_Translated from the German by Bessie London Pouzzner_
DEEP in his soul he began to feel the need of being a Jew. His
circumstances were not unsatisfactory; he enjoyed an ample income and
a profession that permitted him to do whatever his heart desired. For
he was an artist. His Jewish origin and the faith of his fathers had
long since ceased to trouble him, when suddenly the old hatred came to
the surface again in a new mob-cry. With many others he believed that
this flood would shortly subside. But there was no change for the
better; in fact, things went from bad to worse; and every blow, even
though not aimed directly at him, struck him with fresh pain, till
little by little his soul became one bleeding wound. These sorrows,
buried deep in his heart and silenced there, evoked thoughts of their
origin and of his Judaism, and now he did something he could not
perhaps have done in the old days because he was then so alien to
it--he began to love this Judaism with an intense fervor. Although in
his own eyes he could not, at first, clearly justify this new
yearning, it became so powerful at length that it crystallized from
vague emotions into a definite idea which he must needs express. It
was the conviction that there was only one solution for this
_Judennot_--the return to Judaism.
When this came to the knowledge of his closest friends, similarly
situated though they were, they shook their heads gravely and even
feared for his reason. For how could that be a remedy which merely
sharpened and intensified the evil? It seemed to him, on the other
hand, that their moral distress was so acute because the Jew of to-day
had lost the poise which was his father's very being. They ridiculed
him for this when his back was turned--many even laughed openly in his
face; yet he did not allow himself to be misled by the banalities of
these people whose acuteness of judgment had never before inspired his
respect, and he bore their witticisms and their sneers with equal
indifference. And since, in all other respects, he acted like a man in
his senses, they suffered him gradually to indulge in his infatuation,
which a number of them soon began to call by a harsher term than _idée
fixe_.
He continued, however, with characteristic persistence to develop one
idea after another from his fundamental conviction. At this time he
was profoundly moved by several instances of apostasy, though his
pride would not permit him to betray it. As a man and as an artist of
the modern school, he had, of course, acquired many non-Jewish habits
and his study of the cultures of successive civilizations had left an
indelible impress upon him. How was this to be reconciled with his
return to Judaism? Often doubts assailed him as to the soundness of
his guiding thought, his "idée maîtresse," as a French thinker calls
it. Perhaps this generation, having grown up under the influence of
alien cultures, was no longer capable of that return which he had
perceived to be their redemption. But the new generation would be
capable of it, if it were only given the right direction early enough.
He resolved, therefore, that his own children, at least, should be
shown the proper path. They should be trained as Jews in their own
home.
Hitherto he had permitted to pass by unobserved the holiday which the
wonderful apparition of the Maccabees had illumined for thousands of
years with the glow of miniature lights. Now, however, he made this
holiday an opportunity to prepare something beautiful which should be
forever commemorated in the minds of his children. In their young
souls should be implanted early a steadfast devotion to their ancient
people. He bought a Menorah, and when he held this nine-branched
candlestick in his hands for the first time, a strange mood came over
him. In his father's house also, the lights had once burned in his
youth, now far away, and the recollection gave him a sad and tender
feeling for home. The tradition was neither cold nor dead,--thus it
had passed through the ages, one light kindling another. Moreover, the
ancient form of the Menorah had excited his interest. When was the
primitive structure of this candlestick fashioned? Clearly the design
was suggested by the tree--in the centre the sturdy trunk, on right
and left four branches, one below the other, in one plane, and all of
equal height. A later symbolism brought with it the short ninth
branch, which projects in front and functions as a servant. What
mystery had the generations which followed one another read into this
form of art, at once so simple and natural? And our artist wondered to
himself if it were not possible to animate again the withered form of
the Menorah, to water its roots, as one would a tree. The mere sound
of the name, which he now pronounced every evening to his children,
gave him great pleasure. There was a lovable ring to the word when it
came from the lips of little children.
On the first night the candle was lit and the origin of the holiday
explained. The wonderful incident of the lights that strangely
remained burning so long, the story of the return from the Babylonian
exile, the second Temple, the Maccabees--our friend told his children
all he knew. It was not very much, to be sure, but it served. When the
second candle was lit, they repeated what he had told them, and though
it had all been learned from him, it seemed to him quite new and
beautiful. In the days that followed he waited keenly for the
evenings, which became ever brighter. Candle after candle stood in the
Menorah, and the father mused on the little candles with his
children, till at length his reflections became too deep to be
uttered before them.
When he had resolved to return to his people and to make open
acknowledgment of his return, he had only thought he would be doing
the honorable and rational thing. But he had never dreamed that he
would find in it a gratification of his yearning for the beautiful.
Yet nothing less was his good fortune. The Menorah with its many
lights became a thing of beauty to inspire lofty thought. So, with his
practised hand, he drew a plan for a Menorah to present to his
children the following year. He made free use of the motif of the
eight branching arms projecting right and left in one plane from the
central stem. He did not hold himself bound by the rigid traditional
form, but created directly from nature, unconcerned by other
symbolisms also seeking expression. He was on the search for living
beauty. Yet, though he gave the withered branch new life, he conformed
to the law, to the gentle dignity, of its being. It was a tree with
slender branches; its ends were moulded into flower calyxes which
would hold the lights.
The week passed with this absorbing labor. Then came the eighth day,
when the whole row burns, even the faithful ninth, the servant, which
on other nights is used only for the lighting of the others. A great
splendor streamed from the Menorah. The children's eyes glistened. But
for our friend all this was the symbol of the enkindling of a nation.
When there is but one light all is still dark, and the solitary light
looks melancholy. Soon it finds one companion, then another, and
another. The darkness must retreat. The light comes first to the young
and the poor,--then others join them who love Justice, Truth, Liberty,
Progress, Humanity, and Beauty. When all the candles burn, then we
must all stand and rejoice over the achievement. And no office can be
more blessed than that of a Servant of the Light.