Die Welt

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No. 15. — Vienna, 8 April 1904 — 23 Nisan 5664. — 8th Year.

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The Administration of "Die Welt."

In the Changing of the Times.

By Dr. Theodor Zlocisti.

It is the office of festivals to break through the eternal sameness of the days. In the communities of those faithful to a creed, as among nations and the manifold groupings of mankind, the festivals would lead everyday men back to the springs of their life's substance and set in new stations of power: the driving forces that have grown weak against the frictional resistance of the times are to be nourished and heightened anew. What was once a lofty ideal, the goal of all desires and of all labour, is pressed down by everyday life into a matter of course. But however significant this passing of great ideals into matters of course may be for the structure and the enrichment in worth of mankind, and however much it is, in the last resort, the index and measure of cultural progress — with this passing of great ideals into matters of course a development is always brought to its close, a terminus, a halting-place is reached — a current of power has ebbed away.

This process takes place slowly, and is often hindered in its course by counter-forces or thrust out of its path. The festivals, however, help to ensure steadiness in the course of these processes by which lofty ideals become matters of course. But once the goal is reached, the festivals too are used up. They sink into insignificance; they have become empty. They vanish from the consciousness of men, or at best live on as a memory, where indeed they still have a task: to lend, as it were, the coloured tint of a vanished age.

Whoever considers the history of festivals in relation to a closed period in the life of a group of men will find examples enough. But a new element will also become clear to him: festivals that have grown empty can fill themselves with a new content of ideas and unfold their effects anew. Many a Taanis has vanished. The feast of Chanukah has remained. But the divine miracle of the little cruse that gave oil, which no longer said anything to us, has been superseded by the greater divine miracle, by the historical miracle of a surpassing national exertion of strength. And now the festival lives on in the descendants too, in whom much ancient custom has died, with its new content, and releases undreamt-of, spurring, purposeful effects. The God "who changeth the times" changes the festal times as well, by changing and renewing their wasting content. Thus the festivals are preserved to us through all the change of fortunes and events, as stations of power set in along the way! And perhaps they also hold one of the secrets that have preserved us from the shattering force of the Golus ....

Must not such thoughts press upon us as we made ready to celebrate the dear old feast of Passover? Still, to-day, in the lands of bondage?

None of our festivals shows so plainly the traces of its former content as this festival of liberation. Once it was the festival kept by the shepherd, the tiller of the soil, whom iron bonds fetter to the earth. His sharpened senses listen for her mysterious workings. She lay exhausted from all the riches that had sprung up from her dark womb and had made men glad. Now again a faint stirring within this bountiful mother. Mild breezes caress the dark clods. The sun now keeps her kindly, living eye turned longer upon the fields. Tender shoots press towards the light and fringe the black ground with a thorough down: it is spring all around, and spring comes into the soul of man. And he greets the coming of spring in festive celebration and festive joy, with festive thoughts. The festival of rejuvenation, which also in