SCRIBES, a term used in the New Testament to denote certain Jewish teachers who differed from or were opposed to Jesus (Matt. 7:29). It is often used in the combination "scribes and Pharisees" (Matt. 23). The term is apparently the translation of the Hebrew soferim, which means not scribes in the usual sense, but "book-men," that is, interpreters of the sefer, the book of the Law (torah). This title was borne by the teachers, beginning with Ezra, who interpreted the Scriptures from the 5th cent. to the 2nd cent. B.C.E., when the Pharisees began to dispute their place. Apparently these teachers were priests, or followers of the priestly group, the Sadducees; therefore the term "scribes" in the New Testament may be the equivalent of “Sadducean teachers."

For a discussion of the work of these "scribes," see SOFERIM. For scribes in the ordinary sense, see WRIT

ING.

SCRIPTURES, HOLY, see BIBLE.

SCRIPTURES, READING OF, see HAFTARAH; TORAH, READING OF.

SCROLL OF THE LAW, see TORAH, Scroll of. SCYTHIANS, a nomadic people in Central Asia, living north of the Black Sea and east of the Carpathian mountains. About 630 B.C.E. they began to erupt southward and eastward, and this was one of the chief causes for the fall of the Assyrian Empire in the decades which followed. The Bible makes no direct reference to the Scythians, but Herodotus reports that they threatened to invade Egypt by way of Palestine and that they withdrew only after being bought off by the Pharaoh of Egypt. Bible scholars have suggested that the threatened invasion of the Scythians had repercussions in Judah, possibly even leading to the Deuteronomic reformation.

Certain passages in Jeremiah (4:5-31; 6:1-8) as well as Zephaniah may have been written in anticipation of a Scythian invasion; while Ezekiel's description of a coming war (Ezek. 38) from Magog may refer to the Scythians. However, the only traces of the onslaught in Palestine was the change of the name of Beth-shan to Scythopolis. Lit.: The Biblical dictionaries. SCYTHOPOLIS, see BETH-SHAN.

SDEH NAHUM, SDEH WARBURG, SDEH YAAKOV, see COLONIES, AGricultural.

SEAL (Hebrew hotham), an object used to stamp a device or a name in a soft substance, such as clay or wax, which when hardening preserves the impression and thus serves to authenticate a document or other official object. The Jews, like other peoples of antiquity, made use of seals as far back as Biblical times. These consisted of flat or circular stones into which marks or pictures were cut; they were used to seal letters and documents (1 Kings 21:8; Isa. 29:11; Jer. 32:10) or to close up vessels and doors. They were generally worn on a string which went around the neck or the arm, or set in a ring (Gen. 38:18; Jer. 22:24; Song of Songs 8:6).

A large number of such seals have been excavated in Palestine. It is difficult in many cases to determine whether the inscription is Hebrew, Aramaic or Phoenician, since all these languages used the same alphabet, wrote without vowels and used words with the same basic consonants. However, the pictures used and the nature of the inscriptions often indicate certain seals as Jewish, as for instance the seal of "Shema, servant of Jeroboam," found at Megiddo (it is reproduced in vol. 1, p. 459); this shows a leaping lion with wide open jaws, such as is found frequently in the monuments of Assyria and Babylonia. The accompanying He

SEASONGOOD

brew inscription shows that the seal was made in Palestine, though possibly by a Babylonian artist. A second seal of a Shema (perhaps the same man) has been found in Jerusalem. In Talmudic times seals were made of metal and wood; they were often dipped in a special ink and used to seal letters. The objects depicted on ancient seals are of many kinds; plants and animals occur frequently, but there are also utensils, human beings and parts of the body.

In the 7th cent. the Mohammedan Caliph Omar forbade the Jews to wear seal-rings, which at that time was regarded as the right of the upper class; he limited this to Mohammedans. An exception was made in the case of the exilarchs, who were permitted to wear seal-rings as the sign of their office.

In Europe seal-rings were at first used only by kings and princes, and it was not until the 13th cent. that their use became general. To this period belong the first discoveries of Jewish seals in Spain, Italy and Central Europe. A little later almost every Jewish community had a seal of its own, the use of which was regulated by the government. Numerous private individuals, especially rabbis and merchants, had seals of their

own.

These seals usually had a figure as well as an inscription; the latter was generally in Hebrew or Latin. Many seals had two faces: one with Hebrew for dealings with Jews, and one with Latin for dealings with non-Jews. The images often were a sort of pun on the name of the owner; thus Spinoza had a seal of a thorny twig, from the Latin spinosus, "thorny." The signs of the zodiac and the Shield of David were favorite objects on seals. In the 19th cent. metal seals were replaced gradually by rubber stamps and gradually lost their legal importance. Seals are still used, however, to mark certain foods as Kosher.

Most large museums have collections of seals, in which Jewish seals do not appear separately but are included in those of their respective eras.

LEON JULIUS SILBERSTROM.

Lit.: Wolf, A., in Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 11, pp. 13440; Levy, Siegel und Gemmen (1869); Löw, Leopold, Graphische Requisiten und Erzeugnisse bei den Juden (1870); reports of excavations in Palestine; Longpérier, in Archives Israélites, vol. 33, p. 727.

SEAL OF SOLOMON, see SHIELD OF DAVID.

SEASONGOOD, LEWIS, merchant, b. Burgenstadt, Bavaria, Germany, 1836; d. Cincinnati, 1914. He came to Cincinnati, where he engaged in business, in 1851. He was one of the originators of the Cincinnati Exposition, of which he was treasurer in 1872. In 1873 President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him one of the four United States commissioners to the Vienna Exposition. He was one of the projectors of the Southern Railroad. In 1875 he was appointed one of the sinking fund commissioners of Cincinnati.

Seasongood served on many important commissions in the board of trade and chamber of commerce, and in 1880 was appointed quartermaster-general and commissary-general of the state of Ohio. For twenty years he was financial secretary of the United Jewish Cemetery Association of Cincinnati, and for many years he was on the executive board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.

Lit.: "Sketch of the Life of Lewis Seasongood," Historical and Biographical Cyclopedia of Ohio.

SEASONGOOD, MURRAY, jurist and mayor, b. Cincinnati, 1878. He was educated at Cincinnati, Guilford, England, and at Harvard University, which conferred upon him the M.A. (1901) and LL.B. (1903) degrees. He practised law, and from 1926 to 1930 served as mayor of Cincinnati, for two terms. From 1925 on he taught the subject of municipal corpora

tions at the University of Cincinnati. Seasongood served also as chairman of the Ohio Commission for the Blind (1915-25) and of the City Planning Commission (1926-30), and as president of the National Municipal League and of the Hamilton County Good Government League (from 1934 on). Seasongood was credited with having taken the initiative in the political reform movement which resulted in the elimination of the Cox machine and the introduction of the commission form of city government in Cincinnati. He was also a member of the Criminal Rules Committee appointed by the United States Supreme Court. He was a trustee of many welfare and educational institutions, including the Hebrew Union College, and served on the executive committee of the American Jewish Committee as well as on the council and board of directors of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

Seasongood was the author of Local Government in the United States (2nd ed., 1934) and Cases on Municipal Corporations (2nd ed., 1941). He contributed to Cincinnati, Harvard and Virginia law reviews, to Scribner's Magazine, to American Scholar and many other publications.

SEATTLE, the largest city in the state of Washington, including, in 1943, approximately 15,000 Jews in its total population of 368,302 (census of 1940). Thus about three-quarters of all the Jewish inhabitants of the state were concentrated in Seattle. The first permanent settlement was founded here in 1852; in the following year, filing its town plat, Seattle was made the seat of newly erected King County. Seattle was nothing more than a sawmill center when, shortly after 1860, Jews first put in their appearance. To the east, at Walla Walla, Sigmund Schwabacher, pioneer Jew of the region that later became the state of Washington, had founded the wholesale grocery firm of Schwabacher and Company in 1862. Seven years afterward a branch of the business was opened in Seattle; the company erected the city's first brick building. To this thriving little community on Puget Sound, destined to be a prosperous lumber and fishing center and a great seaport of the Pacific, came Jews from the wellestablished Jewish community of Victoria in British Columbia, and from Portland, Ore. Word of mouth history relates that each newcomer was welcomed in the spirit of pioneer democracy by those already settled in the town; and that many a stranger was provided with some small capital with which to start an enterprise and thus became firmly integrated into the community.

Among the Jewish settlers who early established themselves in the town were Bailey Gatzert, Simon and Jacob Davis, Emanuel Rosenberg, Paul Singerman, Caroline Klinc

Murray Seasongood

Galland, Samuel Frauenthal, Kassel Gottstein and the Schwabacher family. Later, there were the Rickles family, Frank Antel, Morris Pearl, B. Myer, Aaron Garfinkle, Harry Lasky, Philip Silverstone, Benjamin Levy, Joseph Abramowitz, Jacob Alpern, Zalman Grodsinsky, Hyman Levitt, J. M. Buttnick, Max Cohen, Herman Kessler, Mendel Aronin, Isaac Colsky, M. Goodclik, Solomon Potts, Abraham Spring, Sam Shapiro and the Shafter family.

Meeting in Minyans in private homes or rented rooms, the Jews of Seattle held unorganized religious services for about ten years. But with the growing city (Seattle received its first charter in 1880 and its first railway connection in 1884) the Jewish community, likewise expanding, felt the need for formal religious worship. In 1887 a congregation, Ohabath Sholom, was organized. This group later formed the nucleus of the Reform Temple De Hirsch, organized largely through the efforts of Leo Kohn.

Temple De Hirsch was founded in 1899, in the period when Seattle Jewry was sharing in the prosperity brought by the gold rush of 1897. Theodore F. Joseph was called to be the congregation's first rabbi, and served until 1906. He was then succeeded by Samuel Koch, who was retired in 1942 as rabbi emeritus. The congregation then called to the pulpit Raphael H. Levine, whose synagogue in London had been destroyed in the air raids of the second World War. A synagogue for Temple De Hirsch was started but not completed in 1901; in 1908 a new building was erected on another site. In 1943 the congregants were

The Herzl Synagogue at Seattle

The Fani Rosenbaum Memorial Chapel at Seattle

using the impressive Temple and Center built in 1925. A decade before this Reform congregation was founded a handful of Orthodox Jews met in Red Men's Hall for high holy day services. In 1892 the group officially became Congregation Chevra Bikur Cholum, and elected as rabbi H. Genss, the first ordained rabbi to serve in Seattle. The synagogue was opened in 1898. Rabbis succeeding Genss were Gedaliah Halpern (1905), Simon Glazer (1919), Simon Winograd (1923) and Solomon P. Wohlgelernter, who was elected in 1930 and was still the incumbent in 1943. The second synagogue was erected in 1925, and was subsequently enlarged and improved.

Another group, Herzl Synagogue, was constituted in 1906. In 1932 the members reorganized into the Herzl Conservative Congregation, and elected as their rabbi Philip A. Langh (1932-40). He was succeeded by Bernard D. Rosenberg (1940-41); Samuel Cass (1941-42), who left for the Canadian Army chaplain service; and Franklin Cohn (1942- ). The synagogue erected in 1924 was in use in 1943. A remarkable feature of the Herzl Synagogue is the hand-carved panel over the Ark, wrought by Leo A. Meltzer in his leisure hours as a labor of love. In 1937 the congregation dedicated the Fani Rosenbaum memorial chapel (in Herzl Memorial Park), the gift of her son, Lewis N. Rosenbaum, one time of Seattle and later of New York city.

In a study made in 1933, Seattle was found to have the third largest Sephardic Jewish community in the United States, composed of approximately 3,000 Jews of Levantine origin. The Sephardic Jews supported numerous organizations of their own, including the congregations Ezra Bessaroth (organized in 1912), of which Isidore Kahan was rabbi in 1943, and Sephardic Bikur Holim Ahabath Achim, organized in 1914.

The Orthodox congregation Machzikay Hadath (organized in 1929) had as its rabbi, in 1943, Baruch Shapiro.

The Hillel Foundation at the University of Washington was under the direction, in 1943, of Rabbi Arthur Zuckerman. Jewish education of youth and adults came to be a major activity of the Seattle community. The Talmud Torah of Congregation Chevra Bikur Cholum, moving into a new structure in 1930, became a city-wide institution. Its Yeshiva was reorganized in 1939. In 1943 Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Levine was its head. The Herzl Conservative Congre

gation, in addition to its school for young people, undertook a program of adult education, and established the Martin Klatzker library in 1938. The library of Temple De Hirsch schools numbered more than 7,000 volumes. Temple De Hirsch instituted a graduate school for high school and university students, and a correspondence school for Jewish children in isolated communities.

In charitable and social service the community made an early start. The Ladies' Hebrew Benevolent Society of Temple De Hirsch was organized in 1892; its president and secretary, together with the like officers of Congregation Temple De Hirsch, were designated executive directors of a large trust fund left by the will of Mrs. Bonham (Caroline Kline) Galland (d. 1907) for the care of the aged of the Pacific Northwest in the Caroline Kline Galland Home for the Aged. The Seattle Hebrew Benevolent Association was formed in 1895, the local section of the National Council of Jewish Women in 1900, and the Ladies' Montefiore Aid in 1901. The Bikur Cholum Hachnosas Orchim was established in 1937. General organizations were the Federated Jewish Fund, of which Alfred Shemanski was president and Rabbi Wohlgelernter associate president in 1943, and the Jewish Welfare Society. The Workmen's Circle dedicated its new building in 1942.

The Jewish Transcript, a Pacific Northwest weekly in English founded at Seattle in 1924, had Herman A. Horowitz as editor and publisher until 1942, when it was made a community newspaper. Herman Keisler became chairman of the board of trustees, and the editorial board included the local rabbis and the presidents of the Federated Jewish Fund and the B'nai B'rith.

In the democratic community of the far Northwest, Jews were from the first participants in political life. Bailey Gatzert, a leader in business and politics, was an early mayor of the city. Isaac J. Lichtenberg was judge of the superior court of King County (1889-93). Philip Tworoger was an associate police judge (191720). Samuel R. Stern was judge of the superior court (1925-37), and Simon Wampold was a municipal court judge (1941). In the city council were A. Louis Cohen (1921-34) and David Levine (1930- ; president, 1934). Saul Haas was collector of customs (1935- ). In the state legislature from Seattle were A. Louis Cohen (1934-42) and David Cowen (1934-36). Mark M. Lichtman was legal adviser to the legislature in 1935 and 1937. Joseph Jacobs was director of the Washington State Chamber of Commerce (1925-30).

Prominent in business, and in the civic and philanthropic life of the city, were Charles Miller, an early resident;

SEBŐK

Berman Schoenfeld, of a pioneer family, member of the National Business Survey Conference Commission under President Herbert Hoover; Max A. Silver, president of the Retail Code Authority of the NRA; Henry Pecord, on the State Reformatory Parole Board; Lewis N. Rosenbaum, active in interfaith work. Alfred Shemanski, president of the board of regents of the University of Washington, established at the school the Jewish Student Loan Fund. Mrs. Samuel Rosenberg founded a scholarship at the university in memory of her husband. Samuel Koch was a member of the city's public library board for more than a decade. P. Allen Rickles, son of an early settler, was grand president of the B'nai B'rith District 4, and an editor of the Jewish Transcript. In 1928 Nathan Eckstein, president of the old firm of Schwabacher Brothers and Company, and long time member and president of the city school board, was designated Scattle's most useful citizen, an honor conferred for the first time in the city's history. Herman Schocken was very active, being the original founder of the Jewish Community Council and acting chairman of the Washington Émigré Bureau of the National Refugee Service. LIONEL HILL.

Lit.: American Hebrew, Aug. 21, 1931, p. 247, Golden Jubilee Book of Congregation Bikur Cholum (Seattle, Wash., 1941).

SEAVER, EDWIN, writer, b. Washington, D. C., 1900. He received the A.B. degree from Harvard in 1922. His two novels, The Company (1930) and Between the Hammer and the Anvil (1937), made an impression abroad as well as in the United States, particularly in the Soviet Union, where both were published in large editions. His work received critical acclaim as a mature example of socially conscious realism. A number of his short stories were reprinted in the O'Brien anthologies. Notable features of Seaver's fictional method are his use of social groups as protagonists, clarifying and fulfilling the characters in a synthesis of relationships.

Seaver was active also as editor, critic and lecturer. The magazine 1924, named for the year of issue, was under his editorship, and was one of the more important of the short-lived but influential "little" magazines of the 1920's. He was book editor of Direction; for it, and for other periodicals, he wrote reviews.

He also conducted a book review program over radio station WQXR, and taught modern fiction at the New School for Social Research and at the Writers School of the League of American Writers. In 1943 he was director of public relations for the Book-Of-The-Month Club.

ISIDOR SCHNEIDER. SEBAG-MONTEFIORE, Anglo-Jewish family, founded by SAMUEL SEBAG, merchant and diplomat (b. Mogador, Morocco, 1783; d. London, 1831). In 1799 Sebag went to London with his relative, Meir Cohen Macnin, who was accredited to the Court of St. James as diplomatic representative of the Sultan of Morocco. Sebag served Macnin as chief clerk. At the same time they were associated in carrying on a business.

Although Sebag was very young, he took an important part in international affairs because England was greatly interested in Morocco during the Napoleonic War. In 1813 Sebag married Sarah, eldest daughter of Joseph Elias Montefiore and sister of Sir Moses Montefiore. The Montefiores highly appreciated Scbag, and Lady Montefiore mentioned him more than once in her Journal.

Sebag's son, JOSEPH SEBAG-MONTEFIORE (b. London, 1822; d. London, 1903), became Sir Moses Montefiore's intimate confidant, and succeeded to his estates and heirlooms. He was consul general for Italy at London, and Lieutenant of the City of London. In 1896 he was knighted. Sir Joseph Sebag-Montefiore was for many years president of the elders of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation, and from 1895 to 1902 president of the Board of Deputies. Many of his descendants served and excelled in the British Army.

CECIL SEBAG-MONTEFIORE (b. London, 1874) was captain of the Royal Engineers and chief staff officer of the Jewish Lads' Brigade. ROBERT SEBAG-MONTEFIORE, a captain, died of his wounds in 1915. THOMAS HARRY SEBAG-MONTEFIORE, a colonel, was decorated with the Distinguished Service Order, and became elder of the Spanish and Portuguese Congregation. CHARLES EDWARD SEBAG-MONTEFIORE (b. London, 1886) was, in 1943, president of the Jewish ex-service men's Legion and honorary secretary of the Jewish Victims of the War Fund. He was also a member of the board of the Jewish Legion and of the Jewish religious education board, member of the Board of Guardians, and treasurer of the Victoria Boys Club and the Hayes Industrial School. ERICH SEBAG-MONTEFIORE was, in 1943, captain of the Durham Light Infantry.

SEBAG-MONTEFIORE, WILLIAM, merchant and communal worker, b. London, 1885. He was a grandnephew of Sir Moses Montefiore. He studied at Clifton College, Bristol, and at an early age entered the British army service, later retiring to follow a business career. He settled in Canada in 1912, taking up residence in Montreal, where he married a great-granddaughter of Henry Joseph.

When the first World War broke out he went overseas to rejoin his regiment, the Fifth Lancers, of which he was a former lieutenant. He served on the western front in France, was transferred to the heavy artillery and promoted to cap. tain, later being appointed to the headquarters' staff with the British forces in Egypt. During the operations of General Allenby against Palestine, Captain Sebag-Montefiore was in command of a squadron of cavalry. He was twice mentioned in despatches, and awarded the Military Cross.

Sebag-Montefiore took a keen interest in the affairs of the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue, Montreal, of which he became president in 1921; by 1942 he had served for twenty-one consecutive years in that post. He was, in 1943, a member of the Dominion council of the Canadian Jewish Congress and of its war efforts committee, and was closely connected with other phases of Jewish communal activity. BENJAMIN G. SACK.

Lit.: History of the Spanish and Portuguese Congrega tion, Montreal (1918); The Jew in Canada (1926).

SEBASTE, see SAMARIA.

SEBESTYÉN, KÁROLY, author and educator, b. Gödre, Hungary, 1872. He studied at the Universities of Budapest, Leipzig and Berlin, and became a teacher of classical languages in a Budapest Gymnasium. He contributed theatre criticism to the leading Budapest newspapers, translated several classical dramas, including Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, and published numerous essays and books on esthetics.

He became vice-director of the Hungarian academy of the dramatic arts, was elected to leading literary societies, and through his criticism exerted a definite influence on the Hungarian theatre. Sebestyén was a regular contributor to the year books of the Jewish Hungarian literary society. A poet of distinction, he translated selections from Byron's Hebrew Melodies. His books published in Hungarian include monographs on the Hungarian-Jewish poet Emil Makai, on Shakespeare and the English Renaissance, on the philosophy of the Greeks, on Roman literature, and on dramaturgy.

SEBŐK, ZSIGMOND, author and journalist, b. Párkány, Hungary, 1861; d. Budapest, 1916. Having studied philosophy and the sciences at the University of Budapest, he entered the journalistic career, collaborating on daily newspapers in Budapest and Szeged as well as on Az Én Ujságom (My News paper), a children's weekly, founded by men who were alive to the shortcut of communication that exists from the poet to the child. To this children's world of poetry Sebők contributed the figures of Mackó Ur

SEDER

(Mr. Grizzly) and of Dörmögő Dömötör (Gregory Grumble), around whose hilarious exploits on visits to town he spun many enchanting yarns. Underneath the fun Mr. Mackó and Dörmögő Dömötör, in their awkward geniality, symbolized the Hungarian country gentleman of the older generation whom life had by-passed in its progress towards industrial civilization, and whose species was doomed to extinction like that of the bear. The bear cubs, Zebulon and Dorka, in their frisky capers, are just children of all countries and all times who are fortunate to be guided by naive and well-meaning elders.

Their adventures told by Sebők in the pages of Az Én Ujságom and later of Jó Pajtás (The Good Pal), which he edited with E. Benedek from 1910 on, as well as in many books, became a definite factor in the literary education of children. A sensitive teller of short stories, Sebők also published several volumes of them. His general outlook and his language were deeply rooted in Magyar culture. Sebők adopted the Christian faith.

SECO, see SIKO.

SECOND ADAR (VE-ADAR), see CALENDAR.

SECOND DAY OF HOLIDAYS, see HOLIDAYS, SECOND DAY OF.

SECRET WRITING, see CRYPTOGRAPHY.

SECRETS OF MOSES, title given to the Samaritan book Asatir by its editor, Moses Gaster. It contains a repetition of the narrative of the Pentateuch after the style of the Midrash, and ends with a prophecy of the events of the next 3,204 years and the death of Moses. Gaster put the origin of the work in the middle of the 3rd cent. B.C.E.

Lit.: Gaster, M., The Samaritan Book of the "Secrets of Moses" (1927).

SECTS. Sects are defined as groups within the followers of a religion which separate from the main body or which arise to struggle for supremacy with other sects within the religion. Sects usually appear when the older forms of religion have fallen into decay and need a regeneration or when outside events have led to a reworking of ideas.

Such sects have arisen on various occasions in Judaism from the time when it became a religion (5th cent. B.C.E.). The first of these was the Pharisees (2nd cent. B.C.E.), which arose as a revolt of the lay teachers against priestly authority. The older party formed the counter-sect of Sadducees, while in course of time other and more limited sects arose, such as the ascetic Essenes and Therapeutae and the warlike Zealots. There are also certain obscure sects of the period, such as the movement headed by Dositheus the Samaritan and the unknown group which produced the Damascus document (the New Covenant, or Damascus Covenant).

Another period of formation of sects was during the stagnation of Judaism in the period after the close of the Talmud (6th to 10th centuries C.E.). The principal one of these sects was the Karaites, which for a time threatened to wrest supremacy from the estab lished group, the Rabbinites. There were also such movements as those of Abu Isa Isfahani and Yudghan. In the 18th cent. similar conditions produced the rise of the sect of Hasidim. The Reform Movement of the 19th cent. and after never became a separate and distinct sect, nor are the modern divisions in Judaism so sharp or hostile as to be regarded as sects. See also: ABU ISA ISFAHANI; ESSENES; HASIDISM; KARAITES; PHARISEES; SADDUCEES; ZEALOTS.

The traditional Seder dish

SEDER ("order" or "arrangement"), name of the home service which is held on the first two evenings of the festival of Passover in accordance with a prescribed and fixed order; in the United States, Reform Jews generally observe only the first evening of the Passover. The Sephardic Jews call this home religious service Haggadah ("narration" or "telling"); the little book used by Jews everywhere for the Seder service is termed Haggadah Shel Pesach (Passover Haggadah; literally, "the narration [of the story] of Pesach") or also simply the Haggadah.

The Seder has its origin in the Passover meal which in the days of the Temple was connected with the bringing of the Pesach offering. Hence the actual development of the Seder into an important religious celebration held in the home and in the family circle did not begin until after the destruction of the Second Temple at Jerusalem (70 C.E.), for at this time the men ceased making the required pilgrimage to the Temple at Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover, which was one of the three Pilgrimage Festivals. With the destruction of the Second Temple the festival gained in importance and meaning, for now the people felt that they were considerably more in need of redemption and deliverance than at any time since the beginning of the Roman rule. The remembrance of the miraculous deliverance in the days of the forefathers strengthened Israel in its hope for the longed for future redemption. It was this circumstance especially which gave the Seder its specific color and which clothed it with its peculiarly mystical and attractive poetic nature.