The Maccabaean

T

SHE lived in the tents of men: but she was fresh and joyful. Her thoughts were melodies and her words spoke her thoughts sincerely. She sought in all things the harmony and sincerity of her own soul.

She interrogated the Man of Law: "What means this Passover to you, old Father?"

He looked up benignly from his books, and his face reflected the brightness of her smile. He said: "My child, know, that to him that looks back it is full of significance. It is a season of additional prayers in the synagogue, of songs that tell of miracles and of the promise of the time when Moses drew our people forth out of Egypt, and God's finger pointed the way. In our service we tell that story and exalt it with symbols: we chant the Piyutim and we read the Hallel and from the Book of Exodus the story of how the paschal sacrifice was ordained. On this holiday we cease to cry out to God who makes the winds to blow, for a change cometh on. More especially in good Jewish homes, my child, the holiday comes decked with symbols —with matzos, typifying the hurriedness of the departure of our fathers: with bitter herbs, telling of their suffering in the desert, and the ancient traditions, and the Seder table, and the family gathering and the drinking of the wine of the consecration. More symbols could I detail;

* Reprinted by request.

but enough—that is what Passover means."

She departed from the House of Law unsatisfied. There was much lacking.

II.

Out into the fields she ran, where God’s heaven rests lightly on the earth. As she danced in the sunlight, the fresh sprigs of green, peeping out of the debris of Winter, spoke to her, and the dead, for- goten leaves of the season past, sinking into the sleep of oblivion beneath the green sprigs, seemed tobe dying in order to rise again in more beautiful dress.. The trees stood against the wind sturdily, an- tieipating their future strength. The song of the thrush, full and liquid and hopeful, fell like a morning hymn upon the ear. There was a feeling of relief in the air; a burden had been thrown off; after a terrible struggle, the children of song and beauty had conquered. The marks of the struggle were on the soft earth, on the wind-tossed trees, on the few forlorn dry nests that hung from the tree branches.

With the wind came the Spirit of Spring, whose laugh rang in the wood and whose breath perfumed the landscape. Everywhere she stepped, up rose violets, hypatica, wild roses, arbutus, katydids, and their fellows.

The Girl whose thoughts were melodies and whose words spoke her thoughts sincerely, greeted the Spirit of Spring there in God's field, and shyly spoke to her.