Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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12 M A S M I D bliss, for the stirrings of their poignant souls were far removed from earthly things and purposes. It was a world of contentment complete within itself. It was a gossamer world of dream-stuff where naught existed but the abstract tenderness of the present and the honeyed promises of the future. Not a word did the lovers say: but their silence was of mystic clairvoyance, while their spirits glided from their eyes and lips. Then when Rachel slumbered Jacob wan- dered off into the desert alone with a feeling of sadness and with a presentiment of evil. His happiness made him feel aged as if he had lived through an eternity. All other things were petty now for a new spirit had merged with the two lovers from their own warmth and felicity. A prayer burst out of Jacob for strength and guidance to keep this ardent soul thrust upon his care forever youthful and happy. For Rachel was with child. . . . There came thoughts of a graying domesti- cated Rachel, weaning children and mo- ther of a household, her fervor hidden like sidereal fires. It was depressing to think of her ageing slowly, and the fire within her cooling. She was an arrested flame and there could be no embers of passion. Would there be only an aching emptiness where the flames had once licked, or would there be two graying heads nodding asleep together? On the road to Hebron Rachel died. Jacob stood by the dry sand that covered her body with wrinkled, new-born Benjamin in his arms. Ben-oni — child of my pain — Rachel had called him with her last breath. A deep void within him bowed Jacob; too deep for tears to reach or fill. A salty mist veiled his eyes, and slowly he felt a youthful spirit within him wither and fade away. And he knew that when Rachel had gone two souls were lost in an eternity of quiet. Ben-oni was crying in Jacob ' s arms, and an old, old man was waiting for a tarrying son. And it was shearing time in Canaan. DEFEAT? Stir me not To troubled aspirations That torture me On the rack of discontent. Let me dream Untroubled Of things that must not be. With the perfect happiness Of dreams. With the nebulous perfection Of dreams. Let me grasp The unattainable. Enter Paradise. And, awaking, forget. Oh, Domesticity, Powerful mother, Let me sleep in your arms. Charles Hirshfeld

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M A S M I D merits, Jacob knew. There would be rest and cool breezes for the weary, and silhou- ettes of distant hills for the dreamer. There would be no greedy counting of the sacks of wool, nor the tense gossiping of Laban ' s sons. Jacob would no longer feel their watchful eyes upon him. In Canaan were soothing kindness and oriented thoughts: but in Padan-aram were bewildering strangeness and the slitted eyes of an envious kin . . . Jacob laid his shears aside in despair. He could not put his mind on the shearing while there was shearing in Canaan. Then the resolute, efficient Jacob shrugged off the dreamer Jacob. Laban was away. Canaan was calling: and there was an open road . . . Jacob ' s heart was singing next morning: for he was on his way home, and with him was his household. He had left home in a flight of fear, and was returning now in a flight of exultation. Jacob had a new con- fidence in his future dealings with Esau, and he had a contempt for his father-in-law, Laban, who would not know of the flight until shearing was over. There was one among the caravan whose eyes did not strain only for the purple hills of Gilead ahead. Rachel ' s anxieties were more of the pursuit of Laban: for this daugh- ter of Laban knew her father would pursue. Hidden under her saddle-cushion were her father ' s images. They somehow reminded her of her dejected years of barrenness and of the cheerless days and the cold nights. They were the symbol of her departure from a maid to a woman. They were the spirit of the pagan daemons of Padan-aram and her depriving Laban of them was an expression of her acceptance of a new creed — a creed of dreamers. Jacob stumbled across her there. Jacob ' s heart felt heavy for Rachel, and he remem- bered how cold he had been to her because of the enmity of her brothers. Now, how- ever, she was no longer to be distrusted as a woman of the dangerous Laban tribe. She was a tender child who had been abused by rough brothers and a treacherous father, and deep compassion for her stirred in Jacob. She had suffered for all the contempt Jacob felt for her brothers. She had suffered alone: and the burden had been lonesome nights with no mate to share her grief. There were the end- less nights of futile waitirig, the ghastly dreams, the wells of salty tears ahd a heart that seemed to melt with sorrow . . . Laban was camped that night an hour ' s journey from Jacob. With him were his brethren, as alert as hounds achase. In them was a hidden awe and a twinge of envy for the wealthy heir, Jacob. Jacob was ascend- ing Mount Gilead when Laban overtook him. . . . Laban was gone and with him his cere- monious affection and his avowals of senti- ment — when there existed only distaste. La- ban had been wary of his speech, and Jacob had hidden contempt with difficulty. Jacob was glad the meeting was over, and Laban was returning to Padan-aram. Canaan and aged Isaac beckoned to him, and Rachel, with her deep love sparkling in her eyes, was by his side. Joy was bursting within him, and he could not hide the song in his heart and his smile on his lips. Gone was intrigue and guarded speech forevermore. He dreamed of the splendor of Canaan: the rustle of leaves and the rushing of streams. The lure of dis- tant hills would make him keen and new- born with unfenced freedom. He seemed to hear angelic music calling him into Canaan, and the rush of wings of a host of angels shutting Padan-aram away from behind. He was hushed by the splendor of a new old life and a new land before him — where an old, old man was waiting for a tarrying son. Through shining days the caravan plodded along and when purple dusk came, when the desert seemed like a silent, billowing sea, they set up camp. At night the fires twin- kled across the desert, through the weight and darkness of the night, as if in mute commu- nion with the stars. . . . When all were hushed in sleep Jacob and Rachel were still awake. The cold breath of the desert night held them in huddled silent

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M A S M I D 13 Pot-Pourri By EEGEE Meanderings of a miscreant mentality. 1. Idiosyncrasy is the privilege of the genius and of the successful but when pos- sessed by the average citizen makes him the subject for an alienist. 2. Reading maketb a full man sayeth Bacon. Even a prohibitionist may indulge in that form of dissipation. 3. Idealism is the saving grace of human- kind. It is the line of demarcation between the material and the mind. Without it life would be entirely a struggle for existence, an insenate desire for self-preservation — and devil take the hindmost. Idealism is the only e xcuse man has for continuing to live. 4. A cynic is usually a person who, dis- appointed in a petty personal affair, uses it as a criterion by which to judge the rest of the world. 5. Sarcasm is often a substitute for rea- son. 6. The dogmatist tells us that Vice is Vice and Virtue is Virtue — and never the twain shall meet, nevertheless there are sev- eral things that may be both: Pride is just as much a vice as it is a virtue. Conceit is a vice, self-confidence a virtue — yet both have the same origin. Vanity. 7. Stretching the truth is hyperbole for the poet, but plain perjury for the lay- man. 8. Of those who keep within the law, fifty percent do so because they fear retalia- tion; fifty percent because they haven ' t had an opportunity to violate a law — the re- mainder because they really have a moral sense of right. 9. I fear that the problems arising from a discussion of eugenics have addled my poor brain sadly. If a m.an is but a composition of good or bad characteristics inherited from his ancestors why should he be commended for talent or punished for wrongdoing — be- ing personally irresponsible for the traits that cause his actions? However, were Society not to reward abil- ity or punish crime, those born with talent would have no incentive for exercising that ability, and those born with criminalistic tendencies, and who are kept from crime by the fear of punishment under the present seemingly unjust system, would make the rest of the social organization suffer for their own unfortunate condition. The existing system of justice may be fundamentally unjust, but it is necessary. 10. The pessimist is the fellow who con- stantly tells the world that it is stuck in a rut, instead of helping to extricate it. 11. It takes two to make a quarrel, says the pacifist derogatorily, forgetting that the holy state of matrimony itself has this principle for its raison d ' etre. 12. Nothing is right unless its conse- quences are more beneficial than harmful: and nothing is wrong unless its consequences arc more harmful than beneficial. There are no exceptions to this rule. 13. Isn ' t it peculiar that those who least expect to go to Hell are most interested in it? 14. Variety is the spice of life — but our modern brand is too seasoned for healthy consumption. 15. Age that would be youth can never be more than a synthetic imitation, nor can it be more than a pathetic paradox, out of its sphere, alien both to its kind and to that which it seems to emulate. Lif e ' s inevitable flow and ebb cannot be arrested, and he who would stay the ebb-tide finds loneliness and isolation at a time when he needs most compassion and sympathy.