spiritual self-surrender, who can measure the
inmost and invisible gains which accrued to and rewarded the child?

It is a happy thought of Renan[V] that all the joys of Israel are in
reality an enlargement of the family life; their feast is a repast in
common, the natural eucharist to which the poor is admitted, a
thanksgiving for life as it is with its limits, which do not prevent
it from being present under the eye of Jahweh who dispenses good and
evil. The Fifth Commandment bade more than obedience on the part of
children to parents; by indirection it enjoined parents and children
alike to magnify the home, to make it the centre and core of Israel's
life, so that it became the very salvation of Israel when no other
salvation was at hand.

The very name that is given to Israel, the house of Israel, seems to
have been prophetic of what the family life of Israel was destined to
be. The house of Israel and the life of the Jewish home became
interchangeable terms. That the Jewish home safeguarded and
perpetuated Israel through ages of darkness and tears and tragedy is
true beyond peradventure. Whether this home-life in all its dignity
and grandeur was the result of the ghetto is rather doubtful. The
ghetto, which was the environment of the exile in its narrowest terms,
gave to Israel an unique opportunity for the development of what might
be called its genius for home-life. But if opportunity and genius
conjoined to create the result, this genius was inspired and fortified
from generation to generation by willing, even eager, obedience to the
Fifth Commandment of the Decalogue.

One might search far and wide without finding a finer illustration of
the character of the Jewish parental-filial relation than the
immemorial service in the Jewish home, commonly known as the Seder or
service of the Passover eve. That Seder with its family symposium has
been the glory of Israel throughout the ages. Ofttimes its serene joy
and august peace have been marred by brutal attack and onslaught, but
even this, the invasion by the world's hosts, has but served to lend a
new dignity and pathos to its beauty. Precious and historic memories
revolve about this family-scene, the children turning to the parents
for counsel and teaching and parents turning to their children and
giving these of their best by bringing God and the recognition of His
wonderful leading to the life of the child.

That Seder of the Passover eve in the Jewish home