rt" that can be procured, including fruit from the Tree of
Life and "the Pomegranates of Eden which are preserved for the Just."

At the end of the banquet "God will entertain the company at a ball"; He
Himself will sit in the midst of them, and everyone will point Him out
with his finger, saying: "Behold, this is our God: we have waited for
Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation."[809]

The eighteenth-century commentator, whose summary of these passages we
quote, goes on to observe:

But let us see a little after what manner the Jews are to live in
their ancient Country under the Administration of the Messiah. In
the First Place, the strange Nations, which they shall suffer to
live, shall build them Houses and Cities, till them Ground, and
plant them Vineyards; and all this, without so much as looking for
any Reward of their Labour. These surviving Nations will likewise
voluntarily offer them all their Wealth and Furniture: And Princes
and Nobles shall attend them; and be ready at their Nod to pay them
all Manner of Obedience; while they themselves shall be surrounded
with Grandeur and Pleasure, appearing abroad in Apparel glittering
with Jewels like Priests of the Unction, consecrated to God....

In a word, the felicity of this Holy Nation, in the Times of the
Messiah, will be such, that the exalted Condition of it cannot
enter into the Conception of Man; much less can it be couched in
human Expression. This is what the Rabbis say of it. But the
intelligent reader will doubtless pronounce it the Paradise of
Fools.[810]

It is interesting to notice that this conception of the manner in which
the return to Palestine is to be carried out has descended to certain of
the modern colonists. Sir George Adam Smith, after watching Zionism at
work in 1918, wrote:

On visiting a recently established Jewish colony in the north-east
of the land, round which a high wall had been built by the
munificent patron, I found the colonists sitting in its shade
gambling away the morning, while groups of _fellahin_ at a poor
wage did the cultivation for them. I said that this was surely not
the intention of their patron in helping them to settle on land of
their own. A Jew replied to me in German: "Is it not written: The
sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and vinedressers?" I know
that such