PALESTINE is now in the midst of the rainy season. After sowing their grain last month, the people began to await anxiously the coming of the early showers. The intense feling of our ancestors at this time of the year have been crystallized and preserved to us in many ways in Jewish tradition. The Talmud tells us in Ta'anith how every fortnight a new series of fasts was declared until the first rains fell. The name "Marcheshvan" itself and the older Hebrew pronunciation of the month, "Bul," are in all probability connected with the much-desired rains.* The month in Palestine is the period of waiting and anxiety that comes after sowing. Seed time in all countries is a season of sober faith, when man's work and his possessions are entrusted to the care of Providence, with a full knowledge of the risks and uncertainties due to the drought or to human enemies. The spirit of this season has been perpetuated in Hebrew poetry in a beautiful simile, in which the Psalmist sees in Israel's national life, a seed time and harvest. "They who sow in tears shall reap with singing. He goeth forth and weepeth, who beareth the bag of seeds; he cometh home with song who beareth the sheaves." For a final instance of how Jewish tradition has preserved to us remembrances of the feelings of our ancestors at this season, we may turn to the prayer-book. There we read, "In autumn and winter add: 'Who causest the winds to blow and the rain to descend,'" and a little later, "and bestow dew and rain for a blessing." We pray for rain when we don't need it; still there is nothing surprising in this apparent incon-
*Some explain Marcheshvan as “the eighth month;” cf. “October.” Many commentators, confusing the climatic conditions of Palestine with those of their own country, connect the word “Bul” with the “fall” of the year (Heb. BLH, to wither).
sistency, for the face of the true Jew has ever been turned in prayer towards Palestine where the drops of rain are now welcome.
When we pass from Marcheshvan to Kislev, our thoughts travel from the husband- man's dream of green cornfields to the war- rior's vision of bloody battlefields; from the simple joys and sorrows of the fireside to the complex cares of the council-chamber and the dangers of the camp. Whereas the only great event commemorated in Marcheshvan, the completion of Solomon's Temple, was a work of peace, the Feast of Dedication celebrated in Kislev recalls the expression of Israel's national feeling in fierce war.
More than two thousand years ago the valiant Maccabees, the Asmoneans, made their wonderful stand against the mighty Antiochus Epiphanes. They felt that all that was best in Israel was peculiarly interwoven with national existence. In their own persons the religious and the national ideals of Israel were united; they were true warrior-priests. They succeeded, to a degree, in working out their ideals in the life of their nation, and to this day, although the effects of their efforts have been swept away, the little Chanukah lights remind us of the salvation wrought through them, of the noble example they set before their countrymen. Many a time have their brethren sorely needed the encouragement of this example. How often has the alarming, yet soothing prophecy of their lawgiver been fulfilled! "And yet, for all that, though they be in the land of their enemies, will I not cast them away, neither will I loathe them to destroy them utterly, to break my covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God."*
*Ser. xxvi, 44. For what follows see T. B. Megilla 11a and Polano's version. associates to be at our head."