The Human Touch

Now that the New Year has come around again—meaning the Jewish New Year—it occurs to me that I was not a very religious boy during that period when I attended Rosh Hashonah services. I welcomed Rosh Hashonah because I understood it to be a day of feasting, but I dreaded Yom Kippur, because it was a day of fasting, and I didn’t like to fast for objects which were not too clearly defined and entirely too remote and impersonal. I might have been prevailed on to fast cheerfully, if there were a reward other than a hearty meal at the end of the fast, or if I had been asked thus to prove my little manhood, but I was ordered to fast and told that I would suffer in hell-fire if I didn’t, and there was no alternative between fasting and hell-fire. Maybe I fasted and maybe I didn’t, but I recall that the one sound of the Yom Kippur services which gave me greatest delight was that of the shofar, which meant that soon the service would be over, that soon the first three stars would be appearing in the firmament and that immediately thereupon we would be permitted to break the fast with brandy and cake, but not too much of either.

Rosh Hashonah imposed far far less of a burden, for it was simply two Sabbaths in the middle of the week, with excellent florid music in the synagogue and first-rate Sabbath meals. Rosh Hashonah did not, I am afraid, serve the function of dividing an old year that had passed from a new year that was coming, and the only part of a prose service, so to speak, that I was able to enjoy was one wherein during the tumult of the service I was able to read quietly an English translation which inclined me to the opinion that some of those old rabbis were quite liberal and intelligent chaps after all.

The real significance of the Rosh Hashonah-Yom Kippur season did not, however, occur to me until a few days ago. It is the anniversary of the Biblical creation of Heaven and Earth, 5694 years ago. It is the season when all the inhabitants of the earth pass for judgment before the Creator, in somewhat the same sense that sheep pass before the shepherd. It is then determined who shall live and who shall die and, of those who are to die, the manner in which they shall meet their death. The fasting and prayer are not in mourning, but in cleansing. As a result of the spiritual purging doubtful cases may win for themselves the opportunity of turning the balance in their favor. (The Zodiacal sign for Tishri, the first month of the year, incidentally, is a pair of scales.)

On Rosh Hashonah—I am now quoting from a trustworthy book of information—three books of account are opened before the Creator, and the good and bad deeds of each individual added up for annual reckoning. There are three classes; the righteous, whose names are immediately inscribed to live; the dubious cases who are given a respite of ten days, until Yom Kippur, to repent and become righteous, and then there are the wicked, who are “blotted out” of the book of the living. From which, it is written, originated in the Middle Ages, the habit of greeting with the phrase, “Mayst thou be inscribed for a good year.” The eating of grapes and other fruits and the dipping of bread in honey are supposed to be the proper omens to insure a sweet year. Also, the weather on Rosh Hashonah is supposed to indicate the weather which will prevail during the coming year.

The blowing of the shofar has particular significance. The shofar must be a ram’s horn, and not a cow’s. There are distinctions between straight shofars, up-curling shofars rimmed with gold and those with silver. Deaf-mutes, the insane and children may not blow the shofar and it is even declared by some that children and women may not hear the blowing of the shofar. The man chosen to blow the shofar must have, in addition to an excellent pair of lungs, a good character. He must be honest, and no doubts may be entertained of him. It is not necessary, however, that he be learned. The blowing of the shofar is intended primarily for the hearing of Jeovah. Legend had it that the devil conceals himself within the shofar and attempts to intercept the call. If the call is clear that means that the devil has been expelled; the call also is supposed to stagger and bewilder Satan. How potent the blowing of the shofar can be is recalled by the Biblical account of how the blasts of the shofar crumbled the walls of Jericho when Joshua led his army against it.

PALESTINIAN VISITOR

It is a most unusual experience to meet a person who was born in Palestine. It is even more unusual to meet a person who not only was born in Palestine but whose grandparents and parents also were born there. It is even more unusual to discover that one of the parents of the grandmother of that person was a German Gentile—an Aryan, as they say nowadays—who on marrying a Jewess became converted to Judaism and settled down to live in Palestine, this more than one hundred years ago. It is on the whole a rather unusual experience to converse with a chic, modern-attired young woman through a translator from the Hebrew, her native tongue, and one must confess that Hebrew, coming through her lips, had little of the accent of the synagogue and the beth hamidrash.

Her name, aptly enough, is Shulamith, which is unfortunately insufficient to designate Shulamith Wittenberg. She is a painter. This is her first visit to the new world, although she has travelled through Europe, having studied in Paris. She has come to America with the expectation of exhibiting her pictures, some of which are in the collections of Lord Melchett and Lady Erleigh. Her paintings are mostly of scenes in Syria. Tiberia and Jerusalem, but mostly from the latter places. She has done a number of Palestinian types and has exhibited in group shows in Jerusalem. She began painting around the age of fifteen or sixteen, studying at Bezalel, the school in Jerusalem conducted by Professor Schatz. Miss Wittenberg expressed the desire to paint some American subjects and the hope that she might gain something from the criticism of American art critics and connoisseurs.

A CONTROVERSIAL POINT

I have received a number of communications recently which assert; in effect, that if Jews made no clamor about their Jewishness, the rest of the world would not be cognizant of it and would take no cognizance of it. The Jewish question, say these correspondents, is created by mischief-making Jews who declare their Jewishness and thus elicit the unfriendly response of non-Jews. Should Jews assert their Jewishness, or abide by a policy of protective coloration, or is there a middle ground? Men and women who have made up their minds on what should be the right attitude of Jews in a non-Jewish world are invited to submit their ideas here. The crisis in Germany, in its superficial aspects, would seem to give the lie to the protective colorists, for the Jews of Germany who seem to have suffered most intensely are those who, up to recently, had been proud of the fact that they had been assimilated. Maybe there is no one way out.