> the man who, more than anyone else, could once order him about is now reduced to silence and, helpless, must endure everything which is done to his body. and it is his son, for many years wholly at his mercy, who directs and arranges all this. here the satisfaction in survival results from the relationship between the two protagonists. one who was once all-powerful is now impotent, his strength extinguished and his lifeless remains at the disposal of the very being who was for many years weak, helpless and entirely in his power. > everything the father leaves strengthens the son; the inheritance is the son's booty. he can do the opposite of everything the father would have done. if the father was thrifty, the son can be wasteful, reckless where he was prudent. it is as though a new regime had been proclaimed and the breach between the old and the new is immense and irreparable. the breach results from survival and is also the most intimate and personal expression of it. among people of the same age survival is very different. since it is a question of one's own group the urge to survive is concealed by milder forms of rivalry. young men of the same age are grouped together as a class and then, on the fulfilment of certain rites involving severe and often cruel ordeals, are promoted to the next class. it may happen that some of them perish during these ordeals, but that is the exception.
Israel