now, Jacob,” said Eleazar, “you want to talk. You come from a journey, though somewhat late, and have something new to tell us. Hush! I hear steps in the garden!”

All hurried to the window, for they lived in troublous times; but, as no one was to be seen outside, they sat down again at the table.

“Speak, Jacob,” Eleazar said again.

“I come from Antioch, where the Crusaders are besieged by Kerboga, the Emir of Mosul. Famine has raged among them, and of three hundred thousand Goyim, [Footnote: Gentiles.] only twenty thousand remain.”

“What had they to do here?”

“Now, on the roads, they are talking of a new battle which the Goyim have won, and they believe that the Crusaders will march straight on Jerusalem.”

“Well, they won’t come here.”

“They won’t find the way, unless there are traitors.”

“Moslems or Christians, they are all alike, but Moslems could be our friends, because they are of Abraham’s seed. ‘God is One!’ Had their Prophet stood by that, there would have been nothing between us, but he fell through pride and coupling his own name with that of the Highest–‘Muhammed is His Prophet.’ Perhaps, but he should not be named in the same breath with the Eternal. The Christians call him a ‘false prophet,’ but that he was not.”