Sylvia Mann
Like the Jews, Samaritans celebrate three main pilgrim festivals. The Passover pilgrimage is especially meaningful, for it is part of their creed that members should make every effort to reach Mount Gerizim at least once a year — on the first day of Passover. Rites are carried out precisely according to the instruction in Leviticus 23:5: ‘In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord’s pass-over,’ and in Exodus 12:4–5, that every man take ‘a lamb for the house, and if the household be too little for a lamb, let him and his neighbour.. . take it according to the number of souls.’
Ten days or so before the feast, each family gathers in its own small stone croft at the foot of the mountain, bringing with it the sacrificial lamb. On the appointed evening, the men dress in white robes and enact the biddings of Exodus 12:11, that ‘ye shall eat it with your lions girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and ye shall eat it in haste,’ in rememberence of the hurried exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. While prayers are chanted, the paschal lambs are ritually slaughtered on the open hillside and ‘roasted with fire.’
On the feast of Tabernacles, the traditional booth, or Succah, is put up inside the home rather than outside as is the Jewish practice, for bitter experience across the ages has taught this vulnerable people the dangers of conspicuousness. For the same reason, mezzuzoth — metal or wooden cases enclosing small scrolls inscribed with two
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‘In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the Lord’s passover.’ (Lev. 23:5). The sacrifice of the paschal lamb on Mount Gerizim, climax of the Passover pilgrimage.
passages from Deuteronomy — are not affixed to the door-jamb as in a Jewish house, but are hung inside. Sometimes the appropriate passages are chiselled in ancient Hebrew on a stone block and the block is then set in the facade of the building. Other holy days are the New Year — Rosh Hashanah, also considered Moses’ birthday, which is celebrated for one day only, and the Fast of Atonement — Yom Kippur — when only infants below the age of a year are exempt from fasting.
Marriage customs follow the immemorial rules observed by Jews. Unions are stable, for although Samaritan law grants divorce in certain cases, it happens very rarely. From the medical angle, intermarriage with Jewish women seems to have had a salutary effect, for
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only one instance of congenial defect has been reported in Holon, the number in Nablus being far higher. Endogamy is known to multiply the chances of transmitting faulty genes and — especially — good ones. This is clearly to be seen among the Samaritans of Nablus, where most are outstandingly handsome and intelligent, but at least twelve — one in twenty of the whole number — suffer from muscular dystrophy or deaf-mutism. These unfortunates are not allowed to marry lest the future of this tiny people be jeopardized.
Death brings its own rituals. Before the funeral, readings from the Pentateuch go on through the night, and in the morning the body is coffined and then interred on Mount Gerizim. When the mourning period of thirty days has passed, the family prepares a meal of which the whole community partakes. In general, the Samaritan attitude to death and misfortune is philosophical, ‘It is the will of the Almighty.’ Except for the Day of Atonement, there are no fasts or lamentations in the Samaritan calendar, not even for the destruction of the ‘national’ temple on Mount Gerizim.
‘Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitation upon the Sabbath day,’ said Moses in Exodus 35:3. In a Samaritan household, the Sabbath is strictly observed. Cold food is prepared, and the Friday evening supper is eaten by candle-light; from then on, no lighting or heating is allowed until sunset on Saturday, after a day spent mostly in prayer.
There are three Samaritan synagogues — on Mount Gerizim, in the Samaritan Quarter of Nablus, and in Holon — all alike in their simplicity, bare of furniture, and the floor strewn with rush mats which are replaced by rugs on holy days. During services the men, who wear striped robes under a white kirtle and remove their shoes on entering the synagogue, face Mount Gerizim. Head covering — in Holon a white cap, in Nablus a red fez — is obligatory at worship.
Samaritan priests have a special place in the community. Originally descendants of Aaron, today they are of the Levite lineage of the sons of Uzziel ben Kohath ben Levi, for in 1624 the last high priest of the line of Aaron, Shalmah ben Phineas, died without male issue. They cut neither their hair nor their beards, wear voluminous cloaks and red turbans, and apply themselves to religious affairs, subsisting on the tithe given them by every working member.
They care for the Samaritan sacred writings, particularly the Abisha Scroll, said to have been written by Abisha, great-grandson of Aaron, in the thirteenth year after the entry of the Children of Israel
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A Samaritan priest with the Abisha Scroll, said to have been written in the thirteenth year after the entry of the Children of Israel into the Promised Land.
into the Promised Land. But most authorities believe that the treasured scroll, with its finely-worked silver casing and three rounded finials, dates from no earlier than the Middle Ages.
Another priestly duty is associated with the Samaritan calendar and the calculations made from it. The calendar is unique, and unlike the Jewish one, not dependent on lunar observation. It has two base lines — the date of the creation of the world (set at six thousand four hundred years ago), and the entry of Joshua and the Children of Israel into Canaan, reckoned to have taken place in 1630 BC, although as a rule historians pinpoint it around 1250 BC.
The educational demands made upon Samaritan children are very heavy. Because their number is small, no specifically Samaritan schools exist, and the youngsters attend local Government schools,
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but spend one hour before and two hours after regular school time in Samaritan studies. They learn Hebrew in ancient Hebrew script, for it is the language of prayer; they learn Aramaic; from an early age, they study the Samaritan liturgy and form of worship and the Pentateuch. When a boy has completed the reading of the Pentateuch, usually when he is nine or ten years old, the community assembles with him for a simple ceremony, and his parents give a party in his honour. Samaritans in Nablus, whose everyday tongue is Arabic, also study modern Hebrew so as to afford closer and easier contact with the authorities and with their kinsfolk in Holon. On the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Samaritan youth were encouraged to go on to university. Holon has already produced a number of graduates who have made their mark in various disciplines.
During the first year after Israel’s War of Independence, the mixing between the Samaritans of Nablus and of Holon was minimal; then, in 1954 the Jordanians allowed Samaritans from Israel to join their co-religionists on Mount Gerizim for the Passover. The Six-Day War made a vast difference, and kindred visit each other freely nowadays.
It was only to be expected that, after twenty-eight years of virtual severance, the two communities would develop dissimilar ways. In Nablus, the Samaritan speaks Arabic and dresses like his Arab neighbour, in Holon his language is Hebrew and he wears casual, Israeli-style clothes or army uniform when, like his Israeli compatriots, he is serving in the Israel Defence Forces.
In the space of one generation, new trends of consequence have emerged in Samaritan life: an improvement in health of the Holon families, and a general diversification of the professions and occupations of both groups which, until 1948, had been largely confined to teaching, shopkeeping and clerking.
Despite the smallness of the community, one remarkable facet of Samaritan life in Holon has been the production of two newspapers, of which the better known, Aleph Beth — A – B — has regular features in Samaritan, using the antique script, and in Hebrew, Arabic and English, with occasional pieces in other languages. Its editor is a young university graduate of the Tsadaka family, descendants, as is claimed, of the biblical Manasseh.
As in any modern society, day-to-day living is not without its problems. In Holon, for example, the greater freedom of contact
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with the outside world is bound to raise the question of personal relationships, or even marriage, with non-Samaritans. Army service, too, often brings its difficulties, particularly in the context of an ultra-strict observance of the Sabbath which does not necessarily coincide with that of orthodox Jewry.
Of the more practical issues, lack of housing is probably the most pressing — no doubt an indication, too, of social change, for whereas previously it was customary for young people to share a home with their parents, at least for a time, newly-weds now want to be on their own. To meet this need, more housing units are being built in Holon; in Nablus, where twenty-five young couples are waiting for accommodation, a scheme is in hand to provide living quarters and possibly some small industrial plants at the foot of Mount Gerizim.
To seize the real significance of such developments, they should be seen as part of the continuum of a nation once almost a million strong, which sank to a handful of a hundred and thirty-six souls a hundred years ago, and which, in the last few decades, has known a miraculous revival. Undeterred, these Guardians of the Faith have clung steadfastly to their belief in the Torah and hallowed Mount Gerizim, and in the punctilious fulfilment of all the precepts of the Five Books of Moses. Having proved themselves wise, industrious and adaptable, the Samaritans, as citizens of the State of Israel, now confront a range of positive challenges altogether without precedent in their almost three millennia of history.
(Extracted from “Report on Some Recent Excavations” in Christian News From Israel, Vol. XXVI, No. 1, 1976, and reprinted with permission. Christian News From Israel is a publication of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Jerusalem, Israel.)
For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Colossians 1:9, 10
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