Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/100

 72 The Powers of Evil in Jerusalem.

proceed, but if flickering and variable, it is better to wait. The Jews, like others, will not begin an under- taking on a Friday. It is a bad sign to make a verbal mistake in prayer.

One day, while talking with a Jew, I was swinging my walking stick from one hand to the other, and observed that he watched me carefully. Suddenly per- ceiving that it was attached by a cord to my wrist, he said with an air of relief, " That is well, it is not good for a staff to fall from the hand." I ascertained afterwards that for a woman it was especially to be avoided, as it portended the loss of means of living.

It is a good sign when a sick person sneezes.

Of course the subjects most prominent in the minds of the orthodox Jews of Jerusalem are, the study of the Talmud, and the restoration of their race, of which the re-building of the Temple would be the first evidence. In accordance with this, they say that God spends one third of his time in studying the Talmud, one third in weeping over the Temple, and the rest in playing with the leviathan.

Another tradition relates the deep distress of the Almighty upon the receipt of the news of the victory of Titus. In vain the angels sought to console Him. He could only ejaculate, "Send for Jeremiah!" Appar- ently none but the author of the book of Lamentations could adequately express the emotion of the occasion. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, were also sent for, although there was some difficulty in finding the last mentioned, as apparently the Jews accept the fact that " no man knows that Sepulchre, and no man saw it e'er," whereas the Arabs, as has been seen, place his grave at Neby Moussa. The queerest part of the story, which is quite serious, is, that after the Temple was burnt, God, sitting down in the ashes, cried, "The foxes have holes and the birds have nests, but my children who have escaped