e dead past had
been imported into the burning present--into things that mattered for
life or death.

Yes, the new generation chopped the logic of Zionism or Socialism, as
the old argued over the ritual of burnt-offerings whose smoke had not
risen since the year 70 of the Christian era, or over the decisions of
Babylonian _Geonim_, no stone of whose city remained standing. The men
of to-day had merely substituted for the world of the past the world
of the future, and so there had arisen logically-perfect structures of
Zionism without Zion, Jewish Socialism without a Jewish social order,
Labour Parties without votes or Parliaments. The habit of actualities
had been lost; what need of them when concepts provided as much
intellectual stimulus? Would Israel never return to reality, never
find solid ground under foot, never look eye to eye upon life?

But as the last patch of sunset faded out of the strip of wintry sky,
David suddenly felt infinitely weary of reality; a great yearning
came over him for that very unreality, that very 'dead past' in which
pious Jewry still lived its happiest hours. Oh, to forget the Parties,
the jangle of politics and philosophies, the _tohu-bohu_ of his
unhappy day! He must bathe his soul in an hour's peace; he would go
back like a child to the familiar study-house of his youth, to the
_Beth Hamedrash_ where the greybeards pored over the great worm-eaten
folios, and the youths rocked in their expository incantations. There
lay the magic world of fantasy and legend that had been his people's
true home, that had kept them sane and cheerful through eighteen
centuries of tragedy--a watertight world into which no drop of outer
reality could ever trickle. There lay Zion and the Jordan, the Temple
and the Angels; there the Patriarchs yet hovered protectively over
their people. Perhaps the Milovka study-house boasted even Cabbalists
starving themselves into celestial visions and graduating for the
Divine kiss. How infinitely restful after the Milovka market-place! No
more, for that day at least, would he prate of Self-Defence and the
horrible Modern.

He asked the way to the _Beth Hamedrash_. How fraternally the sages
and the youths would greet him! They would inquire in the immemorial
formula, 'What town comest thou from?' And when he told them, they
would ask concerning its Rabbi and what news there was. And 'news,'
David remembered with a tearful smile, meant 'new interpretations of
texts.' Ye