Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 1.pdf/72

26 Ab, Fifteenth

Abaye it

Day of

was the great day

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA of wood-offering,

when both

priests and pioplc firoughl kindling-wood in large iimintitics to the allar. for use in llu- liiiruing of sacThis day being Midritiies during the whole year. summer Day, when the solar heat reached itsclimax. the people stopped hewing wood in the forest, prob-

ably until the t^fteenth

Day

of Shebat (February),

ABANA IlULh

26

to bring wooti for the altar on that day so that there should never beany lack of fuel for the eternal tire." Zi|)M'r suggested tlnit the day. ealled also the Day i>f the Breaking of the Ax. was celebraled by boutires in the same fa.shion that the Syrians, according to Lucian, celebrated Midsummer Day ("De Syria Dea"). The festival had a purely secular character,

Al DAM.^>_LS.

(From a photograph by BonfiU.)

the so-called New-year's Day of the trees (see R. II. i. 1), because the new sap of spring entered vegetation on that day. Various reasons are given in the Talmud for this celebration. One is that the tribes were allowed to intennany (Num. xxxvi.) on that day another, that the interdict on the tribe of Benjamin was removed on that day (.Judges, xxi. la et !<(i/.); again another, that the death penalty following the bad report of the spies (Num. xv. 32) had ceased; or that the interference with the jjilgrimage to Jerusalem at the festal season by Jeroboam I. (I Kings, xii. 33) was removed by Rosea on that day. Others, by a strange anachronism, maintain that those slain on the battle-tield in the war of Bar Kokba received the customary The actual explanation is burial rites on this day. given in Meg. Tuanit.v. and ^Mishnah, iv. 5. according to which nini> families of Judah brought at certain times during the year the wood for the binning of the sacrifices on the altar, in accordance with Neh. X. 34: on the Fifteenth Day of Ab, however, all the people, the priests as well as the Levites, took part in the wood-ofTcring.

Day of Shebat (Februaryl. the one being an ancient midwinter, the other a midsummer, festival of pagan origin; while the various explanations and stories given in Megillat Ta'anit and the Talmud show that in the course of time the main reason was forgotten. Compare the St. Valentine's Day celebrations and thebonlires on the hills among the various nations in connection with marriage, and the St. John's Day festivities, in Manuhardt's

JosephusC'B. J."ii. IT, § 6) also mentions this festival, and calls it the Feast of Xylophory (" WoodIjearing "). but jilaccs it on the Fourteenth of Ab (Lous), saying that " it was the custom for every one

king over them, which



like the Fifteenth

"Baumkultus," pp. 449-553. linh. Taltmid Ta'anit. pp. STth. 3n;., :tl(i Herzfeld. Gcgc/i. d. Volhex Israel, f. 07, Ks. 144; li. V.V<. IW; d.Juilen. *l ed.. p. 012: Zliwr, Dix Hariiis J<«cp/ii« Wcrli, Ufhrr da." H<ihcAlh:ri1ivJlUli.irlii)iV<ill:i-s Uiarh Hebr. OrifiinalfiueUcn. etc.), ed. Dr. A. .Ti-lllnek, 1S71. p. 137; Ha-Tchiiimh, 1. Nos. 43, 45, 49, Chicaso, Ifldd.

BiBLior.RAPHY: Griitz, GiKi-h.

K.

ABADDON ("Realm

of Destruction"): In rabbinic and New Testament literature, the second department of Gehenna, the nether world; almost syn-

onvmous with Sheol(Midr. Konen; compare Joshua ben Levi in 'Er, 19(7). In Rev. ix. 11 Abaddon is personified as the

" . d they had a the angel of the bottimiless

Angel of Hell is



pit,"whose name in the Helirew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name ApoUynn." In the Old Testament, however,the word is pecidiar to