The writer of the Book of Proverbs, with characteristic Syrian intensity, alludes to the process of kibbey-making in one of his assaults upon "the fool." In the twenty-second verse of the twenty-seventh chapter he says, "Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him."
Be that as it may, the craving of a Syrian for kibbey (and I fully know whereof I speak) makes the craving of a Bostonian for baked beans and fish-balls for a Sunday breakfast pale into insignificance.
During Marafeh friends and neighbors feast together until the last night that precedes the beginning of Lent. The feast of that night is one of family solemnity, upon which no outsiders may intrude. The members of the family come together to eat the last feast and drink their cup of wine before entering upon the solemn period of self-denial, fasting, and prayer. As at the ancient sacrificial feasts, all the members of the family must be present. It was this very custom which afforded Jonathan the excuse to send his beloved friend David away from King Saul's court, and thus save him from the murderous design which that monarch had against the son of Jesse. So it was when the suspicious Saul asked his son, "Wherefore cometh not the son of Jesse to meat, neither yesterday nor to-day?" Jonathan answered Saul, "David earnestly asked leave of me to go to Bethlehem: and he said, Let me go, I pray thee; for our family hath a sacrifice in the city; and my brother, he hath commanded me to be there."[[1]]
On that solemnly joyous evening my mother spreads the feast, and with most tender and pious affections my parents call their sons and daughters to surround the low table. My father pours the wine. To us all the cup is symbolic of sacred joy. Holding the cup in his hand, my father leans forward and says to my mother, "May God prolong your life and grant you the joy of many returns of this feast!" And to us, "May your lives be long; may we be granted to drink the cup at your weddings; may God grant you health and happiness and many future feasts!" We all answer, "May your drinking be health and happiness and length of days!" My mother, after wishing my father the blessings he wished for her, and imploring the Most High to bless and keep him "over our heads," drinks next. Then the wine is passed to every one of us. "Drink ye all of it" is my father's command; for who can tell whether the family circle shall remain unbroken until the Easter festival? Not a trace of the feast is kept in the house until the morrow. What is not eaten is burned or thrown away, for on the next day no meat, eggs, or milk is permitted to the faithful. Wine also is not supposed to be indulged in during Lent, until the Easter bell heralds the tidings of the Resurrection.
So did the Master speak to his disciples on the eve of his suffering. In the twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel we read, "And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it.... But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."
Thus from the simplest conception of bread as a means to satisfy physical hunger to the loftiest mystic contemplation of it as a sacramental element, the Orientals have always eaten bread with a sense of sacredness. "Bread and salt," "bread and wine," "Christ the bread of life," "For we, being many, are one bread," "Give us this day our daily bread," these and other sayings current in the Bible and in Oriental speech all spring from the deepest life of the ancient East.
And the sacredness of this common article of food has been of most inestimable value to Oriental peoples. In the absence of other means of social cohesion, and the higher civil interests which bind men together, it has been a great blessing indeed to those much-divided Orientals to find peace and security in the simple saying, "There is bread and salt between us."
[[1]] 1 Sam. xx: 27-29.
PART IV