The Maccabæan
EDITORIAL PAGES
J. DE HAAS, EDITOR
THE DAYS OF DEDICATION
THAT in the Jew which is sterling was fashioned, shaped and hardened in days so remote from us that we must look is it were over the edge of time, certainly over the bend, huge curvature that joins ancient civilization and the remote beginnings of modernity. We drag the chain of tradition right across all the changing aspects of modernity, heedless sometimes of the strange fact that the first link was fashioned great and strong, to last for all time, in a world so remote that only the most powerful imaginations can conjure the scenes that made its fretful, tempestuous or glorious life.
We shout hail glorious Judah of the Maccabæan lineage, solemnly igniting the lights, and out of the exuding oil our moralists and our preachers permit a drip, drip of talk on courage, bravery and the like. But if there are these lessons in the Hasmonean story, and undoubtedly they are there, that which looms largest in the record is that "the trumpets sound from Beth-horon," the fret and fume of strife, the bloody battle for race, nation, God and land. The wherefore of the buckling of armor is written boldly through every line of the record that begins with Mattathias; and if every generation feels the necessity for forging a new link, and dragging the chain of tradition further across the spaces of time, as least let us do it in that same spirit which formed the first of these precious links.
He who feels that the national life of Israel is at an end, that the fountain of our life is dried up, has no moral right to observe a festival which has but one real import, that of keeping fresh the memory of the past so that it may inspire us for the future. The Hasmonean heroes are dead, as dead as all the heroes of Greece and Rome, but whilst no one breathes the spirit of the noblest Roman of them all, we have drawn spirits out of the misty past to inspire us still—to
keep watch and guard for us and with us. By the lighting of the lights generation after generation has pledged itself to that great human passion which surged in the Jewish breast when Hellas sought to crush us. To our generation, upon whom the onslaught has come in all the old Hellenis forms of temptation and persecution, the opportunity presents itself of proving by overt act that we keep the troth of our people. Those of us who are moved by the old cry for land and people are entitled to light the Menorah, and to shout the old song of brave deeds done in the days of old; but those others in Israel who have done with the thought of the Maccabæans may leave the eight-branched lamp unlit, for the wicks will sputter to no purpose. The logic of life demands this, and if we cannot all see it to-day we shall have to recognize it sooner or later.
We shall not forever be able to hold fast by our moorings and yet deny whereto that mooring is held fast. And when the choice is fastened upon us, strange and complex race that we are, the mass of us, the vast majority, will accept the truth that we are indissolubly bound up with the long ago, and that we should feed the wicks from the same cruse of oil from which they were first lit. For us then, who hold by these ideas of land and people, and who observe the Festival of Dedication in the spirit of those who first dedicated the cleansed house of God, the Days of Dedication are holy, sacred with the hope and the yearning that made for victory from Emmaus to Beth-horon.
LADS' BRIGADE
Our last issue contained a voluminous report on the formation of a Jewish lads' brigade. The experiment is to be made under the control of the Federation in New York City, and if the model company proves a success steps will be taken to spread the idea in a practical fashion. This is the first result of the discussion held at the Pittsburg convention. It is perhaps not the result looked forward to by many, especially those to whom the Hebrew language question is very dear.
It is, however, believed that in the organization of the brigade the root of the whole education problem, as far as boys are concerned, will be struck. In England the bri-