This laudable practice promotes
social harmony between the Jews and Christians.
In the house of one of our Jewish friends (Mr. Levi's) I assisted at the
celebration of the evening of the Passover. There is nothing very
particular in this ceremony, except a great deal of reading. The
drinking of the four cups [37] of wine, and the eating of the bitter
herbs, emblems of the joys and the sorrows attending the deliverance
from Egyptian bondage, are the more difficult parts of the ceremony. The
children naturally feel most the disagreeableness of eating the bitter
herbs, and several times, as soon as they put them into their mouths,
they spat them out again under the table. The drinking of an excessive
quantity of wine, is also attended with not a little inconvenience, and
one would think Bacchus was the deity worshipped, and not the God of the
Jews and Christians. When will mankind learn that violation of the
physical economy of their nature can never be acceptable to the Great
Creator?
I do not say that European Israelites indulge so much in these excesses
as Barbary Jews, but I imagine that the germ of the debauch is found in
the Talmudical religion of both classes. But, since I should be very
sorry were a Jew to hold up to me the mummeries of Popery or of the
Greek Church, as the mirror of my own religion, I am not disposed to
animadvert upon the generally decorous worship of European Israelites.
It requires three full days to get through this business of visiting. In
truth, it is a very serious affair, for we were obliged to eat cake, and
sip sherbet, or white brandy, at every house we went to, otherwise we
should confer an affront upon our friends. At all times, a great
quantity of white brandy, which the Jews distil themselves, is drunk,
but especially on these occasions.
The Governor of Mogador gave orders, not long ago, that no Mussulman
should enter the Jewish quarter, to prevent the faithful from being
seduced into drinking this insidious spirit. I shall just mention what a
Christian is obliged to conform to, whilst visiting the Barbary Jews on
these high days and holidays.
1st. You must eat a piece of cake, at least of _one_ sort, if not of
several kinds, and drink a little brandy, wine somets, or boiled juice
of the grape, or sherbet. In many of the houses, they give nothing but
brandy, which is tastefully placed out on small round tables, as at a
pastrycook's shop.
2nd. You must admire the new dresses of the ladies, who are radiantly
and sumptuously attired "in flaming purple and refulgent gold," their
ornaments likewise of gold, silver, and all manner of precious stones;
for the daughters of Israel are, as on bridal days, all begemmed,
bejewelled, and diamonded, stuck over with gems as thick as stars "seen
in the galaxy or milky-way." On these festivals, it is absolutely a
matter of orthodox observance that the Jews and Jewesses should wear
something new.
