Princess Sabbath. The spirit in which it was celebrated is perhaps best expressed in the following verses from one of the later Sabbath hymns:
" Thou beautiful Sabbath, thou sanctified day,
That chasest our cares and our sorrows away,
O come with good fortune, with joy and with peace
To the homes of thy pious, their bliss to increase !
" In honour of thee are the tables decked white ;
From the clear candelabra shines many a light ;
All men in the finest of garments are dressed,
As far as his purse each hath got him the best.
" For as soon as the Sabbath-hat is put on the head,
New feelings are born and old feelings are dead ;
Yea, suddenly vanish black care and grim sorrow,
None troubles concerning the things of to-morrow.
" New heavenly powers are given to each ;
Of everyday matters now hushed is all speech ;
At rest are all hands that have toiled with much pain ;
Now peace and tranquillity everywhere reign."[1]
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Then there were the three Pilgrim Festivals, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, all of them essentially joyous in character. On the first two evenings of Passover especially, children play an important role. One can easily imagine the important air with which little Baruch opened the domestic celebrations on these occasions by asking the meaning of such strange dishes as bitter herbs, a yellow-looking mixture of almonds, cinnamon and apples, &c. By way of answer his father would then relate to the assembled household the old, yet ever new story of the bitter lives which the Israelites had lived in Egypt, of the bricks and mortar with which they had to build Pithom and Ramses under cruel taskmasters, until God delivered them from
- ↑ Translated by I. Myers (see I. Abrahams: Jewish Life in the Middle Ages, p. 136).
