Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They carry huge weights on a wooden angular saddle which is planted on their backs, and a Mapu invariably accompanies each animal when loaded; indeed, in the case of the ponies the man even carries on his own back the food both for himself and for his beast, the latter generally having the precedence in eating his share.
These mental gymnastics, the necessity of rendering account to himself as to the precise value of each word, helped Mapu to a better understanding of the Bible text and a closer identification with its spirit.
Then there are Leon Rabinovich, editor of Ha-Meliz, David Yellin, Lerner, A. Kahana, and others. The history of modern literature has found a worthy representative in the person of Reuben Brainin, a master of style, himself the author of popular tales. His remarkable studies of Mapu, Smolenskin, and other writers, are conceived and executed according to the approved methods of modern critics.
The book excited the anger of the obscurantists, and, in their wrath, they persecuted all who read the works of Mapu. "The Transgression of Samaria" shares a number of faults of technique with the first novel, but also it is equally with the other a product of rich imaginativeness and epic vigor.
Mapu has without a doubt exaggerated reality, and frequently to the detriment of truth. Nevertheless they remain veracious types. On the other hand, he has not succeeded so well in the creation of the Maskilim type. The new generation, the enlightened friends of culture, are puppets without life, without personality, who speak and move only for the purpose of glorifying the "Divine Haskalah".
His Rabbi Zadok, the miracle-worker, who exploits superstition for his own aggrandizement; Rabbi Gaddiel, the honest but mistaken henchman of Rabbi Zadok; Ga'al, the parvenu, who seeks to obliterate an unsavory past by fawning upon both; the Shadkan, or marriage-broker, who pretends to be the ambassador of Heaven, to unite men and women on earth, in these and similar types drawn from life and depicted vividly, Mapu held up to the execration of the world the hypocrites who "do the deeds of Zimri and claim the reward of Phinehas," whose outward piety is often a cloak for inner impurity, and whose ceremonialism is their skin-deep religion.
It was pretty along the road to see the numerous little ponies, infinitely smaller than any Shetlands, carrying big fellows, towering with their padded clothes above enormous saddles, and supported on either side by a servant, while another man, the Mapu, led the steed by hand.
This cavalry equipment was in great contrast, from a picturesque point of view, with the comical imitations of the European mode of equipment exhibited by the infantry soldiers. One peculiarity of these cavalrymen was their instability in the saddle. Each cavalier had a mapu to guide the horse, and another man by his side to see that he did not fall off, each having thus two men to look after him.
Mapu was born at Slobodka, a suburb of Kowno, a sad town inhabited almost entirely by Jews. The whole of the population vegetates there amid the most deplorable conditions, economic and sanitary. The father of Mapu was a poor, melancholy Melammed, a teacher of Hebrew and the Talmud, simple in his outlook upon life, yet not without a certain degree of education.
In reproducing local color and the Biblical life, the author's touch is even surer than in "The Love of Zion". If one were inclined to apply to Mapu's novels the standards of art criticism, a radical fault would reveal itself. Mapu is not a psychologist. He does not know how to create heroes of flesh and blood. His men and women are blurred, artificial. The moral aim dominates.
Word Of The Day