EXHIBIT OF BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES. 995 



common lu ISTew Testament times. The later Jews enjoined also that 

 thanks should be returned after the repast. 



Silver, spice box. — Supposed to have been manufactured in Laup- 

 heim (Wilrtemberg), Germany, about 1740. (See plate 18, fig. 4.) This 

 box, filled with spices, is used in the Jewish service known as Habdalah 

 (or separation), the service of the conclusion of the Sabbath. There is a 

 tradition that at the beginning of the Sabbath a special angel accom- 

 panies the worshiper from the synagogue; this angel remains with him 

 until the couclusion of the Sabbath. The departure of the angel leaves 

 the man faint, and the spices are intended to restore him. The objects 

 used in this service are a cui) of wine, the spice box, and a candle. 

 First a blessing is said over the wine, next over the spices, and last 

 over the light. The cup of wine and the spice box are passed around 

 among the members of the household. The candle is then extinguished 

 by having wine poured upon it. 



Brass plate, used at the Passover meal, — Adorned with animal 

 figures and ilowers and containing an Arabic inscription in Hebrew 

 characters. Made in Constantinople (see plate 10). At the Passover 

 meal {Seder, properly "order") a large plate is put on the table, which 

 forms, as it were, the altar of the service. On it are placed the various 

 emblematic articles of the ceremony. These are: a piece of roasted 

 meat, usually the bone of a lamb, representing the Passover lamb; a 

 roasted egg, in memory of the festal sacrifice offered in the Temple; 

 bitter herbs {maror, usually horse-radish), in commemoration of the 

 "embittering of life'' which Israel suffered in Egyptian servitude;^ 

 charoseth, a compound of almonds, apples, and sirup, which has the 

 color of brick-clay, and into which the bitter herbs are dipj^ed before it 

 is partaken of; some green herbs (lettuce or something similar), as the 

 "food of poverty;" and the unleavened bread or ma^-goth, the principal 

 food of the Passover feast, which is the "bread of affliction, for thou 

 camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste."- 



Omer tablet (manuscript). (See plate -JO.) Used in the Syna- 

 gogue for reckoning the period between Passover and Pentecost. The 

 tablet is in Hebrew. It contains the words, "Blessed art thou, O Lord 

 our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with His Com- 

 mandments and commanded us to count the Omer." Then follows the 

 count (in Hebrew), and below it the words, "May the Lord restore the 

 worship of the temple speedily in our days," and Psalm Ixvii. The 

 letters H, S, and D on the left, mean, respectively, Omer (written Homer 

 by the Spanish Jews), week (Sabbath), and day. The figures on the 

 right indicate that it is the forty-seventh day of Omer, i. e., six weeks 

 and five days. The harvest season was formally opened with the cere- 

 mony of waving a sheaf of barley in the sanctuary on the second day 

 of the Passover feast, which began on the 15th of Nisan (March- April). 



'Exodus i, 14. 2 Deuteronomy xvi, 3. 



