When Mr Jacobs' family and friends assembled again on Friday evening, he
said: "You know what discussions there have been lately in England about
the proper way to keep the Sabbath, so it may interest you to hear a
letter from my cousin, giving an account how Sabbath was kept in
Jerusalem."
"My dear Millie,--I will explain as well as I can what it means to
prepare for Sabbath here, and how it is spent. About four o'clock on
Friday mornings Mother and I get up and prepare the Sabbath loaves. I
can tell you it is no easy matter, for, even when the weather is not
frosty, the exertion of kneading the dough makes you perspire. If you
finish kneading early enough, you get back to bed while the dough is
rising.
"Early on Friday mornings beggars start going from house to house
(especially the Sephardim and Yemenites or Arabian Jews). At each house
they are given small, fresh-baked chola, bun, or beigel. No one refuses
to give this. Later on, two respectable men or women go from house to
house collecting in a large bag whatever anyone gives them, such as
cholas, meat, cereals, oil, wine, or money. The Community know that
these things are not for themselves, but are to be distributed amongst
the sick and the most needy, who cannot beg for themselves. Sometimes we
have as many as six or seven people who come collecting, and no one ever
thinks of refusing them. In fact, everyone prepares for this, and gives
most willingly, knowing that the Sabbath must be celebrated by rich and
poor alike with the best one has.
"In a future letter I will tell you more about certain people who give
up a part of their time to works of charity, and how they do it; for
there is no Board of Guardians here, as there is in London.
"Then when Father and the boys go to synagogue, we start to prepare for
the day's work. First we take all the furniture we can out of the house,
so as to leave the rooms free for the lower part of the walls to be
whitewashed and the marble floors cleaned. Of course, we try to use as
little water as possible, as it is scarce, but even so the floors must
be clean and look well polished, and the wooden furniture washed and
rubbed well with sand.
"Then the tea-urn and all the saucepans and trays, which are either
brass or copper, have to be cleaned and brightened; and, as we cannot
get brass-polish here, we rub them with fine sand. It needs plenty of
'elbow grease' to make them look bright, but the rubbing well repays us.
Since we came here I quite understand how brass or copper
looking-glasses were used by our ancestors, for, after rubbing very hard
with fine sand and a piece of lemon peel, you can see your face clearly
reflected in the trays. Some who had no mirror used the trays for
looking-glasses.
"Mother prepares our Sabbath meals, whilst we girls are doing the hard
work--hanging up our best curtains or putting our best covers on the
beds and cushions, and spreading the Sabbath table-cloth. These are put
away again on Saturday evenings. Those who have them also use special
Sabbath china, glass, and silver for their meals.
"This work keeps us busy nearly all day. About three hours before sunset
Father and the boys go to the public baths, and by the time they return
we are all dressed in our best clothes, the samovar (the urn) is placed
on a table in the porch, and we all sit there to rest and drink tea,
awaiting the coming in of 'Princess Sabbath.' A matter of an hour before
Sabbath a voice is heard calling out:
'Sabbath is in, friends! Sabbath is in!'
"The first time I heard the call I could not understand the reason until
Father told me that, as there are no bells in the suburb and very few
people have clocks, one of the highly-respected members of the
community undertakes the job of going right round Meah Sheorim every
Friday, so that the women may know when to light their Sabbath
lamps--for directly the Sabbath call is heard all the women stop
whatever work they are at and go to light the Sabbath lamp, which has
seven wicks, in a basin of oil hanging from the ceiling, for there are
no candles here. When this is done the men and children go to synagogue,
and some of the women too. As they all love bright colours, when you see
them from a distance walking to synagogue, the suburb looks like a
flower-garden.
"After Sabbath dinner, which consists of the _cholent_ baked on the
previous day, Father gathers the boys round the table to hear what
lessons they have learnt during the week. He discusses and explains part
of the Torah to them, while mother and we girls read the Zeene ureene (a
commentary on the Bible for women), the Ethics of the Fathers, and the
like. This goes on for some time, and then we are free to go and visit
our friends. We and several of our friends often go to an old lady's
house, where we spend pleasant Sabbath afternoons.
"Years ago this dear old lady came from Russia to end her days in the
Holy Land. She is well provided for by her children, so she has the
time and means to lead a happy and useful life here, and does a lot of
good quietly, by the cheery, sensible way she often gives a "helping
hand" to those who need it.
"She so understands all our fun that we sometimes forget she is old. We
just talk things over with her as we would with our young friends. Not
only we girls, but young married women, just love spending part of the
Sabbath afternoons with her. The room is often so full that we have to
sit cross-legged, like the Turks, on the marble floor, which in summer
time is quite the coolest seat.
"We then play 'Nuts.' Each one puts a certain number into a cap, but to
win the game one has to be very quick and sharp: it is really quite
exciting. What we like best is when the old lady sits amongst us and
reads us a tale from a book, or some of the papers sent her from abroad.
The stories are very tantalizing, for they always leave off at the most
interesting part, and then we may have to wait a week or two before we
get the next number! During the week we try to imagine what the next
chapter will be like.
"Sometimes she reads from the Ethics of the Fathers--those wise sayings
of the ancient Rabbis. I remember last week she told us of one of the
Rabbis who wrote that 'those who control or overcome their hasty
tempers are greater than those who take a city from an enemy,' She, as
usual, asks us to give our views on what she has read, and an excited
discussion follows. Those of us who naturally have a calm, good temper
said that they did not agree with the Rabbi, because they did not think
it at all hard to keep their temper when provoked. Others, who had hasty
passionate tempers, said the Rabbi was quite right: it would be far
easier, they felt sure, to take a city than to control their tempers,
for the whole nation would help them to take a city, as it was
considered a grand thing to do, but very few people would help them to
control their tempers. In fact, even their relatives and friends
provoked them to be hasty and passionate. When provoked or irritated the
blood rushes so quickly to the head that it makes it very, very hard to
remain calm, and then we often say or do things we are really sorry for
afterwards.
"As we could not agree, we turned to the old lady, for she is full of
wisdom and understanding. She tried to pacify us, for we were nearly on
the verge of quarreling. She said that if, when young, we tried, with
the Almighty's help, to keep our hasty tempers under control, it would
be easier to do so every time we were provoked, but the older we were
before beginning, the more difficult it would be to be successful.
Even then we had always to keep a watch over ourselves, for one of our
wise sages wrote: 'One is never sure of himself till the day of his
death.' We all saw the wisdom of her advice, and made up our minds that
we must all help each other, for very often the calm quiet natures are
those who love teasing and provoking the hasty-tempered ones, for the
fun of seeing them get into a temper; and this, we realized after her
talk with us, was not pleasing to God.
[Illustration: THE OLD LADY]
"After we leave her we take a walk outside the suburb. At sunset, when
we return home, until the time to go to bed, we are kept very busy
washing up all the things used at meals, as no washing up is done during
the Sabbath. Then, too, all the Sabbath curtains, coverlets, glass,
china, and silver have to be carefully put away.
"In my next letter I will write you more about our old lady."
When Mr Jacobs had finished the letter, the usual talk started. One said
that "Such a Sabbath might be all very well in Palestine!"
An elderly friend said: "Well! in Palestine they at least _know_ what
the Sabbath is, whilst here in London, unless one keeps it strictly and
remains indoors all day, except to go to synagogue, one never sees any
difference between the Sabbath and any other day of the week."
Mr Jacobs said: "I think what you both say is true, and the only way is
to try to keep our Sabbath in the spirit, as well as in the letter as
much as possible. If each of us tried to do this in his own home, even
in London, gradually a difference would be seen in the neighbourhood in
which we live. A wise man wrote: 'All reforms begin with _man_ and not
with _men_.' The first important step is to think good thoughts; for
'thoughts have wings,' and, when expressed, they are readily impressed
upon the minds of those in sympathy with the thinker."
"True, very true!" exclaimed the others. "Let us each, with God's help,
strive to remember more often those thoughts of our Prophet Isaiah
(chap. 58): 'If thou call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of the
Lord honourable, and shalt honour it, not doing thy wonted ways, nor
pursuing thy business, nor speaking thereof, then shalt thou delight
thyself in the Lord, and I will make thee to ride upon the high places
of the earth, and I will feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy
father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.'"
By this the Prophet meant that we were to drive all thoughts of business
from our minds on the Sabbath. No thoughts of scandal, evil, or
uncharitableness were to be harboured, but our minds and hearts were to
delight in words of prayer, in the study of the Holy Law. It was to be
truly a day of peace, a day of rest.