TEN ESSAYS ON ZIONISM AND JUDAISM




              Printed in Great Britain by
              St. Stephen’s Printing Works, Bristol, England.




                   TEN ESSAYS ON ZIONISM AND JUDAISM


                                   BY
                              ACHAD HA-AM


                     TRANSLATED FROM THE HEBREW BY
                               LEON SIMON
               Author of _Studies in Jewish Nationalism_


                                 LONDON
                     GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD.
                BROADWAY HOUSE, 68-74, CARTER LANE, E.C.
                                  1922




                                CONTENTS


TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION vii

THE WRONG WAY (1889) 1

THE FIRST ZIONIST CONGRESS (1897) 25

THE JEWISH STATE AND THE JEWISH PROBLEM (1897) 32

PINSKER AND POLITICAL ZIONISM (1902) 56

THE TIME HAS COME (1906) 91

“WHEN MESSIAH COMES” (1907) 114

A SPIRITUAL CENTRE (1907) 120

SUMMA SUMMARUM (1912) 130

THE SUPREMACY OF REASON (1904) 162

JUDAISM AND THE GOSPELS (1910) 223

INDEX 254




                       TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION


The present volume of translations from the Hebrew of Achad Ha-Am[1]
differs in character from the volume of _Selected Essays_ published in
1912 by the Jewish Publication Society of America. The earlier selection
was confined, by the express desire of the publishing Society, to essays
dealing with the broader aspects of Judaism and Jewish thought; essays
of a more polemical character, in which the author has defined his
attitude to the modern Jewish national movement, were designedly
omitted. Of the ten further essays included in the present selection,
only two belong to the former category, and these have been placed, out
of their chronological order, at the end. The other eight essays all
deal with one aspect or another of Zionism, and they form a series which
will enable the English reader who is interested in the Zionist movement
to follow its history under the guidance of one who is at the same time
among its staunchest pillars and its most unsparing critics. The
first[2] of the eight—which is also the first essay written by Achad
Ha-Am—belongs to the early years of the Jewish national movement, when
the Zionist Organisation was unborn, and the very name “Zionism”
uninvented. The last of the eight—and the most recent of Achad Ha-Am’s
essays, for the war and ill-health have made him silent of recent
years—records his impressions of the practical results achieved by
Zionism in Palestine up to 1911.

As the background of these essays is for the most part unfamiliar to
English readers, it will not be out of place to give here a brief sketch
of the phases through which the Zionist movement has passed, in so far
as that is necessary for a proper understanding of the criticisms and
allusions in the essays themselves.

The first organised form of Zionism took shape in Russia under the
stress of the pogroms of 1880-81. Those pogroms, following a period
during which the Russian Government had seemed to be working sincerely
towards the emancipation of the Jews, and themselves followed by a whole
code of restrictive legislation known as the May Laws, awoke into a
blaze the national sentiment which had slumbered but had not died in the
Russian Ghetto. They revealed the evils of _galuth_—exile, life outside
Palestine—in all their hideousness, and turned men’s minds to the active
accomplishment of that escape from _galuth_ for which during many
centuries the Jew had only prayed. _Chibbath Zion_ (Love of Zion) became
an organised movement, and throughout Russia groups of _Chovevé Zion_
(Lovers of Zion) began to work for the settlement of Jews on the land in
Palestine. At the head of the movement stood Dr. Leo Pinsker, who in his
pamphlet _Auto-Emancipation_ had outlined an ambitious scheme for the
emigration of Jews _en masse_ to some territory (not necessarily
Palestine) where they could be their own masters. His proposal found no
response among the emancipated Western Jews, to whom it was addressed;
and as its realisation was obviously beyond the power of the oppressed
and persecuted Russian Jews, its author turned to _Chibbath Zion_ as the
only means open to him of working for a national regeneration of Jewry.
Events soon showed that _Chibbath Zion_ was as yet unable to achieve so
large an aim. The difficulties in the way of settling Jews on the land
in Palestine were enormous, and the resources of the _Chovevé Zion_ were
painfully limited. The national sentiment was not sufficiently alive in
the Jewish masses to induce large numbers of them to brave the hardships
and privations of life in Palestine for the sake of a national ideal.
Any Jew whose primary object was to escape from pogroms and May Laws and
to better his individual position would naturally prefer some country,
like the United States, where economic life was already developed. The
_Chovevé Zion_ attempted, rather unwisely, to make Palestine attractive
to the less idealistically minded by exaggerating the possibilities of
individual self-advancement which it held out. The natural result was
disappointment and disillusion; and the Palestinian agricultural
settlements (or colonies, as they are generally called) would have faded
away altogether but for the generous assistance of Baron Edmond de
Rothschild, of Paris. Thanks to him the first colonies pulled through,
and after many vicissitudes were set on the road to independence. But
the whole colonisation movement remained small and poor, and any hopes
which might have been entertained of its bringing about even the
beginning of a solution of the material problem of _galuth_ were
dissipated at an early date. Meanwhile, however, the _Chovevé Zion_
contributed to a national work of the first importance by helping to lay
the foundations of a revival of the Hebrew language, especially in
Palestine—a development which, while it had nothing to do with the
solution of any material problem, had very much to do with the
stimulation of that national sentiment which is the only possible basis
of a national as distinct from a purely philanthropic or economic
movement.

In 1895, when the colonisation work was at a low ebb, the Jewish world
was startled by the appearance of _Der Judenstaat_, a pamphlet in which
a brilliant Viennese journalist and playwright, Dr. Theodor Herzl,
advocated, as a solution of the Jewish problem, the establishment of an
autonomous Jewish State in some suitable territory (not necessarily
Palestine). Herzl’s scheme was (unconsciously) more or less a
reproduction of that of Pinsker; but it met with a different fate,
largely, no doubt, thanks to the silent growth of the national sentiment
which had been brought about during the intervening years by the
awakening—albeit to little purpose from a purely practical point of
view—of Jewish interest in Palestine. While the Western Jews were for
the most part as deaf to Herzl’s call as they had been to Pinsker’s,
many of the _Chovevé Zion_ found in his pamphlet a new inspiration, and
their pressure induced him to take in hand himself the practical
realisation of a scheme which he had meant to leave others to carry out.
The result was the Zionist Organisation, which was founded at the first
Zionist Congress at Basle in 1897. This organisation, though the great
body of its supporters was drawn from the ranks of the _Chovevé Zion_,
reflected the outlook and ideas of Herzl and his handful of friends and
supporters from the West. There was to be no more waste of time and
effort on “petty colonisation.” Instead, there was to be a political
organisation of Jewry, with a large National Fund, which would first of
all buy Palestine from the Turk under a Charter guaranteed by the
European Powers, and would then proceed to settle in Palestine all those
Jews who could not be happy where they were. This beautiful dream roused
the Jewish masses for a time to a kind of Messianic fervour; it was so
much more alluring than the hard realities which the _Chovevé Zion_ had
had to face. But after a few years the inevitable awakening came.
Realities remained realities, and the Charter remained a distant vision.
Herzl passed away untimely in 1904, and with him and his wonderful
personality passed the only force which could make the dream-world
appear for a time real. He had, indeed, obtained from the British
Government an offer of a territory in East Africa (commonly, though
incorrectly, located in Uganda) for a quasi-autonomous settlement of
Jews; but this triumph of the Zionist Organisation only served to bring
out the essential difference, hitherto more or less successfully kept in
the background, between the head of the Organisation and its body. The
_Chovevé Zion_, however they may have erred in attempting to further the
colonisation of Palestine by appeals to individual self-interest, had at
any rate remained sufficiently nationalist to feel that a national
Jewish settlement could by no possibility have any other home than
Palestine. They had seen to it that the Zionist Organisation put
Palestine and no other country into its programme. Now, when they found
their trusted and beloved leader attempting to divert them to East
Africa—though he averred solemnly that East Africa was only intended as
a temporary refuge, a _Nachtasyl_, and Palestine remained the real
goal—they felt that they had been betrayed. Herzl’s enormous influence
averted, at the Congress of 1903, a direct refusal of the British
Government’s offer: a Commission was appointed to study the proposed
territory. But when the next Congress met, in 1905, Herzl was no more,
and the opponents of East Africa—the _Zioné Zion_, “Zion-Zionists,” as
they were called—carried the day. There was of course a violent
reaction: the masses swung away from Zionism, now that it no longer held
out to them the hope of a refuge from persecution and poverty, and some
of the minority party founded a new body, the Jewish Territorial
Organisation, to search the globe for a home of refuge. This was all to
the good, for the Zionist Organisation was purged of Messianism and was
able to face realities again. The framework, and to a large extent the
phraseology, created by Herzl were retained, but essentially the Zionist
Organisation became perforce an instrument for the realisation of the
national ideal along the two lines on which alone real advance is
possible—the lines of Palestinian development and national education. It
was only during the war, which brought on the one hand the Balfour
Declaration, with its promise of a National Home for the Jewish people
in Palestine, and on the other hand untold suffering and loss to the
Jewish masses in Eastern Europe, that Messianic hopes were again
aroused—again to be followed by the inevitable disillusionment and
reaction.

On the position created by the recent developments of Zionism Achad
Ha-Am has commented in a brief introduction, written in June, 1920, for
a new edition of his collected essays in Hebrew. As the question of the
scope of the Balfour Declaration is still much debated, and has a
special interest for English readers, I reproduce here the greater part
of that Introduction.

“When,” he writes, “I returned from Palestine in 1912, and my _Summa
Summarum_ aroused violent anger in various quarters, I wrote an
explanatory note by way of supplement to that essay; and I should like
to remind my readers on this occasion of some of the things that I said
then, because they seem to me relevant at the present time. ‘There must
be,’ I wrote, ‘some natural connection of cause and effect between an
object and the means by which its attainment is sought: we must be able
to show how this object can be attained by these means. So long as that
connection does not exist, so long as we cannot attempt to justify our
choice of means except by such vague phrases as ”Perhaps ... you never
can tell ... times change ...”—we may speak of cherished hopes and an
ideal for the distant future, but we cannot speak of a _practical_
object which can serve as a basis for a systematic plan of work. For
every systematic plan of work must necessarily be based on a clear
conception (whether intellectual or imaginative) of the chain of cause
and effect which connects the various activities one with another, and
all of them together with the object.... No doubt, we cannot foretell
the future; no doubt it is possible that unforeseen things may happen
and may change the face of reality. But a possibility of that kind
cannot be made the basis of a systematic plan of work, and we are
dealing no longer with an objective of immediate activity, but with a
vision of the future.’

“About two years after these words were written and published the
world-war began, and led to those results which we know: ‘unforeseen
things happened and changed the face of reality.’ Our own life, too, was
caught in the maelstrom of world-happenings; and the face of our own
reality, too, was changed as a consequence. Much might be said, and has
already been said, about the character of these changes, about their
good and their bad side, about their significance both for the Diaspora
and for Palestine. I cannot now deal with this subject fully, and I wish
for my part only to say a word or two on one of the principal features
of the changed situation—I mean the widening of the horizon of our work
in Palestine through the famous Declaration of the British Government,
which has recently been confirmed by the Supreme Council, and thus has
ceased to be merely the promise of a single Government and has become an
international obligation. This Declaration has provided a new ‘basis for
a systematic plan of work,’ and has set up ‘an objective of immediate
activity’—activity on a large scale, such as has been hitherto only a
theme for the anticipations of orators and essayists, with no real basis
in the present. But at the same time the Declaration has winged anew the
imagination of those who were already accustomed to build castles in the
air, without regard to the realities of this earthly life. That is, I
fancy, one of the reasons why there is still a demand for this book,
though much of its contents does not fit the realities of to-day. It is
not so much the contents that matter as the point of view from which I
have tried to deal with the various questions as they arose. I have
tried to judge not on the basis of that ‘you-never-can-tell’ attitude
which shrouds itself in the mists of the future, but on the basis of
present realities, or of impending realities which can be prognosticated
from existing conditions. Even to-day this point of view needs
reiteration. For once it has happened, as by a miracle, that what was
wildly improbable a short time ago has become to a certain extent
actual: and this ‘miracle’ has led those who were always waiting for
miracles to claim a victory, and to insist on maintaining their attitude
for the future also, and on laying down as the one principle of policy
this perverted axiom—that if such a thing has happened once in
exceptional circumstances, its like may happen again, and we can
therefore construct our world as we please, regardless of present
realities, and relying on a repetition of the miracle when we need it.
There is a Jewish proverb which says: ‘A mistake which succeeds is none
the less a mistake.’ So a plan of work which turns its back on
realities, and relies on the possibility that something out of the
ordinary may turn up and change realities to its advantage, is a
mistaken plan, even if it succeeds for once in a way. And if it goes on
banking on the element of chance, which does in fact interfere
occasionally with the normal course of events, and continues to act
accordingly, it will end in disaster, despite its initial success.

“All the details of the diplomatic conversations in London which led to
the Declaration have not yet been made public; but the time has come to
reveal one ‘secret,’ because knowledge of it will make it easier to
understand the true meaning of the Declaration.

“‘To facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for
the Jewish people’—that is the text of the promise given to us by the
British Government. But that is not the text suggested to the Government
by the Zionist spokesmen. They wished it to read: ‘the reconstitution of
Palestine as the National Home of the Jewish people’; but when the happy
day arrived on which the Declaration was signed and sealed by the
Government, it was found to contain the first formula and not the
second. That is to say, the allusion to the fact that we are about to
_re_build our _old_ national home was dropped, and at the same time the
words ‘constitution of Palestine as the national home’ were replaced by
‘establishment of a national home in Palestine.’ There were some who
understood at once that this had some significance; but others thought
that the difference was merely one of form. Hence they sometimes
attempted on subsequent occasions, when the negotiations with the
Government afforded an opportunity, to formulate the promise in their
own wording, as though it had not been changed. But every time they
found in the Government’s reply a repetition of the actual text of the
Declaration—which proves that it is not a case where the same thing may
be put equally well in either of two ways, but that the promise is
really defined in this particular form of words, and goes no further.

“It can scarcely be necessary to explain at length the difference
between the two versions. Had the British Government accepted the
version suggested to it—that Palestine should be reconstituted as the
national home of the Jewish people—its promise might have been
interpreted as meaning that Palestine, inhabited as it now is, was
restored to the Jewish people on the ground of its historic right; that
the Jewish people was to rebuild its waste places and was destined to
rule over it and to manage all its affairs in its own way, without
regard to the consent or non-consent of its present inhabitants. For
this rebuilding (it might have been understood) is only a renewal of the
ancient right of the Jews, which over-rides the right of the present
inhabitants, who have wrongly established their national home on a land
not their own. But the British Government, as it stated expressly in the
Declaration itself, was not willing to promise anything which would harm
the present inhabitants of Palestine, and therefore it changed the
Zionist formula, and gave it a more restricted form. The Government
thinks, it would seem, that when a people has only the moral force of
its claim to build its national home in a land at present inhabited by
others, and has not behind it a powerful army or fleet to prove the
justice of its claim, that people can have only what its right allows it
in truth and justice, and not what conquering peoples take for
themselves by armed force, under the cover of various ‘rights’ invented
for the occasion. Now the historic right of a people in relation to a
country inhabited by others can mean only the right to settle once more
in its ancestral land, to work the land and to develop its resources
without hindrance. And if the inhabitants complain that strangers have
come to exploit the land and its population, the historic right has a
complete answer to them: these newcomers are not strangers, but the
descendants of the old masters of the country, and as soon as they
settle in it again, they are as good as natives. And not only the
settlers as individuals, but the collective body as a people, when it
has once more put into this country a part of its national wealth—men,
capital, cultural institutions and so forth—has again in the country its
national home, and has the right to extend and to complete its home up
to the limit of its capacity. But this historic right does not over-ride
the right of the other inhabitants, which is a tangible right based on
generation after generation of life and work in the country. The country
is at present their national home too, and they too have the right to
develop their national potentialities so far as they are able. This
position, then, makes Palestine common ground for different peoples,
each of which tries to establish its national home there; and in this
position it is impossible for the national home of either of them to be
complete and to embrace all that is involved in the conception of a
‘national home.’ If you build your house not on untenanted ground, but
in a place where there are other inhabited houses, you are sole master
only as far as your front gate. Within you may arrange your effects as
you please, but beyond the gate all the inhabitants are partners, and
the general administration must be ordered in conformity with the good
of all of them. Similarly, national homes of different peoples in the
same country can demand only national freedom for each one in its
internal affairs, and the affairs of the country which are common to all
of them are administered by all the ‘householders’ jointly if the
relations between them and their degree of development qualify them for
the task, or, if that condition is not yet fulfilled, by a guardian from
outside, who takes care that the rights of none shall be infringed.

“When, then, the British Government promised to facilitate the
establishment _in Palestine of a national home_ for the Jewish
people—and not, as was suggested to it, the reconstitution of Palestine
as the national home of the Jewish people—that promise meant two things.
It meant in the first place recognition of the historic right of the
Jewish people to build its national home in Palestine, with a promise of
assistance from the British Government; and it meant in the second place
a negation of the power of that right to over-ride the right of the
present inhabitants and to make the Jewish people sole ruler in the
country. The national home of the Jewish people must be built out of the
free material which can still be found in the country itself, and out of
that which the Jews will bring in from outside or will create by their
work, without overthrowing the national home of the other inhabitants.
And as the two homes are contiguous, and friction and conflicts of
interest are inevitable, especially in the early period of the building
of the Jewish national home, of which not even the foundations have yet
been properly laid, the promise necessarily demands, though it is not
expressly so stated, that a guardian shall be appointed over the two
homes—that is, over the whole country—to see to it that the owner of the
historic right, while he does not injure the inhabitants in their
internal affairs, shall not on his side have obstacles put in his way by
his neighbour, who at present is stronger than he. And in course of
time, when the new national home is fully built, and its tenant is able
to rely, no less than his neighbour, on the right which belongs to a
large population living and working in the country, it will be possible
to raise the question whether the time has not come to hand over the
control of the country to the ‘householders’ themselves, so that they
may together administer their joint affairs, fairly and justly, in
accordance with the needs of each of them and the value of his work for
the revival and development of the country.

“This and no more, it seems to me, is what we can find in the Balfour
Declaration; and this and no more is what our leaders and writers ought
to have told the people, so that it should not imagine more than what is
actually there, and afterwards relapse into despair and absolute
scepticism.

“But we all know how the Declaration was interpreted at the time of its
publication, and how much exaggeration many of our workers and writers
have tried to introduce into it from that day to this. The Jewish people
listened, and believed that the end of the _galuth_ had indeed come, and
that in a short time Palestine would be a ‘Jewish State.’ The Arab
people too, which we have always ignored from the very beginning of the
colonisation movement, listened, and believed that the Jews were coming
to expropriate its land and to do with it what they liked. All this
inevitably led to friction and bitterness on both sides, and contributed
much to the state of things which was revealed in all its ugliness in
the events at Jerusalem last April.[3] Those events, in conjunction with
others which preceded them, might have taught us how long is the way
from a written promise to its practical realisation, and how many are
the obstacles, not easily to be removed, which beset our path. But
apparently we learned nothing; and only a short time after the events at
Jerusalem, when the British promise was confirmed at San Remo, we began
once more to blow the Messianic trumpet, to announce the ‘redemption,’
and so forth. The confirmation of the promise, as I said above, raised
it to the level of an international obligation, and from that point of
view it is undoubtedly of great value. But essentially it added nothing,
and the text of the earlier promise remains absolutely unaltered. What
the real meaning of that text is, we have seen above; but its brevity
and vagueness allow those who so wish—as experience in Palestine has
shown—to restrict its meaning much more—indeed, almost to nothing.
Everything, therefore, depends on the good will of the ‘guardian,’ on
whom was placed at San Remo the duty of giving the promise practical
effect. Had we paid attention to realities, we should have restrained
our feelings, and have waited a little to see how the written word would
be interpreted in practice.

“I have dwelt perhaps at undue length on this point, because it is the
fundamental one. But in truth we are now confronted with other
questions, _internal_ questions, which demand a solution without delay;
and the solutions which we hear from time to time are as far from
realities as are the poles asunder. It will not be long, however, before
these visionary proposals, which are so attractive, have to make way for
actual _work_, and we have to show _in practice_ how far we have the
material and moral strength to establish the national home which we have
been given permission to establish in Palestine.

“And at this great and difficult moment I appear before my
readers—perhaps for the last time—on the threshold of this book, and
repeat once more my old warning, on which most of the essays in this
book are but a commentary:

“Do not press on too quickly to the goal, so long as the actual
conditions without which it cannot be reached have not been created; and
do not disparage the work which is possible at any given time, having
regard to actual conditions, even if it will not bring the Messiah
to-day or to-morrow.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

It is because Achad Ha-Am has consistently driven home the lesson
reiterated in these last words, and because that lesson is so strikingly
apt at the present time, that one feels justified to-day in producing a
translation of some of his essays which, as regards their actual
subject-matter, are somewhat out of date. The point of view from which
he approaches Zionist questions—that of an idealism guided but not
subdued by a sternly objective apprehension of realities—is not out of
date, and never will be until either human beings or external realities
change very much. And that point of view is capable of a wider
application than is expressly given to it by the Lover of Zion,
concerned primarily with the problems and the destiny of his own people:
for it is true of any other ideal movement no less than of Zionism that
it is endangered not alone by those who oppose it, but also by those who
adhere to it only because they expect it to work miracles.

                  *       *       *       *       *

The translations in this volume, like those in its predecessor, have had
the advantage of revision by Achad Ha-Am. The few foot-notes which the
translator has added are enclosed in square brackets.

I am much indebted to Mr. Fisher Unwin and to Messrs. Paul Goodman and
Arthur D. Lewis for permission to include in this volume the translation
of “A Spiritual Centre,” which first appeared in _Zionism: Problems and
Views_, and to the Union of Jewish Literary Societies for permission to
reprint that part of “The Time has Come” which appeared in the _Jewish
Literary Annual_ for 1907. My best thanks are due to the Editors of the
Jewish Review, Messrs. Norman Bentwich and Joseph Hockman, who have
kindly allowed me to include “Judaism and the Gospels” and “Summa
Summarum” from the _Jewish Review_. I have also to thank the _Jüdischer
Verlag_, which now owns the copyright of the Hebrew original, for
consenting to the publication of this volume of translations.

LEON SIMON.

Footnote 1:

  Achad Ha-Am (= “one of the people”) is the pen-name of Asher Ginzberg,
  a famous Hebrew thinker and essayist, born in Russia in 1856, who has
  lived in London since 1908. His biography (up to 1902) is given in the
  _Jewish Encyclopædia_. For some account of his teaching I may refer to
  the essay called “One of the People” in my _Studies in Jewish
  Nationalism_ (Longmans, 1920).

Footnote 2:

  This essay (“The Wrong Way”), when first published, had to be
  expressed somewhat obscurely so as to pass the Russian Censor. It was
  altered subsequently, when the first collection of Achad Ha-Am’s
  essays was published in book form, but it still lacks somewhat of the
  absolute clarity which distinguishes his usual style.

Footnote 3:

  The anti-Jewish riots of April, 1920, in which many lives were lost.
  In a footnote at this point the author recalls that as far back as
  1891 he drew attention to the Arab question, and pointed out the folly
  of regarding the Arabs as “wild men of the desert,” who could not see
  what was going on around them.




                             THE WRONG WAY
                                 (1889)


                                   I


For many centuries the Jewish people, sunk in poverty and degradation,
has been sustained by faith and hope in the divine mercy. The present
generation has seen the birth of a new and far-reaching idea, which
promises to bring down our faith and hope from heaven, and transform
both into living and active forces, making our land the goal of hope,
and our people the anchor of faith.

Historic ideas of this kind spring forth suddenly, as though of their
own accord, when the time is ripe. They at once establish their sway
over the minds which respond to them, and from these they spread abroad
and make their way through the world—as a spark first sets fire to the
most inflammable material, and then spreads to the framework of the
building. It was in this way that our idea came to birth, without our
being able to say who discovered it, and won adherents among those who
halted half-way: among those, that is, whose faith had weakened, and who
had no longer the patience to wait for miracles, but who, on the other
hand, were still attached to their people by bonds which had not lost
their strength, and had not yet abandoned belief in its right to exist
as a single people. These first “nationalists” raised the banner of the
new idea, and went out to fight its battle full of confidence. The
sincerity of their own conviction gradually awoke conviction in others,
and daily fresh recruits joined them from Left and Right: so that one
might have expected them in a short time to be numbered by tens of
thousands.

But meanwhile the movement underwent a fundamental change. The idea took
practical shape in the work of Palestinian colonisation. This
unlooked-for development surprised friends and foes alike. The friends
of the idea raised a shout of victory, and cried in exultation: Is not
this a thing unheard-of, that an idea so young has strength to force its
way into the world of action? Does not this prove clearly that we were
not mere dreamers? The foes of the movement, on their side, who had
hitherto despised it and mocked it, as an idle fancy of dreamers and
visionaries, now began grudgingly to admit that after all it showed
signs of life and was worthy of attention.

From that time dates a new period in the history of the idea; and if we
glance at the whole course of its development from that time to the
present, we shall find once again matter for surprise. Whereas
previously the idea grew ever stronger and stronger and spread more and
more widely among all sections of the people, while its sponsors looked
to the future with exultation and high hopes, now, after its victory, it
has ceased to win new adherents, and even its old adherents seem to lose
their energy, and ask for nothing more than the well-being of the few
poor colonies[4] already in existence, which are what remains of all
their pleasant visions of an earlier day. But even this modest demand
remains unfulfilled; the land is full of intrigues and quarrels and
pettiness—all for the sake and for the glory of the great idea—which
give them no peace and endless worry; and who knows what will be the end
of it all?

If, as a philosopher has said, it is melancholy to witness the death
from old age of a religion which brought comfort to men in the past, how
much more sad is it when an idea full of youthful vigour—the hope of the
passing generation and the salvation of that which is coming—stumbles
and falls at the outset of its career! Add to this that the idea in
question is one which we see exercising so profound an influence over
many peoples, and surely we are bound to ask ourselves the old question:
Why are we so different from any other race or nation? Or are those of
our people really right, who say that we have ceased to be a nation and
are held together only by the bond of religion? But, after all, those
who take that view can speak only for themselves. It is true that
between them and us there is no longer any bond except that of a common
religion and the hatred which our enemies have for us; but we ourselves,
who feel our Jewish nationality in our own hearts, very properly deride
anybody who tries to argue out of existence something of which we have
an intuitive conviction. If this is so, why has not the idea of the
national rebirth succeeded in taking root even among ourselves and in
making that progress for which we hoped?

Writers in the press give us two answers to this question. Some blame
the _Chalukah_[5] with its Rabbis and scribes, others “the Baron”[6]
with his agents and administrators in Palestine. All alike try to fasten
the blame on certain men, as though but for them the Jewish problem
would have been solved for all time; and the only point at issue is
whether it is A. and B. or X. and Y. who stand in the way of that
consummation. But such answers are not at all satisfying. They simply
raise a further question: How is it that certain individuals, be they
who they may, are in a position to obstruct the progress of the whole
nation? Must it not be a sorry “national movement” which depends for its
success on the generosity of a philanthropist and the kindness of his
agents, and cannot withstand the miserable _Chalukah_, which is itself
fighting for its existence with what strength it has left?

We must look, then, for the cause of all the evil not in isolated facts,
in what this man or the other does, but much deeper. If we do that we
shall find, I think, the true cause to lie in the “victory” which the
idea has achieved prematurely through the fault of its champions. In
their eagerness to obtain great results before the time was ripe, they
have deserted the long road of natural development, and by artificial
means have forced into the arena of practical life an idea which was
still young and tender, neither fully ripened nor sufficiently
developed; and thanks to this excessive haste their strength has failed
them, and their labour has been in vain.

This judgment will certainly not be widely acceptable, and I will
therefore endeavour in what follows to explain it so far as I am able,
and so far as the nature of the subject permits.

Every belief or opinion which leads to action must necessarily be
founded on the following three judgments: First, that the attainment of
a certain object is felt by us to be needed; secondly, that certain
actions are the means to the attainment of that object; and thirdly,
that those actions are not beyond our power, and the effort which they
require is not so great as to outweigh the value of the object in our
estimation. The first of these judgments is based on feeling, and needs
no proof; the second and third are based on knowledge of facts and
phenomena outside ourselves, and therefore need the assent of reason.

When, therefore, a new idea summons us to a new course of action, it may
be simply discovering new methods of attaining an object which we valued
before, and may at the same time be able to demonstrate by conclusive
proofs, whether theoretical or practical, that these methods really lead
to the attainment of the object, and are commensurate with its value and
with our resources. A new discovery of this sort belongs entirely to the
sphere of reason, and therefore its sponsors need put their case only
before people of intelligence and good judgment. If such men pronounce
the new idea right, and proceed to act as it bids, its victory among the
masses is assured: for gradually the masses will follow in the right
course. But it will be different if one of these conditions is
lacking—if, that is, the object which the new idea sets before us is one
that we do not already value, or one not valued proportionately to the
difficulty of its attainment; or again if it cannot compel reason, by
convincing arguments, to admit the correctness of its judgment as
regards the connection between the means and the object, and as regards
the resources and the effort necessary for the attainment of the object.
In either of these cases the new idea must rely for its success not on
reason, but on sentiment. For the growth of a feeling of affection and
desire for the object will carry with it not only a strengthening of the
determination to strive after its attainment, no matter how great the
effort required, but also an increasing intellectual belief in the
possibility of its attainment, in spite of the absence of conclusive
evidence that it is attainable. Hence those who originate an idea of
this kind have not, at the outset of their activity, any concern with
the intellectuals, the men of dry logic and cold calculation: it is not
in that quarter that they will find support. They must turn only to
those whose sensibilities are quick, and who are governed by their
feelings; they alone will listen. And for that reason the originators of
the idea must themselves be above all things men of keen sensibility,
temperamentally capable of concentrating their whole spiritual life on a
single point, on one idea and one desire, of devoting their whole life
to it and expending in its service their last ounce of strength. By
doing their work competently and with absolute devotion they will show
that they have themselves boundless faith in the truth of their idea,
and infinite love for its service; and that will be the only sure means
of awakening faith and love in others. In that way, and not by mere
talk, will they gain wide support for their idea. And if they appeal in
this way to sentiment, then there is a chance for the idea (provided
that it does in some way correspond to a current need) to spread
gradually and to win many adherents who will be devoted to it heart and
soul. It is true that such adherents, being strong mainly on the side of
feeling, are not generally fitted, for all their good will, to carry out
a difficult undertaking, which needs strength, discernment, and
experience; but that matters not at all. For in course of time, as the
idea strikes root more and more firmly in the heart of the people, and
makes its way into every house and every family, it will at last capture
the great men, the leaders and the thinkers. They, too, will begin,
whether they like it or no, to feel the workings of the new force which
envelops them on every side. Their opposition will grow feebler and
feebler, until at last they will succumb and take their place in the
van. Then the idea will become a force to be reckoned with in practical
affairs, and its originators, setting out on the task of its
realisation, with the confidence born of strength, and with the
necessary equipment of knowledge and skill, may achieve brilliant
results, and have the laugh of the intellectuals and the sceptics who
used to scoff at them as dreamers.

The history of ideas and beliefs afford actual examples of all that has
been said above. But it is time to return to our immediate subject.

The idea which we are here discussing is not new in the sense of setting
up a new object of endeavour; but the methods which it suggests for the
attainment of its object demand a great expenditure of effort, and it
cannot prove the adequacy of its methods so conclusively as to compel
reason to assent to the truth of its judgments. What it needs,
therefore, is to make of the devotion and the desire which are felt for
its ideal an instrument for the strengthening of faith and the
sharpening of resolution. Now the devotion of the individual to the
well-being of the community, which is the ideal here in question, is a
sentiment to which we Jews are no strangers. But if we would estimate
aright its capacity to produce the faith and the resolution that are
needed for the realisation of our idea, we must first of all study the
vicissitudes through which it has passed, and examine its present
condition.

All the laws and ordinances, all the blessings and curses of the Law of
Moses have but one unvarying object: the well-being of the nation as a
whole in the land of its inheritance. The happiness of the individual is
not regarded. The individual Israelite is treated as standing to the
people of Israel in the relation of a single limb to the whole body: the
actions of the individual have their reward in the good of the
community. One long chain unites all the generations, from Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob to the end of time; the covenant which God made with
the Patriarchs he keeps with their descendants, and if the fathers eat
sour grapes, the teeth of the children will be set on edge. For the
people is one people throughout all its generations, and the individuals
who come and go in each generation are but as those minute parts of the
living body which change every day, without affecting in any degree the
character of that organic unity which is the whole body.

It is difficult to say definitely whether at any period our people as a
whole really entertained the sentiment of national loyalty in this high
degree, or whether it was only a moral ideal cherished by the most
important section of the people. But at any rate it is clear that after
the destruction of the first Temple, when the nation’s star had almost
set, and its well-being was so nearly shattered that even its best sons
despaired, and when the elders of Israel sat before Ezekiel and said:
“We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries,” and “Our
bones are dried, and our hope is lost”—it is clear that at that time our
people began to be more concerned about the fate of the righteous
individual who perishes despite his righteousness. From that time date
the familiar speculations about the relation between goodness and
happiness which we find in Ezekiel, in Ecclesiastes, and in many of the
Psalms (and in Job some would add, holding that book also to have been
written in this period); and many men, not satisfied by any of the
solutions which were propounded, came to the conclusion that “it is vain
to serve God,” and that “to serve the Master without expectation of
reward” is a fruitless proceeding. It would seem that then, and not till
then, when the well-being of the community could no longer inspire
enthusiasm and idealism, did our people suddenly remember the
individual, remember that besides the life of the body corporate the
individual has a life peculiarly his own, and that in this life of his
own he wants pleasure and happiness, and demands a personal reward for
his personal righteousness.

The effect of this discovery on the Jewish thought of that epoch is
found in such pronouncements as this: “The present life is like an
entrance-hall to the future life.” The happiness which the individual
desires will become his when he enters the banqueting-hall, if only he
qualifies for it by his conduct in the ante-room. The national ideal
having ceased to satisfy, the religious ordinances are endowed instead
with a meaning and a purpose for the individual, as the spirit of the
age demands, and are put outside the domain of the national sentiment.
Despite this change, the national sentiment continued for a long time to
live on and to play its part in the _political_ life of the people:
witness the whole history of the long period which ended with the wars
of Titus and Hadrian. But since on the political side there was a
continuous decline, the religious life grew correspondingly stronger,
and concurrently the individualist element in the individual members of
the nation prevailed more and more over the nationalist element, and
drove it ultimately from its last stronghold—the hope for a future
redemption. That hope, the heartfelt yearning of a nation seeking in a
distant future what the present could not give, ceased in time to
satisfy people in its original form, which looked forward to a Messianic
Age “differing from the life of to-day in nothing except the
emancipation of Israel from servitude.” For living men and women no
longer found any comfort for themselves in the abundance of good which
was to come to their nation in the latter end of days, when they would
be dead and gone. Each individual demanded his own private and personal
share of the expected general happiness. And religion went so far as to
satisfy even this demand, by laying less emphasis on the redemption than
on the resurrection of the dead.

Thus the national ideal was completely changed. No longer is patriotism
a pure, unselfish devotion; no longer is the common good the highest of
all aims, overriding the personal aims of each individual. On the
contrary: henceforward the _summum bonum_ is for each individual his
personal well-being, in time or in eternity, and the individual cares
about the common good only in so far as he himself participates in it.
To realise how complete the change of attitude became in course of time,
we need only recall the surprise expressed by the Tannaim[7] because the
Pentateuch speaks of “the land which the Lord swore to your ancestors to
give _to them_.” In fact, the land was given not to them, but only to
their descendants, and so the Tannaim find in this passage an allusion
to the resurrection of the dead (_Sifré_). This shows that in their time
that deep-rooted consciousness of the union of all ages in the body
corporate of the people, which pervades the whole of the Pentateuch, had
become so weak that they could not understand the words “to them” except
as referring to the actual individuals to whom they were addressed.

Subsequent events—the terrible oppressions and frequent migrations,
which intensified immeasurably the personal anxiety of every Jew for his
own safety and that of his family—contributed still further to the
enfeebling of the already weakened national sentiment, and to the
concentration of interest primarily in the life of the family,
secondarily in that of the congregation (in which the individual finds
satisfaction for his needs). The national life of the people as a whole
practically ceased to matter to the individual. Even those Jews who are
still capable of feeling occasionally an impulse to work for the nation
cannot as a rule so far transcend their individualism as to subordinate
their own love of self and their own ambition, or their immediate family
or communal interests, to the requirements of the nation. The demon of
egoism—individual or congregational—haunts us in all that we do for our
people, and suppresses the rare manifestations of national feeling,
being the stronger of the two.

This, then, was the state of feeling to which we had to appeal, by means
of which we had to create the invincible faith and the indomitable will
that are needed for a great, constructive national effort.

What ought we to have done?

It follows from what has been said above that we ought to have made it
our first object to bring about a _revival_—to inspire men with a deeper
attachment to the national life, and a more ardent desire for the
national well-being. By these means we should have aroused the necessary
determination, and we should have obtained devoted adherents. No doubt
such work is very difficult and takes a long time, not one year or one
decade; and, I repeat, it is not to be accomplished by speeches alone,
but demands the employment of all means by which men’s hearts can be
won. Hence it is probable—in fact almost certain—that if we had chosen
this method we should not yet have had time to produce concrete results
in Palestine itself: lacking the resources necessary to do things well,
we should have been too prudent to do things badly. But, on the other
side, we should have made strenuous endeavours to train up Jews who
would work for their people. We should have striven gradually to extend
the empire of our ideal in Jewry, till at last it could find genuine,
whole-hearted devotees, with all the qualities needed to enable them to
work for its practical realisation.

But such was not the policy of the first champions of our ideal. As
Jews, they had a spice of individualism in their nationalism, and were
not capable of planting a tree so that others might eat its fruit after
they themselves were dead and gone. Not satisfied with working among the
people to train up those who would ultimately work in the land, they
wanted to see with their own eyes the actual work in the land and its
results. When, therefore, they found that their first rallying-cry, in
which they based their appeal on the general good, did not at once rouse
the national determination to take up Palestinian work, they summoned to
their aid—like our teachers of old—the individualistic motive, and
rested their appeal on economic want, which is always sure of sympathy.
To this end they began to publish favourable reports, and to make
optimistic calculations, which plainly showed that so many dunams[8] of
land, so many head of cattle and so much equipment, costing so-and-so
much, were sufficient in Palestine to keep a whole family in comfort and
affluence: so that anybody who wanted to do well and had the necessary
capital should betake him to the goodly land, where he and his family
would prosper, while the nation too would benefit. An appeal on these
lines did really induce some people to go to Palestine in order to win
comfort and affluence; whereat the promoters of the idea were mightily
pleased, and did not examine very closely what kind of people the
emigrants to Palestine were, and why they went. But these people, most
of whom were by no means prepared to submit cheerfully to discomfort for
the sake of a national ideal, found when they reached Palestine that
they had been taken in by imaginative reports and estimates; and they
set up—and are still keeping up—a loud and bitter outcry, seeking to
gain their individual ends by all means in their power, and regardless
of any distinction between what is legitimate and what is not, or of the
fair name of the ideal which they dishonour. The details of the story
are public property.

What wonder, then, that so great an ideal, presented in so unworthy a
form, can no longer gain adherents; that a national building founded on
the expectation of profit and self-interest falls to ruins when it
becomes generally known that the expectation has not been realised, and
self-interest bids men keep away?

                  *       *       *       *       *

This, then, is the wrong way. Certainly, seeing that these ruins are
already there, we are not at liberty to neglect the task of mending and
improving so far as we can. But at the same time we must remember that
it is not on these that we must base our hope of ultimate success. The
heart of the people—that is the foundation on which the land will be
regenerated. And the people is broken into fragments.

So let us return to the road on which we started when our idea first
arose. Instead of adding yet more ruins, let us endeavour to give the
idea itself strong roots and to strengthen and deepen its hold on the
Jewish people, not by force, but by the spirit. Then we shall in time
have the possibility of doing actual work.

“I shall see it, but not now: I shall behold it, but not nigh.”


                                   II


“Let us not theorise too much, or slacken our efforts. Let us avoid
impatience and undue haste. Let us increase our devotion to our people
and our love for our ancestral land, and the God of Zion will help us.”

These are the concluding words of the long criticism of my first essay
which appeared in _ha-Meliz_.[9] It might be inferred that my advice to
the _Chovevé Zion_ was that they should confine themselves to theory,
give up practical work, proceed with undue haste, and refrain from
increasing devotion to our people and love for our ancestral land. But
any attentive reader of my article will not need to be told that as
regards the two last points I said the exact opposite: that we should
not, through undue haste, attempt to achieve by the appeal to
self-interest things which are not yet ripe for achievement by force of
the ideal itself, because so long as _Chibbath Zion_ is not a living and
burning passion in the heart of the people we lack the only basis on
which the land could be regenerated, and for that reason we must strive
with all our might to increase our devotion to our people and our love
for our ancestral land. But as regards theorising and neglecting action,
I may really have left my meaning uncertain through excessive brevity.
Though I said explicitly that propaganda could be made only by work
competently done, and not by speeches alone, it is possible that I ought
to have added—what is really self-evident from the context—that so long
as the time is not ripe for the actual carrying out of our idea, the
object of everything that we do on a small scale ought to be simply to
win adherents to our cause; that by that test and that alone we ought to
distinguish between what is well and what is ill done both in Palestine
and outside it; that therefore quality and not quantity must be our
concern, and we must not confine our efforts to the improvement of the
colonies, but must use all the many and various ways of appealing to the
people.

It is therefore futile for my critic to labour to prove that the
_Chovevé Zion_ had no right “to defer action until they had created a
new state of mind in the Jewish masses and awakened their national
consciousness.”

“Idea and action,” he says, “are not separated in our minds; it requires
deeds to convince us. How then could the idea of resettlement gain
acceptance with the masses if it were not accompanied by action?” All
this does not touch my position, because I did not demand deferment of
action. On the contrary, I demanded that everything possible should be
done to awaken the love of Palestine, and from that it follows that when
the champions of the idea themselves cultivate the Holy Land with the
sweat of their brows and their hearts’ blood, _as an example_, they are
doing the very best propaganda work. But the settlement as it is
to-day—can it be regarded as propaganda work of this kind? My critic
himself says that “the champions of the idea did not do the work with
their own hands,” but “talked in four languages;” and what they said was
calculated only to incite those who were out for material advancement to
go to Palestine and do the work. Such men did in fact go to Palestine,
and we know what they did and what happened to them and what the
settlement has become. No wonder, then, that the idea has gone on losing
its influence on the minds of the people, and that the heart of the Jew
does not glow at the vision of Jewish farmers hoeing and ploughing the
land of our fathers, as in the days of David and Solomon. Neither the
deeds nor the doers are such as to inspire enthusiasm in a people whose
heart is chilled by age and trouble.

But my critic joins issue with me in principle as well. He maintains
that by no possible means can we succeed in arousing a strong national
sentiment among our people, because ever since we became a nation “the
sentiment of nationality has been foreign to the spirit of our people,
and the individual Jew seeks rather his own good and his private
advantage;” and it is vain for us to fight against the spirit and
natural character of the people, “for nothing avails against national
character.” Hence the _Chovevé Zion_ chose the line of self-interest,
not because they preferred it, but because no other was open. “The
Jewish masses do not properly understand the language of the national
sentiment. Our endeavour must be to make actions speak to them in a
language which they do understand—the language of self-interest. Then
calculation will succeed where sentiment cannot.”

Now “the language of self-interest” is the language of the struggle for
existence, which speaks to each individual in the particular style
adapted to his position and ambitions, and to no man in a speech which
his neighbour understands; and I for my part am unable to see how it can
serve us instead of the unvarying appeal of the national sentiment,
which unites all hearts for one aim and one purpose. Even the
Utilitarians, who tried to trace all moral and social tendencies to the
pursuit of individual advantage, were concerned only to explain the
first cause of these tendencies, and to show how they came into
existence and developed, as against those who attributed their presence
to a direct interposition of Providence. But it is universally admitted
that self-interest alone, as it is in itself, cannot provide a basis for
any organised society or any great collective effort.

Let us, however, waive that point, and let us hear from our critic’s own
lips what is the language of self-interest in this matter. “National
sentiment,” he says, “is foreign to the spirit of our people. The way to
convince them is to show by figures that any industrious and peaceable
man will find what he wants in Palestine, provided he has physical
strength and capital.” He admits, then, that only a man who has capital
and physical strength, and is industrious and peaceable to boot, will
find in Palestine what he wants—that is to say, his individual
advantage. Now it is difficult to find the last-named qualifications in
a Jew who has capital, and is accustomed to make his living easily and
to have a great regard for his own dignity; and apart from that, we have
to remember that such a man will not easily find what he wants in
Palestine. For a man with capital wants not merely plain food and
raiment: he wants also the luxuries and pleasures to which he has been
used. And if he is thinking of his individual advantage, he will
certainly come to the conclusion that it is folly to lay out his capital
in purchasing a piece of land in Palestine, where at the very best he
will have to work hard without being able to find satisfaction for even
a half of his desires. To the truth of this statement our critic himself
bears witness. He tells us that “in those days also (_i.e._, in the
beginning of the colonisation work) the movement existed principally
among the poor, who hoped to be established by the generosity of others;
and the rich held aloof, then as now.” Again: “In the winter of 1881-82
the first emissary travelled to Palestine, bearing written authority
from a number of men in good circumstances to purchase land on their
behalf. He bought the land of Rishon-le-Zion, but those who had
authorised him to buy for them changed their minds.” And again: “Of
those who bought plots of land in the colony just mentioned it was only
the poor who went to Palestine; the rich remained at home.” Finally:
“The net result of the whole movement was that, with few exceptions,
those who remained in Palestine were men in the last stage of poverty.”
Experience, therefore, teaches us that men of capital, if they
understand no language except that of individual self-interest, will not
go to find in Palestine “what they want,” because they want more than
they will find there. Who is there, then, whom figures can persuade or
to whom self-interest can recommend Palestine, if those who could go
will not, and those who would cannot?

I asked in my article why the idea lost ground among our people from the
time when it began to take practical shape in the land. Our critic
answers with a sigh: “Our impatient people saw that a long time and a
great deal of money would be needed to put the colonies which had been
founded into a satisfactory condition, and their courage failed them.
For eighteen hundred years we found it possible to exist without moving
a finger for the colonisation of our land and the salvation of our
people; but now that we have not been able to make our colonies all that
they should be in six years, we lose heart. Are we not an impatient
people?” He does not realise that what he attributes to impatience is
simply an inevitable result of the appeal to self-interest. For eighteen
hundred years we did not move a finger for the colonisation of our land,
because we did not expect it to bring us advantage as individuals. In
recent years we have paid attention to the colonisation of our land,
because reports and statistics have led us to hope that it will bring us
advantage as individuals. But now, when we see that a long time and a
great deal of money will be needed to put the colonies already founded
into a satisfactory condition, it becomes clear that from the point of
view of individual self-interest the thing is not worth while; and so we
have quite justifiably lost heart, and the colonisation of our land has
become a charitable affair, which affords a scant subsistence to some
hundreds of people “in the last stage of poverty.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

Such, then, is the language of individual self-interest. Had our critic
really been able to adduce convincing arguments in support of his severe
judgment that there never was and never will be any national sentiment
among the Jews, and that individual Jews will never be able to rise
above “private advantage and individual self-interest,” then we might as
well throw up the sponge. We should have no right to be called a people
or to lay claim to a land. But, luckily for us, his arguments are not so
dangerous.

As a general rule, ethnological investigations into the characteristics
of different people are extremely speculative and hazardous. One
ethnologist set about to collect the opinions of the foremost
authorities as to the characteristics of the Arabs, and this is what he
found. Some maintain that the Arab is a man of action, concerned only
with concrete things, and very weak on the side of imagination; while
others assert that both the Arabs and the Hebrews are strongly
imaginative, and that among the Arabs the imagination is always more
powerful than the reason. On the other hand, Sprenger regards it as
self-evident that the predominance of the imagination over the reason is
a characteristic opposed to the Arab spirit, and lays it down as a truth
universally recognised that the spirit of the Semitic peoples generally
is objective; whereas Lassen, and after him Renan, regard it as
universally recognised that the fundamental characteristic of the
Semitic peoples is subjectivity.[10]

If there are these differences of opinion as regards the characteristics
of the Arabs, who have never been uprooted and driven into exile, can
anybody have the assurance to dogmatise about the characteristics of a
people like our own, which has been scattered among different peoples
these two thousand years? Can anybody be so all-knowing as to
distinguish with precision between those characteristics which are
innate and original in us, and those which have been produced in us by
our own environment in exile; to trace one by one all the mutations
which the original and the acquired traits have undergone in the passage
from generation to generation and from land to land; to forecast which
of our characteristics may or may not change with a change of
environment? Why, here is our critic laying down the law about the
Jewish character as though it were something fixed and unchangeable by
time or place, while one famous modern writer has picked out the Jews to
demonstrate the truth of his theory that national characteristics depend
more on environment and social conditions than on heredity, because he
finds that our characteristics differ in different countries and change
at different periods, according to our environment and the spirit of the
people among whom we live.[11]

This being so, I will not enlarge on the details of our critic’s theory
as to Jewish characteristics, but will confine myself to that one
dangerous characteristic which he attributes to us—the _innate_ lack of
national sentiment.

In my essay I argued thus: Seeing that the Law of Moses is entirely
based on the welfare of the whole nation, so much so that it has no need
to appeal to belief in future reward and punishment (a belief which was
known in Egypt in very early times) in order to satisfy the individual,
we are justified in inferring the existence at that time of a very
strong national sentiment in the whole people, or the most important
section of it; and it was only through historical circumstances that
this sentiment afterwards lost its force. Thus we are at liberty to
believe that by appropriate means it is possible to revive to-day in our
people a sentiment which it already had in ancient times. To this our
critic replies: “If the Law looked only at the general good, that is not
because at a certain time the spirit of individualism did not exist in
Israel, but because the Law is practical and reckons with facts. We see
that the individual is exposed to all kinds of accidents and
misfortunes. How, then, could a practical Law like ours guarantee
individual happiness, which is unrealisable?”

I have tried my hardest, Heaven knows, to discover what this means, but
in vain. It simply proves my point. For if Judaism is realistic, and if
the happiness of the individual on earth is unrealisable, and if at the
same time there was no national sentiment, and the people attached no
great importance to the well-being of the nation as a whole—then how
could Judaism be content with promising a reward which could not have
much value as an incentive to right living, when it might have done as
other religions have done, both before and since, and as it did itself
at a much later period, in response to the needs of the time: namely,
have promised every individual a reward in heaven?

And our critic gets himself into all this difficulty simply because he
finds it stated by Chwolson that all Semites are individualistic by
nature. If that is so, we cannot admit the existence of a national
sentiment in Israel at any period. Now we have seen above how much
reliance can be placed in such matters on the statements of well-known
authorities. But if we examine carefully the passage which our critic
quotes from Chwolson, we shall be even more surprised at his finding in
it sufficient ground for passing such a sweeping judgment on his people.
Chwolson says: “There was scarcely ever a strong bond of union between
the Jewish tribes. A full national consciousness has never developed
very far among Semites. Each tribe is a unity, the members of which are
closely bound together among themselves; but there is no feeling of
unity between the different tribes.” The explanation, according to
Chwolson, lies in that individualism “which is especially characteristic
of the Semites.” But who can show how “a full national consciousness”
differs in character from a feeling of love for and attachment to a
single tribe? And if it was individualism—and not external
circumstances—which prevented the Jewish tribes from being joined by “a
strong bond of union,” how is it that this individualism allowed each
tribe to become a closely-knit unity? Surely, when a man feels it
necessary and possible to subordinate his individual interests to those
of the larger unit to which he belongs, even if that unit is only a
petty tribe, he has already got beyond individualism, and is therefore
capable even of “a full national consciousness,” provided that there are
no external obstacles; and the only difference between the national
sentiment of a Frenchman and the tribal sentiment of a Montenegrin lies
in the magnitude of what inspires the sentiment, not in the character of
the sentiment itself. And, in fact, it does happen in all periods, under
suitable conditions, that tribal patriotism expands into national
patriotism. The ancient Greeks were at first divided into small tribes,
continually at war with one another, and it was only at a late period
that they acquired the sentiment of national unity. In the Middle Ages
the Italian cities were separate and mutually hostile, and yet at last
the Italians developed a strong national sentiment. And, to come to
recent times, who does not know what the Germans were until a few
decades ago? “We still remember,” says one of their great writers,[12]
“the time when we were justly reproached with being conspicuous among
all the civilised peoples of Europe for our lack of a strong and healthy
national sentiment.” And look at the Germans now!

In a word: the contention that Semites in general, or the Jews in
particular, cannot have a national sentiment (a sentiment of which one
of the greatest scientists[13] finds traces even in animals) needs to be
supported by weightier evidence.

And until such evidence is forthcoming, “let us not slacken our efforts,
and let us avoid undue haste. Let us increase our devotion to our people
and our love for our ancestral land, and the God of Zion will help us.”

Footnote 4:

  [_i.e._, Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine.]

Footnote 5:

  [_Chalukah_—lit. “division”—is the Hebrew name for the stream of
  charity which flows—or flowed before the war—into Palestine from all
  quarters of the Jewish dispersion. Intended primarily for the support
  of scholars, it has in practice done much to pauperise the Jewish
  population in the cities of Palestine, and has created a problem which
  it may take a generation or more of economic progress to solve.]

Footnote 6:

  [Baron Edmond de Rothschild.]

Footnote 7:

  The Jewish teachers of the period (roughly) from 200 B.C. to 200 C.E.
  They were responsible for the Mishnah—the first Code of Jewish Law
  after the Pentateuch—and for the earliest commentaries on the Bible or
  parts of it, one of which is called _Sifré_.

Footnote 8:

  [A Turkish measure = about ¼ acre.]

Footnote 9:

  [The Hebrew paper in which this and the foregoing essay originally
  appeared.]

Footnote 10:

  A. Müller, _Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie_, XIV., p. 435.

Footnote 11:

  Henry George, _Progress and Poverty_, p. 352.

Footnote 12:

  Ed. Zeller, _Vorträge_, II., p. 434.

Footnote 13:

  Du Bois-Reymond, _Reden_, I., p. 309.




                       THE FIRST ZIONIST CONGRESS
                               (1897[14])


The Congress of the Zionists, the subject of a controversy which has
filled the emptiness of our little world for some months past, is now a
piece of history. About two hundred Jews, of all lands and of all
parties, met at Basle, and for three days (29-31 August) from morning
till evening they discussed publicly, in the sight of the whole world,
the establishment of a secure home for the Jewish people in the land of
its ancestors. Thus the _national_ answer to the “Jewish problem” came
out of its retirement into the light of day, and was proclaimed to the
world in ringing tones, in clear language and in manly fashion—a thing
the like of which had never happened since the Jews were exiled from
their land.

That is all. The Congress could do no more, had need to do no more.

For—why deceive ourselves?—of all the great objects of _Chibbath Zion_
(or, as they call it now, “Zionism”), there is only one towards the
accomplishment of which we have at present the strength to approach in
any appreciable degree, and that is the _moral_ object—the emancipation
of ourselves from the inner slavery and the spiritual degradation which
assimilation has produced in us, and the strengthening of our national
unity by joint action in every sphere of our national life, until we
become capable and worthy of a life of dignity and freedom _at some time
in the future_. Everything else lies at yet in the realm of idea and
imagination. Those who oppose the “Jewish State” doubt whether it will
be possible to obtain the consent of the nations, and especially of
Turkey, to its establishment. But it seems to me that there is a still
more difficult question. If we had this consent, should we, in our
present moral condition, be fit to accept it?... Nor is that all. One
may even doubt whether the establishment of a “Jewish State” at the
present time, even in the most complete form that we can imagine, having
regard to the general international position, would give us the right to
say that our problem had been completely solved, and our national ideal
attained. “Reward is proportionate to suffering.”[15] After two thousand
years of untold misery and suffering, the Jewish people cannot possibly
be content with attaining at last to the position of a small and
insignificant nation, with a State tossed about like a ball between its
powerful neighbours, and maintaining its existence only by diplomatic
shifts and continual truckling to the favoured of fortune. An ancient
people, which was once a beacon to the world, cannot possibly accept, as
a satisfactory reward for all that it has endured, a thing so trifling,
which many other peoples, unrenowned and uncultured, have won in a short
time, without going through a hundredth part of the suffering. It was
not for nothing that Israel had Prophets, whose vision saw Righteousness
ruling the world at the end of days. It was their nationalism, their
love for their people and their land, that gave the Prophets that
vision. For in their day the Jewish State was always between two
fires—Assyria or Babylon on one side, and Egypt on the other—and it
never had any chance of a peaceful life and natural development. So
“Zionism” in the minds of the Prophets expanded, and produced that great
vision of the end of days, when the wolf should lie down with the lamb,
and nation should no longer lift up the sword against nation—and then
Israel too should dwell securely in his land. And so this ideal for
humanity has always been and will always be inevitably an essential part
of the national ideal of the Jewish people; and a “Jewish State” will be
able to give the people rest only when universal Righteousness is
enthroned and holds sway over nations and States.

We went to Basle, then, not to found a Jewish State to-day or to-morrow,
but to proclaim aloud to all the nations that the Jewish people still
lives and desires to live. We _have_ to proclaim this in season and out,
not in order that the nations may hearken and give us what we want, but
primarily in order that we ourselves may hear the echo of our cry in our
inmost hearts, and perhaps be roused thereby from our degradation.

This function the Basle Congress fulfilled admirably in its opening
stages; and for this it would have deserved eternal commemoration in
letters of gold—had it not tried to do more.

Once again our impatience, that curse which dogs us and ruins all that
we do, had full rein. If those who convened the Congress had armed
themselves with patience, and had begun by stating clearly that the
Messiah was not yet in sight, and that for the moment we could achieve
nothing beyond what words and enthusiasm could do—the revival of our
national spirit, and the announcement of this revival in a public
manner—then, no doubt, the Congress would have been much less well
attended than it was, and one day would have sufficed for its business
instead of three: but that one day would have been worth whole
generations, and the delegates, the chosen of our people (for only the
chosen of our people would have been interested in such a Congress)
would have returned to their several homes filled with life and
determination and new-born energy, to impart their life and
determination and energy to the whole people.

But as it is....

The founders of this movement are “Europeans,” and, being expert in the
ways of diplomacy and the procedure of latter-day political parties,
they bring these ways and procedure with them to the “Jewish State.” ...
Emissaries were sent out before the Congress, and various hints were
spread abroad in writing and by word of mouth, so as to arouse in the
masses an exaggerated hope of imminent redemption. Thus was kindled the
false fire of a feverish enthusiasm, which brought to the Basle Congress
a rabble of youngsters—in years or in understanding—and their senseless
proceedings robbed it of its bloom and made it a mockery.

Councils large and small, committees without number, a sheaf of
fantastic proposals about a “National Fund,”[16] and the rest of the
_haute politique_ of the Jewish State—these are the “practical” results
of the Congress. How could it be otherwise? Most of the delegates,
representing the down-trodden Jews who long for redemption, were sent
for one purpose and on one understanding only—that they should bring
redemption back with them. How could they return home without being able
to announce that the management of the “State” in all its various
branches had been put in good hands, and that all the important
questions connected with it had been raised and examined and solved?

History repeats itself. Seven years ago our people looked to the
Executive Committee[17] at Jaffa as it looks now to the Basle Congress.
A large number of people went to Palestine, thinking to buy the land and
to build dozens of colonies in a single day. Hope and enthusiasm grew
day by day, not less than now. Then also _haute politique_—though in a
different form—was our undoing. The leaders of the movement aroused an
artificial exaltation in the people by promises and expectations which
were not destined to be fulfilled; and this exaltation could not last
long. The dream fled, eyes were opened, and disappointment begat
despair. At that time, in the midst of the hubbub and enthusiasm, I
ventured to tell the public the bitter truth,[18] to warn the people not
to be led astray by false hopes: and many regarded me as a traitor to my
people, as one who hindered the redemption. Now we have seen these same
men, the “practical” men of that day, among the delegates at Basle,
crowning the new movement with wreaths, and making game of “practical
colonisation”—as though they had completely forgotten that the
responsibility for what has happened to the colonisation work lies not
on the work itself, but on them, because they carried it on by crooked
methods and turned it from its true purpose, in order to create a great
popular movement at a single stroke.

At Basle, as at Jaffa, I sat solitary among my friends, like a mourner
at a wedding-feast. But now, as then, I may not hold back the truth. Let
others say what they will, out of too much simplicity or for worse
reasons: I cannot refrain from uttering a warning that danger is at hand
and the reaction is close upon us. To-day, as before, the enthusiasm is
artificial, and in the end it will lead to the despair that follows
disillusionment.

Seven years ago the delegates returned from Jaffa full of good tidings.
Redemption had come to the land, and we had nothing to do but wait till
the vine bore its fruit. Now the delegates return and tell us that
redeemers have arisen for Israel, and we have nothing to do but wait
till diplomacy finishes its work. And now, as then, the eyes of the
people will soon be opened, and they will see that they have been
misled. The fire suddenly kindled by hope will die down again, perhaps
to the very last spark.

Could I command the waters of Lethe, I would see that everything that
the delegates saw and heard at Basle was effaced from their
recollection, and would leave them only one memory: that of the great
and sacred hour when they all—these down-trodden Jews who came from the
ends of the earth—stood up together like brothers, their hearts full of
sacred emotion and their eyes lifted up in love and pride towards their
great brother-Jew,[19] who stood on the platform and spoke wonders of
his people, like one of the Prophets of old. The memory of that hour,
were it not that many other hours which followed dimmed the purity of
the first impression, might have made this Congress one of the most
momentous events in our history.

The salvation of Israel will be achieved by _Prophets_, not by
_diplomats_....

Footnote 14:

  [This note on the first Zionist Congress evoked a storm of
  indignation, which led the author to explain his views more fully in
  the essay on “The Jewish State and the Jewish Problem.” As to the
  unwonted harshness of some expressions in the Note, see the concluding
  paragraph of that essay (p. 55).]

Footnote 15:

  [A familiar quotation from the Talmud—_Aboth_, V., 23.]

Footnote 16:

  The capital then suggested was ten million pounds!

Footnote 17:

  [Of the _Chovevé Zion_.]

Footnote 18:

  [The reference is to an article called “The Truth about Palestine,”
  written after the author’s first visit to that country in 1891.]

Footnote 19:

  [Dr. Max Nordau.]




                THE JEWISH STATE AND THE JEWISH PROBLEM
                               (1897[20])


Some months have passed since the Zionist Congress, but its echoes are
still heard in daily life and in the press. In daily life the echoes
take the form of meetings small and big, local and central. Since the
delegates returned home, they have been gathering the public together
and recounting over and over again the wonders that they saw enacted
before their eyes. The wretched, hungry public listens and waxes
enthusiastic and hopes for salvation: for can “they”—the Jews of the
West—fail to carry out anything that they plan? Heads grow hot and
hearts beat fast; and many “communal workers” whose one care in life had
been for years—until last August—the Palestinian settlement, and who
would have given the whole world for a penny donation in aid of
Palestine workmen or the Jaffa School, have now quite lost their
bearings, and ask one another: “What’s the good of this sort of work?
The Messiah is near at hand, and we busy ourselves with trifles! The
time has come for great deeds: great men, men of the West, march before
us in the van.”—There has been a revolution in their world, and to
emphasise it they give a new name to the cause: it is no longer “Love of
Zion” (_Chibbath Zion_), but “Zionism” (_Zioniyuth_). Nay, the more
careful among them, determined to leave no loop-hole for error, even
keep the European form of the name (“Zionismus”)—thus announcing to all
and sundry that they are not talking about anything so antiquated as
_Chibbath Zion_, but about a new, up-to-date movement, which comes, like
its name, from the West, where people do not use Hebrew.

In the press all these meetings, with their addresses, motions and
resolutions, appear over again in the guise of articles—articles written
in a vein of enthusiasm and triumph. The meeting was magnificent, every
speaker was a Demosthenes, the resolutions were carried by acclamation,
all those present were swept off their feet and shouted with one voice:
“We will do and obey!”—in a word, everything was delightful, entrancing,
perfect. And the Congress itself still produces a literature of its own.
Pamphlets specially devoted to its praises appear in several languages;
Jewish and non-Jewish papers still occasionally publish articles and
notes about it; and, needless to say, the “Zionist” organ[21] itself
endeavours to maintain the impression which the Congress made, and not
to allow it to fade too rapidly from the public memory. It searches the
press of every nation and every land, and wherever it finds a favourable
mention of the Congress, even in some insignificant journal published in
the language of one of the smaller European nationalities, it
immediately gives a summary of the article, with much jubilation. Only
one small nation’s language has thus far not been honoured with such
attention, though its journals too have lavished praise on the Congress:
I mean Hebrew.

In short, the universal note is one of rejoicing; and it is therefore
small wonder that in the midst of this general harmony my little Note on
the Congress sounded discordant and aroused the most violent displeasure
in many quarters. I knew from the start that I should not be forgiven
for saying such things at such a time, and I had steeled myself to hear
with equanimity the clatter of high-sounding phrases and obscure
innuendoes—of which our writers are so prolific—and hold my peace. But
when I was attacked by M. L. Lilienblum,[22] a writer whose habit it is
not to write _àpropos des bottes_ for the sake of displaying his style,
I became convinced that this time I had really relied too much on the
old adage: _Verbum sapienti satis_. It is not pleasant to swim against
the stream; and when one does something without enjoyment, purely as a
duty, one does not put more than the necessary minimum of work into the
task. Hence in the note referred to I allowed myself to be extremely
brief, relying on my readers to fill in the gaps out of their own
knowledge, by connecting what I wrote with earlier expressions of my
views, which were already familiar to them. I see now that I made a
mistake, and left room for the ascription to me of ideas and opinions
which are utterly remote from my true intention. Consequently I have now
to perform the hard and ungrateful task of writing a commentary on
myself, and expressing my views on the matter in hand with greater
explicitness.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Nordau’s address on the general condition of the Jews was a sort of
introduction to the business of the Congress. It exposed in incisive
language the sore troubles, material or moral, which beset the Jews the
world over. In Eastern countries their trouble is material: they have a
constant struggle to satisfy the most elementary physical needs, to win
a crust of bread and a breath of air—things which are denied them
because they are Jews. In the West, in lands of emancipation, their
material condition is not particularly bad, but the moral trouble is
serious. They want to take full advantage of their rights, and cannot;
they long to become attached to the people of the country, and to take
part in its social life, and they are kept at arm’s length; they strive
after love and brotherhood, and are met by looks of hatred and contempt
on all sides; conscious that they are not inferior to their neighbours
in any kind of ability or virtue, they have it continually thrown in
their teeth that they are an inferior type, and are not fit to rise to
the same level as the Aryans. And more to the same effect.

Well—what then?

Nordau himself did not touch on this question: it was outside the scope
of his address. But the whole Congress was the answer. Beginning as it
did with Nordau’s address, the Congress meant this: that in order to
escape from all these troubles it is necessary to establish a Jewish
State.

Let us imagine, then, that the consent of Turkey and the other Powers
has already been obtained, and the State is established—and, if you
will, established _völkerrechtlich_, with the full sanction of
international law, as the more extreme members of the Congress desire.
Does this bring, or bring near, the end of the material trouble? No
doubt, every poor Jew will be at perfect liberty to go to his State and
to seek his living there, without any artificial hindrances in the shape
of restrictive laws or anything of that kind. But liberty to _seek_ a
livelihood is not enough: he must be able to _find_ what he seeks. There
are natural laws which fetter man’s freedom of action much more than
artificial laws. Modern economic life is so complex, and the development
of any single one of its departments depends on so many conditions, that
no nation, not even the strongest and richest, could in a short time
create in any country new sources of livelihood sufficient for many
millions of human beings. The single country is no longer an economic
unit: the whole world is one great market, in which every State has to
struggle hard for its place. Hence only a fantasy bordering on madness
can believe that so soon as the Jewish State is established millions of
Jews will flock to it, and the land will afford them adequate
sustenance. Think of the labour and the money that had to be sunk in
Palestine over a long period of years before one new branch of
production—vine-growing—could be established there! And even to-day,
after all the work that has been done, we cannot yet say that
Palestinian wine has found the openings that it needs in the world
market, although its quantity is still small. But if in 1891 Palestine
had been a Jewish State, and all the dozens of Colonies that were then
going to be established for the cultivation of the vine had in fact been
established, Palestinian wine would be to-day as common as water, and
would fetch no price at all. Using the analogy of this small example, we
can see how difficult it will be to start new branches of production in
Palestine, and to find openings for its products in the world market.
But if the Jews are to flock to their State in large numbers, all at
once, we may prophesy with perfect certainty that home competition in
every branch of production (and home competition will be inevitable,
because the amount of labour available will increase more quickly than
the demand for it) will prevent any one branch from developing as it
should. And then the Jews will turn and leave their State, flying from
the most deadly of all enemies—an enemy not to be kept off even by the
magic word _völkerrechtlich_: from hunger.

True, agriculture in its elementary form does not depend to any great
extent on the world market, and at any rate it will provide those
engaged in it with food, if not with plenty. But if the Jewish State
sets out to save all those Jews who are in the grip of the material
problems, or most of them, by turning them into agriculturists in
Palestine, then it must first find the necessary capital. At Basle, no
doubt, one heard naïve and confident references to a “National Fund” of
ten million pounds sterling. But even if we silence reason, and give the
rein to fancy so far as to believe that we can obtain a Fund of those
dimensions in a short time, we are still no further. Those very speeches
that we heard at Basle about the economic condition of the Jews in
various countries showed beyond a doubt that our national wealth is very
small, and most of our people are below the poverty-line. From this any
man of sense, though he be no great mathematician, can readily calculate
that ten million pounds are a mere nothing compared with the sum
necessary for the emigration of the Jews and their settlement in
Palestine on an agricultural basis. Even if all the rich Jews suddenly
became ardent “Zionists,” and every one of them gave half his wealth to
the cause, the whole would still not make up the thousands of millions
that would be needed for the purpose.

There is no doubt, then, that even when the Jewish State is established
the Jews will be able to settle in it only little by little, the
determining factors being the resources of the people themselves and the
degree of economic development reached by the country. Meanwhile the
natural increase of population will continue, both among those who
settle in the country and among those who remain outside it, with the
inevitable result that on the one hand Palestine will have less and less
room for new immigrants, and on the other hand the number of those
remaining outside Palestine will not diminish very much, in spite of the
continual emigration. In his opening speech at the Congress, Dr. Herzl,
wishing to demonstrate the superiority of his State idea over the method
of Palestinian colonisation adopted hitherto, calculated that by the
latter method it would take nine hundred years before all the Jews could
be settled in their land. The members of the Congress applauded this as
a conclusive argument. But it was a cheap victory. The Jewish State
itself, do what it will, cannot make a more favourable calculation.

Truth is bitter, but with all its bitterness it is better than illusion.
We must confess to ourselves that the “ingathering of the exiles” is
unattainable by natural means. We may, by natural means, establish a
Jewish State one day, and the Jews may increase and multiply in it until
the country will hold no more: but even then the greater part of the
people will remain scattered in strange lands. “To gather our scattered
ones from the four corners of the earth” (in the words of the Prayer
Book) is impossible. Only religion, with its belief in a miraculous
redemption, can promise that consummation.

But if this is so, if the Jewish State too means not an “ingathering of
the exiles,” but the settlement of a small part of our people in
Palestine, then how will it solve the material problem of the Jewish
masses in the lands of the Diaspora?

Or do the champions of the State idea think, perhaps, that, being
masters in our own country, we shall be able by diplomatic means to get
the various governments to relieve the material sufferings of our
scattered fellow-Jews? That is, it seems to me, Dr. Herzl’s latest
theory. In his new pamphlet (_Der Baseler Kongress_) we no longer find
any calculation of the number of years that it will take for the Jews to
enter their country. Instead, he tells us in so many words (p. 9) that
if the land becomes the _national_ property of the Jewish people, even
though no individual Jew owns privately a single square yard of it, then
the Jewish problem will be solved for ever, These words (unless we
exclude the material aspect of the Jewish problem) can be understood
only in the way suggested above. But this hope seems to me so fantastic
that I see no need to waste words in demolishing it. We have seen often
enough, even in the case of nations more in favour than Jews are with
powerful Governments, how little diplomacy can do in matters of this
kind, if it is not backed by a large armed force. Nay, it is conceivable
that in the days of the Jewish State, when economic conditions in this
or that country are such as to induce a Government to protect its people
against Jewish competition by restrictive legislation, that Government
will find it easier then than it is now to find an excuse for such
action, for it will be able to plead that if the Jews are not happy
where they are, they can go to their own State.

The material problem, then, will not be ended by the foundation of a
Jewish State, nor, generally speaking, does it lie in our power to end
it (though it could be eased more or less even now by various means,
such as the encouragement of agriculture and handicrafts among Jews in
all countries); and whether we found a State or not, this particular
problem will always turn at bottom on the economic condition of each
country and the degree of civilisation attained by each people.

Thus we are driven to the conclusion that the only true basis of Zionism
is to be found in the other problem, the moral one.

But the moral problem appears in two forms, one in the West and one in
the East; and this fact explains the fundamental difference between
Western “Zionism” and Eastern _Chibbath Zion_. Nordau dealt only with
the Western problem, apparently knowing nothing about the Eastern; and
the Congress as a whole concentrated on the first, and paid little
attention to the second.

The Western Jew, after leaving the Ghetto and seeking to attach himself
to the people of the country in which he lives, is unhappy because his
hope of an open-armed welcome is disappointed. He returns reluctantly to
his own people, and tries to find within the Jewish community that life
for which he yearns—but in vain. Communal life and communal problems no
longer satisfy him. He has already grown accustomed to a broader social
and political life; and on the intellectual side Jewish cultural work
has no attraction, because Jewish culture has played no part in his
education from childhood, and is a closed book to him. So in his trouble
he turns to the land of his ancestors, and pictures to himself how good
it would be if a Jewish State were re-established there—a State arranged
and organised exactly after the pattern of other States. Then he could
live a full, complete life among his own people, and find at home all
that he now sees outside, dangled before his eyes, but out of reach. Of
course, not all the Jews will be able to take wing and go to their
State; but the very existence of the Jewish State will raise the
prestige of those who remain in exile, and their fellow citizens will no
more despise them and keep them at arm’s length, as though they were
ignoble slaves, dependent entirely on the hospitality of others. As he
contemplates this fascinating vision, it suddenly dawns on his inner
consciousness that even now, before the Jewish State is established, the
mere idea of it gives him almost complete relief. He has an opportunity
for organised work, for political excitement; he finds a suitable field
of activity without having to become subservient to non-Jews; and he
feels that thanks to this ideal he stands once more spiritually erect,
and has regained human dignity, without overmuch trouble and without
external aid. So he devotes himself to the ideal with all the ardour of
which he is capable; he gives rein to his fancy, and lets it soar as it
will, up above reality and the limitations of human power. For it is not
the attainment of the ideal that he needs: its pursuit alone is
sufficient to cure him of his moral sickness, which is the consciousness
of inferiority; and the higher and more distant the ideal, the greater
its power of exaltation.

This is the basis of Western Zionism and the secret of its attraction.
But Eastern _Chibbath Zion_ has a different origin and development.
Originally, like “Zionism,” it was political; but being a result of
material evils, it could not rest satisfied with an “activity”
consisting only of outbursts of feeling and fine phrases. These things
may satisfy the heart, but not the stomach. So _Chibbath Zion_ began at
once to express itself in concrete activities—in the establishment of
colonies in Palestine. This practical work soon clipped the wings of
fancy, and made it clear that _Chibbath Zion_ could not lessen the
material evil by one iota. One might have thought, then, that when this
fact became patent the _Chovevé Zion_ would give up their activity, and
cease wasting time and energy on work which brought them no nearer their
goal. But, no: they remained true to their flag, and went on working
with the old enthusiasm, though most of them did not understand even in
their own minds why they did so. They felt instinctively that so they
must do; but as they did not clearly appreciate the nature of this
feeling, the things that they did were not always rightly directed
towards that object which in reality was drawing them on without their
knowledge.

For at the very time when the material tragedy in the East was at its
height, the heart of the Eastern Jew was still oppressed by another
tragedy—the moral one; and when the _Chovevé Zion_ began to work for the
solution of the material problem, the national instinct of the people
felt that just in such work could it find the remedy for its moral
trouble. Hence the people took up this work and would not abandon it
even after it had become obvious that the material trouble could not be
cured in this way. The Eastern form of the moral trouble is absolutely
different from the Western. In the West it is the problem of the Jews,
in the East the problem of Judaism. The one weighs on the individual,
the other on the nation. The one is felt by Jews who have had a European
education, the other by Jews whose education has been Jewish. The one is
a product of anti-Semitism, and is dependent on anti-Semitism for its
existence; the other is a natural product of a real link with a culture
of thousands of years, which will retain its hold even if the troubles
of the Jews all over the world come to an end, together with
anti-Semitism, and all the Jews in every land have comfortable
positions, are on the best possible terms with their neighbours, and are
allowed by them to take part in every sphere of social and political
life on terms of absolute equality.

It is not only Jews who have come out of the Ghetto: Judaism has come
out, too. For Jews the exodus is confined to certain countries, and is
due to toleration; but Judaism has come out (or is coming out) of its
own accord wherever it has come into contact with modern culture. This
contact with modern culture overturns the defences of Judaism from
within, so that Judaism can no longer remain isolated and live a life
apart. The spirit of our people strives for development: it wants to
absorb those elements of general culture which reach it from outside, to
digest them and to make them a part of itself, as it has done before at
different periods of its history. But the conditions of its life in
exile are not suitable. In our time culture wears in each country the
garb of the national spirit, and the stranger who would woo her must
sink his individuality and become absorbed in the dominant spirit. For
this reason Judaism in exile cannot develop its individuality in its own
way. When it leaves the Ghetto walls it is in danger of losing its
essential being or—at best—its national unity: it is in danger of being
split up into as many kinds of Judaism, each with a different character
and life, as there are countries of the Jewish dispersion.[23]

And now Judaism finds that it can no longer tolerate the _galuth_[24]
form which it had to take on, in obedience to its will-to-live, when it
was exiled from its own country, and that if it loses that form its life
is in danger. So it seeks to return to its historic centre, in order to
live there a life of natural development, to bring its powers into play
in every department of human culture, to develop and perfect those
national possessions which it has acquired up to now, and thus to
contribute to the common stock of humanity, in the future as in the
past, a great national culture, the fruit of the unhampered activity of
a people living according to its own spirit. For this purpose Judaism
needs at present but little. It needs not an independent State, but only
the creation in its native land of conditions favourable to its
development: a good-sized settlement of Jews working _without
hindrance_[25] in every branch of culture, from agriculture and
handicrafts to science and literature. This Jewish settlement, which
will be a gradual growth, will become in course of time the centre of
the nation, wherein its spirit will find pure expression and develop in
all its aspects up to the highest degree of perfection of which it is
capable. Then from this centre the spirit of Judaism will go forth to
the great circumference, to all the communities of the Diaspora, and
will breathe new life into them and preserve their unity; and when our
national culture in Palestine has attained that level, we may be
confident that it will produce men in the country who will be able, on a
favourable opportunity, to establish a State which will be a _Jewish_
State, and not merely a State of Jews.

This _Chibbath Zion_, which takes thought for the preservation of
Judaism at a time when Jewry suffers so much, is something odd and
unintelligible to the “political” Zionists of the West, just as the
demand of R. Jochanan ben Zakkai for Jabneh was strange and
unintelligible to the corresponding people of that time.[26] And so
political Zionism cannot satisfy those Jews who care for Judaism: its
growth seems to them to be fraught with danger to the object of their
own aspiration.

The secret of our people’s persistence is—as I have tried to show
elsewhere[27]—that at a very early period the Prophets taught it to
respect only spiritual power, and not to worship material power. For
this reason the clash with enemies stronger than itself never brought
the Jewish nation, as it did the other nations of antiquity, to the
point of self-effacement. So long as we are faithful to this principle,
our existence has a secure basis: for in spiritual power we are not
inferior to other nations, and we have no reason to efface ourselves.
But a political ideal _which does not rest on the national culture_ is
apt to seduce us from our loyalty to spiritual greatness, and to beget
in us a tendency to find the path of glory in the attainment of material
power and political dominion, thus breaking the thread that unites us
with the past, and undermining our historical basis. Needless to say, if
the political ideal is not attained, it will have disastrous
consequences, because we shall have lost the old basis without finding a
new one. But even if it is attained under present conditions, when we
are a scattered people not only in the physical but also in the
spiritual sense—even then Judaism will be in great danger. Almost all
our great men, those, that is, whose education and social position fit
them to be at the head of a Jewish State, are spiritually far removed
from Judaism, and have no true conception of its nature and its value.
Such men, however loyal to their State and devoted to its interests,
will necessarily regard those interests as bound up with the foreign
culture which they themselves have imbibed; and they will endeavour, by
moral persuasion or even by force, to implant that culture in the Jewish
State, so that in the end the Jewish State will be a State of Germans or
Frenchmen of the Jewish race. We have even now a small example of this
process in Palestine.[28] And history teaches us that in the days of the
Herodian house Palestine was indeed a Jewish State, but the national
culture was despised and persecuted, and the ruling house did everything
in its power to implant Roman culture in the country, and frittered away
the national resources in the building of heathen temples and
amphitheatres and so forth. Such a Jewish State would spell death and
utter degradation for our people. We should never achieve sufficient
political power to deserve respect, while we should miss the living
moral force within. The puny State, being “tossed about like a ball
between its powerful neighbours, and maintaining its existence only by
diplomatic shifts and continual truckling to the favoured of fortune,”
would not be able to give us a feeling of national glory; and the
national culture, in which we might have sought and found our glory,
would not have been implanted in our State and would not be the
principle of its life. So we should really be then—much more than we are
now—“a small and insignificant nation,” enslaved _in spirit_ to “the
favoured of fortune,” turning an envious and covetous eye on the armed
force of our “powerful neighbours”; and our existence as a sovereign
State would not add a glorious chapter to our national history. Were it
not better for “an ancient people which was once a beacon to the world”
to disappear than to end by reaching such a goal as this?[29] Mr.
Lilienblum reminds me that there are in our time small States, like
Switzerland, which are safeguarded against interference by the other
nations, and have no need of “continual truckling.” But a comparison
between Palestine and small countries like Switzerland overlooks the
geographical position of Palestine and its religious importance for all
nations. These two facts will make it quite impossible for its “powerful
neighbours” (by which expression, of course, I did not mean, as Mr.
Lilienblum interprets, “the Druses and the Persians”) to leave it alone
altogether; and when it has become a Jewish State they will all still
keep an eye on it, and each Power will try to influence its policy in a
direction favourable to itself, just as we see happening in the case of
other weak states (like Turkey) in which the great European nations have
“interests.”

In a word: _Chibbath Zion_, no less than “Zionism,” wants a Jewish State
and believes in the possibility of the establishment of a Jewish State
in the future. But while “Zionism” looks to the Jewish State to provide
a remedy for poverty, complete tranquillity and national glory,
_Chibbath Zion_ knows that our State will not give us all these things
until “universal Righteousness is enthroned and holds sway over nations
and States”: and it looks to a Jewish State to provide only a “secure
refuge” for Judaism and a cultural bond of unity for our nation.
“Zionism,” therefore, begins its work with political propaganda;
_Chibbath Zion_ begins with national culture, because only through the
national culture and for its sake can a Jewish State be established in
such a way as to correspond with the will and the needs of the Jewish
people.

Dr. Herzl, it is true, said in the speech mentioned above that “Zionism”
demands the return to Judaism before the return to the Jewish State. But
these nice-sounding words are so much at variance with his deeds that we
are forced to the unpleasant conclusion that they are nothing but a
well-turned phrase.

It is very difficult for me to deal with individual actions, on which
one cannot touch without reflecting on individual men. For this reason I
contented myself, in my note on the Congress, with general allusions,
which, I believed, would be readily intelligible to those who were
versed in the subject, and especially to Congress delegates. But some of
my opponents have turned this scrupulousness to use against me by
pretending not to understand at all. They ask, with affected simplicity,
what fault I have to find with the Congress, and they have even the
assurance to deny publicly facts which are common knowledge. These
tactics constrain me here, against my will, to raise the artistic veil
which they have cast over the whole proceedings, and to mention some
details which throw light on the character of this movement and the
mental attitude of its adherents.

If it were really the aim of “Zionism” to bring the people back to
Judaism—to make it not merely a nation in the political sense, but a
nation living according to its own spirit—then the Congress would not
have postponed questions of national culture—of language and literature,
of education and the diffusion of Jewish knowledge—to the very last
moment, after the end of all the debates on _rechtlich_ and
_völkerrechtlich_, on the election of X. as a member of the Committee,
on the imaginary millions, and so forth. When all those present were
tired out, and welcomed the setting sun on the last day as a sign of the
approaching end, a short time was allowed for a discourse by one of the
members on all those important questions, which are in reality the most
vital and essential questions. Naturally, the discourse, however good,
had to be hurried and shortened; there was no time for discussion of
details; a suggestion was made from the platform that all these problems
should be handed over to a Commission consisting of certain writers, who
were named; and the whole assembly agreed simply for the sake of
finishing the business and getting away.

But there is no need to ascertain the attitude of the Congress by
inference, because it was stated quite explicitly in one of the official
speeches—a speech which appeared on the agenda as “An Exposition of the
basis of Zionism,” and was submitted to Dr. Herzl before it was read to
the Congress. In this speech we were told plainly that the Western Jews
were nearer than those of the East to the goal of Zionism, because they
had already done half the work: they had annihilated the Jewish culture
of the Ghetto, and were thus emancipated from the yoke of the past. This
speech, too, was received with prolonged applause, and the Congress
passed a motion ordering it to be published as a pamphlet for
distribution among Jews.

In one of the numbers of the Zionist organ _Die Welt_ there appeared a
good allegorical description of those Jews who remained in the National
German party in Austria even after it had united with the anti-Semites.
The allegory is of an old lady whose lover deserts her for another, and
who, after trying without success to bring him back by all the arts
which used to win him, begins to display affection for his new love,
hoping that he may take pity on her for her magnanimity.

I have a shrewd suspicion that this allegory can equally well be
applied, with a slight change, to its inventors themselves. There is an
old lady who, despairing utterly of regaining her lover by entreaties,
submission and humility, suddenly decks herself out in splendour and
begins to treat him with hatred and contempt. Her object is still to
influence him. She wants him at least to respect her in his heart of
hearts, if he can no longer love her. Whoever reads _Die Welt_
attentively and critically will not be able to avoid the impression that
the Western “Zionists” always have their eyes fixed on the non-Jewish
world, and that they, like the assimilated Jews, are aiming simply at
finding favour in the eyes of the nations: only that whereas the others
want love, the “Zionists” want respect. They are enormously pleased when
a Gentile says openly that the “Zionists” deserve respect, when a
journal prints some reference to the “Zionists” without making a joke of
them, and so forth. Nay, at the last sitting of the Congress the
President found it necessary publicly to tender special thanks to the
three Gentiles who had honoured the meeting by taking part in it,
although they were all three silent members, and there is no sign of
their having done anything. If I wished to go into small details, I
could show from various incidents that in their general conduct and
procedure these “Zionists” do not try to get close to Jewish culture and
imbibe its spirit, but that, on the contrary, they endeavour to imitate,
as Jews, the conduct and procedure of the Germans, even where they are
most foreign to the Jewish spirit, as a means of showing that Jews, too,
can live and act like all other nations. It may suffice to mention the
unpleasant incident at Vienna recently, when the young “Zionists” went
out to spread the gospel of “Zionism” with sticks and fisticuffs, in
German fashion. And the Zionist organ regarded this incident
sympathetically, and, for all its carefulness, could not conceal its
satisfaction at the success of the Zionist fist.

The whole Congress, too, was designed rather as a demonstration to the
world than as a means of making it clear to ourselves what we want and
what we can do. The founders of the movement wanted to show the outside
world that they had behind them a united and unanimous Jewish people. It
must be admitted that from beginning to end they pursued this object
with clear consciousness and determination. In those countries where
Jews are preoccupied with material troubles, and are not likely on the
whole to get enthusiastic about a political ideal for the distant
future, a special emissary went about, before the Congress, spreading
favourable reports, from which it might be concluded that both the
consent of Turkey and the necessary millions were nearly within our
reach, and that nothing was lacking except a national representative
body to negotiate with all parties on behalf of the Jewish people: for
which reason it was necessary to send many delegates to the Congress,
and also to send in petitions with thousands of signatures, and then the
Committee to be chosen by the Congress would be the body which was
required.[30] On the other hand, they were careful not to announce
clearly in advance that Herzl’s Zionism, and that only, would be the
basis of the Congress, that that basis would be above criticism, and no
delegate to the Congress would have the right to question it. The Order
of Proceedings, which was sent out with the invitation to the Congress,
said merely in general terms that anybody could be a delegate “who
expresses his agreement with the _general_ programme of Zionism,”
without explaining what the general programme was or where it could be
found. Thus there met at Basle men utterly at variance with one another
in their views and aspirations. They thought in their simplicity that
everybody whose gaze was turned Zion-wards, though he did not see eye to
eye with Herzl, had done his duty to the general programme and had a
right to be a member of the Congress and to express his views before it.
But the heads of the Congress tried with all their might to prevent any
difference of opinion on fundamental questions from coming to the
surface, and used every “parliamentary” device to avoid giving
opportunity for discussion and elucidation of such questions. The
question of the programme actually came up at one of the preliminary
meetings held before the Congress itself (a _Vorkonferenz_); and some of
the delegates from Vienna pointed to the statement on the Order of
Proceedings, and tried to prove from it that that question could not
properly be raised, since all the delegates had accepted the general
programme of Zionism, and there was no Zionism but that of Vienna, and
_Die Welt_ was its prophet. But many of those present would not agree,
and a Commission had to be appointed to draw up a programme. This
Commission skilfully contrived a programme capable of a dozen
interpretations, to suit all tastes; and this programme was put before
Congress with a request that it should be accepted as it stood, without
any discussion. But one delegate refused to submit, and his action led
to a long debate on a single word. This debate showed, to the
consternation of many people, that there were several kind of
“Zionists,” and the cloak of unanimity was in danger of being publicly
rent asunder; but the leaders quickly and skilfully patched up the rent,
before it had got very far. Dr. Herzl, in his new pamphlet, uses this to
prove what great importance Zionists attached to this single word
(_völkerrechtlich_). But in truth similar “dangerous” debates might have
been raised on many other words. For many delegates quite failed to
notice the wide gulf between the various views on points of principle,
and a discussion on any such point was calculated to open people’s eyes
and to shatter the whole structure to atoms. But such discussions were
not raised, because even the few who saw clearly and understood the
position shrank from the risk of “wrecking.” And so the object was
attained; the illusion of unanimity was preserved till the last; the
outside world saw a united people demanding a State; and those who were
inside returned home full of enthusiasm, but no whit the clearer as to
their ideas or the relation of one idea to another.

Yet, after all, I confess that Western “Zionism” is very good and useful
for those Western Jews who have long since almost forgotten Judaism, and
have no link with their people except a vague sentiment which they
themselves do not understand. The establishment of a Jewish State by
their agency is at present but a distant vision; but the idea of a State
induces them meanwhile to devote their energies to the service of their
people, lifts them out of the mire of assimilation, and strengthens
their Jewish national consciousness. Possibly, when they find out that
it will be a long time before we have policemen and watchmen of our own,
many of them may leave us altogether; but even then our loss through
this movement will not be greater than our gain, because undoubtedly
there will be among them men of larger heart, who, in course of time,
will be moved to get to the bottom of the matter and to understand their
people and its spirit: and these men will arrive of themselves at that
genuine _Chibbath Zion_ which is in harmony with our national spirit.
But in the East, the home of refuge of Judaism and the birthplace of
Jewish _Chibbath Zion_, this “political” tendency can bring us only
harm. Its attractive force is at the same time a force repellent to the
moral ideal which has till now been the inspiration of Eastern Jewry.
Those who now abandon that ideal in exchange for the political idea will
never return again, not even when the excitement dies down and the State
is not established: for rarely in history do we find a movement
retracing its steps before it has tried to go on and on, and finally
lost its way. When, therefore, I see what chaos this movement has
brought into the camp of the Eastern _Chovevé Zion_—when I see men who
till recently seemed to know what they wanted and how to get it, now
suddenly deserting the flag which but yesterday they held sacred, and
bowing the knee to an idea which has no roots in their being, simply
because it comes from the West: when I see all this, and remember how
many paroxysms of sudden and evanescent enthusiasm we have already
experienced, then I really feel the heavy hand of despair beginning to
lay hold on me.

It was under the stress of that feeling that I wrote my Note on the
Congress, a few days after its conclusion. The impression was all very
fresh in my mind, and my grief was acute; and I let slip some hard
expressions, which I now regret, because it is not my habit to use such
expressions. But as regards the actual question at issue I have nothing
to withdraw. What has happened since then has not convinced me that I
was wrong: on the contrary, it has strengthened my conviction that
though I wrote in anger, I did not write in error.

Footnote 20:

  [One of a series of three essays on “Political Zionism.”]

Footnote 21:

  [_Die Welt_, the German organ founded by Herzl.]

Footnote 22:

  [The first Secretary of the _Chovevé Zion_, and an opponent of the
  “spiritual” ideas of Achad Ha-Am.]

Footnote 23:

  See my essay _Imitation and Assimilation_. [Selected essays by Achad
  Ha-Am, pp. 107-124.]

Footnote 24:

  [_Galuth_—“exile”—is the word commonly used by Jews to denote the
  condition of the Jewish people so long as it is not in its own land,
  Palestine.]

Footnote 25:

  The “political” Zionists generally think and say that they were the
  first to lay it down as a principle that the colonisation of Palestine
  by secret and surreptitious means, without organisation and in
  defiance of the ruling Power, is of no value and ought to be
  abandoned. They do not know that this truth was discovered by others
  first, and that years ago the _Chibbath Zion_ of Judaism demanded that
  everything should be done openly, with proper organisation and with
  the consent of the Turkish Government.

Footnote 26:

  [After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., Titus asked Rabbi Jochanan,
  one of the leading Jews of the time, what he wanted. The reply was,
  “Give me Jabneh and its scholars.” The Rabbi understood—though the
  Roman conqueror did not—that in the conditions then existing a centre
  of Jewish learning would do more to preserve Israel than political
  institutions.]

Footnote 27:

  In _Imitation and Assimilation_.

Footnote 28:

  [The reference here is to the schools of the _Alliance Israélite
  Universelle_, which were French in spirit. Many years after this essay
  was written, in 1913, the Germanising tendencies of the schools
  maintained by the _Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden_ in Palestine led
  to an acute conflict between that body and the Zionists.]

Footnote 29:

  The phrases in inverted commas are taken from my note on the Congress.
  As my critics have misinterpreted them, I have taken this opportunity
  of explaining their true meaning.

Footnote 30:

  The fact mentioned is familiar to many _Chovevé Zion_ in all the towns
  which the emissary visited with a letter from the headquarters of the
  movement. In my Note I only alluded to it briefly, and I am sorry that
  the denials of my opponents have compelled me here to refer to it
  again more fully.




                     PINSKER AND POLITICAL ZIONISM
(_To the memory of Dr. Pinsker, on the tenth anniversary of his death_)
                                 (1902)


The 21st of December last (1901) was the tenth anniversary of the death
of Dr. Leo Pinsker.

A decade is a long time in our days, when everything keeps changing with
extraordinary rapidity; when events come pell-mell, pushing and jostling
one another, with a new sensation every day; when men rise and fall one
after the other, famous to-day and forgotten to-morrow, rising to the
top in an hour, and going under in the next; when the tumult of to-day
is so loud that men have no time to pause and look calmly back on
yesterday.

Pinsker is one of those men of yesterday, whom the men of to-day have
already had time to forget. He died ten years ago, and in these ten
years things have changed, and we with them. New birds have come and
brought new songs. They pipe in a loud and strident chorus, in the din
of which who shall remember the forlorn lay of a lonely songster whom
earth knows no more?

In his day Pinsker was head of the _Chovevé Zion_, and he worked hard
for Palestinian colonisation. But in the interval _Chibbath Zion_ itself
has given place to Zionism. Petty colonisation, the result of the
“infiltration” policy, which absorbed the time and energy of Pinsker and
the _Chovevé Zion_ of yesterday, is to-day a source of merriment even
for the merest tyro in Zionism. Everybody knows that Herzl has enlarged
the narrow horizon of his predecessors by basing the Zionist ideal on a
broader foundation—on politics and diplomacy, on the Bank and the
Charter.

Twenty years ago Pinsker wrote a small pamphlet of thirty-six pages,
called _Auto-Emancipation_. In its day this pamphlet made a certain stir
and evoked some response. But who pays attention now to a little
pamphlet that dates from before the new dispensation? Have we not now
the _Judenstaat_, and Reports of four Congresses, full of debates and
speeches, as well as a heap of pamphlets and leaflets in every language,
explaining and expounding Zionism in every aspect and every detail?

Yes—Pinsker was a great man in his day; he was one of the “precursors”
of Zionism—so much even the new Zionists admit. And when they have
occasion to recount the history of the Zionist idea to non-Zionists,
they begin, in the most approved scientific manner, with the “embryonic”
period. Here they commend in one breath all the worthy men who came
before the birth of Zionism and prepared the way for it, not forgetting
Pinsker and other leaders of the _Chovevé Zion_ who were contemporary
with him. But all this is for them simply by way of introduction to the
main theme, which enters with the year 1896—the year when Herzl revealed
himself in his pamphlet _Der Judenstaat_. Here they draw a line, as who
should say, “Thus far the embryonic period of Zionism, the period of its
preparation for birth. Now behold Zionism itself in all its glory and
magnificence.”

How is it, then, that many people have now suddenly remembered that
Pinsker died ten years ago, on the 21st of December; and that in so many
places there have been prayers recited for the peace of his soul, and
memorial addresses delivered in his honour, on this sad anniversary?
Truth to tell, it is only because the work of the “petty colonisation”
movement still maintains its existence, and there is still a Society
which works for the support of the colonies. For that reason, and for
that reason alone—because he stood at the head of those who worked for
the Palestinian Colonies, and afterwards of the Society formed for their
support—Pinsker is remembered by his colleagues, the original _Chovevé
Zion_ of his own country, whose privilege it was to know him personally
and to work with him. It is they who have made the anniversary a matter
of public interest. If not for this, the new Zionists, whose calendar
begins with the birth of political Zionism, would not have remembered
the man who, fifteen years before Herzl, worked out the whole theory of
political Zionism from beginning to end, with a logical thoroughness and
an elevation of style unequalled by any subsequent work.

How indeed should these new Zionists remember him, seeing that they know
nothing at all of Pinsker as the author of the theory of political
Zionism? And whence should they know of him, if their leaders have never
yet told them, explicitly or by implication, in print or on the
platform, in Zionist Congresses or outside them, who was the true author
of that theory, the real if unacknowledged fountain from which all who
came after him have drunk?[31] Pinsker’s pamphlet in the original German
is already out of print and rare. While a stream of new pamphlets,
mostly poor and tasteless _rechauffés_, is daily poured forth and spread
among the people with the assistance of the Zionist organisation and
with the concurrence of its leaders, for propaganda purposes, this
pamphlet of Pinsker’s, which is uniquely capable of attracting
intelligent Jews in every country to the Zionist idea, has not been
honoured with a new edition to this day;[32] and many of the new
Zionists, especially in the West, have never seen it, nor even heard of
its value.[33] All that they hear is that there were Zionists even
before Herzl, but they were poor, simple-minded dreamers, who—incapable
of comprehending a great political idea—thought to solve the Jewish
problem by founding a few colonies in Palestine and supporting them with
halfpence; and as for Pinsker—well, he was the leader of these poor
visionaries.[34]

I doubt whether the time has yet come to restore to Pinsker the place of
honour in the Zionist movement that belongs to him of right. We are in
the thick of the tumult and the shouting, and as yet there is no room
for a true and unbiassed judgment. That must be left for later history,
for the time when “the tumult and the shouting dies,” and the influence
of personality and fleeting circumstance gives place to a national
_motif_ more general in scope and more permanent in character. But as
the memory of Pinsker is now in the public mind—be it but for a
moment—we may not improperly take advantage of the opportunity to recall
the message which Pinsker brought to his people, but for which he has
not yet received the credit.

That message is, as I have said, the message of _political_ Zionism.
Pinsker was the first to lay down a clear theoretical basis for
political Zionism. He was also the first to work out—though only in
outline—a definite practical programme for the realisation of the idea.
It is this programme, or the fundamental points in it, that the new
Zionists have laid hold on; it is because of this programme that they
call themselves “political,” denoting thereby, as they believe, the
original feature which distinguishes them from their predecessors.
Pinsker compressed all his teaching, theoretical and practical as well,
into his one small pamphlet, which is characterised by conciseness of
style and absence of systematic arrangement. His outraged feelings were
too strong for the cold processes of thought, and did not allow him to
arrange his ideas systematically. Pinsker did not write a scientific
treatise; he uttered a loud, bitter, heart-felt cry, fraught with
indignation and grief at our external and internal degradation. For that
reason he must be studied with close attention before one can put
together the scattered fragments of ideas—some repeated time and again
with a wealth of poetic eloquence, others no more than briefly hinted at
by the way—and discover the full import of his teaching.

This is what I propose here to attempt. But first of all I must point
out—what might not be self-evident to all my readers—that my object is
only to explain Pinsker’s teaching in its relation to present-day
political Zionism. I am not here giving a statement of my own views on
political Zionism in general. What I had to say on that subject has been
said in various essays, which will be familiar to many of my readers;
and these previous utterances absolve me, I think, from the necessity of
commenting here on every point with which I am not in agreement. In this
essay I take for granted the fundamental standpoint of political
Zionism, which was Pinsker’s standpoint also, though, as we shall soon
see, he gave it a peculiar turn, making it approximate more to that
Zionist ideal which is nowadays called “spiritual Zionism.”

Pinsker, like all subsequent political Zionists, arrived at the idea of
Zionism not through the problem of Judaism—through the necessity of
seeking for a new foundation for our national existence and unity, in
place of the old foundation, which is crumbling away—but through the
problem of Jewry—through a definite conviction that even emancipation
and general progress will not improve the degraded and insecure position
of the Jews among the nations, and that anti-Semitism will never cease
so long as we have not a national home of our own. But it is worth while
to examine particularly the way in which he arrived at this conviction
of the eternity of the feud between Israel and the nations, because it
is a different way from that of the later Zionists, and it is this
difference that gives a peculiar colouring to Pinsker’s message.

Pinsker finds three principal causes which lead to our being hated and
despised more than any other human beings; and for each of the three
there is no remedy except a separate Jewish State.

The first cause is a national one, and its roots lie deep in human
psychology. We cannot know whether that great day will ever arrive when
all mankind will live in brotherhood and concord, and national barriers
will no longer exist; but even at the best, thousands of years must
elapse before that Messianic age. Meanwhile nations live side by side in
a state of _relative_ peace, which is based chiefly on the fundamental
equality between them. Each nation, that is, recognises and admits the
national existence of the other nations, and even those which are at
enmity or even at war with one another are forced to recognise each
other as equals, standing on the same plane of nationhood, and therefore
entertain each for the other a certain feeling of respect, without
distinction between large nation and small, strong and weak. But it is
different with the people of Israel. This people is not counted among
the nations, because since it was exiled from its land it has lacked the
essential attributes of nationality, by which one nation is
distinguished from another—has lacked “that original national life which
is inconceivable without community of language and customs and without
local contiguity.” It is because we lack these attributes that the other
nations do not regard us as on the same plane with themselves, as a
nation equal to them in integral value. True, we have not ceased even in
the lands of our exile to be _spiritually_ a distinct nation; but this
spiritual nationality, so far from giving us the status of a nation in
the eyes of the other nations, is the very cause of their hatred for us
as a people. Men are always terrified by a disembodied spirit, a soul
wandering about with no physical covering; and terror breeds hatred.
This is a form of psychic disease which we are powerless to cure. In all
ages men have feared all kinds of ghosts which their imaginations have
seen; and Israel appears to them as a ghost—but a ghost which they see
with their very eyes, not merely in fancy. Thus the hatred of the
nations for Jewish nationality is a psychic disease of the kind known as
“demonopathy”; and having been transmitted from generation to generation
for some two thousand years, it has by now become so deep-rooted that it
can no longer be eradicated. The primary object of this hatred is not
Jews as individuals, but Judaism—by which is meant that abstract
nationality, that bodiless ghost, which wanders about among the real
nations like something apart and different, and arouses their latent
faculty of demonophobia. Hence we see on the one hand that individual
Gentiles live in peace and amity with their Jewish acquaintances, while
retaining their deep-seated animosity against Jews as a people, and on
the other hand that, throughout all the periodical changes of national
tendencies and international relations, all nations remain at all times
the same in their hatred of the Jews, just as they remain always the
same in their hatred of the other kinds of ghosts in whose existence
they believe.[35]

What, then, must we do to escape from this national hatred?

Assimilate with the nations? If real assimilation be meant—the
assimilation that reaches to the very soul and ends in annihilation—that
is a kind of death which does not come of itself, and we do not wish to
bring it on by our own efforts.[36] But the surface assimilation which
is the panacea advocated by a certain section of Jews can only make
matters worse for us. Pinsker himself does not draw this conclusion in
so many words; but it is a necessary consequence of the idea just
mentioned. For, seeing that the source of anti-Semitism lies in our lack
of a concrete national existence, which would compel the other nations
to recognise in us a nation equal to themselves in status, it follows
plainly that the more we assimilate—the more we imitate our surroundings
and whittle away our national distinctiveness—the less concrete and the
more spiritual will our national existence become; and the more,
therefore, will the ghost-fear which begets anti-Semitism grow in
intensity.

There remains, then, but one means of destroying anti-Semitism. We must
become again a real nation, possessed of all those essential attributes
of nationality by virtue of which one nation is the equal of another.
These attributes are those mentioned above—a common land, a common
language and common customs. It is the combination of these that makes
“an original national life.”[37]

The second cause of our degradation is political in character.
“Generally speaking,” says Pinsker, “we do not find any nation over-fond
of the stranger. This is a fact which has its foundation in ethnology,
and no nation can be blamed for it.” Now since the Jew is everywhere
regarded as a stranger by the native population, we should have no right
to grumble if our hosts in the various countries treated us like other
strangers who settle permanently among them. But in fact we find that
people everywhere dislike Jews much more than other strangers. Why is
this? For the same reason—replies Pinsker—for which men behave in
different ways to a well-to-do guest and to a penniless beggar. The
first comes as an equal; he too has a house in which he gives
hospitality—no matter whether we ourselves or others enjoy it—and
therefore we recognise it as our duty to give him a welcome, even if we
are not altogether delighted with his company; while he on his side is
conscious that he has a right to demand such treatment as the
conventions of polite society dictate, just as in his own house he
extends that treatment to others. Not so the homeless mendicant. He on
his side is free from the obligations of hospitality, since he has no
opportunity of fulfilling them. Hence his request for our hospitality is
a request for pure charity. It is not the appeal of an equal to the
principle of equality of rights and duties; it is the appeal to
compassion of one weaker and humbler than ourselves, who can receive but
cannot give. Hence, even if we are so compassionate as to welcome the
poor man and treat him with affection and respect, like one of
ourselves, the equality is only one of external appearance. In our heart
of hearts we feel, and he feels too, that we are doing him a kindness,
that we are treating him well out of our goodness of heart, and doing
something that we might have forborne doing if not for our charitable
and benevolent disposition. This feeling alone suffices to create a wide
gulf between us, and to lower his worth in our estimation and his own.

Which picture represents Israel among the nations? Not that of the
well-to-do guest; for Israel has no place of his own where he can fulfil
the obligations of hospitality towards other nations. Israel is like the
mendicant who goes from door to door, asking others to give him what he
does not give to others. And therefore the other nations do not regard
the Jew as their equal, and do not recognise any duty to show him that
decent behaviour which they practise towards all the other foreigners
who live among them. If, then, they are kind enough to make room for
him, it is only by an act of charity, which degrades the recipient. When
their generosity goes to the furthest extreme, they give the poor
visitor the greatest boon that they can give—that of equal rights. But
the mere fact that the grant of equal rights is an act of generosity,
and not a duty based on the real equality of the two parties, robs the
boon of its moral value, and makes it merely a piece of legislative
machinery. The giver can never forget that he is the giver, nor the
receiver that he is the receiver. For this reason Jewish emancipation in
all countries has been and must always remain political only, not
social. The Jew enjoys equal rights as a citizen, but not equality as a
man, as one who takes his part in the intimate life of society. The
non-Jew and the Jew alike are conscious of this fact, and so, despite
his equal rights, the Jew remains an inferior even in his own
estimation, and in non-Jewish society he endeavours to hide his Judaism,
and is grateful to non-Jews when they do not remind him of his origin,
but behave as though it were a matter of indifference to them.

The conclusion is that the Jews can never attain to true social equality
in Gentile countries unless they cease to be always recipients and rise
to the rank of respectable visitors, who can give to others what they
ask for themselves. In other words, the Jews must once more possess
themselves of a native land of their own, where they will be masters and
hosts. Then their place in the estimation of other nations will improve
automatically, and wherever they set foot they will be regarded as
equals by the natives, who will consider themselves in duty bound to
treat the Jews with the same respect which they show to other strangers
who come to stay among them.[38]

Besides the two causes explained above, there is a third cause, economic
in character, which gives a practical turn to Gentile hatred of the Jew,
and brings it into actual operation in the form of physical restriction
and persecution.

In the life of civilised nations the struggle for existence assumes the
form of peaceful competition. In this sphere every State distinguishes
to a certain extent between the native and the stranger, and gives the
native preference where there is not room for both. This discrimination
is practised even against the honoured stranger, whom the native regards
as his equal; and it stands to sense that there will be a vastly greater
amount of discrimination against the poor vagrant, whose existence in
the State is tolerated only out of kindness and charity. If you have a
large house, with room enough and to spare for your family and for
respectable visitors, you do not begrudge the beggar his corner, but let
him live with you as long as he likes. But when the family grows and the
house begins to feel cramped you will at once look askance at the
beggar-guests, whom you are under no obligation to respect or to feed.
And if you see that they do not squeeze up and make room for you, but,
on the contrary, endeavour to get more elbow-room for themselves,
regardless of the fact that they are crowding you, then you will resent
the impudence with which they forget their place, and in the heat of
anger you will turn them out neck and crop, or at least drive them back
into their own corner, make it as small as possible and confine them
rigidly to it for the future. But the respectable guests will still be
treated with deference, and though you may secretly dislike them for
occupying valuable room, you will not permit yourself to overstep the
limits of politeness and to turn them out into the street, save in
exceptional cases where they themselves overstep the mark and your
patience gives out.

Thus we find that even where the number of Jews is small, they bring
down on themselves the resentment and hatred of their neighbours because
of their success in the struggle for existence, and the advantage which
their ability and pertinacity gain for them over their competitors in
the various walks of life; and where the Jewish settlement is
considerable, anti-Semitism finds its food—even without any success on
the Jewish side—in the mere fact of their existence: for their existence
is bound, poor and cramped though it be, to lead to competition which
their neighbours will feel. In either case the native population does
not consider itself obliged to restrain its feelings and behave with
perfect politeness to a miserable nation which is allowed to live among
the other nations only on sufferance, and is so ungrateful as to jostle
its benefactors without shame.[39]

This cause also, then, cannot be removed except through the removal of
the other causes mentioned before. We must build a house for ourselves,
and then, even in foreign countries, we shall have the position of
respected guests, and our competition with the native population will
not arouse their resentment and jealousy more than the competition of
other strangers. But the economic cause differs from the other causes.
Our national and political degradation is a moral fact, and requires
only a moral remedy—that we stand higher in the estimation of the world,
as a nation with a concrete life of its own, and with a land in which it
can extend to others that hospitality which it receives elsewhere. But
in order to remove the economic cause we must of necessity diminish the
competition between Jew and non-Jew in places where that competition is
excessive. For even the respected guest has economic freedom only within
certain limits. If he oversteps these limits, and his competition
presses too hard on the native, the native is forced to protect himself,
either by legislative restriction of the foreigner’s rights, or
sometimes even by force. It follows that if we succeed in establishing a
separate State for our people, the two first causes of anti-Semitism
will be removed, even if the State is very small, and even if most of
the Jews remain where they are, and only a very small minority goes to
settle in our State. For the mere fact of the existence of a Jewish
State, where Jews would be masters, and their national life would
develop on lines of its own in accordance with their spirit—this fact
alone would suffice to remove from us the brand of inferiority, and to
raise us in the world’s estimation to the level of a nation equal in
worth to the other nations, sharing alike their privileges and their
duties; and the attitude of the other nations to us would no longer be
different from their attitude to each other. But the economic cause,
though its working may be mitigated to some extent when the wandering
mendicant is transformed into a well-to-do guest, cannot be got rid of
until the number of Jews in every country declines to the limit dictated
by the economic condition of the native population. Until that time
hatred of these foreign competitors will continue, and the native
population will continue to persecute them with restrictive laws and
even with violence, even though there exist somewhere or other a
separate Jewish State, and even though all nations respect the Jewish
nationality which has in that State its concrete expression.

Thus we arrive at a further condition of the solution of our problem.
What we need is not simply a State, but a State to which the majority of
the Jews will emigrate from all their present homes—to such an extent
that their numbers in every country will decline to the extent demanded
by local conditions—and a State extensive enough and materially rich
enough to maintain so large a population.

And here we come to the Achilles’ heel of political Zionism. Granted
that we have it in our power to establish a Jewish State: have we it in
our power to diminish thereby the number of Jews in every country to the
maximum which the economic condition of the country can bear without
their arousing anti-Semitism? This question the opponents of the new
Zionism, which promises _to put an end to the Jewish problem_ by the
establishment of the State, are continually asking: but so far we have
not received from the Zionists a clear and satisfactory answer. During
the last twenty years, for instance, at least a million Jews have left
Eastern Europe for America and Africa. That is a very large number,
sufficient for the establishment of a Jewish State. Yet this emigration
has had no perceptible effect on the economic condition of the countries
from which it has taken place, and the relations between the native
population and the Jews in those countries have not improved. The reason
is that the emigration has not in fact lessened the number of Jews in
those countries, the loss being always counterbalanced by the natural
increase of those who remain. If, then, Pinsker’s idea had been carried
out as soon as his pamphlet was published, and all these emigrants had
gone not to America or Africa, but to the Jewish State, the State might
by now have been successful and flourishing, and national life might be
developing there in a satisfactory manner, so as to bring great honour
to our people wherever Jews are; but none the less the Jewish problem in
the lands whence the emigration proceeded would remain exactly where it
was, because economic competition between the Jews and the native
population would be just as keen as before, and would still be felt by
the latter to an intolerable degree. If, therefore, a Jewish State is
really to solve the Jewish problem on its economic side for good and
all, then hundreds of thousands must emigrate to it every year from the
lands of the Diaspora, so that the diminution in the number of Jews in
those lands will be patently perceptible, and their influence on
economic life will decrease from year to year, till it ceases to be a
cause of hatred and jealousy on the part of the native population. We
must therefore ask ourselves first of all, whether it is really possible
to transport such a vast number of people in a short time, and to open
up for them new sources of livelihood in a new State, wherever it may
be. I doubt very much whether any responsible person will answer this
question in the affirmative.

But this criticism, which is fatal to the new Zionism, as expounded by
Herzl and his followers, does not seriously affect Pinsker’s Zionism.
The new Zionists make the political and economic problem the be-all and
end-all of their strivings. Their primary aim is to improve the hard lot
of the Jews _as individuals_. They regard such improvement in exile as
out of the question, since Jews are regarded as strangers in every
country, and the competition of the stranger exposes him to the
resentment of the native population. Hence they demand that the Jews
shall establish a separate State for themselves, where they will not be
strangers and their competition will not be a crime.[40] But this idea
can be justified only if the State is able to improve the lot of all the
Jews or most of them; that is, if all or most of the Jews can leave
foreign countries and settle in their State. Unless this condition is
fulfilled, the amelioration will be only partial; it will affect only
that fortunate minority which succeeds in establishing itself in the
Jewish State. The majority will remain as badly off as before—hated and
persecuted foreigners in strange lands. Where, then, is the promised
annihilation of the Jewish problem through the establishment of the
State?

But with Pinsker it is different. The loss which he mourns is primarily
the loss of Jewish national dignity. He weeps for a _nation_ which is
not regarded and respected by the other nations as an equal, and whose
individual members are treated everywhere not merely as foreigners, but
as beggars in receipt of charity. With him the question of national
dignity comes first of all. Of the three causes to which he traces the
ill-feeling between Jews and Gentiles, the first one, which lies in the
degraded position of the Jews as a nation—a point not mentioned by the
new Zionists—is the most important in his own view, and occupies most of
his attention. Next to it stands the political cause; and this cause
also, unlike the new Zionists, he regards from the point of view of the
problem of national dignity. He is not much troubled by the fact that we
are treated as aliens in every country: that fact, no doubt, harms us as
individuals, but in itself it does not imply any contempt or
inferiority. The root of the trouble is that we are not treated as
aliens in the ordinary political sense, but are regarded as wandering
mendicants, as inferior beings, who are not entitled to demand respect
and consideration as of right. So with the third cause, the economic
one. Its sting lies for Pinsker chiefly in the fact that here also we
Jews are differentiated from other aliens—that in consequence of the low
esteem in which we are held our competition causes more resentment than
that of other aliens. Pinsker, therefore, has more right than the new
Zionists to regard the establishment of a Jewish State as the absolute
solution of the Jewish problem—that is, of the problem of the _dignity_
of the Jewish nation and of its members, who, even if most of them
remain scattered among the nations, and even if they continue to be
hated and persecuted in various countries because of their economic
competition, will at any rate no longer be exposed to the contempt of
their neighbours, and to the taunt that they are not a nation, but a
pack of beggars wandering about in a world which is not theirs, and
existing only on sufferance.

On the other hand, Pinsker raises another question, which does not
trouble the new Zionists very much: the question of the national
consciousness.

If we assume, as Herzl does in his pamphlet, that the Jewish State will
contain all the Jews, and will offer to every individual Jew the
possibility of living comfortably among his people, then we need not be
much concerned about the anterior development of the national
consciousness as an incentive to the establishment of the State. We have
ready to hand another and a stronger incentive in the natural desire of
every individual to improve his position.[41] But if from the outset we
accept the fact that even a Jewish State will not absolutely solve the
Jewish problem on its economic side, and that the chief purpose for
which we need a State is a moral one—to gain for our own nation the
respect of other nations, and to create a healthy body for our national
spirit—then we are bound to face the question whether the national
consciousness is so strong among us, and the honour of our nation so
dear to us, that this motive alone, unalloyed by any consideration of
individual advantage, will be sufficient to spur us on to so vast and
difficult a task.

Now Pinsker, candid here as always, does not conceal from us that, as
things are, the national consciousness among us is not nearly strong
enough for our purpose. “Our greatest misfortune is that we do not form
a nation: we are merely Jews.” The _galuth_ life has compelled every Jew
to put all his strength into his individual struggle for existence; and
in that struggle we have been compelled to use any kind of weapon that
came to hand, without enquiring too closely whether it was consistent
with our national dignity. Thus, as time went on, both our sense of
nationality and our sense of dignity became dulled; and at last we
ceased to feel the need of restoring our dignity, national or
individual.[42] We left it to the Deity to perform that ideal task by
bringing us the Messiah at the proper time, and buried ourselves in
affairs more necessary for our immediate physical survival.[43] Even in
modern times, when the breeze of modern culture has blown on us and
begun to awaken our dormant sense of dignity, we try to find
satisfaction in a strange delusion of our own invention—that the people
of Israel has a “mission,” for the sake of which it must remain
scattered among the nations: “a mission in which nobody believes, a
privilege of which, candidly, we should be glad to be rid, if at that
price we could wipe out the name of ‘Jew’ as a title of shame.”[44] This
loss of self-respect on the one side aggravates the contempt in which we
are held, and on the other side is itself the greatest stumbling-block
on our path of progress. For what, except a strong national
consciousness, can induce our people to bend all its energies to the
task of restoring its national dignity, and to fight unceasingly and
unwearyingly against all the obstacles with which it is confronted? That
those obstacles are many and serious—this again Pinsker does not conceal
from us. At the best, several generations must elapse before we can
attain our end, “perhaps only after labour too great for human
strength.” Only, as we recognise that this is the one road to our
national salvation, we must not turn back faint-heartedly because of the
danger or for lack of confidence in the success of our efforts.[45] But
such language is intelligible only to a thoroughly awakened national
consciousness, which can intensify the desire to attain the end in
proportion to the heaviness of the task, can flame up for one instant in
the heart of the whole people, and produce a “national resolution,” a
sacred and unbending resolve to take up the work of revival and to carry
it on, generation after generation, till its completion. And “where,”
asks Pinsker, bitterly, “where shall we find this national
consciousness?”

Pinsker found no satisfactory answer to this question. He made this
national consciousness a categorical imperative, a _conditio sine qua
non_; but he did not show how it was to be supplied. For this reason the
whole of the practical scheme which follows gives one the impression of
being formulated conditionally—subject, that is, to the emergence among
our people, no matter by what means, of a national consciousness strong
enough to enable them to carry out the idea in practice.

Pinsker’s practical scheme, as I said above, is only an outline. But its
general lines are very similar to those laid down by Herzl in the
pamphlet which is the basis of present-day Zionist policy.

As we cannot hope for another leader like Moses—“history does not
vouchsafe such leaders to the same people repeatedly”—the leadership of
the movement for national rebirth must be taken by a group of
distinguished Jews, men of strong will and generous character, who “by
their union will, perhaps, succeed in freeing us from reproach and
persecution, no less than did the one great leader.”[46] Herzl uses very
similar language about this collective _negotiorum gestor_,[47] and he
and Pinsker alike look for its members among the upper-class Jews; but
Herzl has his eye especially on the Jews of England, while Pinsker looks
generally to the great organisations already in existence.[48] Herzl
calls this governing body “the Society of Jews”; Pinsker calls it “the
Directorium.” Herzl pictures the formation of the Society of Jews in a
very simple manner. The best of the English Jews, having approved the
project, come together without any preliminaries, and form a “Society of
Jews.” Herzl sees no need to call a National Assembly first: the general
consent which is necessary to give the Society proper standing with the
Governments will come afterwards spontaneously.[49] But Pinsker wanted
the various organisations to call “_a National Congress_, of which they
themselves would be the nucleus.” Only in the event of their refusing to
do this does he suggest that they should at least constitute a special
“national institution” called a “Directorium,” which should unite all
forces in the national work. The principal and immediate object of this
institution would be “to create a safe and independent home of refuge
for that superfluity of poor Jews which exists as a proletariat in
various countries, and is disliked by the native population.”[50] All
other Jews, not merely in the West, “where they are already naturalised
up to a certain point,” but also “in those places where they are not
readily tolerated,” can remain where they are. Unlike Herzl, Pinsker
does not think it possible that all the Jews will leave their homes and
go to their own State; nor is this necessary for his real object, as I
have pointed out above. Economic pressure is under present conditions
causing the “superfluity” to emigrate year by year from every country
where there is a superfluity; and thousands of Jews leave their homes
because they can no longer maintain themselves. At present these
emigrants escape one trouble to fall into another. They wander from
country to country, and find no proper resting-place; and the large sums
of money expended by various organisations on the migration of Jews and
their settlement in new homes produce no real benefit, because the new
home also is only a temporary lodging. When the number of Jews in the
new country reaches the “saturation-point,” the journey will have to be
resumed; the Jews must move on to yet other countries. But if we can
prepare, while there is yet time, a single secure home of refuge instead
of the many insecure ones, the superfluity will gradually find its way
thither, and its inhabitants will increase from year to year, till at
last it becomes the centre of our national life, though the bulk of the
people will remain, as hitherto, scattered in strange lands.

The first act of the “Directorium” would be to send an expedition of
experts to investigate and find the territory best suited to our purpose
from every point of view. When he wrote his pamphlet Pinsker did not yet
regard our historic land as the only possible home of refuge; on the
contrary, he feared that our ingrained love for Palestine might give us
a bias and induce us to choose that country without paying regard to its
political, economic and other conditions, which perhaps might be
unfavourable. For this reason he warns us emphatically not to be guided
by sentiment in this matter, but to leave the question of territory to a
commission of experts, who will solve it after a thorough and detailed
investigation. But on the whole he thinks that the desired territory
will be found either in America or in Turkey.[51] In the latter
alternative we shall form a special “Pashalik,” the independence of
which will be guaranteed by Turkey and the other Great Powers. “It will
be one of the principal functions of the Directorium,” writes Pinsker,
for all the world like an orthodox adherent of “diplomatic” Zionism
to-day, “to win for this project the sympathy of the Porte and the other
European Governments.”[52]

“And then, but not till then,” he warns us once again, the Directorium
will enter on its work of buying land and organising colonisation. In
this work it will need the assistance of “a group of capitalists,” who
will form “a joint-stock company”—exactly as in Herzl’s scheme, where
side by side with the Society of Jews there is established the Jewish
Company, a company of capitalists, to direct the material affairs of the
settlement.

Pinsker next proceeds to describe in outline the progress of the new
settlement—how the land will be parcelled out in small plots, some to be
sold to men with capital, and some to be occupied by men of no means
with the assistance of a _National Fund_ established to that end; and so
forth. But for our present purpose we need follow him no further. What
has been said above will suffice to make it plain to all who wish to see
that it was Pinsker who worked out the whole theory of political
Zionism, and that his successors, so far from adding anything essential
to his scheme, actually took away in large measure its ideal basis, and
thus so seriously impaired its moral value that they had to have
recourse to various promises which they could neither fulfil nor
repudiate. This will become abundantly clear to anybody who will compare
the two pamphlets, Pinsker’s and Herzl’s.

Pinsker, as we have seen, puts the emphasis on the moral aspect, Herzl
on the material. Hence Pinsker wishes to found only a national centre,
Herzl promises a complete “ingathering of the exiles”; Pinsker finds the
motive power in a strong national consciousness, Herzl in the desire for
individual betterment. For this reason Pinsker does not find it
necessary to minimise the difficulties: on the contrary, he repeats many
times, with emphasis, that only at the cost of infinite sacrifice will
the goal perhaps—mark that “perhaps”!—be reached. Similarly, he
recognises that it is not work for one generation alone. “We have to
take only the first step; our successors must follow in our footsteps,
with measured tread and without undue haste.”[53] Not so Herzl. He is
bound to make light of the difficulties, because otherwise he would have
to face the question: “If we are looking for betterment as individuals,
how can we waste so much energy on a task that will take generations to
accomplish, and may not be accomplished at all, when we have so many
pressing needs which can be more or less met if we devote that energy to
them?” Hence Herzl is never tired of promising that it will be very easy
to carry out his project in a short time, if only we want it. “Let us
but begin, and anti-Semitism will at once die down in every country: for
this will be our treaty of peace with it. Once let the Jewish Company be
established, and the news of it will spread in one day to the ends of
the earth, and our position will immediately begin to improve.... Thus
the work will proceed, rapidly yet without convulsion.”[54] The same
difference is evident in the general scheme of the two pamphlets.
Pinsker devotes most of his pamphlet to showing how low we have sunk as
a nation, and how badly we need a State of our own to save our dignity.
Only at the end does he explain briefly how he pictures to himself the
practical realisation of his idea. This is because from his point of
view the essential thing is that we resolve that our dignity absolutely
demands this course of action, cost what it may. We have no need to
spend much thought at the outset on the question whether we shall
succeed, or how and when we shall succeed, because, if we suppose that
the task is beyond our strength, we must none the less take it up, in
order to wipe out our reproach. The question of dignity brooks no
calculation. But Herzl deals very briefly with fundamental principles
and reasons, because, from his materialistic point of view, there is
really no need to enlarge on them. Can anybody doubt that the position
of the Jews in exile is very bad, and that it would be better for them
and for their neighbours if they went and established a separate State
for themselves? Even our “assimilationists” would certainly agree for
the most part, if they only knew with absolute certainty from the start
that the project could be carried out without too much trouble, “rapidly
yet without convulsion.” The root question is, then, whether the goal
can in fact be reached under such comfortable conditions. For this
reason Herzl gives most of his attention to this question, and explains
his practical scheme in minute detail, with the object of showing that
it demands no great sacrifices, whether material or spiritual, and that
everything from A to Z will be achieved with ease, rapidity and
universal satisfaction. All the emigration to the Jewish State, up to
the time when the whole people is gathered there, he describes almost as
though it were a holiday excursion. And in the State itself everybody
lives in comfort and prosperity. Nobody will need to forgo even the
minor habits of his ordinary life; and the immigrant will not even have
to miss his friends and relations, because the Jews will leave the
different countries in “local groups,” and will be settled in their own
land on that basis, so that each man can attach himself to the group
which is closest to him geographically and spiritually. The
working-classes, on whose strength the State will be built up, will work
only seven hours a day, and even the Jewish Company, which is to direct
the whole work with its capital, will not incur any financial risk,
because its investments will be sound and will produce an exceptionally
good return.[55]

If, further, we take into account the wide difference between the two
pamphlets in style, we may see that Herzl’s pamphlet has the air of
being a translation of Pinsker’s from the language of the ancient
Prophets into that of modern journalism.

Yet the name of Pinsker, as the originator of the political Zionist
theory, is almost forgotten. He is mentioned as a rule only in
connection with the work of “petty colonisation” in Palestine, as though
his horizon had been bounded by his activity in that sphere. Ordinary
men, for whom the real is the visible, remember only things that are
done: and the thing that Pinsker did—that to which he devoted all his
subsequent work—has really no direct relation to the message which he
began by enunciating.

I have shown elsewhere how it was that Pinsker came to take part in the
work of the _Chovevé Zion_, despite the political character of his
theory. He understood perfectly well that their work was very far
removed from the great project of which he dreamt; but he understood
also that without a “national resolution,” proceeding from a strong
national consciousness, and without unity and an organisation embracing
the whole people, it would be impossible to carry out his great idea.
The consent of the Powers, the favour of the Sublime Porte, even a
Charter signed and sealed—all this cannot help us in the least, so long
as we are not a single people, strong by virtue of our unity and our
indomitable will, penetrated through and through with a sense of our
present national degradation, and prepared to sacrifice our all for a
nobler future. Hence, when Pinsker saw that national indifference was
the rule in every section of the people; when he saw how faint an echo
his pamphlet raised in the hearts of the ruling classes, whom he
confidently expected to be the first to rally to his banner; and when he
saw a small group of men with insignificant means, or none, putting
forth every possible effort to carry out a national project, small and
poor though it was in comparison with his own ideal—Pinsker could not
help lending a hand to those who were engaged in this work, seeing in
them the nucleus of an organisation, and the small beginning of the
“national resolution.” For Pinsker the work done in Palestine was not
the beginning of the practical realisation of his programme, but only
the beginning of the preparatory stage—the beginning of the revival of
the national consciousness, and of the union of the people under the
banner of a common ideal. He hoped by means of national action on a
small scale to arrive ultimately at that national resolution on the part
of the whole people for which he looked in his pamphlet; and then the
real work would begin.

It is abundantly clear that this is exactly the course which the new
Zionists too are taking to-day, though as yet, it would appear,
unconsciously. How great, for instance, is the gulf between the
Jewish Company of Herzl’s vision—possessing a capital of fifty
millions sterling, and undertaking not only to plant the settlers in
the Jewish State, but also to sell the property and transact the
business of all the Jews in the Diaspora—and the small Bank, with
its quarter-of-a-million, which has now been opened, after infinite
labour, to carry on some simple and unimportant business operations
in Palestine and Russia! Or again, is there any sort of relationship
between the Society of Jews which Herzl describes in his pamphlet—a
Society which is to stand at the head of the whole people and manage
all its national affairs, as Moses did—and the Actions Committee
which now stands at the head of the Zionist organisation? And how
shall we be brought to the Jewish State—that free State guaranteed
by all the Powers—by such minor concessions as it is possible to
obtain now, according to the Zionist leaders, at Yildiz Kiosk for a
certain price? The plain truth is that all this work, which the new
Zionists regard as “political” work _par excellence_, has as little
to do with the theory of political Zionism as had the petty
colonisation work which Pinsker took up. In the one case as in the
other, the whole value of the work lies in its effect on the people,
which it educates gradually in the direction of unity, organisation,
national resolution. In other words, we are still, as we were in
Pinsker’s day, at the first stage, the preliminary stage of
preparatory work.

It must be admitted, however, that in the practical sphere—even
confining that to preparatory work and propaganda—Pinsker did little,
and did not achieve in his ten years of work half as much as the leader
of the new Zionism has achieved in five years. Pinsker was purely a
theorist: he worked out the theory of Zionism better and more fully than
his successor, but, like all theorists, he was of little use when it
came to practical work. Men of his type, simple-souled and pure-minded
to a degree, innocent of the tricks and wiles of diplomacy, knowing
nothing but the naked truth—such men cannot find the way to popular
favour. Their words are too sincere, their actions too straightforward.
Those only can attract the mob and bend it to their will who can descend
to its level, pander to its tastes, and pipe to it in a hundred tunes,
choosing the right one at the right moment. Pinsker had none of these
arts. If, for example, he had gone to Yildiz Kiosk to negotiate for the
colonisation of Palestine, and had been told there: “If you have two
million pounds you may have so-and-so; otherwise—nothing”—what would he
have done? Without a doubt he would have replied at once: “We have not
such a large sum of money, and have at present no prospect of getting
it.” Then he would have returned home empty-handed, and the public at
large would have known nothing of his going or of his returning; or, if
it had been impossible to keep the matter quiet, everybody would have
known that “certain steps had been taken” at Yildiz, but had come to
nothing. This, of course, would have made a bad impression, and have
helped in some degree to weaken the energy of his few supporters. But we
all still remember how the Zionist leaders behaved on a similar occasion
last year. Leadership on these lines cannot satisfy those who have a
liking for the plain truth; but from a pragmatic point of view it
undoubtedly has the advantage. First of all, people heard only the glad
news (it “spread in one day to the ends of the earth”) that the Sultan
had given the Zionist leaders a favourable reception and made them
certain promises, but that the details could not yet be published. This
news aroused widespread attention: friends and foes alike waited
breathlessly for the curtain to be drawn. Then, after the news had
become public property and enlivened the hopes of the Zionists, the
leaders made the further announcement that the great promises had been
made conditionally, and could not be fulfilled unless they had two
million pounds. Everybody who knew the true state of things understood
at once—and certainly the leaders understood it, even while they were
having audience of the Sultan—that this condition could not be met, so
that the promises were mere empty words. And yet the first impression
was not altogether effaced, and it served to strengthen in many people
the belief that something great could be done if only all sections of
the people were ready to put all their strength into it—the kind of
belief which is calculated to intensify the energy of the workers, and
to spur them on to put forth greater efforts.

In a word: theory and practice are two departments which no doubt depend
on each other, but each one needs special abilities and different
qualities of mind, which can with difficulty be combined in one man. We
must therefore honour every man according to his value in his own
department. If I might borrow an illustration from religion, I should
say that Pinsker was the originator of the gospel of political Zionism,
and Herzl its apostle; Pinsker brought the new dispensation, and Herzl
gave it currency. But it is usual for the apostle to recognise the
originator and to acknowledge his greatness: as he spreads the gospel,
so he publishes abroad and sanctifies the name of him who brought it.
Had the Zionist apostle followed this custom, Pinsker would now have a
world-wide reputation, and would be venerated by all whose watchword is
Zion. But Herzl would not be satisfied with the practical mission which
was in reality his _métier_. He must needs “originate” the gospel itself
over again—in an inferior form, it is true—so that it should be all his.
Thus the odd result has come about that the further the gospel spreads,
the more completely is its true originator forgotten.

But it is not for Pinsker’s reputation that I am concerned. In his
lifetime he was so far from the desire for notoriety and ascendancy,
that I have no doubt that if he were alive to-day, he would rejoice
wholeheartedly at the wide vogue given to his idea, and not a shade of
displeasure would pass over his face because of the injustice done to
himself personally. My only regret is that Pinsker’s wonderful pamphlet
has sunk with him, and the Zionist gospel itself has become more
superficial and more materialistic.[56] Zionism is a faith, and, like
every other faith, it needs one authoritative “Bible,” to be conned by
the true believers, to be their fountain-head of spiritual influence. At
present Zionism has no “Bible.” Great as is Herzl’s influence with the
new Zionists, his pamphlet could not attain that high dignity. But its
general spirit pervades all the other brochures and speeches on which
Zionists live, and from which they derive their faith; and that spirit,
as we have seen, is not calculated to raise the masses above material
interests, and render them capable of making great sacrifices for a
higher national ideal. Pinsker’s pamphlet is the only one that is worthy
to take the first place in the literature of Zionism, and to be revered
by the party as the _fons et origo_ of all its views and policies. If
this pamphlet were disseminated among Zionists, and made familiar to
them, it would undoubtedly help to educate them in its spirit—a spirit
of pure idealism, which sets more store by the dignity of the whole
people than by the advantage of the individual, never flinches in the
face of danger, is never impatient, and demands no certainty of success.
Then the leaders would not have to be always looking for some means of
keeping the fervour up to the required temperature, nor to entangle
themselves in exaggerated promises and self-contradictions, which only
the blindness of enthusiasm can fail for a moment to detect.

Enthusiasm, however, is a flame which spreads rapidly but does not last.
It is only the slow-burning fire, with its steady flame, that can create
the enormous strength required for such a national task in many
successive generations. For this reason I believe that there will yet
come a day when all the external show and parade will no longer satisfy
those who thirst for a national ideal; and in that day many will once
more remember Pinsker and his pure and lofty message—a message of work
without limit and sacrifice without reward, for no other object than to
restore the dignity of our people, and to enhance our value for
humanity.

Footnote 31:

  We hear now that Herzl commended Pinsker and his pamphlet—for the
  first time—at one of the sittings of the Fifth Congress. That Congress
  met at Basle some weeks after the _Chovevé Zion_ in Russia had given
  prominence to Pinsker’s name on the anniversary of his death. This is
  evidence that the President of the Zionist Congress still sometimes
  pays attention to the public opinion of Russian Jewry. But, of course,
  this does not affect what is said above.

Footnote 32:

  [A second edition was published about a year after the appearance of
  this Essay.]

Footnote 33:

  Here is an incident which illustrates the extent to which the contents
  of Pinsker’s pamphlet have been forgotten, even in Russia. A short
  time ago, some of the Jewish periodicals in Russia published a letter
  of Pinsker’s dating from 1883, which was found among the papers of the
  Odessa Committee. The letter contains only a few headings of the ideas
  which are explained in detail in his pamphlet. But the periodicals
  were surprised, and found it necessary to remark that it appeared
  _from this letter_ that so long as twenty years ago Pinsker had
  “foreseen, as it were,” the Zionist movement of our day.

Footnote 34:

  In Austria the _Chovevé Zion_ used to call themselves “Zionists” long
  before Herzl’s time. I believe that Dr. Birnbaum invented the name in
  his journal _Selbst-Emanzipation_. Herzl mentions the “Zionists” a few
  times in his brochure, and satirically represents them as trying to
  raise a heavy load by the steam of a tea-kettle (_Judenstaat_, p. 4).

Footnote 35:

  _Autoemancipation_, pp. 1-7 [7-11 in the second edition, 1903.]

Footnote 36:

  _ib._ p. 15 [17.]

Footnote 37:

  Pinsker died before the days of what is now called “spiritual
  nationalism,” the view which denies the need for a distinct national
  territory, believing it possible that sooner or later we shall
  obtain equal rights in the lands of our dispersion as _a nation_:
  that is, shall be allowed to carry on our distinctive _national_
  life in these lands, just as we have already obtained equal rights,
  _as citizens_, in many countries: that is, have been allowed to take
  part in social and political life like the other inhabitants. But
  Pinsker lays the foundation for this view, by demanding—for the
  first time—_national_ equality, and substituting the formula of
  spiritual nationalism: “the same rights for the Jewish _nation_ as
  for the other _nations_” (“die Gleichstellung der jüdischen Nation
  mit den anderen Nationen”—_Autoemancipation_, p. 7 [11]) for the
  older formula of the protagonists of emancipation: “the same rights
  for Jews as for the other citizens.” It is, however, fundamental to
  Pinsker’s view that national equality is unattainable so long as we
  lack the concrete attributes of nationality. A nation which is a
  nation only in the spiritual sense is a monstrosity which the other
  nations cannot possibly regard as their compeer; it follows that
  they cannot recognise its title to demand the same rights as those
  enjoyed by the real nations.

Footnote 38:

  _ib._ pp. 7-10 [11-13.]

Footnote 39:

  _ib._ pp. 10-11 [13-14].

Footnote 40:

  _Judenstaat_, pp. 24-26.

Footnote 41:

  The question, “What will induce the Jews to found their State and to
  settle in it?” is answered by Herzl quite simply: “We can trust the
  anti-Semites to see to that.” (_Judenstaat_, p. 59.)

Footnote 42:

  _Autoemancipation_, p. 12 [15].

Footnote 43:

  _ib._ p. 16 [18].

Footnote 44:

  _ib._ p. 19 [20]. As the sequel shows, Pinsker’s criticism is aimed
  only at those who make the “mission” the moral end of our dispersion.
  They think that we can fulfil our mission only if we are thoroughly
  scattered: whereas the fact is precisely the reverse. “So far the
  world does not regard us as a genuine firm, and allows us little
  credit.” If, therefore, we really wish to benefit the world by
  fulfilling a mission, we must first of all establish our national
  position, so as to enhance our credit with the rest of the world.

Footnote 45:

  _ib._ p. 20 [21].

Footnote 46:

  _ib._ p. 26 [25].

Footnote 47:

  _Judenstaat_, p. 70.

Footnote 48:

  He means, apparently, the _Alliance Israélite Universelle_ and its
  sister organisations in England and Austria. The Jewish Colonisation
  Association had not yet come into existence.

Footnote 49:

  Herzl shows, in his pamphlet, no great liking for large meetings, even
  for propaganda purposes. “There is no need”—so writes the founder of
  the Zionist Congress—“to summon special meetings with a lot of
  palaver.” (_ib._ p. 57.)

Footnote 50:

  _Autoem._ p. 27 [25-26]. Elsewhere (p. 34 [30]) Pinsker insists that
  the home of refuge must be secured by _political_ means (“politisch
  gesichert.”)

Footnote 51:

  Herzl also, in his pamphlet, does not decide on a territory; but he
  also looks to America and Turkey, and suggests the Argentine or
  Palestine (_Judenstaat_, p. 29).

Footnote 52:

  _Autoem._ p. 30 [28].

Footnote 53:

  _ib._ p. 35 [31].

Footnote 54:

  “Eilig und doch ohne Erschütterung” (_Judenstaat_, p. 85). In one
  place Herzl says that the emigration of the whole people from the
  various countries to its own State will take “some decades” (p. 27),
  but does not say how many. Elsewhere he is more definite; the
  emigration will last “perhaps twenty years or perhaps more” (p. 79).

Footnote 55:

  It is worth pointing out that Pinsker, too, hints that the company of
  capitalists, which is to co-operate with his Directorium, may expect a
  good profit. But as soon as he has mentioned this expectation he adds:
  “Whether, however, this act of national redemption will be more or
  less good business or not—that question is not of great moment in
  comparison with the importance of the undertaking for the future of
  our people.” (pp. 32-33 [30].)

Footnote 56:

  Even in his lifetime Pinsker was not understood, and his pamphlet was
  not appreciated at its full value. Smolenskin, in his critique, saw
  nothing in the pamphlet beyond the superficial _Chibbath Zion_ which
  had then a wide vogue in Hebrew literature, and could find nothing to
  say in its praise except that it was written in German—a language in
  which “such ideas ... have never been expressed before.”




                           THE TIME HAS COME
                               (1906[57])


You are right, my friends: “Now the time has come to begin planting our
literature in the land of its birth and on its own native soil.”[58] But
it seems to me that there is a wider and a deeper foundation for this
statement than you give to it in your announcement. The time is ripe for
your enterprise not merely “because there is already a considerable
number of Jews in Palestine and the neighbouring countries, and so
Hebrew literature, its language being common to the Jews of Palestine,
has a function to perform in the sphere of national culture.” If that
were the only reason, we Hebrew writers outside Palestine, though we
should certainly have welcomed the new adventure and have been glad to
enjoy the literary fruit of Palestine, should not have felt it our duty
to take an active part in a local Palestinian literary movement, created
only for the Jews in Palestine, whose circumstances are known to us only
by hearsay, or from the visitor’s brief experience. If none the less I
feel—and I am sure that other writers will feel the same—that it is my
duty to take part in your undertaking, that can only be because it is
not merely the condition of the Jews in Palestine, but the condition of
our people in general that now convinces us of the necessity of
reuniting our land and our language—those sundered halves of a single
whole, those twin main pillars of our national life, which are both so
near to us and so far from us—and of making them both together, by the
establishment of a worthy literary centre in the land, a single mighty
channel through which the influence of our national spirit should be
carried to all the lands of our dispersion.

“_Now_ convinces us,” I say: although it is already many years since we
began to recognise that the Hebrew spirit is yearning towards its own
land, because its life in exile is not a healthy and a complete life.
But this recognition itself could not get free all at once from the
fetters of _galuth_, and did not prevent us from dreaming all those
years of the revival of our language and literature outside Palestine.
Now realities have shown the futility of our dream, and we learn
perforce from experience what we would not learn willingly from logic,
that just as the Hebrew spirit cannot develop as it should without a
free centre “on its own native soil,” so, too, are its outer vestments,
our language and literature, under the same disability; and all our
efforts to revive them on strange soil will not avail except for a short
time—until the hammer of an alien environment strikes out a spark which
will destroy in a moment what we have spent many years and the last
remnant of our strength in building up.[59]

How slow is the development of an idea in the human mind! Every new idea
is born with great travail, and even after its birth there is a long
lapse of time and a heavy loss of force between its dawn and its
noontide splendour. At first it appears shrouded in mist, luminous yet
obscure, and its faint rays shimmer on the surface of the human spirit
without being able to penetrate to the depths below. Only little by
little, after much labour and hard struggling, is the mist dispelled,
and the light of the idea grows stronger and floods all the dark corners
of the mind. Then we look into these corners, and wonder at ourselves
for not having been conscious before of the chaos of error and
contradiction which held its own there while the light was already
playing on the surface above.

Hard were the birth-pangs of our national idea in the form of “Zionism,”
and the mists shrouded it at its birth. In the last generation the
Jewish people had settled down to its exile; it waited for the mercy of
Heaven and the kindness of the world, scarcely felt how its limbs were
being torn asunder and scattered in all directions, and asked no great
boon of the future, except a peaceful life and a livelihood among the
nations. Then a hurricane arose, and thunderously swept away the hope of
kindness from the world, yes, and even the hope of mercy from heaven.
And the clarion-call went forth among the exiled people: You wish for a
peaceful life and livelihood? Then get you up and go to your national
land, and look no more for crumbs from strangers’ tables: for there is
neither peace nor livelihood except for each people in its own land.

That was the dawn of our new idea. The memory of our historic land,
which had become a lifeless thing, a mere book-memory, became once more
a living emotional force, and in its re-birth awoke our love for the
rest of our heritage, which now appeared in a new light to many for whom
it had lost all actual value. If we say—so these men reasoned—that we
have a national land, to which we wish to return in very deed and not
only in prayer, then we admit, and want others to admit, that we are
actually a nation, and not merely a Church. And if we are a nation, then
we must have a national spirit, which distinguishes us from other
nations, and we must value and protect it as every other nation does
with its national spirit. And if we value our national spirit, where
shall we find it if not in the heritage of our past, and especially in
our national language and literature, in which each generation stored up
its spiritual treasure, and left to its heirs in the next the best
fruits of its thought, its secret longings, its half-uttered sighs? Thus
_Chibbath Zion_ began by giving an impulse to the “spiritual
revival”—the fostering of our language and literature, the establishment
of national schools, and so forth—not as a separate and distinct ideal,
but as a necessary consequence of the ideal of a peaceful life in
Palestine, as a sort of proof of our being really a distinct nation and
possessing all the attributes of a nation, and being therefore both in
need and deserving of that which we have not now—our national land.

But gradually the Zionist idea began to get clearer, and events in
Palestine and elsewhere helped it to emerge from the mists of visionary
hopes. Then some of its followers reversed the sequence of ideas. It is
not the case, they said, that the redemption of the people is the goal
of all our efforts, and the spiritual revival only a means to it, and a
branch of it. On the contrary, the spiritual revival is our real object,
whether we know it or not, and the whole purpose of the settlement to be
built up in Palestine is merely to serve as its basis.

It is true—such was the train of reasoning of this dissident
section—that _galuth_ is a very evil thing, and that the only way to
escape the ills which are inevitably bound up with it is to escape from
_galuth_ itself. But this truth of itself tells us nothing, if we cannot
at the same time discover the way to “the only way.” To say to a poor
man: “If you want always to be sure of a meal, get rid of your poverty
and become rich!” or to a sick man: “If you want to be free of your
pains, get up from your bed and be well!”—to say this is to say nothing,
unless at the same time you show the poor man how to get rich, and the
sick man how to get well. Now Zionism has not shown us how to get out of
_galuth_. For all the sophistication in the world cannot do away with
the cruelty of hard facts, which do not allow us to picture to
ourselves, even approximately and in a general way, how our work in
Palestine, even if in time it develops up to the very maximum of what is
possible, and covers the whole land with gardens and orchards and
factories, can accomplish this unprecedented miracle: that so small a
country as ours should absorb hundreds of thousands of immigrants at a
time, year by year, without coming to such a crisis as would drive out
its old and its new inhabitants in even greater numbers. But if this
miracle does not happen, and the Palestinian settlement develops only
little by little, concurrently with the development of the country’s
economic resources, then it is impossible to deny that its gradual
expansion will not diminish the number of Jews in other countries (since
their natural increase will offset the exodus to Palestine), and will
not put an end to their wandering and scattering to all the corners of
the globe under economic and social pressure, which is brought to bear
on them from time to time in every country in which they become too
numerous. In other words: the hope for an “ingathering of the exiles”
has no basis in reality; and even in that distant future to which we
look forward, when the Palestinian settlement will have reached its full
development, and the Jews there will grow and multiply and fill all the
land and make it their own by their work—even then the majority of Jews
will be scattered in strange lands, and their life in those lands will
even then depend on the good-will of the peoples among whom they live as
a small minority, and the dominant peoples will even then look askance
at the growth of this “alien body” in their midst if it dares to rise
above a certain level: and finally _galuth_ in the physical sense will
still be with us, and only a part of the people will have escaped from
it—that comparatively small part which will have had the good fortune to
rebuild the waste places of our land and to attain national freedom
there, while all the rest of the people, scattered in strange countries,
will remain as to its external condition just as it is, and no fleet
will set sail from Palestine to protect it from persecution.

But if this is so, have we a right to regard the rebuilding of Palestine
as an ideal for the whole nation, and its success as vital to the hopes
of the whole nation?

We have! For _galuth_ is twofold—it is material and spiritual. On the
one hand it cramps the individual Jew in his material life, by taking
from him the possibility of carrying on his struggle for existence, with
all his strength and in complete freedom, like any other man; and on the
other hand it cramps no less our people as a whole in its spiritual
life, by taking from it the possibility of safeguarding and developing
its national individuality according to its own spirit, in complete
freedom, like any other people. This spiritual cramping, which our
ancestors used to call, in their own fashion, “the exile of the Divine
Presence,” and for which they shed not less tears than for the exile of
the people, has become especially painful in our time, since the
overthrow of the artificial wall behind which the spirit of our people
entrenched itself in past generations, in order to be able to live its
own life; and now we and our national life are enslaved to the spirit of
the peoples around us, and we can no longer save our national
individuality from being undermined as a consequence of the necessity of
assimilating ourselves to the spirit of the alien life, which is too
strong for us. Now it is this problem of spiritual _galuth_ which really
finds its solution in the establishment of a national “refuge” in
Palestine: a refuge not for all Jews who need peace and bread, but for
the spirit of the people, for that distinctive cultural form, the result
of a historical development of thousands of years, which is still strong
enough to live and to develop naturally in the future, if only the
fetters of _galuth_ are removed. And though the refuge contain only a
tenth part of the people, this tenth part will be sacred to the whole
people, which will see in it a picture of its national individuality, of
what it is like when it lives its own life, without external constraint.
And who can estimate in advance the strength of the influence which this
national centre will exert on all the circumference, and the radical
changes which that influence will produce in the life of the whole
people?

Some of the _Chovevé Zion_ arrived at this idea, as I have said, some
eighteen years ago.[60] Had they succeeded in making it common property,
it might have saved both the people and the land from many mistakes. But
ideas do not develop quickly in the human mind, and this idea, like
others, met with formidable obstacles, which did not allow it to
penetrate fully into men’s minds. When this opinion of a minority was
made public, a shudder went through the Zionist camp, as though the
presence of a destructive enemy had been detected. Nor was this instinct
wholly mistaken. The movement was then only just beginning to spread
among the masses, and here was an attempt to give it a form which must
alienate the masses, who want above all things an escape from their
material troubles! It is possible that men did occasionally say to
themselves: “What does it matter? Those few who can really find a quiet
life and a livelihood in Palestine at the present time—will they refuse
to go there unless they are assured beforehand that they are bringing
complete redemption to the whole people? And the men who work for the
ideal—they are of course bound to get quite clear in their own minds
about the real purpose of their work, with due regard to actualities, so
that they may set about their task in the way best suited to achieve
their purpose.” It may be that people occasionally indulged in such
reflections in secret. But we live in the age of democracy, and
everybody believes that only the masses are the source of light and of
progress, and that any ideal which the masses cannot grasp is mere
nonsense. While it is true that in those days the democratic character
of Zionism was not proclaimed from every house-top, as it is to-day, yet
even the early _Chovevé Zion_ were unconsciously democrats in this
sense, that they regarded the masses not merely as material for the
national building, but as conscious architects, deliberately intent on
making such a building as the national purpose required. Hence they were
scared by the idea that their propaganda would not go down with the
masses if they put forward the spiritual revival as their only object;
and they went on telling the masses that redemption was at hand if only
they would give their whole-hearted support. But in spite of all this
they did not succeed in creating a real mass-movement, because the
masses not only heard what they said, but also saw what they
achieved—and what they achieved was not calculated to confirm the belief
that this was the way to redemption. It was only when western Zionism
came and proclaimed that it had found a new and “practical” way to
achieve the object—the way of diplomacy in the courts of East and
West—that the masses followed its flag for a short time, believing in
their simplicity that diplomatic documents would be the “paper
bridge”[61] over which they would soon pass to the land of their
fathers—and then an end to _galuth_ and its miseries. But when the hopes
of diplomacy were disappointed, the masses once more lost faith in the
possibility of escape from _galuth_; and when at the same time they saw
a slight chance of an improvement of their condition in the land of
their exile in a not distant future, they turned in that direction. So
the masses are deserting the Zionist flag before our eyes, and—what is
still more painful—they sometimes take the Zionist flag with them and
tack it on to the flag of another camp.

When the history of Zionism comes to be written, the historian will not
be able to pass in silence over an extraordinary inconsistency of
contemporary Zionist propagandists and writers. When they are trying to
attract the people to their flag, they wax enthusiastic over the lofty
mission of Zionism, which is to end our exile and to deliver the Jews
from all their troubles; and at the same time they gird or scoff at the
“spiritual” Zionists, whose unfeeling hearts soar skywards while their
brethren are afflicted and their blood is shed like water—and so forth,
and so forth. But these same men, when they confront the opponents of
Zionism, who ask to be told clearly how Zionism can end our exile if it
cannot gather all our scattered hosts into Palestine—then they take
refuge in the spiritual mission of Zionism, and instead of “blood shed
like water,” they expatiate on our spiritual slavery and the
impossibility of developing our spiritual powers in exile. This jumping
about from one side to the other, which shows clearly how weak is the
belief in a material redemption of those who stand up for it, has become
especially noticeable since the question of “Uganda” came up and since
the birth of “Territorialism,” which was really latent in the Zionism of
material redemption. All those who had become Zionists only for the sake
of saving the people from persecution could not understand how it was
possible to reject the Uganda proposal, or any other similar proposal
which seemed to offer us the desired salvation—“a secure home of
refuge”—merely on the ground that we wanted Palestine and Palestine
only, though we did not know when, if ever, it would be given to us. And
what was the answer of the “Zion-Zionists” (a name, coined in the Uganda
period, which also will interest the future historian)? Did they try to
show that our scattered hosts could be gathered more quickly and more
easily into Palestine, or that in Palestine we should be better able
politically to protect the Jews of the Diaspora? No! They had recourse
to the “spirit,” and openly admitted the bitter truth that neither in
Palestine nor in any other territory could we gather all our exiles from
the four corners of the globe; that the object of Zionism was only to
establish “a secure home of refuge” for a minority of the people, which
should become the centre of the whole people and influence it
spiritually; and that this object could be achieved only in Palestine,
the birth-place of our national spirit, and in connection with our
historic memories and so forth. In fact, they adopted the whole
philosophy of the “skyward soaring” school, only adding a few misplaced
“political” phrases for form’s sake. But after the Seventh Congress,[62]
when the doubters had left the organisation and the “Zion-Zionists” were
left to themselves, with nobody to ask awkward questions, they reverted
to their old tactics; and now once more they dangle before the people
the old promises of “an end to _galuth_.” Meanwhile, however, a general
movement for liberty, affecting all the nations in the Empire, arose in
the land of our exile[63]; and in our own midst new propagandists began
to hold out to the people new promises and to speak to it in a new
language, which the masses found very agreeable. And so the Zionists
began to change their tune, so as to win over the masses. “Political
work in the Diaspora?—Of course! It is an essential part of Zionist
work. Revolution? Why, who so revolutionary as the Zionists?
Socialism?—The very basis of Zionism!” And not alone that, but even the
Palestinian work, to which in the end the Zionists returned, after they
had awoke from the dreamland of diplomacy, took on a new epithet:
“_real_ work in Palestine.” The public must understand that Zionists are
not “reactionaries” pursuing a “spiritual” will-o’-the-wisp, but genuine
“realists,” and their work in Palestine is “real” work. But if at the
Eighth Congress the opponents of “real” work (there are still such among
Zionists) propound their doubts again, and demand an explanation of the
value of such work from the point of view of the ingathering of the
exiles and the redemption of the people, then, I fear, the champions of
“real” work will be compelled once more to have recourse to the “spirit”
in order to justify their “realism.” For the fact is that all work in
Palestine, of whatever kind, _material or spiritual_, so long as it is
properly done, is “real” (that is, calculated to achieve its object and
in harmony with actual conditions) only from the point of view of the
spiritual redemption, because whatever strengthens our material and
spiritual position in Palestine is a source of added strength to our
corporate national spirit, and therefore brings us nearer by much or by
little to our spiritual goal. But as for the redemption of the people
and the end of _galuth_—that “real” goal is no more brought nearer by
all this “real” work than we get nearer to the moon by jumping.

Thus Zionism is always running after the masses—and the masses run away
from it.

A well-known economist has correctly indicated one of the principal
causes through which the doctrine of Marx made greater headway than
similar doctrines before it. Marx, he points out, made his socialistic
movement the movement of a definite section of society—the
“proletariate”—whose condition and wants inevitably produce in each of
its individual members a deep-rooted and powerful desire for a change in
the social order, and which is therefore really fitted to fight unitedly
and patiently for the attainment of the ideal that promises the
satisfaction of their common demands. His predecessors in the
development of Socialism, on the other hand, appealed vaguely and in
general fashion to “the people,” “the poor,” and similar undefined
entities.[64]

A similar statement may be made about Zionism, though in a negative
sense. One of the principal causes that have prevented Zionism hitherto
from finding a firm and secure foundation is the fact that it has not so
far succeeded in recognizing and defining its own “proletariate”—its
natural body of supporters, which is really fitted to fight unwearyingly
for the Zionist ideal, without being turned aside to follow any other.
From its inception until the present day, Zionism has appealed to “the
people” generally. But “the people” is not its natural support, because
the only want of which the great majority of the people is sufficiently
conscious—the want which alone, therefore, can form the basis of common
national work—is the need for freedom from material pressure. So soon as
we leave this common ground, we find the people divided into parties and
classes, whose conscious demands differ in each case, and whose relation
to our national life, therefore, in each case takes on a different form.
If, then, Zionism could really point the way to our material
regeneration, it would doubtless unite under its banner the whole
people, without distinction of party or class, except, perhaps, that
small minority which is already “emancipated” from all national ties,
and stands on the threshold of another way of escape from _galuth_. But,
as I have already said, the people does not see in Zionism the way to
its material regeneration, and cannot see it there, because it is not
there. The unsophisticated masses have always a “feeling for reality”
that prevents them instinctively from believing in promises inconsistent
with the reality before their eyes. It is only occasionally, in times of
deep distress from which there is no escape, that the masses will listen
to a promise of redemption that lets a ray of comfort into their hearts;
but they turn away and disregard it so soon as they see hope of a remedy
more in touch with actualities. It is not strange, therefore, that
Zionism, brief though its life has been, has already experienced many a
sudden rise and many a sudden fall in the popular estimation, its
fortune varying with circumstances. But is a people subject to such
changes fitted to be the rank and file of a movement based on a long
history, confronted by numerous obstacles, and demanding strenuous,
wisely-directed, ordered effort, without sudden leaps backwards and
forwards?

I think, then, that the course of events will compel Zionism to come
gradually to understand itself and its supporters: to understand itself
as a national movement of a _spiritual_ character, whose aim is to
satisfy the demand for a true and free national life in accordance with
our distinctive spirit; and to find its supporters in that nationalist
section which is sufficiently conscious, in all its individual members,
of this demand, and which in a certain sense may be called a “spiritual
proletariate.”

For, in spite of all the numerous latter-day sections of Jews, with
their abbreviated names, it is still doubtful whether among all our
“S.D.” and “S.S.”[65] with their ceaseless talk about their
“proletariate psychology,” there is really any considerable number of
members who can properly be held to belong to the proletariate in the
Socialist sense of the word. The mission of the proletariate is to
hasten the Socialist solution by the concentration of wealth; and this
mission can be fulfilled only by those who work in large industrial
undertakings. The work of the master-workman and his assistants is not
proletariate work, because, so far from hastening, it hinders that
solution. Now the working-class Jew has practically no place in the
large industrial undertakings; generally speaking, the so-called
proletariate section of the Jews belongs to the class of master-workmen.
But, on the other hand, there is among the Jews, and only among them, a
proletariate in another sense—in the sense indicated by the combination
of “national” and “spiritual.” The position and the needs of this
proletariate, which are common to all its individual members, compel it
to feel a deep-rooted and powerful desire for a change in the
established order; but the change desired in this case is not a
concentration of the means of production, but just the opposite. What is
wanted is a new means of production, wherewith to create a product of a
special character. Among all civilised nations ours is the only one that
has no special means of production of its own wherewith to create its
spiritual and intellectual wealth, but is compelled to make use of the
means provided by other nations—their languages, their literatures,
their schools and universities, and so forth—and thus to enrich the
owners of these means of production by its work. But the proletariate
that produces material wealth receives in payment at least a part of the
wealth produced by its labour, and only the surplus is left to the owner
of the means of production; whereas in our case almost all the result of
our toil goes to swell the wealth of others. Our own national treasury
is impoverished and empty; our own distinctive spirit dwindles and
dwindles. And yet we are rich in spiritual and intellectual powers, and
do productive work in every branch of life. This condition of things is
distressing to all Jews whose kinship with their people is not one of
blood merely, but whose national consciousness and general culture have
developed to such a point that they can both understand and feel the
deep tragedy of this national degradation. For the people so degraded
produced thousands of years ago, for itself and with its own means of
production, a store of spiritual wealth from which the world still draws
sustenance; and it is impossible for them to imagine that all the
endless sacrifices, with which for two thousand years our people has
paid for the preservation of its spirit and its own form of life, are to
have no result except to bring us at the present day to a condition of
spiritual emptiness, the end of which will perhaps be a contemptible
death. This constant feeling of distress necessarily impels these men to
work for the freeing of our spirit and the products of our labour from
alien dominion. Where there is a real want, be it physical or spiritual,
there is a solid basis for a union of forces in joint work for the
satisfaction of the common demand. And so it is the men who are really
conscious of this want who form the only section specially fitted to
support the Zionist movement, and to work for it unitedly, patiently, in
an organized manner, until its goal is reached.

I am fully aware that not all who feel this need are as yet convinced
that they must unite under the banner of Zionism. Many of them still
believe in the possibility of freeing the Jewish spirit, and continuing
its internal development, even without a national centre. But they will
change their minds when that spiritual freedom in exile, for which they
wait, is attained, and when they see the net result of their hoping to
“sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.” In Western Europe and in
America, where the desired freedom has already been granted, and its
effect on our national life is obvious, the conviction is already
spreading that external freedom, the removal of the heavy hand of
oppression, is not in itself sufficient to free our innermost spirit
from its moral bondage to the strange environment that surrounds us on
all sides in our exile. And this conviction will inevitably spread in
Eastern Europe also when the external chains are broken there. Our
people will then be able, within certain limits, to live a national
life, in accord with its own spirit, just so far as it wills to do so.
But _it will not be able so to will_. The will itself does not depend on
free choice. A man may wish to will, and yet be unable, because at that
particular moment the necessary conditions are absent, without which the
will cannot become an active force. So, too, in the case of a nation.
There can be no active national will to live a distinctive spiritual
life, even though permission be given under the hand and seal of the
ruling power, where the individuals who compose the nation are
surrounded by a spiritual atmosphere foreign to them, and breathe this
atmosphere whether they will or no, without seeing in the whole world
even a square yard of ground which their national spirit, and theirs
alone, pervades, subject to no foreign overlord, and in which it creates
with its own means of production enough spiritual wealth to satisfy the
whole people.

I am aware also that the section that desires to free our national
spirit, whether by means of a national centre in Palestine or without
it, is not numerous, taken all together, at the present time. But this
fact need not make us despair, as though in truth the death of our
spirit were at hand, because it has no people to make it manifest in the
world. The Hebrew spirit never sought its strength and power in numbers.
“The Lord did not ... choose you because ye were more in number than any
people; for ye were the fewest of all people.” The God of this nation,
when He saw it “turn quickly from the way,” did not fold up His Law and
get Him gone, but said to the one man who remained faithful to Him: “Let
Me alone ... that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great
nation.” It is a mistake to think that the national spirit is an
abstract idea, which designates the sum of all the spiritual principles
that manifest themselves in the life of the people in each generation,
and that when this manifestation ceases it no longer exists. The
national spirit is in fact a collective idea only in relation to the
manner in which it came into being, as a result of the common life of a
body of individuals closely connected with one another, and continuing
through generations under certain conditions. But when it has once come
into being, and has found root in men’s souls by virtue of a long
history, then it becomes part of the psychology of the individual: its
truth is vindicated in the individual, and does not depend at all on
anything external to him. If I feel the Hebrew national spirit in my
heart, and it gives a distinctive form to my inner life, then that
spirit does exist in me, and its existence does not cease even if all
the other Jews in my time no longer feel its existence in their own
hearts. I assert, therefore, that if the majority of our people are
unconsciously becoming more and more estranged from the national spirit,
and if its children born in exile have made for themselves new gods like
the gods of the peoples around them, and only a few remain faithful to
our national idea in its historic form, and desire for it freedom and
development: then these few are the heirs of our national possessions at
the present time; it is they who hold the thread of history, and do not
allow it to be broken. So long as there is a single Jew who holds the
thread, we cannot tell what its end will be. Perhaps the conditions of
life will change, and the small remnant will again become “a great
nation.”

But how is it possible that the conditions of our life in exile should
change in the manner necessary for the revival of the Jewish spirit?
What power has a small party to strengthen and hasten this possibility?
What security have we that the change, if it come about, will be firm
and lasting?

These questions demand an answer not in words, but in deeds. Verbal
answers we have given times without number. There is only one way, we
have said, to change the conditions of our national life fundamentally,
so that it shall become _our_ life indeed, and not a passing shadow of
the life of other people; and that way is the foundation of a centre for
our national spirit “on its own native soil.” Further, we have promised
more than once that this way of ours, like every new path, will be made
and prepared by the few for the many, who will afterwards follow of
their own accord. But when we came to turn our words into deeds, then it
became clear that there was still chaos in the depths of our spirit,
although the light of the idea played on the surface.

Whoever knows by experience how dear Palestine is still to every plain
Jew, how his heart swells—sometimes even to the point of joyful
tears—when he reads or hears of the revival of the Hebrew language among
the children in Palestine, or of the success of the Hebrew colonies
there—whoever knows this cannot deny that the actual work of building up
a centre in Palestine, even before it approached its goal, could have
had a wonderful influence on the spirit of the people in the lands of
our exile. The truth is, that even now the majority of our people
cherish their national inheritance, and desire its eternal preservation;
but the bondage of _galuth_, material and spiritual, cramps the heart,
and renders the national feeling and will incapable of becoming an
effective force in action. And yet, if our work in Palestine had been
such as to show clearly that there is really a prospect and a fair hope
for the life of our spirit and our national possessions in the land of
their birth; if the people had seen the foundations of the building laid
by expert hands, one complete stone upon another, though the stones had
been but small: then the people would have sought and found here a new
source of life for its dormant national sentiment, and a new strength of
will to protect more effectively its spiritual possessions in exile.

But as things are, how can we prove the correctness of our answer? What
are the results of our twenty years and more of work in Palestine? With
regard to material work, we have only unsuccessful attempts to show; and
as for spiritual work, we cannot even show such attempts (except,
perhaps, the school at Jaffa),[66] for in fact scarcely anything has
been done. Those who desired the “ingathering of the exiles” have
laboured all these years, first of all in founding philanthropic
colonies, and then in political talk; they have had neither the time nor
the will to meddle in spiritual matters. Those, again, who desired the
“revival of the spirit” have also dissipated all their time and their
strength in spiritual work in the Diaspora; in all this time they have
not created in Palestine one single spiritual product that could awake
an echo in the nation’s heart. It is as though they had forgotten the
first principle of their own faith, that the revival of the spirit in
exile can come about only through the influence of a national centre in
Palestine. They have, indeed, _said_ a great deal about the need for
founding universities and schools, and other such needs, the
satisfaction of which is beyond their power at present. But they have
not done that which was both necessary and possible.

Here, for example, is an attempt to found a small literary organ in
Palestine. I ask myself: Why was this not done long ago? In the Diaspora
a large number of literary plants have bloomed and faded during the
Zionist epoch; they have borne fruit, and have left some good behind
them, whether it was much or little. In Palestine, meanwhile, since the
beginning of the movement there has not been published a single literary
miscellany which has made its mark in our literature. Yet we did not
feel that something was lacking. We constantly told the people that only
in Palestine could our national spirit flourish and produce fruit after
its kind; yet at the same time we were not ashamed to think that the
people did not see in Palestine even a shadow of the fruit of its
spirit, and that the little fruit that did grow was growing in other
countries.

It is true that Palestine is still poor in spiritual forces generally,
and in literary forces particularly; but that simply proves the truth of
my contention. If we had always had a full and clear conception of the
nature of our object, if we had always remembered that what we are
seeking to build in Palestine is a refuge for our spirit, we could never
have refrained from doing all that was possible to increase the
spiritual wealth of Palestine, and to increase, little by little, its
moral influence on the people. In that case we should undoubtedly have
striven among other things to establish in Palestine a literary organ,
an altar on which all our best national writers would have felt it their
duty to offer their best, in order to win for it affection and honour in
Jewry. An organ such as this, though it would have been at first an
artificial creation, would certainly have uplifted the spirit and
fostered literary talent in Palestine itself; perhaps also it would by
now have become a true, natural literary centre for us, drawing
sustenance from the forces which it had called to the land and developed
there.

But it is as I said: in the human mind no idea springs from darkness
into light at one bound. It was necessary for experience to teach us how
slender is the thread on which hangs all our spiritual work outside
Palestine, before we could be made to remember that in reality we had no
need of such experience, since it only taught us that which was implied
in our idea from the very first.

It is just at this moment that you come and tell us: “The time has come
to begin planting our literature in the land of its birth.” Need I
express my feelings when I read these words?

Yes, the time has come to begin planting, and planting not alone our
literature, but also our spirit in all its aspects. All that now runs to
waste in exile, voluntarily or involuntarily, must be gathered together
and planted “on its own native soil,” and every man in whom the Jewish
spirit lives is bound to help in this planting to the utmost of his
power, because therein lies our life and our last hope.

“Romanticism,” our young men will say with a smile.

Let them smile—until they grow old enough to understand life as it is,
and not as it appears through the glasses of a ready-made doctrine. Then
they will understand that what they contemptuously call “romanticism” is
the crown of life and the source of man’s superiority over the brute.
They will understand, too, that this very anti-romantic doctrine has its
attraction principally because of its romantic element—because it offers
scope for devoted service in the cause of a distant ideal. But if ever
there comes a day when that ideal is realised, and romanticism
disappears entirely, then there will arise a new generation, which will
curse that day for the hunger it has brought—a hunger not for bread, but
for romanticism, for some ideal striving which can once more give scope
for exaltation, for sacrifice, and so fill the emptiness of a life of
peace and plenty.

Footnote 57:

  [A letter to the editors of _Ha-Omer_, a Hebrew miscellany which began
  to appear in 1907—the first of its kind in Palestine.]

Footnote 58:

  [From the preliminary announcement of _Ha-Omer_.]

Footnote 59:

  This Essay was written at the end of the period of the movement for
  freedom in Russia, which attracted almost all the educated Russian
  Jews, with the result that our national work and Hebrew literature
  were greatly impoverished. [Footnote added in 1913.]

Footnote 60:

  [_i.e._, in 1889.]

Footnote 61:

  [An allusion to an old Jewish legend.]

Footnote 62:

  [1905. It was at this Congress that the split on the question of East
  Africa (often loosely referred to as Uganda) took place. Some of the
  minority seceded and formed the Jewish Territorial Organisation.]

Footnote 63:

  [Russia.]

Footnote 64:

  Sombart, _Socialismus und sociale Bewegung_ (1905), p. 61.

Footnote 65:

  [S.D. = Social Democrats; S.S. = Zionist Socialists.]

Footnote 66:

  [_i.e._, the _Chovevé Zion_ Hebrew School.]




                          “WHEN MESSIAH COMES”
                                 (1907)
            “_When Messiah comes, impudence will be rife._”


This ancient saying has been used so often as a weapon of controversy,
that familiarity has robbed it of its sting. For this reason let me say
at the outset that I quote it here for no controversial purpose, but
wish, on the contrary, to point out that it really draws attention to a
natural and permanent connection between two phenomena of human life,
whereof the one is an inevitable consequence of the other. And like
every objective truth, it neither censures nor reproves, but simply
states a fact.

What we call “impudence” is not as a rule an original, inborn vice, but
a quality which develops after birth out of a man’s exaggerated belief
in his own worth, strength, wisdom or what not. This exaggerated opinion
of himself makes a man hold himself more proudly than he ought before
his betters, and censure and decry everybody who will not accept him at
his own valuation. Now most men, in times of normal tranquillity, cannot
help seeing that knowledge and experience are necessary for the conduct
of human affairs, and that not all men have attained an equal degree of
development or an equal level of ability and judgment. And so this
“impudence” comes to be regarded as a bad thing, because it indicates
either an excessive conceit of oneself—as though one were superior to
the whole world in learning and experience, and were above criticism—or
an excessive stupidity—as though one were unaware that there is anything
in life which calls for learning and understanding, and that not
everybody is equally competent to pronounce judgment on everything.

But this quality wears a different aspect “when Messiah comes”—that is
to say, when a certain body of men, no longer able to submit quietly to
life’s tribulations, find or invent some Messiah who is to release them
from all their troubles. Whether the Messiah is conceived by them as an
individual, or as a collective body, or even merely as a new theory—the
result is the same. Believing firmly in their Messiah, seeing in him the
fountain of salvation, and consequently also the symbol of truth and
goodness, and regarding themselves simply as his followers and his
disciples, they naturally cease to recognise distinctions between man
and man, or to admit any superiority in wisdom over folly, or in age
over youth. For all alike are as dust compared with the Messiah, and all
alike receive (or ought to receive) his teaching with passive
acquiescence and unquestioning faith. No need any longer for superior
knowledge or long experience in order to be able to distinguish between
truth and falsehood, between good and evil. All can come in on equal
terms and take truth and good ready-made from the Messiah’s storehouse.
Whoever disagrees with what comes out of the storehouse, be he never so
old and learned, is obviously a fool, an old heretic whom any stripling
is entitled to despise. Those who stand outside the Messianic camp are
astonished at this sudden decay of morals, at this upsetting of the
proper relation between young and old, between the nobodies and the
somebodies. “Impudence,” they cry indignantly. But the Messianists
themselves do not, and cannot, see anything wrong in their conduct. For
it is in truth only an inevitable consequence of their fundamental
belief that the Messiah puts great and small on one level, and that
there are no longer high and low, but only brothers in Messiah and
enemies of Messiah.

Thus the appearance of a Messiah and the growth of impudence are
naturally and inevitably connected; and we therefore find that they have
always appeared together, in every country and at every time, from the
earliest days until the present. When an individual Messiah arose in
Israel at the end of the period of the Second Temple, his first
devotees—mostly very simple folk—rejected their national leaders and
sages with scorn and contempt: precisely as did later the devotees—not
less unlearned—of that corporate Messiah which was revealed to them in
the form of the _Tsaddikim_, who, as intermediaries between Israel and
his God, were to lighten the burden of _galuth_ and hasten the
redemption.[67] Both have their parallel in this present generation,
which also has its Messiah, or rather Messiahs. But the modern Messiahs
and the modern impudence are rather different in form, as is only
natural, seeing that times have changed.

The Messiah of old was above reason and above nature, and faith in the
redemption which he was to bring about was based not on logical
demonstration, but on miracles, like the confounding of destiny and the
upsetting of natural laws. Hence his followers needed no great
cleverness in order to meet criticism. They met every possible objection
by a single argument. “He who can overthrow nature is not precluded from
accomplishing a supernatural redemption, and therefore any difficulty
based on natural laws is out of court.” Any child can master this simple
argument in a trice—and straightway he is of Messiah’s company, one of
his followers and evangelists, like all the other believers. For this
reason the “impudence” of the Messianists of old was similarly simple
and obvious, and had no need to force itself into an artificial mould.
So-and-so denies the truth or the power of the Messiah: is there any
room for discussion? The fellow, be he who he may, is a scapegrace, and
all honour to whoever is first with an insult or a stick.

To-day things are different. Four centuries of free thought and the
unravelling of nature’s mysteries have left their mark on the human
race. To-day even a Messiah cannot defy reason and nature, but is
compelled to base his redemption on logical demonstrations, and to put
his message in the form of a system founded on nature and experience.
Essentially, indeed, everything is as it used to be: the real basis of
Messianism, now as then, is faith in a speedy redemption, a faith which
has its roots not in reasoned demonstration, but in the craving to be
redeemed. But the exigencies of our age do not allow faith any longer to
ignore the demands of reason and nature. Even faith is compelled to
speak their language if it would satisfy the modern man. So we get
scientific systems of a Messianic character, which, differing one from
another, have all this much in common, that their scientific soundness
is very much open to question, but leaves no doubt in the minds of the
believers, who really need nothing more than the phraseology of science,
as a seemly outer cloak for their faith. As the necessary phraseology is
there, and the cloak is ready to hand, the believers hold on to the
cloak with the utmost tenacity; every one of its threads is sacrosanct,
and woe to him who disturbs a single one. They seem to feel
unconsciously that if there is too much handling of their cloak, too
much examination of its threads in the light of reason and genuine
science, it will not be long before it is torn to tatters—and then what
will become of their faith? Whence we find in all Messianic camps,
to-day no less than of old, a fierce hatred of any attempt at criticism
from within, and unlimited impudence towards those who stand without:
but whereas this hatred and this impudence used to appear undisguised
and unashamed, to-day they cloak themselves in reason and science, and
so appear to be different. You must not think that X. is pilloried and
jeered at because he has attacked their Messiah. Heaven forbid! Freedom
of opinion is their first principle. No: his crime is that he has an axe
to grind, and perverts scientific truth—which is, of course, solely and
only that which is set forth for all time under hand and seal in this
Manifesto or that Programme, and beyond it there is nothing.[68]

Have we a right to complain of the Messianists for all this? Can we
blame them because their yearning for redemption is so deep that it
begets this blind, all-conquering faith? No: we ought not to complain of
them, but to envy them. Happy men—be their name Political Zionists,
Social Democrats, or any other of the familiar names! Happy indeed, for
Messiah stands on their threshold, and redemption knocks at their door,
and truth is crystal-clear to them all, great and small alike. But how
hard is life in our days for one who is not of their number; for one who
cannot follow blindly after one Messiah or the other; for one who does
not hear the voice that announces redemption and complete salvation,
either close at hand or far away, either for his own time or for the
days when his grand-children shall lie in their graves; for one who
still looks upon Science and Reason as divine powers, which stand above
all sects and judge them all impartially, and not as standard-bearers
and trumpeters in the service of a Messiah!

Footnote 67:

  [The Hebrew word translated above “devotees” is _chassidim_ = “pious
  ones.” This name is specifically given to a mystical sect which arose
  early in the 18th century. The Rabbis of this sect were called by
  their followers _tsaddikim_ (= “righteous ones”) and were credited by
  them with supernatural powers.]

Footnote 68:

  As I write these words some of the best German Social Democrats are
  making public confession that by sins of this kind their party has
  alienated many of its supporters, and that to this cause is due in
  part the great defeat which it suffered in the last elections. But
  this repentance will not save them from the same sin in future,
  because the sin is inherent in every Messianic movement. We Jews have
  only to look at what is happening around us, to be convinced that the
  characteristic in question is not peculiar to Germany or to the Social
  Democratic Party.




                           A SPIRITUAL CENTRE
                                 (1907)


It has been observed that if men always remembered the true meaning of
every word that they use or hear, disputes would be infinitely rarer.
The truth of this remark is known by experience to anybody who happens
to have promulgated some idea which the contemporary “reading public”
did not like, and to have had his “heresy” exposed by the literary
mouthpieces of that public. The hapless creature’s first feeling is one
of incredulity and astonishment. How, he thinks, is it possible so to
pervert things, so completely to confuse ideas and to advance arguments
which so fail to touch the point? He puts it down to the malevolence of
his opponents, believes that they are purposely twisting his words, and
complains bitterly to that same reading public in the name of truth and
fairness. But later, when he finds that complaint is unavailing, and
that the same thing happens time after time, so that malevolence alone
cannot be responsible—then he is driven to the conclusion that there
must be some more universal explanation of what he has experienced. The
explanation is that the connection between a word and the idea contained
in it is not so strong in the human mind as to make it impossible for a
man to hear or to utter a word without immediately having a full and
exact conception of the associated idea. Hence, when a man hears an
opinion which runs counter to his way of thinking, he is apt
unconsciously to grasp the novel opinion in an incorrect form: he will
change the meaning of this or that word until it becomes not difficult
for him to refute the opinion by unsound arguments, in which again one
word or another is used incorrectly. And all this counterfeiting is done
by the thinking apparatus automatically, without the knowledge of its
owner, by virtue of its inherent tendency to work at any given moment in
accordance with the dominant requirements of the subliminal self at that
moment.

I doubt whether there is any contemporary Jewish writer who is more
familiar with this experience than myself. Were I to count up all the
disputes with which, for my sins, our literature has been enriched—most
of them simply glaring instances of the phenomenon in question—the
account would be long indeed. But I wish here to adduce only one
instance of a dispute which began fifteen years ago[69] and has
continued to this very day.

Fifteen years ago there appeared for the first time an idea that
afterwards occasioned endless expenditure of ink. “In Palestine,” I
wrote, “we can and should found for ourselves a _spiritual centre of our
nationality_.” My literary experience was not yet extensive, and I
overlooked this important consideration: that in putting before the
public an idea which does not accord with the general view, one must not
merely put it in a logically clear and definite form, but must also
reckon with the psychology of the reader—with that mental apparatus
which combines unrelated words and ideas according to the requirements
of its owner—and must try one’s utmost to avoid any word or expression
which might afford an opening for this process of combination. I confess
now that in view of this psychological factor I ought to have felt that
the formula “a spiritual centre of our nationality” would afford a good
opportunity to those who wished to misunderstand, although from the
point of view of logic it is sufficiently clear and is well adapted to
the idea which it contains.

“Centre” is, of course, a relative term. Just as “father” is
inconceivable without children, so is “centre” inconceivable without
“circumference”; and just as a father is a father only in relation to
his children, and is merely So-and-so in relation to the rest of
mankind, so a centre is a centre only in relation to its own
circumference, whereas in relation to all that lies outside the
circumference it is merely a point with no special importance. When we
use the word “centre,” metaphorically, in connection with the phenomena
of human society, it necessarily connotes a similar idea: what we mean
is that a particular spot or thing exerts influence on a certain social
circumference, which is bound up with and dependent on it, and that in
relation to this circumference it is a centre. But since social life is
a complex of many different departments, there are very few centres
which are universal in their function—that is, which influence equally
all sides of the life of the circumference. The relation between the
centre and the circumference is usually limited to one or more
departments of life, outside which they are not interdependent. Thus a
given circumference may have many centres, each of which is a centre
only for one specific purpose. When, therefore, the word “centre” is
used to express a social conception, it is accompanied almost
always—except where the context makes it unnecessary—by an epithet which
indicates its character. We speak of a literary centre, an artistic
centre, a commercial centre, and so on, meaning thereby that in this or
that department of life the centre in question has a circumference which
is under its influence and is dependent on it, but that in other
departments the one does not exert nor the other receive influence, and
the relation of centre and circumference does not exist.

Bearing well in mind this definition, which is familiar enough, and
applying it to the phrase quoted above—“in Palestine we can and should
found for ourselves a spiritual centre of our nationality”—we shall find
that the phrase can only be interpreted as follows:—

“A _centre_ of our nationality” implies that there is a national
_circumference_, which, like every circumference, is much larger than
the centre. That is to say, the speaker sees the majority of his people,
in the future as in the past, scattered over all the world, but no
longer broken up into a number of disconnected parts, because one
part—the one in Palestine—will be a centre for them all, and will unite
them all into a single, complete circumference. When all the scattered
limbs of the national body feel the beating of the national heart,
restored to life in the home of its vitality, they too will once again
draw near one to another and welcome the inrush of living blood that
will flow from the heart.

“Spiritual” means that this relation of centre and circumference between
Palestine and the lands of the Diaspora will be limited of necessity to
the spiritual side of life. The influence of the centre will strengthen
the national consciousness in the Diaspora, will wipe out the spiritual
taint of _galuth_, and will fill our spiritual life with a national
content which will be true and natural, not like the artificial content
with which we now fill up the void. But outside the spiritual side of
life, in all those economic and political relations which depend first
and foremost on the conditions of the immediate environment, and are
created by that environment and reflect its character—while it is true
that in all those relations the effect of the spiritual changes (such as
the strengthening of national unity and increased energy in the struggle
for existence) will show itself to some extent, yet essentially and
fundamentally these departments of life in the Diaspora will not be
bound up with the life of the centre, and the most vivid imagination
cannot picture to us how economic and political influence will radiate
from Palestine through all the length and breadth of the Diaspora, which
is co-extensive with the globe, in such manner and to such degree as
would entitle us to say, without inexact use of language, that Palestine
is the centre of our people in these departments also.

Now, at the time when I first used the phrase under discussion, I knew
beforehand that I should excite the wrath of the _Chovevé Zion_ (in
those days it was they who held the field). But looking, as I did,
solely at the logical side, I was sure that the brunt of their anger
would fall on the word “centre”; for the use of that word involved a
negation of the idea of a return of the whole people to Palestine, and
so clipped the wings of those fantastic hopes which even then, in the
days before the first Basle Congress, were proclaimed as heralding the
end of the _galuth_ and a complete and absolute solution of the Jewish
problem in all its aspects. The epithet “spiritual” seemed to me so
simple and clear, as a necessary logical consequence of the assumption
involved in the world “centre,” that it never remotely entered my mind
that here might be the stumbling-block, and that I ought at once to file
a declaration to the effect that, although the centre would be spiritual
in its influence on the circumference, yet in itself it would be a place
like other places, where men were compounded of body and soul, and
needed food and clothing, and that for this reason the centre would have
to concern itself with material questions and to work out an economic
system suited to its requirements, and could not exist without farmers,
labourers, craftsmen, and merchants. When a man uses, for example, the
expression “literary centre,” does it occur to him to explain that he
does not mean a place where there is no eating or drinking, no business
or handicraft, but simply a number of men sitting and writing books and
drinking in the radiance of their own literary talent? Imagine, then, my
surprise when I found that my critics paid no attention to the word
“centre,” but poured out all the vials of their wrath on the epithet
“spiritual,” as though it contained all that was new and strange in the
idea: as who should say, “A _spiritual_ and not a _material_ centre? Can
such a thing be?”

But my amazement soon died away when I remembered the “psychological
apparatus.” It was bound to fasten on some word or other in order to
make my unpopular theory appear absurd; and since the word “centre,” if
the critics dwelt on it and led the minds of their readers to analyse
its meaning, was calculated not to serve that end, but, on the contrary,
to make it clear where the absurdity really lay, they found it best to
give “spiritual” all the emphasis. “A _spiritual_ centre! Now do you
understand what these people want? They care nothing for a material
settlement, for colonies, factories, commerce: they want only to settle
in Palestine a dozen _batlanim_, whose business shall be spiritual
nationality.”

Great indeed is the power of psychology. This interpretation spread
abroad, was accepted, and remains to this day a matter of course. Even
those Zionists who have not got their knowledge of my views from the
pamphlet literature which has flooded the world in recent years, but
have read them in the original—even they are certain that that is what
spiritual Zionism means. It has availed them nothing to read immediately
afterwards, in the same article,[70] that the spiritual centre must be
“a true miniature of the people of Israel,” and that in the centre there
will appear once more “the genuine type of a Jew, whether it be a Rabbi
or a scholar or a writer, _a farmer or a craftsman or a business man_.”
It has availed nothing, because psychological factors dominate not only
the person judging, but also his memory.

Three years ago,[71] I remember, after I had published in some journal a
protest against the favourable reports about the condition of the
Palestinian colonies that were then being spread abroad, for diplomatic
purposes, a writer in the camp of the political Zionists became angry
with me, and determined to shatter with one blow all my views on
Zionism, and so remove a dangerous heresy. This idea he carried out in
an elaborate article, which was continued through many numbers of the
same journal. The details I have forgotten: they were but the old
arguments dished up in different words. But I still remember one thing,
which provoked not only a smile but also reflections such as those which
are the subject of the present essay. After proving conclusively that
material factors are of great importance, and cannot be lightly brushed
aside, our author reaches the conclusion that it is for that reason idle
to confine our work solely to the foundation of a spiritual centre for
our nationality: we must found in Palestine an _economic and spiritual_
centre. It escaped his notice that so soon as he used the word “centre”
he became himself a “spiritual Zionist,” and in adding the epithet
“economic” added exactly nothing. The journal in question appeared in
Warsaw, which was also at that time the home of our author; and in order
to understand the matter aright he had only to go into the street and
ask any intelligent Pole: “What is Warsaw to the Polish people as a
whole? Is it a spiritual centre of the nation, or a spiritual and
economic centre?” The answer, I think, would have been something like
this: “For the Polish people as a whole this city is certainly a
spiritual centre of their nationality. Here the national characteristics
find their expression in every department of life, here the national
language, literature, and art live and develop; and all this, and what
goes with it, influences the spirit of the Poles, binds them, wherever
they may be, to the centre, and prevents the spark of nationality in the
individual from becoming buried and extinguished. But an _economic_
centre of the nation? My good sir! How could Warsaw be an economic
centre for all the millions of Poles who are scattered over different
lands, and whose economic lives depend on entirely different centres,
where Polish economic conditions do not count at all?” I should not have
advised our author, after getting an answer of that kind, to ask: “How
so? Are there not in Warsaw, besides spiritual things, ever so many
factories and shops and other material things, without which it could
not develop its spiritual side? And is it not therefore an economic and
spiritual centre?” I should not have advised him to ask that question,
because I could not guarantee that the intelligent Pole would waste
words on such a questioner.

But amongst ourselves “the economic centre” has become a current phrase
with many people who on the one hand want to do their duty by the
economic side of Zionism (that is _de rigueur_ nowadays), and on the
other hand cannot achieve the imaginative eagle-flights of “Proletarian
Zionism,”[72] which promises to create in Palestine a national economic
system so healthy and so vast that it will be able to provide room and
work for all those Jews who are being more and more completely elbowed
out of the best branches of industry in the lands of their exile (that
is, for almost nine-tenths of the people). Zionists like these, in order
to get rid of the difficult question as to the possibility of settling
the majority of our people in Palestine, even when their new economic
system becomes a fact, consent to accept half the loaf, and want to
regard Palestine as merely an economic _centre_. But herein they escape
one snare to fall into a worse: they have got rid of an external
problem, which depends on arguments from experience, and are caught
instead in an inner contradiction, which mere logic can expose. With the
“Proletarian” formula one can still argue: one can demand, for instance,
a somewhat clearer explanation of that “internal process” by which the
economic system of Palestine will become able to absorb immigration on a
scale unparalleled in history: but at all events there is no
self-contradiction. Whereas the conception of “an economic centre of the
nation,” when applied to a people scattered over the whole world, leaves
no room for argument or questioning, because its refutation is in
itself.

But psychological combinations of this kind are a good sign. They
show—in common with other clear signs—that the “centre” as an idea is
making headway and is leading to various deductions which could not have
been imagined some years ago. And that is the all-important thing. In
time the deduction which is involved in the word “spiritual,” when
rightly understood, will also be drawn, and it will no longer be
possible to suppress it by psychological means. True, all this will not
do away with the old nonsense about “spiritual Zionism”; on the
contrary—and this is even now unmistakably evident—the more the
substance of spiritual Zionism prevails, the more will psychology try to
distinguish the victorious tendency from its hated name. But what of
that? Let the name be beaten, so but the idea prevail!

Footnote 69:

  [_i.e._, in 1892.]

Footnote 70:

  [_i.e._, the article “Dr. Pinsker and his Pamphlet,” from which the
  phrase under discussion is quoted.]

Footnote 71:

  [_i.e._, in 1904.]

Footnote 72:

  [The name given to a Zionist doctrine based on Marxian Socialism,
  which had a vogue in Russia, especially among the younger generation,
  at the time when this article was written. The “internal process”
  (mentioned later) belongs to the terminology of this doctrine.]




                             SUMMA SUMMARUM
                                 (1912)


This is a summary not of facts and figures, but of impressions stored in
my mind in the course of sixty days during which our national work
enveloped me in its atmosphere and engrossed my every thought: ten days
at Basle during the Tenth Congress, and fifty days afterwards in
Palestine.

Fourteen years have passed since I saw a Zionist Congress (the first),
and twelve years since I witnessed the condition of our work in
Palestine. My object in revisiting both the Congress and the land was
not, as before, to go into details, to collect material, in the shape of
facts and figures, for the solution of certain practical problems. On
this occasion I opened my mind wide to the different impressions that
crowded in on me from all sides; I allowed them to enter and to dissolve
of themselves into a single general impression—a kind of mental summary
of all that I saw and heard in connection with our movement and our work
in and out of Palestine. I am of those who stand on the threshold of age
and look back on many long years of work and struggle, of victories and
defeats, of pain and of joy. A man in this position finds it necessary
at times to turn his thoughts for a while from questions of detail, and
to take a more comprehensive view, so that he may find for his own
satisfaction an answer to that broad, fundamental question which
occasionally disturbs his sleep: What is the purpose, what the result,
of all this work which has occupied your life and consumed your
strength?

It was this necessity that took me on this occasion to Basle and to
Palestine. And let me confess that it is a long time since I spent such
happy days as those of my travels. Not that all is now right with the
movement; not that the sun has shone on our work, and driven away the
shadows, and spread light and joy everywhere. We are still a long way
from such a happy consummation. Even to-day the shadows are many; if
they are less in one place, they are more in another. But one fact is
becoming increasingly clear: our work is not an artificial product, a
thing that we have invented to give the people something to do, as a
palliative for the national sorrow. That idea might be entertained if
aim and achievement corresponded, if the work were done for the purpose
of attaining that result which it is in fact attaining. If that were so,
one might doubt whether the attainment of this result were really
necessary for the nation, and whether the whole business were not
artificial. But that is not the case. Since the beginning of the
movement the workers have had one goal in view, and have been
unconsciously approaching another. This dualism is the surest sign that
the driving force is not reasoning reflection, but something much
deeper: one of those natural instincts which work in darkness, and make
a man do their will whether he likes it or not, while he believes that
his action is directed to the object which his reason has set before
him. This driving force is the instinct of national self-preservation.
By it we are compelled to achieve what must be achieved for the
perpetuation of our national existence; and we follow it—albeit without
clear consciousness, and by crooked paths—because follow it we must if
we would live. I used to be distressed by this dualism; I used to fear
that we might lose the right path—the path of life—through making for a
goal to which no path can lead. But now that I have seen the results of
the work so far, I have no such fears as to its ultimate fate. What
matters it that the work is professedly directed to an object which it
cannot attain? _L’homme propose_.... History does not trouble about our
programme; it creates what it creates at the bidding of our “instinct of
self-preservation.” Whether we ourselves understand the true import and
purpose of our work, or whether we prefer not to understand—in either
case history works through us, and will reach its goal by our agency.
Only the task will be harder and longer if true understanding does not
come to our aid.

That is the real state of the case. All that I saw and heard at Basle
and in Palestine has strengthened my conviction that the “instinct of
self-preservation” slumbers not nor sleeps in the nation’s heart.
Despite our mistakes, it is creating through our agency just what our
national existence requires most of all at present: _a fixed centre for
our national spirit and culture, which will be a new spiritual bond
between the scattered sections of the people, and by its spiritual
influence will stimulate them all to a new national life_.

To miss Basle during the Tenth Zionist Congress was to miss seeing an
extraordinary medley of languages and ideas—the result of an internal
crisis of which everybody was conscious, but which everybody tried hard
not to see. Throughout the Congress there was a struggle between two
sections, the “political” and the “practical.” You hear the “politicals”
declare that they, too, are really “practical,” only that they do not
forget “the political end”; you hear the “practicals” protest that they,
too, are really “political,” only that they do not forget “the practical
means.” And both sections alike protest that the “State” has really been
given up, but the Basle Programme has not been given up to the extent of
a single comma.[73].... In the end the “practicals” won: that is to say,
the essential work of Zionism was pronounced to be the extension of the
Jewish settlement, and the furthering of education and culture, in
Palestine. Thereupon the victors stood up and promised to guard
faithfully the Basle Programme and “the Zionist tradition developed
during fourteen years.”

But all this confusion was only an inevitable consequence of the state
of mind in which the two sections came to the Congress.

The Zionism of the “politicals,” most of whom were brought into the camp
not by a heartfelt longing for the persistence and the development of
Jewish nationality, but by a desire to escape from external oppression
through the foundation of a “secured home of refuge” for our
people—their Zionism is necessarily bound up with that object, and with
that alone: take that away, and it remains an empty phrase. For this
reason they cannot help seeing that the “practical work” which their
opponents make the basis of Zionism is not calculated to hasten that end
which is, for them, the only end. They still remember the estimate which
they heard in the opening speech of the first Congress: that the
colonising work of the _Chovevé Zion_ will bring the exiled people back
to Palestine in nine hundred years! But the course of events during
recent years has destroyed their hope of reaching that goal more quickly
by means of that “political” work which is the foundation of “the
Zionist tradition.” Hence they were in a quandary at this Congress, and
did not know how to extricate themselves. They came with empty hands,
and professed devotion to an object which there were no means of
attaining; they could only fall back on the hope of a vague future, when
external conditions may perhaps become more favourable to “political
work.” This explains also the excessive shyness which they displayed.
They did not go out to battle, as they used to do, with trumpetings and
loud alarums; there was scarcely a mention of those familiar flourishes,
which they used to utter with such boldness and vigour, about the
salvation which Zionism is to bring to all oppressed and persecuted
Jews. Even Nordau, in his speech on the condition of the Jews, changed
his tune on this occasion. The whole idea of his speech, which has been
given at the opening of every Congress, and has become an essential part
of the “Zionist tradition,” was to justify Zionism _on the ground of
anti-Semitism_. “You see”—such, in effect, used to be his argument—“how
perilous is your position all over the world; there is no way out. And
_therefore_, if you wish to be saved, join us, and we will save you.”
But on this occasion Nordau contented himself with describing the evil,
and dealing out reproaches to Jews and non-Jews. The essential thing—the
“therefore”—was lacking almost entirely. And throughout the Congress
there were heard speeches which openly opposed this Zionism based on
anti-Semitism, and the speakers were not shouted down, as they certainly
would have been in earlier years.

The “practicals”—mostly Eastern Jews and their Western pupils, for whom
national Judaism is the very centre of their being, and who are ruled
unconsciously by the “instinct of national self-preservation”—they came
to Basle in a very different frame of mind. They brought with them a
complete programme of “practical work in Palestine,” embracing both
colonising and cultural activity; and they came with a settled
conviction that all the various branches of this work were the proper
means to the attainment of the end—THE end—the one and only, yet
undefined. The “politicals” raised their old question: “Do you honestly
believe that the occasional purchase of a small piece of land, the
foundation of a tiny colony with infinite pains, a workmen’s farm
without security of tenure, a school here, a college there, and so
forth—that these are the means of acquiring a ‘home of refuge’ as
understood by the ‘Zionist tradition’—a refuge which will end our
troubles by ending our exile?” The “practicals” had no satisfactory
answer. None the less, they stood to their guns, and stoutly maintained
that work in Palestine is the only road that leads to _the_ end: but....
At this point they broke off abruptly, and did not complete their
thought—for a very good reason. They dared not expressly repudiate that
article of faith which alone has made Zionism a popular movement—“the
redemption of the nation.” They dared not recognise and acknowledge that
the end of which they speak to-day differs from that of the “Zionist
tradition.” What they are working for is not “a home of refuge for the
_people_ of Israel,” but “a fixed centre for the _spirit_ of Israel.”
All branches of the present work in Palestine, _be it buying land or
founding schools_, are sure means to the attainment of that end, but
have nothing to do with the other. The “practicals” were inwardly
conscious of this truth even while the “politicals” still had the upper
hand, and for this reason they joined with the “politicals” in fighting
it bitterly and angrily. It was a disturbing factor, of which they would
fain be rid. But now that the star of “political” Zionism had waned,
this conviction had grown stronger in the minds of the “practicals,” and
had become a real driving force. As yet, however, they lacked the moral
courage to intensify this subconscious whisper into a clear profession
of faith. Thus the real object remained beneath the threshold of
consciousness, while above the threshold there wandered about, like
disembodied spirits, here means without an object, there an object
without means; and imagination tried hard to combine the two.[74]

But while the “makers of history” inside the Congress Hall were in the
dark, it was outside the Hall, among the crowds attracted to Basle by
the Congress, that I saw quite clearly what history has really been
doing. In the fourteen years since the first Congress we have been
joined by a body of Jews of a new kind: men in whom the national
consciousness is deep-rooted, and is not measured by _Shekalim_[75] or
limited by a Programme, but is an all-pervading and all-embracing
sentiment. Jews of this type came to Basle from all the ends of the
earth; they returned to their people out of the gulf of assimilation,
most of them yet young in years, able and willing to work for the
national revival. When I saw these men—our heirs—outside the Congress
Hall, I said to myself: Never trouble about those who are inside! Let
them make speeches and pass resolutions and believe that they are
hastening the redemption. The distant redemption may not be any nearer;
but the estranged hearts are drawing near. In spite of all, history is
doing its work in this place, and these men are helping, whether they
know it or not.

This same historical tendency, dimly discerned at Basle through the dark
cloud of words, I found in Palestine clearly revealed in the light of
facts. The more I travelled and observed, the more evident it became to
me that what is happening in Palestine—despite all the contradictions
and inconsistencies—is tending broadly towards a single goal—that goal
which I mentioned above. No doubt we have a long journey to travel yet;
but even an untrained eye can see our destination on the distant
horizon. If any there be for whom the horizon is too narrow, and the
goal too petty, let him go to Zionist meetings outside Palestine: there
he will be shown a wider prospect, with larger aims at the end of it.
But let him not go to Palestine. In Palestine they have almost forgotten
the wider prospects. Realities are too strong for them there: they can
see nothing beyond.

Take the National Bank, which was intended to provide a foundation for
“the redemption of the people and the land” by _political_ means. What
is the Bank doing? Needless to say, its political object has been
abandoned and forgotten. But even in the mere work of colonisation it
neither does nor can achieve great things. Its business consists—and
must consist, if it wishes to survive—in dealings with local tradesmen,
Jews and non-Jews, and its profits are derived chiefly from the latter.
All that it does for Jewish colonisation, or all that it could do—if we
agree with its critics that it could do more than it does—without danger
to itself, is so little, that one cannot even conceive any possible
connection between it and the “larger aims,” or imagine it to be moving
at all along the road that leads to the complete “redemption.” By this
time, apparently, there are many people outside Palestine as well who
have ceased to hope much from the Bank in the matter of land-settlement;
and they now look for the solution to an Agrarian Bank. But possibly it
would be worth while first of all to examine what little the existing
Bank has done in the way of loans to the colonies, in order to learn
what this experience has to teach as regards the problems of agrarian
credit in Palestine. It is not enough to adduce examples from other
countries, where the conditions and the people are different, to
demonstrate what agrarian credit can do. Credit is a very useful thing
if it succeeds, but a very harmful thing if it fails. Everything depends
on local conditions and the character of the people. The existing Bank
has followed precedent in its attempts to help the colonies already in
existence—and with what success? The colonists will tell you. No doubt I
shall be told that I am drawing a false analogy, for such-and-such
reasons. But I am not here attempting to express an opinion on this
question of an Agrarian Bank, which has already been much discussed, and
of which the merits and demerits have been fully canvassed. My purpose
is merely to hint at the difficulties of the project, even if it is
carried out on a very modest scale, so as to suggest that it is
premature at the present stage, when the Agrarian Bank is not even in
sight, to talk about the great things that it is going to do. Our
colonisation work in Palestine is carried out under conditions of such
multifarious difficulty, that even small things have to be done with
extreme care, and precedent alone is no safe guide. If the proposed
Agrarian Bank is really going to aim high—to aim, that is, at something
considerable in relation to “the redemption of the people and the
land”—we cannot yet say whether in the end it will help or hurt.[76]

Then there is the National Fund, and its work for “the redemption of the
land” by commercial means, for which purpose it was created. The Fund
has already spent a great deal of its money: and how much has it
redeemed? How much could it have redeemed if it had spent many times as
much? A few scattered pieces of land, lost in the large areas of land
not redeemed. Meanwhile, the price of land in Palestine is going up by
leaps and bounds, especially in districts where we gain a footing, and
the amount of land which it is in the power of the Fund to redeem with
the means at its command grows correspondingly less and less. And there
is another factor, independent of finance, which lessens its
possibilities still further. Many natives of Palestine, whose national
consciousness has begun to develop since the Turkish revolution, look
askance, quite naturally, at the selling of land to “strangers,” and do
their best to put a stop to this evil; while the Turkish Government—be
its attitude to our work whatever it may—is not likely to irritate the
Arabs for our sakes: that would not suit its book. Thus the purchase of
land becomes more and more difficult, and the idea of “the redemption of
the land” shrinks and shrinks, until no Palestinian whose eyes are open
can see in the National Fund what it was in the imagination of its
founders—the future mistress of all or most of the land in Palestine. It
is clearly understood in Palestine that many years of hard work, with
the help of the National Fund or by other means, will achieve no more
than this: to win for us a large number of points of vantage over the
whole surface of Palestine, and to make these points counterbalance by
their _quality_ the whole of the surrounding area. For this reason,
people in Palestine do not talk much about the coming “redemption”; they
work patiently and laboriously to add another point of vantage, and
another, and yet another. They do not ask: “How will these save us?”
They all feel that these points _themselves_ are destined to be, as it
were, power-stations _of the national spirit_; that it is not necessary
to regard them as a first step towards “the conquest of the land” in
order to find the result worth all the labour.

Then, again, there are the Colonies already established, which were born
in pain and nurtured with so much trouble. They also do not fire the
imagination to the pitch of regarding them as the first step towards
“the redemption.”

It is true that the great progress which has been made in most of the
Colonies is matter for rejoicing. Twelve years ago one knew what to
expect on entering a Jewish Colony in Palestine. From the farmers one
would hear bitter complaints about their intolerable condition, charges
of neglect of duty against the hard-hearted administrators, and last,
but not least, a long list of requirements, involving large sums of
money, for the proper equipment of each farmer. The administrators on
their side would rail against the farmers, call them lazy _schnorrers_,
who were always asking for more, though their condition was not at all
bad, and denounce the schedule of requirements as a fabrication. To-day
there is no echo of these recriminations in most of the Colonies. During
the intervening years the administrators—it is but just to them to say
so—have done all that they could to remedy their earlier mistakes. They
have extended the Colonies wherever it was possible to buy land in the
neighbourhood; they have founded new Colonies for those who could not
find room in the old; and in general they have endeavoured to finish
their work, to free the Colonies gradually from their own supervision,
and to transfer the management and the responsibility to the farmers
themselves, so that they should at last realise that the man who wants
to live must work and look after himself, instead of depending always on
external help. No doubt one cannot yet speak of the complete
emancipation of the Colonies as an accomplished fact. The strings are
still there, and the absentee Administration still holds them. But it no
longer _pulls_ the strings, as it used to do, and, consequently, its
existence is hardly noticed. So, if one visits one of these Colonies
to-day, one hears quite another tune. “We are independent”—that is the
first thing they tell one, with the pride of men who know the value of
freedom. This pride makes them exaggerate the present blessings, just as
they used to exaggerate the evil. “All’s right with the Colony. It is
strong and secure, and pays its workers well. No doubt some people are
badly off. But what of that? There are failures everywhere. The man who
cannot succeed leaves, and makes room for another. The great thing is
that the Colony as a whole is able to exist and to develop properly.
True, it lacks this, that, and the other, and we cannot yet supply the
deficiencies; but in course of time they will be supplied. We need
patient work, and everything will come in good time.” That is the
prevailing note of what I heard in nearly all the Colonies which I
visited.[77] Any visitor to Palestine who brings with him, as I did,
painful and humiliating recollections of years ago must rejoice beyond
measure at all this, and must be inclined to take an extremely
optimistic view of the development of the colonisation movement in
general.

But all this is highly satisfactory only so long as one regards this
colonisation movement as something good _in itself_. Think but once of
the “political aim,” of the first article of the Basle Programme, and
the optimism vanishes at once, and gives place to a depressing feeling
of poverty and emptiness.

Thirty years’ experience of the life of the Colonies must finally drive
us to the conclusion that while Hebrew Colonies can exist in Palestine,
and in large numbers, Hebrew agriculturists—those who are to be the
foundation of the “home of refuge”—cannot be made even in Palestine,
except in numbers too small to bear any relation to so large an aim. The
Jew is too clever, too civilised, to bound his life and his ambitions by
a small plot of land, and to be content with deriving a poor living from
it by the sweat of his brow. He has lost the primitive simplicity of the
real farmer, whose soul is bound up in his piece of ground, whose work
is his all, and who never looks beyond his narrow acres: as though a
voice from above had told him that he was born to be a slave to the land
with his ox and his ass, and must fulfill his destiny without any
unnecessary thinking. That agricultural idyll which we saw in our
visions thirty years ago has not been and cannot be realised. The Jew
can become a capable farmer, a country gentleman—of the type of Boaz—who
understands agriculture, is devoted to it, and makes a living out of it:
the sort of man who goes out every morning to his field, or his
vineyard, to look after his workmen as they plough or sow his land,
plant or graft his vines, and does not mind even giving them a hand when
he finds it necessary. A man of this type—close to the land and to
nature, and very different in character from the Jew of the city—a Jew
can become. But at the same time he wants to live like a civilised
being; he wants to enjoy, bodily and mentally, the fruits of
contemporary culture; the land does not absorb his whole being. This
excellent type is being created before our eyes in Palestine, and in
time it will certainly reach an uncommon degree of perfection. But of
what use is all this for building a “home of refuge”? “Upper-class”
farmers of this kind, who depend on the labour of others, cannot be the
foundation of such a building. In every State the foundation is the
rural proletariat: the labourers and the poor farmers, who derive a
scanty livelihood from their own work in the fields, whether in a small
plot of their own, or in the fields of the “upper-class” farmers. But
the rural proletariat in Palestine is not ours to-day, and it is
difficult to imagine that it ever will be ours, even if our Colonies
multiply all over the country. As for the present, we all know that the
work is done mostly by Arabs from the neighbouring villages, either
journeymen, who come in the morning and return home in the evening, or
regular labourers, who live in the Colony with their families. It is
they who are doing for us the work of the “home of refuge.” And as for
the future, the number of the Colonies will grow, in so far as it grows,
through men of capital, who will found new Colonies of the same
“wealthy” type. Colonies for poor men can only be founded by
organisations, and their number must be so limited that they can count
for nothing in comparison with the need of creating a rural proletariat
to cover the whole country and win it by manual labour. Even an Agrarian
Credit Bank will not make much difference from this point of view. Such
a bank—despite all the great things prophesied for it—will be much
better able to help in the foundation of “wealthy” Colonies than to
found Colonies for poor men with its own means. Perhaps its inability to
increase the number of such Colonies will really be a blessing in
disguise. For if they existed in large numbers they must all be full of
men quite unfitted for such a difficult task. Only if they are very few
can we hope for their survival and development through a process of
natural selection, by which the man who has not the necessary qualities
will make way for another, and in time these Colonies will gather to
themselves all the small body of born agriculturists which is still left
among us.[78]

However that may be, this is not the way in which our rural proletariat
can be made. It may be said that it will be made in ordinary course in
the “wealthy” Colonies, through the natural increase of the inhabitants
and the consequent division of the land; that the sons or grandsons of
the farmers will themselves become poor labourers, living by the work of
their hands. But experience shows that this, too, is a vain hope. The
children who are born in the Colonies have also the cleverness of the
Jew. When the son sees that his paternal inheritance will not be
sufficient to make him a substantial farmer, and that he is doomed to be
one of those pillars of society, the agricultural labourers, he quickly
leaves the Colony, and goes to seek his fortune overseas, where he is
content to work like a slave, so long as he is free from bondage to the
land, and is able to dream of a prosperous future. But it would be doing
these sons of the Colonies a grievous wrong to imagine them lacking in
love for Palestine. Most of them do love the country, and long for it,
even after they have left it. Some of them return to it in after years,
if they have succeeded abroad in acquiring enough money to enable them
to settle comfortably in Palestine. But the trouble is that love of the
country alone cannot breed agriculturists; for that you must have also
love of the _land_. The genuine agriculturist feels that leaving the
land is like giving up life. The inherited link between himself and the
land is so strong and deep that he cannot sever it. He therefore prefers
to endure poverty and want, to live all his life like a beast of burden,
rather than to leave the land. But this trait of the genuine
agriculturist disappears gradually even in places where it exists, so
soon as it comes into contact with a cultured environment. It is clearly
impossible to create it where it does not exist, and most of all in a
people like ours, in which two thousand years of wandering have
implanted traits of an exactly opposite character.

There remains, then, only one hope: the young labourers who come to
Palestine with the intention of devoting their lives to the national
ideal, of “capturing labour”[79] in Palestine and of creating in our
existing and future Colonies that rural proletariat which is so far
non-existent. It is significant that the “labour question” has latterly
become almost the central problem of our colonisation work. It is felt
on all hands that bound up with this question of labour is a still
larger question—that of the whole aim of Zionism. If these labourers
cannot succeed in supplying what is lacking, that proves that even
national idealism is not strong enough to create the necessary qualities
of mind and heart; and we must therefore reconcile ourselves to the idea
that our rural settlement in Palestine, even if in course of time it
develops up to the maximum of its possibilities, will always remain an
upper stratum, a culturally developed minority, with the brains and the
capital, while the rural proletariat, the manual labourers who form the
majority, will still not be ours. This, of course, involves a complete
transformation of the character and aim of Zionism. No wonder, then,
that there have been so many suggestions for improving the condition of
the labourers. Everybody sees that so far the labourers have not
succeeded very well in their mission: in recent years many of them have
left the country, while few have arrived there, and the position of
those who remain is insecure. The general tendency is to put the blame
on certain external difficulties, and to look for ways of removing those
difficulties—as, by persuading the colonists to give Jewish a preference
over Arab labourers; by making things more comfortable for the labourers
in the matter of food and lodging; and many other familiar suggestions.
The Zionist public consoles itself with the belief that when all these
steps are taken the number of Jewish labourers will steadily increase
with the increase of work, and that as the settlement grows and the
amount of work increases, so will our labouring rural proletariat
increase, and thus the “secure home of refuge” will be built up by our
own hands, from the foundation to the roof.

Now it seems to me that the time is not very far distant when the
external difficulties will no longer stand in the way of the labourers,
or, at least, will be reduced to such small proportions that it will no
longer be possible to regard them as an insurmountable barrier. The
National Fund and other institutions are already trying hard to improve
the position of the labourers, and there is no doubt that little by
little everything that can be done will be done. Even the greatest
difficulty—that of the strained relations between the labourers and the
colonists—is visibly growing less. On the one side, most of the
labourers now see that it is unfair to demand of any man that he should
receive with open arms those who look down on him and make no attempt to
conceal the hatred and contempt which they feel for him as a
“bourgeois”; and so they try to adopt a more conciliatory attitude than
hitherto. On the other side, the colonists are beginning to see that it
is not only their duty but also their interest to increase the amount of
Jewish labour in the colonies (there is no need here to labour this
point, which has been often made before); and so we see in the colonies
the development of a certain tendency to employ Jewish labour as far as
possible. It is true that most of the colonies still believe that the
possibilities of employing Jewish labour are very small (again for
reasons too familiar to need explaining here), and an outsider who has
paid a brief visit to Palestine cannot express a definite opinion as to
the soundness of their judgment on this point. Speaking generally,
however, I have no doubt that the more the colonists become inclined to
employ Jewish labour, the greater will the possibilities automatically
become, until they reach their real limit. But after the removal of
those external difficulties which we ourselves can remove we shall find
out that the way is beset with more formidable difficulties, which do
not depend on our own will.

In every colony and farm which I visited, I talked a great deal with the
labourers, and listened attentively to what they said. They expressed
many different and conflicting opinions, and were not always all agreed
even on the most important questions. This notwithstanding, all these
conversations left on my mind one general impression, and that
impression did not encourage me to believe in the ability of these young
men to accomplish the great task which they had set before themselves.

These young labourers, who come to Palestine with the idea of “capturing
labour,” mostly bring with them from abroad the hope of becoming
independent farmers after some years of work; only a few come with the
fixed intention of remaining labourers all their lives. All alike work
for a certain time with enthusiasm and devotion, but after a while the
question of their future begins to exercise their minds. Those whose
hope from the beginning was to become farmers are, of course,
discouraged when they see how remote is the chance of attaining their
ambition; that was only to be expected. But even those who came with the
intention of remaining labourers begin to feel that a life such as
theirs is all very well for a time, but is more than they can endure as
a permanency. The civilised man in each one of them begins to clamour
for self-expression, and cannot reconcile himself to the idea that he
must go on digging or ploughing from morning till evening all his days,
and at best be rewarded for all his toil by a meagre subsistence. So the
weaker among them leave the country with bitterness in their hearts, and
the more obstinate remain in the country with bitterness in their
hearts; and you may see them wandering from one colony to another,
working in one place for a time, then suddenly leaving it for another,
not because they want a better job, but because they are restless in
spirit and have no peace of mind.

The labourers at present in Palestine may be divided, broadly speaking,
into four classes. There are first the unskilled labourers, who do
simple work such as digging, and with difficulty earn enough to satisfy
their most elementary needs. This class is very far from being
contented; many of its members have left the country, many more will
leave, and the rest will for the most part pass into the other classes.
Secondly, there are labourers who are expert at certain kinds of work
(such as grafting) which require skill and care. They earn good money,
and their position is not bad. Yet they are mostly anxious to pass into
the third class, that of the farmer-labourers, who have each his own
small holding in the neighbourhood of some colony, and work on their own
land, but eke out a livelihood by working for others in the colony;
or—where the holdings are very small—work mostly for others and only a
little for themselves. This experiment has been started by various
institutions, which have bought land in or near to a colony and have
given plots of it to selected labourers. In some places there are
labourers who do well with their holdings, and therefore are already
hoping that before long they will cease to be labourers and become
independent farmers. Fourthly, there are the labourers who have already
attained this ideal of becoming independent farmers, and no longer work
for others, but are still sometimes counted as labourers because they
maintain certain relations with their former “party.” The members of
this class are few, and most of them are men whom the Jewish
Colonisation Association settled in Lower Galilee on the tenant-farmer
system. Their holdings are comparatively large, and they have neither
time nor need to work for others; on the contrary, they themselves need
labour at certain seasons, and then these ex-labourers, having become
employers, do not invariably employ Jewish labour!

This last-mentioned phenomenon gave me much food for thought all the
time that I was in Palestine. Among these farmers I knew some young men
who had previously been regarded as among the pick of the labourers, not
only from the point of view of efficiency, but also from that of
character and devotion to the national ideal. If these men—I said to
myself—could not stand the test, then perhaps it is really impossible
for anybody to stand it, and whether it be for the reasons which the
farmers suggest, or for other reasons, the fact is there all the same.
But when I put this problem to labourers who had not yet become farmers,
they replied that these comrades of theirs, when once they had become
farmers, had lost their proletariat mentality and acquired a different
psychology. Then I asked further: “If so, where is the solution? You
yourselves tell me that most of your comrades came to Palestine in the
hope of becoming farmers in course of time, and that as this hope grew
fainter (because the Jewish Colonisation Association changed its system,
and ceased to settle on its land labourers who had not a certain amount
of money) the number of new arrivals grew less. But if the labourers
come with the hope of becoming farmers, and then, when they have
achieved their ambition, lose their idealism and employ non-Jews on
their own land, how can you ever ‘capture labour,’ and what is the good
of your efforts?”

To this question the labourers nowhere gave me a satisfactory
answer![80]

                  *       *       *       *       *

Such is the condition of “practical work in Palestine,” and such its
relation to “the redemption of the people and the land.” The hope of a
future redemption is an age-long national hope, still cherished by every
Jew who is faithful to his people, whether as a religious belief or in
some other form. Every man can picture the realisation to himself as it
suits him, without regard to actual present conditions: for who knows
what is hidden in the bosom of the distant future? But if men set out to
achieve the redemption by their own efforts, they are no longer at
liberty to shut their eyes to the facts. There must be some natural
chain of cause and effect between what they do and what they wish to
attain. Between “practical work in Palestine” and “the redemption of the
people and the land” this chain of causation may be imagined to exist by
those who are at a distance; but in Palestine itself even imagination
cannot find it. In Palestine the possibilities of practical work are too
clear. It is possible to buy bits of land here and there; but it is not
possible to redeem the land as a whole, or even most of it. It is
possible to found beautiful Colonies on the “redeemed” land; but it is
not possible to settle in them more than a very few _poor_ Colonists. It
is possible to produce in the Colonies an “upper-class” type of
agriculturists, whose work is mostly done by others, and perhaps it is
possible also to create a small labourer class for the finer kinds of
work, which are comparatively easy and well paid; but it is not possible
to create a real rural proletariat, capable of monopolising the rougher,
more exacting, and worse-paid kinds of work, which alone can support a
rural proletariat with its thousands and tens of thousands.[81]

This being the case, we should expect every visitor to Palestine whose
standard is that of the “home of refuge” to return home in grief and
despair. Yet every day we find just the opposite. Orthodox Zionists, who
wax grandiloquent at home about “the redemption of the people and the
land,” come to Palestine, see what there is to see there, and return
home in joy and gladness, full of inspiration and enthusiasm, as though
they had heard Messiah’s trumpet from the Mount of Olives.

That is exactly my point. On the surface the Programme is supreme, and
all its adherents seem really to believe that their work is bringing the
redemption. But beneath the surface the unacknowledged instinct of
national self-preservation is supreme, and it is that instinct that
urges them on to work—not for the accomplishment of the Programme, but
for the satisfaction of its own demands. When our orthodox Zionist comes
to Palestine, and sees the work and its results, his whole being thrills
with the feeling that it is a great and a noble thing that is being
created there; that whether it leads to complete redemption or not, it
will be an enormous force for our national preservation in all the
countries over which we are scattered. Then the “redemption” idea finds
its proper level: it becomes one of those cherished hopes which are not
yet ready to be mainsprings of action; and the real object, the object
which is actually being attained by practical work in Palestine, appears
large and splendid enough in itself to provide inspiration and
enthusiasm.

My respect for my readers and for myself does not permit me to explain
once more in detail—after more than twenty years of explanation after
explanation—what exactly is the object to which I allude here. But I
think it no shame to avow that on this occasion I seemed to myself to
see my dream of twenty years ago in process of realisation in Palestine,
though naturally with differences of detail. What has already been
accomplished in Palestine entitles one to say with confidence that that
country will be “_a national spiritual centre of Judaism, to which all
Jews will turn with affection, and which will bind all Jews together_; a
centre of study and learning, of language and literature, of bodily work
and spiritual purification; _a true miniature of the people of Israel as
it ought to be_ ... so that every Hebrew in the Diaspora will think it a
privilege to behold just once the ‘centre of Judaism,’ and when he
returns home will say to his friends: ‘If you wish to see _the genuine
type of a Jew_, whether it be a Rabbi or a scholar or a writer, a farmer
or an artist or a business man—then go to Palestine, and you will see
it.’”[82]

No doubt the time has not yet come, nor will it soon come, when the
traveller returned from Palestine, speaking of the “genuine type of a
Jew,” can say to his friends, “Go to Palestine, and you will see it.”
But he _can_ say, and generally does, “Go to Palestine, and you will see
it _in the making_.” The existing Colonies, although they depend mainly
on non-Jewish labour, strike the Jew of the Diaspora as so many little
generating stations, in which there is gradually being produced a new
type of national life, unparalleled in the Exile. So soon as he enters a
Jewish Colony, he feels that he is in a Hebrew national atmosphere. The
whole social order, all the communal institutions, from the Council of
the Colony to the school, bear the Hebrew stamp. They do not betray, as
they do in the Diaspora, traces of that foreign influence which flows
from an alien environment and distorts the pure Hebrew form. Of course,
he does not find everything satisfactory and commendable. He
discovers—if he has eyes to see—many defects in the communal life and in
that of the individual. Even the schools in the Colonies are still for
the most part very far from perfection; and even the much-vaunted
predominance of the Hebrew language in the Colonies is as yet but half
complete—it extends only to the children. But everything—he tells
himself—is still in its infancy; the process of free development has
only just begun, and it is going on. Many of these defects will be
remedied in time; and whatever is not remedied must be a defect in
ourselves, with its roots in our national character. If we want to
create a _genuine_ Hebrew type, we must accept the bad with the good,
provided that both alike belong _essentially_ to the type, and that the
type itself is not corrupted as in the Diaspora. The Jewish visitor
travels from Colony to Colony, and finds them sometimes many hours’
journey from one another, with alien fields and villages in between. But
the intervening space seems to him nothing more than an empty desert,
beyond which he reaches civilisation again, and breathes once more the
refreshing atmosphere of Hebrew national life. Days pass, or weeks, and
he seems to have spent all the time in another world—a world of the
distant past or the distant future. When he leaves this world he says to
himself, “If it is thus to-day, what will it be one day, when the
Colonies are more numerous and fully developed?” At such a time he
realises that here, in this country, is to be found the solution of the
problem of our national existence; that from here the spirit shall go
forth and breathe on the dry bones that are scattered east and west
through all lands and all nations, and restore them to life.

But from this point of view the term “practical work” does not apply
only to the agricultural colonies. This national Hebrew type may have,
and indeed has, its generating stations outside the agricultural
settlement. Many Zionists criticise the Directors of the National Fund
for sinking a good deal of their capital in the building of Jewish
quarters in towns (such as Tel-Aviv in Jaffa). From the point of view of
the Programme these critics are certainly right. The Fund was created
for “the redemption of the land” in the widest sense of the term, and
not for the purchase of small pieces of urban land, and the erection on
them of houses for Jews. But, as I have said, the work is directed not
by the demands of the Programme but by the promptings of an instinct. If
our visitor from the Diaspora remains some days in Tel-Aviv, observes
its life, and sees the Hebrew children who are growing up there, he will
not criticise the National Fund for having made it possible to found
such a generating station. He will wish with all his heart that the
Directors would commit the same fault again, and create similar stations
in the other towns of Palestine.

And need it be demonstrated that the Hebrew schools in Jaffa and
Jerusalem are centres of unremitting activity in the creation of “the
genuine type of a Jew”? This educational work, again, does not fit in
very well with the Programme. “What use,” it is often asked, “is there
in educating the children in the national spirit, so long as the land is
not redeemed, and the nation does not come to the land, and many of
these very children may not remain there? To redeem the land, extend the
settlement, capture labour—that is the way to realise the Programme. But
education? When the number of Jews in Palestine is large, national
education will follow as a matter of course. At present we have no right
to use for spiritual purposes the resources which are needed for more
important things.” I doubt whether this criticism can be reasonably and
logically answered on the basis of the Programme. But what can logic do
when instinct pulls the other way? The very men who promise to bring
about the redemption by means of “practical work in Palestine” are using
a great deal of their energy in educational work in the country; and
Zionists generally value such work and turn to it more and more. To
learn why, one has only to listen to the speeches at a Zionist meeting
during a debate on “cultural work” in Palestine. The “redeemers” forget
for a time the Programme, the “home of refuge,” and all their other
catchwords, and begin to extol “the revival of the spirit,” and the
creation of a new Hebrew type. They prophesy that this type will in
future be a connecting link between all the scattered parts of the
nation. They point to the beneficial influence already exerted by the
schools in Palestine on education in the Diaspora. And so forth, and so
forth.

Eighteen years ago I saw the beginnings of this educational work in
Palestine, and I could not then bring myself to believe that the
individual teachers who stood for the great ideal of a Hebrew education
in the Hebrew language, and had begun to put it into practice with their
limited resources, could really succeed in producing such a spiritual
revolution. But at the same time I saw how bent they were on the
attainment of their object, and how confident of success: and I said,
“Who knows? Perhaps this confidence will be able to work miracles.”[83]
Now I have seen that confidence has indeed worked miracles. “A Hebrew
education in the Hebrew language” is no longer an ideal in Palestine: it
is a real thing, a natural, inevitable phenomenon; its disappearance is
inconceivable. No doubt there are some scattered fortresses which have
not yet been captured; but these, too, will surrender, as others have,
to the demands of the age. Take, for instance, the educational
institutions of the German _Hilfsverein_ in Jerusalem, from the
Kindergartens up to the Teachers’ Seminary. All in all, they have
sixteen hundred pupils of both sexes, and these are being
trained—despite the still visible remnant of German education—in the
Hebrew spirit and the Hebrew language. All who know how things used to
be must confess that there has really been a revolution in Palestine,
and that the Hebrew teacher has won.[84] Of course, there is still much
to be done before the victory can be complete even internally—that is to
say, before Hebrew education can find the right road in every
department, and before its defects, which are still numerous, can be
removed. But the conqueror has already shown his patience and his
devotion to his ideal; and we can surely trust him not to rest until he
has so perfected Hebrew education in Palestine as to make it a worthy
model for Jews throughout the world, a standard type of national
education, to which they will endeavour to approximate so far as the
conditions of the Diaspora allow.

Yet another urban generating station of a different kind has been
created of late years, also by the unbounded confidence of an
individual; and the Zionists and the National Fund have not refrained
from helping it and enabling it to live and to develop, although it is
very difficult indeed to bring it within the scope of the Programme. I
mean, of course, the Bezalel.[85] True, its great object—the development
of Hebrew art—has so far been attained only to a slight extent, and it
has not yet touched the higher branches of art. But its achievements in
the domain of handicraft justify the belief that here also confidence
will work miracles. Whatever may happen, the Bezalel has already become
the source of a spiritual influence which makes itself felt in lands far
distant from Palestine. Who can tell how many estranged hearts have been
brought back to their people, in greater or less degree, by the
beautiful carpets and ornaments of the Bezalel?

All these generating stations, whether in the country or in the cities,
are welded together in our thought, and appear to us as a single
national centre, which even now, in its infancy, exerts a visible and
appreciable influence on the Diaspora. Hence a man need not believe in
miracles in order to see with his mind’s eye this centre growing in
size, improving in character, and exerting an ever-increasing spiritual
influence on our people, until at last it shall reach the goal set
before it by the instinct of national self-preservation: to restore our
national unity throughout the world through the restoration of our
national culture in its historic home. This centre will not be even then
a “secure home of refuge” for our people; but it will surely be _a home
of healing for its spirit_.

And afterwards?

Ask no questions! In our present state of spiritual disorganisation we
have no idea of the volume of our national strength, nor of what it will
be able to achieve when all its elements are united round a single
centre, and quickened by a single strong and healthy spirit. The
generations that are to come afterwards will know the measure of their
power, and will adjust their actions to it. For us, we are not concerned
with the hidden things of the distant future. Enough for us to know the
things revealed, the things that are to be done by us and our children
in a future that is near.

Footnote 73:

  [The first article of the Basle Programme, formulated in 1897, reads:
  “Der Zionismus erstrebt für das jüdische Volk die Schaffung einer
  öffentlich-rechtlich gesicherten Heimstätte in Palästina.” Until the
  Ninth Congress (1909) this was generally understood as involving the
  creation of an autonomous “Jewish State” in Palestine.]

Footnote 74:

  It may be worth while to mention here an article written at Basle
  during the Congress and printed in the _Jewish Chronicle_ (25 Aug.,
  1911), as it is a striking example of the confusion of thought which
  reigned at this Congress. The writer regards the victory of the
  “practicals” as an abandonment of the national ideal, and expresses
  his surprise that Hebrew occupied so prominent a place at such a
  Congress. The Herzlian Zionists, he thinks, standing as they do for a
  national ideal, naturally desire the revival of the national language;
  but these “practicals,” who have turned their backs on the national
  ideal, and made Zionism merely a colonising scheme—what interest have
  they in the revival of Hebrew? Could not Jews live comfortably in
  their Colonies in Palestine even if they spoke other languages, like
  the Jews of the rest of the world?—I should advise those against whom
  this argument is directed not simply to dismiss the paradox with a
  smile, but to ask themselves how it came about that their aims could
  be so misunderstood.

Footnote 75:

  [The Biblical _Shekel_ (plural _Shekalim_) has been adopted as the
  unit of contribution to the Zionist Organisation.]

Footnote 76:

  [The Agrarian Bank is still (1921) only a project.]

Footnote 77:

  I speak (here and further on) only of the Colonies in Judea and Lower
  Galilee. I did not visit Upper Galilee on this occasion. There are,
  indeed, two or three Colonies in Judea which are exceptions; but
  special reasons have made them unprosperous and kept their inhabitants
  in the old rut. We are not here concerned with these individual
  problems.

Footnote 78:

  The Colonies of this type, founded during the last few years, have
  already been left by many of the first settlers, whose places have
  been taken by others.

Footnote 79:

  [_i.e._, securing the exclusive employment of Jewish labour on
  Jewish-owned land.]

Footnote 80:

  There is a further class of “contractor-labourers,” called in
  Palestine _k’vutzoth_ (groups), who work National Fund land in some
  places on a co-operative basis. But the results of this experiment are
  not yet clear, and in any case the system cannot be expected to
  develop so far as to be able to bring about a radical change in the
  labour problem. Recently, too, Yemenite Jews have been coming to
  Palestine, settling in the Colonies, and working as labourers; and the
  Zionists are already proclaiming that the Yemenites will build up the
  land. But this is another experiment on which judgment cannot yet be
  passed. Many people in Palestine think that the Yemenites are not
  physically strong enough for hard work; and, moreover, their level of
  culture and their mentality are so different from ours that the
  question inevitably presents itself whether an increase in their
  number will not change the whole character of the settlement, and
  whether the change will be for the better.

  I have here touched only on the question of the possibility of
  “capturing labour.” But an answer is still awaited to another
  question—whether it is proper for us, who are “bottom dog” everywhere,
  to aim at a monopoly of labour, and whether they are not right who
  maintain that this policy will prove to be our most serious obstacle.

Footnote 81:

  In Petach-Tikvah, for instance, it is possible for three or four
  hundred labourers at most to earn a living by the finer kinds of work;
  whereas the unskilled labour employs at times thousands.

Footnote 82:

  [The quotation is from an Essay called _Dr. Pinsker and his Pamphlet_,
  written in 1892.]

Footnote 83:

  [From the Supplement to an Essay called _Truth from Palestine_ (II),
  written in 1894.]

Footnote 84:

  I cannot refrain from mentioning here a small incident which
  illustrates the present position excellently. I visited one of the
  classes of the Hilfsverein school at Jaffa during the German reading
  lesson. The pupils were puzzled by the word _aufheben_, and the
  teacher tried to explain it by German synonyms, which they equally
  failed to understand. At last the teacher’s patience was exhausted,
  and he exclaimed angrily, in pure Sephardic pronunciation,
  “_levatel_!” All the pupils understood at once!

Footnote 85:

  [A Hebrew school of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem.]




                        THE SUPREMACY OF REASON
                     (TO THE MEMORY OF MAIMONIDES)
                                 (1904)


At last, after the lapse of seven hundred years,[86] the anniversary of
Maimonides’ death has been raised to the dignity of an important
national day of memorial, and has been honoured throughout the Diaspora.
In earlier centuries our ancestors do not appear to have remembered that
so-and-so many hundred years had passed since the death of Maimonides;
still less did they make the anniversary a public event, as we do now,
although they were in much closer sympathy with Maimonides than we
are—or, to be more correct, _because_ they were in much closer sympathy
with him than we are. They did not feel it necessary to commemorate the
death of one whom in spirit they saw still living among them—one whose
advice and instruction they sought every day in all their difficulties
of theory and practice, as though he were still in their midst. In those
days it was almost impossible for an educated Jew (and most Jews then
were educated) to pass a single day without remembering Maimonides: just
as it was impossible for him to pass a single day without remembering
Zion. In whatever field of study the Jew might be engaged—in
_halachah_,[87] in ethics, in religious or philosophical
speculation—inevitably he found Maimonides in the place of honour, an
authority whose utterances were eagerly conned even by his opponents.
And even if a man happened to be no student, at any rate he would say
his prayers every day, and finish his morning prayer with the “Thirteen
Articles”: how then could he forget the man who formulated the Articles
of the Jewish religion?

But how different it is to-day! If a Jew of that earlier time came to
life again, and we wanted to bring home to him as forcibly as possible
the distance between ourselves and our ancestors, it would be enough, I
think, to tell him that nowadays one may spend a great deal of time in
reading Hebrew articles and books without coming across a single
reference to Maimonides. And the reason is not that we have satisfactory
answers to all the spiritual questions which troubled our ancestors, and
have therefore no need for the out-of-date philosophy of Maimonides. The
reason is that the questions themselves are no longer on our agenda:
because we are told that nowadays men of enlightenment are concerned not
with spiritual questions, but only with politics and hard, concrete
facts. If Maimonides in his day accepted the dictum of Aristotle that
the sense of touch is a thing to be ashamed of, we in our day are prone
to accept the dictum that “spirituality” is a thing to be ashamed of,
and nothing is worth notice except what can be touched and felt. When,
therefore, we were reminded this year that seven hundred years had
elapsed since the death of the man with whom the spiritual life of our
people has been bound up during all the intervening period, the fact
made a profound impression throughout the length and breadth of Jewry.
It was as though our people were quickened by this reminder, and stirred
suddenly to some vague yearning after the past—that past in which it was
still capable (despite all the _Judennot_[88]) of looking upwards and
seeking answers to other questions than those of bread and a
_Nachtasyl_.

Be that as it may, Maimonides has become the hero of the moment and a
subject of general interest. Many an address has been delivered, many an
article has been written in his honour this year; but nobody, so far as
I have seen, has yet used the occasion to unearth, from beneath that
heap of musty metaphysics which is so foreign to us, the central idea of
Maimonides, and to show how there sprang from this central idea those
views of his on religion and morality, which produced a long period of
unstable equilibrium in Judaism, and have left a profound impression on
the spiritual development of our people. Since none else has performed
this task, I am minded to try my hand at it. If even those who are
expert in Maimonides’ system find here some new point of view, so much
the better; if not, no harm is done. For my purpose is not to discover
something new, but to rehearse old facts in an order and a style that
seem to me to be new, and to be better adapted to present the subject
intelligibly to modern men, who have not been brought up on medieval
literature.


                                   I


Can Maimonides claim to be regarded as the originator of a new system?
This is a question which has exercised various authors; but we may leave
it to those who attach importance to names. We may give Maimonides that
title or not: but two facts are beyond dispute. On the one hand, the
fundamental assumptions on which he built up his system were not his
own, but were borrowed by him almost in their entirety from the
philosophy of Aristotle as presented at second hand by the Arabs, who
introduced into it a good deal of neo-Platonic doctrine. But, on the
other hand, it is indisputable that Maimonides carried to their logical
conclusion the ethical consequences of those assumptions, as the Greeks
and the Arabs, with whom the assumptions originated, did not; and in
this way he did say something that was new and hitherto unsaid, though
it was logically implied in the fundamental principles which he took
from other thinkers.

If, then, we would understand the ethical system of Maimonides, we must
set clearly before our minds the metaphysical assumptions on which it
was built. Those assumptions are so far removed from the philosophical
and scientific conceptions of our own time that the modern man can
scarcely grasp them. But in those days even the greatest thinkers
believed these airy abstractions to be the solid truths of philosophy,
rock-based on incontestable evidences. Hence it is not surprising that
Maimonides, like the rest, was convinced beyond doubt that this
“scientific” teaching was the uttermost limit of human understanding,
and could never be changed or modified. So absolute, indeed, was his
conviction that he went so far as to put this teaching in a dogmatic
form, as though it had been a revelation from above.[89]

The following is an outline of his dogmas, so far as is necessary for
our purpose:

“All bodies beneath the firmament are compounded of matter and
form.”[90] But “form” here is not “form as vulgarly understood, which is
_the picture and image of the thing_”; it is “the natural form,” that is
to say, the reality of the thing, “that by virtue of which it is what it
is,” as distinct from other things which are not of its kind.[91]

“Matter is never _perceived_ without form, nor form without matter; it
is man who divides existing bodies in his consciousness, and _knows_
that they are compounded of matter and form.”[92] For since the form is
the reality, by virtue of which the thing is what it is, it follows that
matter without form would be a thing without a real existence of its
own: in other words, a mere intellectual abstraction. And it is
superfluous to add that form without matter does not exist in the
sublunar world, which consists wholly of “bodies.”[93]

“The nature of matter is that form cannot _persist_ in it, but it
continually divests itself of one form and takes on another.” It is
because of this property of matter that things come into being and cease
to be, whereas form by its nature does not desire change, and ceases to
be only “on account of its connection with matter.” Hence “_generic_
forms are all _constant_,” though they exist in _individuals which
change_, which come and go; but _individual_ forms necessarily perish,
since their existence is possible only in combination with finite
matter.[94]

“The soul of all flesh is its form,” and the body is the matter in which
this form clothes itself. “When, therefore, the body, which is
compounded of the elements, is dissolved, the soul perishes, because it
exists only with the body” and has no permanent existence except
_generically_, like other forms.[95]

“The soul is one, but it has many different faculties,” and therefore
philosophers speak of parts of the soul. “By this they do not mean that
it is divisible as bodies are; they merely enumerate its different
_faculties_.” The parts of the soul, in this sense, are five: the
nutritive, the sensitive, the imaginative, the emotional, and the
rational. The first four parts are common to man and to other animals,
though “each kind of animal has a particular soul” special to itself,
which functions in it in a particular way, so that, for instance, the
emotion of a man is not like the emotion of an ass. But the essential
superiority of the soul of man lies in its possession of the additional
fifth part—the rational: this is “that power in man by which he thinks
and acquires knowledge and distinguishes between wrong actions and
right.”[96]

Thus the soul of man differs from the souls of other living things only
in the greater variety and higher quality of its functions. In essence
it is, like “the soul of all flesh,” simply a form associated with
matter, having no existence apart from the body. When the body is
resolved into its elements the soul also perishes with all its parts,
_including the rational_.

This extreme conclusion had already been deduced from the teaching of
Aristotle by some of his early commentators (such as Alexander
Aphrodisius). There were, indeed, other commentators who, unable to
abandon belief in the survival of the soul, tried to explain Aristotle’s
words in conformity with that belief by excluding the rational part from
the “natural form” and attributing to it a separate and eternal
existence.[97] But Maimonides was too logical not to see the
inconsistency involved in that interpretation; and so he sided with the
extremists, though their view was absolutely opposed to that belief in
personal immortality which in his day had come to be generally accepted
by Jews. Had he been content with that view alone, he would inevitably
have gone back to the conception of primitive Judaism, as we find it in
the Pentateuch: that immortality belongs not to the individual, but to
the nation; that the national form persists for ever, like the generic
form in living things, and the changing individuals are its matter. In
that case his whole ethical system would have been very different from
what it is. But Maimonides supplemented the teaching of Aristotle by
another idea, which he took from the Arabs; and this idea, amplified and
completed, he made the basis of his ethical system, which thereby
acquired a new and original character, distinguished by its fusion of
the social and the individual elements.

The idea is in substance this: that while reason, which is present in a
human being from birth, is only one of the faculties of the soul, which
is a unity of all its parts and ceases wholly to exist when the body
ceases, yet this faculty is no more than a “potential faculty,” by
virtue of which its possessor is able to apprehend ideas; and therefore
its cessation is inevitable only if it remains throughout its existence
in its original condition—in the condition, that is, of a “potential
faculty” whose potentiality has not been realised. But if a human being
makes use of this faculty and attains to the actual apprehension of
Ideas, then his intellect has proceeded from the stage of potentiality
to that of actuality: it has achieved real existence, which is permanent
and indestructible, like the existence of those Ideas which it has
absorbed into itself and with which it has become one. Thus we are to
distinguish between the “potential intellect,” which is given to a human
being when he comes into the world, and is merely a function of the
body, and the “acquired intellect,” which a human being wins for himself
by apprehending the Ideas. This acquired intellect “is not a function of
the body and is really separate from the body.” Hence it does not cease
to exist with the cessation of the body; it persists for ever, like the
other “separate Intelligences.”[98]

Now since the form of every existing thing is that individual essence by
virtue of which it is what it is and is distinguished from all other
existing things, it is clear that the acquired intellect, which gives
its possessor immortality, is the essence of the human being who has
been privileged to acquire it: in other words, his true form, by which
he is distinguished from the rest of mankind. In other men the form is
the transient soul given to them at birth; but in him who has the
acquired intellect even the soul itself is only a kind of matter. His
essential form is “the higher knowledge,” “_the form of the soul_,”
which he has won for himself by assimilating “Ideas which are separate
from matter.”[99]

Thus mankind is divided into two species, the difference between which
is greater than that between mankind as a whole and other kinds of
animals. For man is distinguished from the rest of animate nature only
by having a distinctive form: in quality his form is like the forms of
other living things, seeing that in his case as in theirs the individual
form perishes. But the distinctive form of the man who has the acquired
intellect is distinct in _quality_; for it persists for ever even after
its separation from matter. Its affinity is not with the other forms in
the lower world, but with those “separate forms” in the world
above.[100]

Thus far Maimonides followed the Arabs. But here the Arab philosophers
stopped: they did not probe this idea further, did not carry it to its
logical conclusions. Maimonides, on the contrary, refused to stop
half-way; he did not shrink from the extremest consequences of the idea.

First of all, he defined the content and the method of the intellectual
process by which man attains to “acquired intellect.” If we say that the
intellect becomes actual and eternal by comprehending the Ideas and
becoming one with them,[101] it follows that the content of the Ideas
themselves must be actual and eternal. For how could something real and
eternal be created by the acquisition of something itself unreal or not
eternal? Thus we exclude from the category of Ideas by the apprehension
of which the acquired intellect is obtained: (1) those sciences which
contain only abstract laws and not the explanation of real things, such
as mathematics and logic; (2) those sciences which teach not what
actually exists, but what ought to be done for the achievement of
certain objects, such as ethics and æsthetics; (3) the knowledge of
individual forms, which have only a temporary existence in combination
with matter, such as the histories of famous men and the like. All
knowledge of this kind, though it is useful and in some cases even
necessary as preparation, is not in itself capable of making the
intellect actual. What, then, are the Ideas by the apprehension of which
the intellect does become actual? They are those whose content is true
and eternal Being. This Being includes (going from lower to higher): (1)
the generic forms of all things in the lower world, which are, as we
know, constant; (2) the heavenly bodies, which, though compounded of
matter and form, are eternal; (3) the forms which are free of matter
(God and the separate Intelligences).[102] All this relates to the
_content_ of the intellectual process; but there is also a very
important definition of its _method_—a definition which is implied in
the conception itself. The result must be achieved _by the intellect’s
own activity_: that is to say, man must apprehend the truth of Being by
rational proofs, and must not simply accept truth from others by an act
of faith. For apprehension by this latter method is purely external;
reason has had no active part in it, and therefore that union of the
intellect with its object, which is what makes the intellect actual, is
lacking.[103]

And now let us see what are the ethical consequences of this idea.

The question of the _ultimate_ purpose of the universe is for Maimonides
an idle question, because it is not within our power to find a
satisfactory answer. For whatever purpose we find, it is always possible
to ask: What is the purpose of that purpose? And in the end we are bound
to say: “God willed it so,” or, “His wisdom decided so.” But at the same
time Maimonides agrees with Aristotle and his school that the
_proximate_ purpose of all that exists in this world of ours is man. For
in that “course of genesis and destruction” which goes on in all the
genera of existing things we see a kind of striving on the part of
matter to attain to the most perfect form possible (“to produce the most
perfect being that can be produced”); and since “man is the most perfect
being formed of matter,” it follows that “in this respect it can truly
be said that all earthly things exist for man.”[104]

Now if man is the proximate purpose of all things on earth, “we are
compelled to inquire further, why man exists and what was the purpose of
his creation.” Maimonides’ view of the human soul being what it is,
there is, of course, a ready answer to this question. The purpose of
man’s existence, like that of all material existence, is “to produce the
most perfect being that can be produced”: and what is the most perfect
being if not the possessor of the “acquired intellect,” who has attained
the most perfect form possible to man? The purpose of man’s life, then,
is “to picture the Ideas in his soul.” For “only wisdom can add to his
inner strength and raise him from low to high estate; for he was a man
potentially, and has now become a man actually, and man before he thinks
and acquires knowledge is esteemed an animal.”[105]

But if this is so, can we still ask what is the highest moral duty and
what is the most perfect moral good? Obviously, there is no higher moral
duty than this: that man strive to fulfil that purpose for which he was
created; and there is no more perfect moral good than the fulfilment of
that purpose. All other human activities are only “to preserve man’s
existence, to the end that that one activity may be fulfilled.”[106]

Here, then, we reach a new moral criterion and a complete
“transvaluation of values” as regards human actions in their moral
aspect. Every action has a moral value, whether positive or negative,
only in so far as it helps or hinders man in his effort to fulfil the
purpose of his being—the actualisation of his intellect. “Good” in the
moral sense is all that helps to this end; “evil” is all that hinders.
If we determine according to this view the positions of good actions in
the ethical scale, we shall find that higher and lower have changed
places. At the very top, of course, will stand that one activity which
leads direct to the goal—the apprehension of eternal Being by rational
proof: that is to say, the study of physics and metaphysics. Below this
the scale bifurcates into the two main lines of study and action. In the
sphere of study, mathematics and logic have special moral importance,
because knowledge of these sciences is a necessary preliminary to the
understanding of Being by rational proof. Below them come subjects which
have a practical object (ethics, etc.): for the actions with which these
subjects deal are themselves only means to the attainment of the supreme
end, and therefore the study of these subjects is but a means to a
means.[107] In the sphere of action, again, there are different degrees.
Those human actions which have as their object the satisfaction of
bodily needs have positive moral value only in a limited sense: in so
far as they effectively keep off physical pain and mental distraction,
and thus allow a man to give himself untroubled to the pursuit of the
Ideas.[108] Above these are actions which are connected with “perfection
of character,” because that perfection is necessary for the attainment
of true wisdom. “For while man pursues after his lusts, and makes
feeling master over intellect, and enslaves his reason to his passions,
the divine power—that is, Reason—cannot become his.”[109] Hence even
perfection of character has no absolute moral value, any more than other
things which appertain to practical life. The moral value of everything
is determined by its relation to the fulfilment of the intellectual
purpose, and by that alone.[110]

Starting from this standpoint, Maimonides lays down the principle that
virtue is “the mean which is equidistant from both extremes.”[111] This
principle is taken, of course, from Aristotle’s doctrine of virtue. But
Aristotle did not set up a higher moral criterion by reference to which
the mean point could be determined in every case. For him all virtue was
really but a code of good manners to which the polite Greek should
conform, being enabled by his own good taste to fasten instinctively on
the point equidistant from the ugliness of the two extremes. Not so
Maimonides, the Jew. He made this principle the basis of morality in the
true sense, because he coupled with it a formulation of the supreme
moral end. This moral end, for which the virtues are a preparation,[112]
compels us and enables us to distinguish between the extremes and the
mean. For the extremes, being apt to impair physical health or mental
peace, prevent a man from fulfilling his intellectual function; the mean
is that which helps him on his road.[113]

But with all this we have not yet a complete answer to our question
about the purpose of the existence of the human race as a whole. We know
that the human race really consists of two different species: “potential
man” and “actual man.” The second species, indeed, does not come into
existence from the start as an independent species, but is produced by
development out of the first. But this development is a very long one,
and depends on many conditions which are difficult of fulfilment, so
that only a few men—sometimes only “one in a generation”—are privileged
to complete it, while the great majority of mankind remains always at
the stage of “potential man.” Thus the question remains: What is the
purpose of the existence of the great mass of men “who cannot picture
the Idea in their souls”? For when we say that all material things exist
for the sake of the existence of man, we do not mean that all other
things are but a “necessary evil,” an evil incidental to the production
of the desired end—in other words, merely Nature’s unsuccessful
experiments in her struggle towards “the production of the most perfect
being that can be produced,” like the many imperfect specimens of his
art that the inexpert artificer turns out before he succeeds in creating
one that is perfect. We cannot so regard them in the face of the
evidence that we have of the wonderful wisdom of creative nature, which
proves that the Artificer can do his work in the way best fitted to
achieve his object. We must therefore assume that “things do not exist
for nothing”; that Nature, in her progress towards the production of the
most perfect being, has formed all other things for the benefit of that
most perfect being, whether for food or “for his advantage otherwise
than by way of food,” in such a way that the sum-total of things in the
inferior world is not merely a ladder by which to ascend to the
production of man, but also a means to secure the permanence of man when
once he has been produced. It follows, therefore, that all the millions
of men “who cannot picture the Idea in their souls” cannot be void of
purpose, like the spoilt creations of the artist, which, not being
suited to their object, are left lying about until they perish of
themselves. There must of necessity be some advantage in their
existence, as in that of the other kinds of created things. What, then,
is this advantage? The answer is implied in the question. “Potential
man,” like other earthly things, exists without doubt for the benefit of
the “perfect being,” of “actual man.” In conformity with this view
Maimonides lays it down that “these men exist for two reasons. First, to
serve the one man (the ‘perfect’): for man has many wants, and
Methuselah’s life were not long enough to learn all the crafts whereof a
man has absolute need for his living: and when should he find leisure to
learn and to acquire wisdom? The rest of mankind, therefore, exists to
set right those things that are necessary to them in the commonwealth,
to the end that the Wise Man may find his needs provided for and that
wisdom may spread. And secondly, the man without wisdom exists because
the Wise are very few, and therefore the masses were created to make a
society for the Wise, that they be not lonely.”[114]

Thus the existence of the majority of mankind has a purpose of its own,
which is different from that of the existence of the chosen minority.
This minority is an end in itself—it is the embodiment of the most
perfect form in the inferior world; whereas the purpose of the majority
lies not in its own existence, but in the fact that it creates the
conditions necessary to the existence of the minority: it creates, that
is, human society with all its cultural possessions (in the material
sense), without which it is impossible that wisdom should spread.

Thus we have introduced into ethics a new element—the social element.

For if each man could attain the degree of “actual man” without
dependence on the help of human society for the provision of his needs,
the moral criterion would be purely individual. Each man would be free
to apply for himself the formula at which we arrived above:—all that
helps me to fulfil my intellectual function is for me morally good; all
that hinders me is for me morally evil. But if the attainment of the
supreme end is possible only for the few, and is possible for them only
through the existence of the society of the many, which has for its
function the creation of the conditions most favourable to the
production of the perfect being: then we are confronted with a new moral
criterion, social in character. All that helps towards the perfection of
society in the manner required for the fulfilment of its function is
morally good; all that retards this development is morally evil. This
moral criterion is binding for the minority and the majority alike. The
majority, whose existence has no purpose beyond their participation in
the work of society, can obviously have no other moral criterion than
the social. But even the minority, though they are capable of attaining
the supreme end, and have therefore an individualistic moral criterion,
are none the less bound to subordinate themselves to the social
criterion where the two are in conflict. For as society becomes more
perfect, and the material basis is provided with less expenditure of
effort, so much the greater will be the possibility of producing the
perfect being with more regularity and frequency. Hence from the point
of view of the supreme end of the whole human race—and that is the
source of moral duty—the well-being of society is more important than
that of an individual man, even though he belong to the perfect
few.[115]

From this point of view all branches of man’s work which further the
perfection of society and the lightening of the burden of life’s needs
have a moral value, because they help more or less to create that
environment which is necessary for the realisation of the most perfect
form in the chosen few. Hence, to take one instance, Maimonides reckons
the fine arts among the things that further the attainment of mankind’s
end (though naturally beauty has in his system no independent value):
“for the soul grows weary and the mind is confused by the constant
contemplation of ugly things, just as the body grows weary in doing
heavy work, until it rest and be refreshed, and then it returns to its
normal condition: so does the soul also need to take thought for the
repose of the senses by contemplating pleasant things until its
weariness is dispelled.” Thus “the making of sculptures and pictures in
buildings, vessels, and garments” is not “wasted work.”[116]

To sum up: society stands between the two species of men and links them
together. For the “actual man” society is a means to the attainment of
his end; for the “potential man” it is the purpose of his own being. The
“potential man,” then, being in himself but a transient thing, which
comes into being and ceases to be, like all other living things, must
content himself with the comforting knowledge that his fleeting
existence is after all not wasted, because he is a limb of the social
body which gives birth to the immortal perfect beings, and his work, in
whatever sphere, helps to produce these perfect beings.

Thus Maimonides gets back to the view of early Judaism, which made the
life of society the purpose of the life of the individual, although at
first he seemed to diverge widely from it in setting up the one “perfect
man,” the possessor of “acquired intellect,” as the sole end of the life
of humanity at large.

It is possible, indeed, at first sight to find a certain resemblance
between Maimonides’ ethics and another doctrine which has recently
gained such wide currency—the doctrine of Nietzsche. Both conceive the
purpose of human existence to lie in the creation of the most perfect
human type; and both make the majority a tool of that minority in which
the supreme type is realised. But in fact the two doctrines are
essentially different, and the resemblance is only external. In the
first place, Nietzsche’s Superman is quite unlike Maimonides’ Superman
in character. Nietzsche, Hellenic in spirit, finds the highest
perfection in a perfect harmony of all bodily and spiritual excellences.
But Maimonides, true to the spirit of Judaism, concentrates on one
central point, and gives pre-eminence to a spiritual element—that of
intellect. And secondly, the relation of his “actual man” to society is
different from that of Nietzsche’s Superman. The Superman seeks an
outlet for his powers in the world outside him; he strives to embody his
will in action, and tolerates no obstacle in his path. He is therefore
eternally at war with human society; for society puts a limit to his
will and sets obstacles on his path by means of its moral laws, which
have been framed not to suit his individual needs, but to suit the needs
of the majority. Maimonides’ “actual man,” on the contrary, aims not at
embodying his will in the external world, but at perfecting his form in
his inner world. He demands nothing of society except that it satisfy
his elementary wants, and so leave him at peace to pursue his inner
perfection. He does not therefore regard society as his enemy. On the
contrary, he sees in society an ally, without whose aid he cannot attain
his end, and whose well-being will secure his own.


                                   II


So far I have purposely refrained from bringing the religious element
into the ethics of Maimonides, with the object of showing that he really
based his view of human life on philosophy alone, and did not give way a
single inch in order to effect a compromise between his philosophy and
the religious ideas which were accepted by Jews in his time. None the
less, there is no doubt that Maimonides was a religious man, and
believed in the divinity of the Law of Moses: only his idea of the
nature of religion, its function and its value, was a new one, and
differed entirely from the accepted idea, because here also, in the
sphere of religion itself, he remained faithful to those fundamental
axioms on which he based his moral system.

Does philosophy leave any room for a belief in the existence of a
revealed religion—that is to say, in a Law given to men by God through a
supernatural revelation of himself to one or to many individuals? This
question turns on another: Is the existence of the world independent of
time and external cause, or is it the result of a creative act of God,
as the Pentateuch teaches? According to the first view, “everything in
the Universe is the result of fixed laws, Nature does not change, and
there is nothing supernatural.” There is therefore no room for
revelation, which upsets the order of nature, and “the whole teaching of
Scripture would be rejected.” But if the world is the result of a
creative act, and nature is consequently nothing but a revelation of the
divine will, made in such time and place as God’s wisdom decreed, then
it is no longer impossible that the divine will should one day reveal
itself a second time in a supernatural manner. Hence, “accepting the
Creation, we find that ... revelation is possible, and that every
difficulty in this question is removed.” For if we ask: “Why has God
inspired a certain person and not another? Why has he revealed his Law
to one particular nation, and at one particular time?” and so forth—“We
answer to all these questions: He willed it so; or, His wisdom decided
so. Just as he created the world according to his will, at a certain
time, in a certain form, and as we do not understand why his will or his
wisdom decided upon that peculiar form, and upon that peculiar time, so
we do not know why his will or his wisdom determined any of the things
mentioned in the preceding questions.”[117]

Maimonides gave much thought to the question of the creation of the
world, and examined it from every side. He tried to ascertain whether
there was anything conclusive in the evidences adduced by his
predecessors in favour of the eternity of the world or of its creation;
and he did not scruple to avow that if he had found a convincing proof
of the eternity of the world he would not have rejected it out of
respect for the _Torah_. But purely philosophic investigation led him to
the conclusion that there was really no convincing proof one way or the
other. Seeing then, he says, that “the eternity of the universe has not
been demonstrated, there is no need to reject Scripture,” and we may
believe in the creation theory, which has “the authority of Prophecy,”
without any sin against our reason.[118]

But when once we have adopted the creation theory, revelation becomes
possible, and there is nothing to prevent our holding the belief which
our nation has accepted throughout its history: that at a definite point
in time the Law was given to our people from heaven through the
instrumentality of the chief of the Prophets, who received a unique
inspiration from the divine source, and was taught what to tell his
people in the name of God.[119] It is not relevant (as we have seen
above) to ask why this Law was given to us and not to others, at that
particular time and at no other. But it is relevant to ask what is the
purpose of this Law and what benefit it was meant to produce. For it can
scarcely be supposed that God would interfere with the order of nature
for no advantage or object; and if we cannot understand the working of
the divine wisdom in every detail, we must and we can form for ourselves
some general conception of the object for which the divine teaching was
given to us and the way in which it can help men to attain their
end.[120]

Now it is clear that the divine teaching, whether on its theoretical or
on its practical side, cannot lead a man straight to his supreme
goal—the raising of his intellect from potentiality to actuality. For
this goal, as we know, is to be attained not by good actions, and not
even by the _received_ knowledge of truth, but only by the activity of
the intellect itself, which must arrive at truth by the long road of
scientific proof. And if religion cannot raise its followers to the
stage of “actual man” in a direct way, we must conclude that its whole
purpose is to prepare the instrument which is necessary for the
attainment of that end: to wit, human society, which creates the
environment of the “actual man.” The aim of religion, then, is “to
regulate the soul and the body” of society at large, so as to make it
capable of producing the greatest possible number of “actual men.” To
this end religion must necessarily be popular: its teachings and
prescriptions must be aimed not at the chosen few, who strive after
ultimate perfection, but at the great mass of society. To this mass it
must give, in the first place, true opinions in a form suited to the
intelligence of the many; secondly, a code of morals, individual and
social, which makes for the health of society and the prosperity of its
members; and thirdly, a code of religious observances intended to
educate the many by keeping these true opinions and moral duties
constantly before their minds.[121] In these three ways—the third of
which is merely ancillary to the other two—religion aims at raising the
cultural level of society, so as to make a clear road for the perfect
individual: to provide him from the beginning of his life with an
environment of correct opinions and good morals, and save him from the
necessity of frittering away his strength in a twofold battle—against
the evil conditions of a corrupt society, and against false opinions
implanted in himself by that society. Religion is there to save him from
this battle against corruption without and falsehood within: to secure
that as soon as he shows the ability and the will to attain perfection
he shall find favourable conditions prepared for him, and proceed
towards his goal without let or hindrance.

This was how Maimonides conceived the function of the divine religion;
this was how he was bound to conceive it, his philosophy being what it
was. But as he was also persuaded by various reasoned proofs that the
Law of Moses was the divine religion,[122] he could obviously have no
doubt that this Law must contain on its theoretical side the “true
opinions” (that is, those philosophical opinions which he considered
true), albeit in popular form, and on its practical side a moral
doctrine for the individual and for society which was adapted to the end
desiderated by his philosophy, together with the form of religious
observance best calculated to educate society in the right opinions and
the right morality.

It is at this point that Maimonides’ task becomes difficult. Armed with
this _a priori_ judgment, he comes to close quarters with the _Torah_:
and he finds that in many matters, both of theory and of practice, it
is, if taken at its face value, diametrically opposed to what his
pre-conceived ideas would lead him to expect. The beliefs embodied in
the _Torah_ seem to be directly opposed to the most fundamental
philosophical truths of Maimonides’ system; the actions prescribed in
the _Torah_ contain much that it is difficult to reconcile with the
social purpose of the divine religion as conceived by that system. What
course, then, was open to Maimonides? To compromise between
philosophical and religious truth, as many had done before, was for him
impossible. For every compromise means simply that both sides give way;
and how could Maimonides, with his conviction that the attainment of
truth by means of proof is the end of human existence and the only way
to eternal happiness, give up one jot of this truth for the sake of
another truth, of inferior value inasmuch as it has come to us only
through tradition? Thus he has but one possible course. Necessity
compels him to subdue religion absolutely to the demands of philosophy:
in other words, to explain the words of the _Torah_ throughout in
conformity with the truth of philosophy, and to make the _Torah_ fulfil
in every part the function which philosophy imposes on it.

This necessity worked wonders. By dint of enormous labour Maimonides
discovered various extraordinary ways of interpreting the _Torah_; with
wonderful skill he found support for his interpretations in words and
phrases scattered about the Scriptures and the Talmud; until at last he
succeeded in making religion what it had to be according to his belief.

This is not the place to explain Maimonides’ methods of exegesis in
detail. For us to-day they are but a sort of monument to the weakness of
the written word in the face of a living psychological force which
demands that “yes” shall become “no” and “no” be turned into “yes.” This
psychological force led Maimonides to turn the “living God” of the
_Torah_ into an abstract philosophical conception, empty of all content
except a collection of negations; to make the “Righteous Man” of Judaism
a philosopher blessed with “acquired intellect”; to transform the
“future world” of the Talmud into the union of the acquired intellect
with the “active intellect”; to metamorphose the Biblical penalty of
“cutting off” into the disappearance of the form when the matter is
resolved: and so forth. All this he did in conformity with his
“philosophic truth,” of which he refused to change one atom.[123]

So, too, with the practical side of religion. Only in a very roundabout
way could practical religion be brought under the general principles
which Maimonides deduced from his philosophy. The difficulty was
especially great in the case of the laws of religious worship, many of
which have no apparent educative value as a means of confirming true
opinions and morality. But here also necessity did its work, and
Maimonides managed to find educational “reasons” for all the religious
laws, not excepting those which seem on the face of them actually to
confirm false opinions and to arouse inclinations opposed to
morality—such as, for instance, sacrifices and the accompanying
rites.[124] None the less, he was compelled after all his hard labour to
lay down this strange axiom: that there is a reason for the commandments
in a general way, but not for their details, these having been ordained
only because there can be no universal without particulars of some kind
or other.[125]

Maimonides had an easier task in bringing the moral laws of the _Torah_
within his system. In themselves these laws demanded as a rule no heroic
exegesis to show their utility for the social order: indeed, the _Torah_
often emphasises this utility, which in any case is self-evident in most
commandments of this class. But in arranging these commandments in order
of moral value Maimonides was compelled to coerce religion by his
characteristic methods into conformity with his system, according to
which good actions—whether moral or religious—are of an inferior order,
having no value except that of a necessary preparation of the individual
and of society for the attainment of the supreme moral good, the
perfection of intellect. This attitude of Maimonides towards moral
actions, which we have met already as a philosophical postulate, is just
as strongly maintained after such actions have been invested with a
religious sanctity. Hence religion affects Maimonides’ philosophical
ethics only to this extent, that it makes all the observances of
religious worship a moral duty, equal in value to the other moral
duties, because religious worship is one way of leading mankind to the
attainment of the supreme moral good in the chosen individuals.

What, then, is the “divine religion”—that is to say, the teaching of
Judaism—according to the system of Maimonides?

On its theoretical side it is popular metaphysics, and on its practical
side social ethics and pædagogics. It cannot bring man to his ultimate
perfection; its whole function is to regulate society—that is, the
masses—in accordance with the requirements of the perfect man. Hence
religion is not above reason, but below it: just as the masses, for whom
religion was made, are below the perfect man. Reason is the supreme
judge; religion is absolutely subordinate to reason, and cannot abrogate
one jot of its decisions. For God, who implanted the reasoning faculty
in man, that by it he might attain truth and win eternal Being, could
not at the same time demand of man that he believe in something opposed
to that very truth which is attained by reason, and is the goal of his
existence and the summit of his happiness. Even if a Prophet works
miracles in heaven and earth, and requires us therefore to believe that
there has been prophetically revealed to him some “divine” truth which
is opposed to reason, we must not believe him nor “regard his signs.”
“For reason, which declares his testimony false, is more to be trusted
than the eye which sees his signs.”[126]

But all this does not detract from the general and eternal duty of
observing in practice all the commandments of the divine religion.
Religion, like nature, is a creation of God, in which the divine will is
embodied in the form of immutable laws. And just as the laws of nature
are eternal and universally valid, admitting of no exception, though
their usefulness is only general, and “in some individual cases they
cause injury as well,” so also “the divine guidance contained in the
_Torah_ must be absolute and general,” and does not suffer change or
modification “according to the different conditions of persons and
times.” For the divine creation is “that which has the absolute
perfection possible to its species”; and that which is absolutely
perfect cannot be perfected by change or modification, but only made
less perfect.[127] Religion, it is true, was given through a Prophet,
who received the divine inspiration; but when once it had been given it
was placed outside the scope of creation, and became, like Nature after
its creation, something independent, with laws which can be investigated
and understood by the function of reason, but cannot be changed or
abrogated by the function of prophecy. It may happen, indeed, that in
accordance with the divine will, which was made an element in the nature
of things when nature was created, the Prophet can change the order of
the universe in some particular detail for a moment, so as to give a
sign of the truth of his prophecy;[128] and similarly the Prophet can
sometimes abrogate temporarily some point of the Law, to meet some
special need of the time. But just as the Prophet cannot modify or
change completely any law of nature, so he cannot modify or change
completely any law of the _Torah_. Nor can he, by his function of
prophecy, decide between opposing views on a matter which is capable of
different interpretations, because his opinion on a question of this
kind is important by virtue of his being a wise man, and not by virtue
of his being a Prophet, and it is therefore no more decisive than that
of another wise man who is not a Prophet. And “if a thousand Prophets,
all equal to Elijah and Elisha, held one view, and a thousand and one
wise men held the opposite view, we should have to follow the majority
and decide according to the thousand and one wise men and not according
to the thousand venerable Prophets.” For “God has not permitted us to
learn from Prophets, but from wise men of reasoning power and
knowledge.”[129]

What I have said so far, in this section and the preceding one, is
sufficient, I think, to give a clear idea of the fundamental beliefs of
Maimonides as to the function of man and his moral and religious duties.
But before we pass on to consider how Maimonides tried to make these
ideas the common property of his people, and what mark his system has
left on the development of Judaism, it is worth while to mention here
that Maimonides himself has given us the essence of his system in a
perfectly unmistakable form, by dividing men into various classes
according to their position on the scale of perfection. He compares the
striving of man after the perfection of his form to the striving of a
king’s subjects “to be with the king in his palace”; and using this
simile he finds in mankind six successive stages, as follows:—

1. Men who are outside the country altogether—that is, savages “who have
no religion, neither one based on speculation, nor one received by
tradition.” They are considered “as speechless animals.”

2. Men “who are in the country,” but “have their backs turned towards
the king’s palace, and their faces in another direction.” These are
“those who possess religion, belief and thought, but happen to hold
false doctrines, which they either adopted in consequence of great
mistakes made in their own speculations, or received from others who
misled them. Because of these doctrines they recede more and more from
the royal palace the more they seem to proceed. These are worse than the
first class, and under certain circumstances it may become necessary to
slay them, and to extirpate their doctrines, in order that others should
not be misled.”

3. “Those who desire to arrive at the palace, and to enter it, but have
never yet seen it.” These are “the mass of religious people; the
multitude that observe the divine commandments, but are ignorant.”

4. “Those who reach the palace, and go round about in search of the
entrance gate.” These are “those who believe traditionally in true
principles of faith, and learn the practical worship of God, but are not
trained in philosophical treatment of the principles of the _Torah_.” On
the same level with them are those who “are engaged in studying the
Mathematical Sciences and Logic.”

5. Those who “have come into the ante-chamber”—that is, “those who
undertake to investigate the principles of religion,” or those who have
“learnt to understand Physics.”

6. Those who have reached the highest stage, that of being “with the
king in the same palace.” These are they “who have mastered
Metaphysics—who have succeeded in finding a proof for everything that
can be proved—who have a true knowledge of God, so far as true knowledge
can be attained, and are near to the truth wherever only an approach to
the truth is possible.”[130]

In this classification Maimonides sets forth his ethical system in plain
terms, with perfect coldness and calm, as though there were nothing
startling about it. We of the present day feel our moral sense
particularly outraged by his cruel treatment of the second class—“those
who happen to hold false doctrines”—though we can understand that a
logical thinker like Maimonides, who always went the whole length of his
convictions, was bound to draw this conclusion from his philosophical
system. For that system regards “true opinions” as something much more
than “opinions”: it attributes to them the wonderful power of turning
the reasoning faculty into a separate and eternal being, and sees
therefore in the opposite opinions a danger to life in the most real
sense. But in Maimonides’ day the persecution of men for holding false
opinions was a common thing (though it was done in the name of religion,
not of philosophy); and even this piece of philosophic ruthlessness
created no stir and aroused no contemporary protest. What did stir
contemporary feeling to its depths was another conclusion involved in
his classification: namely, “that philosophers who occupy themselves
with physics and metaphysics are on a higher plane than men who occupy
themselves with the Torah.”[131] Whoever knows in what esteem our
ancestors of that period held the study of the _Torah_ will not be
surprised that “many wise men and Rabbis” were driven to the conclusion
that “this chapter was not written by the Master, or if it was, it
should be suppressed, or, best of all, burnt.”[132]

Poor, simple men! They did not see that this chapter could not be either
suppressed or burnt except in company with all the other chapters of
Maimonides’ system, which led him inevitably to this extreme conclusion.
But there were other men in Israel who saw more clearly, and actually
condemned all the chapters to the fire. To them we shall return later.


                                  III


The supremacy of Reason! Can we to-day, after the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, conceive how tremendous, how fundamental a
revolution the phrase implied in the time of Maimonides?

We all know that the outstanding characteristic of the human mind in the
Middle Ages was its negative attitude to human reason, its lack of faith
in the power of reason to direct man’s life and bring him to the goal of
real happiness. Reason was almost hated and despised as a dangerous
tempter and seducer: it led men away from the pursuit of truth and
goodness, and was to be eschewed by all who cared for their souls.
Fundamental questions about life and the universe had to receive
_super_-rational answers. The simpler and more reasonable the answer,
the more suspect and the less satisfactory it was; the stranger the
answer, the more violently opposed to sane reason, the more cordial was
its welcome and the more ready its acceptance. The famous _Credo quia
absurdum_ of one of the Church fathers was the cardinal rule of thought
for all cultured nations, Christian and Mohammedan alike. Nor had
Judaism escaped the sway of this principle. Not only the mass of the
people, but the leaders and teachers, generally speaking, believed in
the literal sense of the Scriptures and the Talmud, even where it was
plainly contrary to reason. The coarsest and crudest ideas about the
nature of the divine power and its relation to men, and about the soul
of man and its future in “the world to come”—ideas which reason cannot
tolerate for a moment—were almost universally held; and even those
learned in the Law staunchly maintained these ideas, because so they had
found it written in Bible or Talmud, and that which was written was
above reason, and no attention should be paid to that impudent scoffer.
It followed naturally from this fundamental point of view that the
important things in the sphere of morals were to know and to perform all
that was written. The function of reason was not to understand life and
the universe, but to understand what was written about life and the
universe. The thing best worth doing for a Jew was to ponder on the
written word and to work out its details, theoretically and practically,
to infinity.[133]

No doubt some Jewish teachers before Maimonides had tried to introduce
into Judaism more rational principles, which they had derived from
Arabic philosophy. But these attempts only affected details; the
cardinal principle remained untouched. Reason remained subordinate to
the written word; its truths were still discarded for the higher truth
of religion. The Gaon Saadiah, the greatest of the earlier Jewish
religious philosophers, explains the relation of reason to religion by
the following simile: “A man weighs his money, and finds that he has a
thousand pieces.” He gives different sums to a number of people, and
then, “wishing to show them quickly how much he has left, he says that
he has five hundred pieces, and offers to prove it by weighing his
money. When he weighs the money—which takes little time—and finds that
it amounts to five hundred pieces they are bound to believe what he told
them.” But there may be among them a particularly cautious man, who
wants to find the amount left over by the method of calculation—that is,
by adding together the various amounts distributed and subtracting their
sum from the original amount.[134] Religion, of course, is the weighing
process, which gives us the truth at once, by a method which is direct
and cannot be questioned. Reason corresponds to calculation: a cautious
man with plenty of time may use it to establish a truth which has
already been proved to him by the short and certain method of weighing.
But obviously calculation cannot change the result which weighing has
already given; and if there is any difference in the results, the
weighed money will neither be increased nor diminished, and the mistake
must be in the calculation. This way of regarding reason and its
relation to religion was common to all the Jewish thinkers who laboured,
before Maimonides, to reconcile religion and philosophy. They regarded
their labour only as a necessary evil. They shouldered the burden
because they saw that it had to be done; but in their heart of hearts
they were wholly on the side of religion, and it never occurred to them
to give reason precedence.[135] In this respect they were like the
Arabic religious philosophers; and like them they chose the
philosophical views which confirmed their religious faith rather than
those which were confirmed by reason. “They did not investigate,” writes
Maimonides, jeering at “philosophers” of this kind, “the real properties
of things; first of all they considered what must be the properties of
the things which should yield proof for or against a certain creed.”
They forgot “that the properties of things cannot adapt themselves to
our opinions, but our opinions must be adapted to the existing
properties.”[136]

If we remember that this was the general attitude of mind, we cannot
help asking how it could happen that in such a period and in such an
atmosphere Maimonides arrived at the doctrine of the supremacy of reason
in its most uncompromising form. No doubt, if we care to be satisfied
with any answer that comes to hand, we may say that Maimonides, starting
out with a predisposition in favour of the Arabic version of the
Aristotelian philosophy, and a sternly logical mind, could not stop
half-way, or fail to see the logical consequences of Aristotelianism.
But when we observe how, with a devotion far greater than that of his
non-Jewish teachers, he set himself to develop and extend the idea of
the supremacy of reason till it became a complete, all-embracing theory
of life; and when we remember also his love for the teachings of
Judaism, which ought to have induced in him a disposition not to extend
the empire of reason, but to restrict it: we are forced to confess that
logic alone could never have produced this phenomenon. There must have
been some psychological force, some inner motive power, to make
Maimonides so extreme and uncompromising a champion of reason.

We shall discover what this motive power was, I think, if we take
account of the political position of the Jews at that time.

It was a time when religious fanaticism was rife among the Moslems. In
many countries to profess another religion meant death, and large
numbers of Jews, who could with difficulty change their place of abode,
accepted Mohammedanism, though but outwardly. One of these countries was
Southern Spain, the birthplace of Maimonides, who was a boy of thirteen
when religious persecution broke out in that country. It may or may not
be true, as recent historians maintain, that he and his father and the
whole family changed their religion under compulsion: the question has
not yet been definitely settled. But there is no doubt that even if he
was saved by some means from an open change of faith, he was at any rate
forced to conceal his Judaism, for fear of oppression, so long as he
lived in Spain and in Fez (where religious persecution first started,
and fanaticism had its stronghold). It was only in Egypt that his
troubles ceased, and when he reached Egypt he was already about thirty
years of age. This, then, was the terrible position in which Maimonides
spent his years of development. He was surrounded by lying and religious
hypocrisy; Judaism had to hide from the light of day; its adherents had
to wear a mask whenever they came out of their homes into the open. And
why? Because Mohammed had called himself a prophet, had performed
miracles, according to his followers, to win their faith, and by virtue
of his prophetic power had promulgated a new Law and revealed new
truths, which all men were bound to believe, although they were contrary
to reason. This state of things was bound to make a profound impression
on a young man like Maimonides, with his fine nature and his devotion to
truth. He could not but feel every moment the tragedy of such a life;
and therefore he could not but become violently opposed to the source of
religious fanaticism—to that blind faith in the truth of prophecy which
relies on supernatural “evidence,” and despises the evidence of reason.
It was this blind faith that led the Moslems to force the Jews into
accepting the teaching of the new prophet; and it was this that led many
of these very Jews, after they had gradually become accustomed to their
new situation, to doubt of their Judaism and ask themselves why they
should not be able to believe in Mohammed’s prophecy, just as they
believed in that of Moses. If Moses had performed miracles, then surely
Mohammed might have done the same; and how could they decide between the
one teaching and the other with such certainty as to pronounce one true
and the other false?[137]

These impressions, which were constantly influencing Maimonides’
development in his childhood and youth, were bound to swing him
violently over to the other side, to the side of reason. Ultimately he
was led to subject man—and God too, if one may say so—to that supreme
ruler: because Judaism could trust reason never to allow any new prophet
with his new teaching to work it harm. When once Judaism had accepted
the supremacy of reason and handed over to reason the seal of truth, it
would never again be difficult to show by rational proof that the first
divine religion was also the only divine religion, never to be displaced
or altered till the end of time; and then, even if ten thousand prophets
like Mohammed came and performed miracles beyond telling, we should
never believe in their new teaching, because one proof of reason is
stronger than all the proofs of prophecy.[138]

Perhaps, too, Maimonides’ rationalism is traceable to yet another cause,
which lies like the first in the situation of the forced converts of
that period. These men were no doubt able to observe the Jewish law
within their own homes; the Moslems did not, like the Christians later,
invent an Inquisition to pry into every hole and corner. None the less,
Maimonides himself makes it clear that the Jews were often compelled to
break the commandments of their Law, when they could not observe them
without arousing suspicion in the minds of the authorities. This
naturally caused the unfortunate Jews great distress, and drove some of
them to despair. What, they asked themselves, was the use of remaining
true to their ancestral faith at heart, if they could not in practice
keep clear of transgressions both great and small, and must in any case
merit the pains of hell?[139] It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose
that this painful feeling also helped to lead Maimonides—though
unconsciously—towards the doctrine of the supremacy of reason, which
teaches that man’s “ultimate perfection does not include any action or
good conduct, but only knowledge”[140]—thus implying that man may win
salvation by attaining to true opinions, though he is sometimes forced
in practice to transgress the commands of religion.

However that may be, whether for these reasons or for others, we do find
that Maimonides had his system perfected and arranged in all its details
even in his early days, when he first came out of his study into public
life, and that he made scarcely any change in it from that time till the
day of his death.[141] All his efforts went to the propagation of his
teaching among his people, and to the endeavour to repair by its means
all the shortcomings which he found in contemporary Judaism.

These shortcomings were great indeed. Judaism, as Maimonides found it,
was by no means fulfilling its function as “the divine religion.” It was
not “true opinions” that the people derived from Judaism: on the
contrary, they had come, through a literal acceptance of all that it
taught, to hold false ideas about God and man, and had therefore by its
means been removed still further from perfection. Even the practical
duties of morality and religion could not easily be learnt by the people
generally from their religious writings. For in order to deduce practice
from theory it was necessary to navigate the great ocean of the Talmud,
and to spend years on minute and tangled controversies—a task for the
few only, not for the masses. Here, then, was an odd state of things.
The whole purpose of religion was to improve society at large, to speak
to the masses in a language which they understood; but if the masses
could not understand the language of religion, and could learn from it
neither true opinions nor practical duties, then religion was not
fulfilling its function in society, and its existence was useless.

This state of affairs produced in Maimonides, while he was still young,
an ardent desire to stand in the breach and make Judaism fit to fulfil
the double function—theoretical and practical—which it had as the only
“divine religion.” For this purpose it was necessary on the one hand to
show the whole people, in a form suited to its comprehension, the “true
opinions” contained in the _Torah_, and on the other hand to rescue the
practical commandments from the ocean of Talmudic disputation and to
teach them in a short and simple manner, so that they should be easily
remembered and become familiar to the people.

But in those early days Maimonides had not the courage to strike out a
new line and to present the whole content of religion in an entirely
fresh manner in conformity with his philosophical system. Hence he chose
a line which was already familiar, and decided to supply the need of his
own age by the help of a book which in its time had been intended to
fulfil a somewhat similar purpose—the Mishnah. Thus it was in the form
of a Commentary on the Mishnah that he tried to give his contemporaries
what they lacked: to wit, clear doctrine and a plain rule of practice.
Wherever the Mishnah leaves a point in doubt, he gives the decision laid
down in the Talmud; and wherever the Mishnah hints at some theoretical
opinion, he takes advantage of the opportunity to explain the “true
opinions.”[142] This latter process was, of course, especially important
to him; and he sometimes expatiates on the subject at much greater
length than is usual in a Commentary of the ordinary kind.[143] Thus he
was able to introduce into his Commentary, besides a mass of scattered
notes, complete essays on questions of faith and philosophy in the form
of Introductions to different sections of the Mishnah.[144]

Maimonides gave a great deal of work to this Commentary, which he began
and finished in his years of trouble and wandering. In the result he
produced a masterpiece, which remains to this day superior to all later
Commentaries on the Mishnah. But he did not achieve the principal object
for which he took so much trouble: he did not make religion effective.
His Commentary did not become widely known, and made no great
impression; still less did it bring about a revolution in popular
opinion, as its author hoped that it would. And it failed of its object
on the practical as well as on the theoretical side. Many of the later
laws, which have no basis in the Mishnah, could not be included in it;
and those that were included were scattered about in no proper order,
because the Mishnah itself has no strict order.

But as Maimonides grew older and reached middle life, years brought him
wider knowledge and greater confidence in himself. This self-confidence
gave him courage and decided him to approach his goal by another road.
He would produce a work of striking originality, such as no Jew had ever
produced before.

So he set to work on his _Mishneh Torah_. Instead of a Commentary on the
Mishnah of R. Jehudah, Maimonides now produced a Mishnah of his own, new
in content as in arrangement.[145] Here he sets forth all the practical
laws of religion and morality and all the “true opinions” in the form
best adapted to the understanding of ordinary men, in beautiful and
clear language and in perfect logical order. Everything is put in its
right place; decisions are given without hair-splitting arguments;
opinions are set out untrammelled by arguments or proofs. In a word, the
book presents all that the divine religion ought to give in order to
fulfil its function, and presents it in precisely the right manner.[146]

This time Maimonides was justified in supposing that he had fulfilled
his duty to his people and his religion, and had attained the end which
he had set before himself. Within a short time this great book spread
through the length and breadth of Jewry, and helped considerably not
only to make the practical commandments more widely known, but also to
purify and transform popular religious notions. Views distinguished by
their freedom and their antagonism to current religious ideas appeared
here in the innocent guise of canonical dicta; and as they were couched
in the language of the Mishnah and in the familiar terminology of the
old religious literature, people did not realise how far they were being
carried, but swallowed the new ideas almost without resistance. If the
dose was accepted not as pure philosophy, but as religious dogma, that
was precisely what Maimonides intended: for according to his system
religion was to teach philosophical truth to the masses in the guise of
“divine” truth which needed no proof.

But Maimonides’ work was not yet completed. In the _Mishneh Torah_ he
had reformed religion so far as its social function was concerned: that
is to say, so far as the needs of the common people demanded. He had
still to reform it from the point of view of the function of society
itself: that is to say, to meet the needs of the chosen few. For the
common people it was necessary to clothe philosophical truth in
religious garb; for the few it was necessary to do just the reverse—to
discover and expose the philosophical truth that lay beneath the
religious garb. For this minority, consisting of those whom “human
reason had attracted to abide within its sphere”—who had learnt and
understood the prevailing philosophy of the time with all its preambles
and its proofs—could not help seeing the deep gulf between philosophy
and Judaism in its literal acceptation. It was impossible to hide the
inner contradiction from such men by means of a superficial gloss, or to
harmonise discrepancies of detail by a generalisation. What then should
one of these men do if he were not only a philosopher, but also “a
religious man who has been trained to believe in the truth of our Law”?
He must always be in a state of “perplexity and anxiety.” “If he be
guided solely by reason ... he would consider that he had rejected the
fundamental principles of the Law; ... and if, instead of following his
reason, he abandon its guidance altogether, it would still appear that
his religious convictions had caused him loss and injury. For he would
then be left with those errors [_i.e._, those derived from a literal
interpretation of Scripture], and would be a prey to fear and anxiety,
constant grief and great perplexity.”[147]

If we remember Maimonides’ conception of the “actualisation” of
intellect, and how it obtains independent existence through
understanding the Ideas, we shall see that he was bound to regard this
perplexity of the “perfect individuals” as being in itself not merely
something undesirable, but a grave danger from the point of view of the
supreme end of mankind. For how could these perplexed men attain to the
summit of perfection, to “acquired intellect,” if they doubted the truth
of reason because it did not square with the truths of religion, with
the result that subject and object could not be united in them and
become a single, indivisible whole? If the divine teaching itself brings
“loss and injury” to the chosen few, the harm that it does more than
outweighs the good that it has done in improving the multitude and thus
removing social obstacles from the path of the few.

This grave evil required a remedy; the “perplexed” had to be satisfied
that they could devote themselves peacefully to the acquisition of the
Ideas, without being disturbed by the thought that in so doing they were
rejecting the fundamental principles of the Law. This was the task which
Maimonides set himself in his last book, the _Guide for the Perplexed_.
The book is in a way his own confession of faith; it shows his perplexed
pupils the method by which he has succeeded in escaping from his own
perplexity. After what has been said above, we need not here deal with
this book at length. The “true opinions” which it contains have already
been explained in outline; the method by which these opinions are
discovered in the _Torah_ has been broadly indicated, and the details
are not essential to our present purpose. It does not matter to us _how_
Maimonides subordinated religion to reason; the important thing is that
he did subordinate it. From this point of view we may put the whole
teaching of the _Guide_ in a single sentence. “Follow reason and reason
only,” he tells the “perplexed,” “and explain religion in conformity
with reason: for reason is the goal of mankind, and religion is only a
means to the end.”

Had Maimonides written the _Guide_ before he wrote the _Mishneh Torah_,
he would certainly have been pronounced a heretic, and his book would
have made no deep impression either in the orthodox camp or in that of
the doubters. The orthodox would have turned their backs on it and have
striven to blot out its memory, as they did with so many other books
which they thought dangerous to their faith; and the doubters would not
have accepted its views as a perfect doctrine, but would have regarded
it as merely an attempt on the part of one of their fellow-doubters to
escape from his perplexity, and an attempt which in many details had
failed and could not give entire satisfaction.

But in fact the _Guide_ was written after the _Mishneh Torah_, when
Maimonides was already considered the greatest exponent of the Law, and
enjoyed an unequalled reputation throughout the Diaspora. Hence even the
_Guide_ could not dethrone him from his eminence. Willingly or
unwillingly, his contemporaries accepted this further gift at his hands.
The believers stormed and raged among themselves, but did not dare to
attack Maimonides openly so long as he lived. The doubters welcomed the
book with open arms; they did not stop to test or criticise, but drank
eagerly of the comforting draught for which their souls had been
thirsting. It was not some sophist, but the greatest sage in Israel, the
light of the Exile, who went before them like a pillar of fire to
illumine their path. How could they but be satisfied with such a guide?

But things changed when Maimonides’ death freed the zealots from the
restraint of fear. A fierce conflict broke out about him, and raged for
a hundred years. The religious leaders, long accustomed to ban every
book that did not suit their views, could not possess their souls in
silence when they saw, for the first time in Jewish history, that
revolutionary books like the _Guide_ and the _Book of Science_ were
spread abroad without let or hindrance, and were more popular and more
esteemed by the people at large than almost any of the other books which
the teachers and sages of Israel had placed in the treasury of
Judaism.[148] The details of this conflict are familiar to scholars, and
it is not my intention here to write the history of that period. But it
is worth pointing out that most of Maimonides’ opponents at that time
did not recognise clearly the fundamental change which he had introduced
into Judaism. No doubt they all felt that his teaching meant a complete
revolution in the national outlook; but they did not all understand what
was the pivotal issue of the revolution. For the most part they merely
pointed to certain details in which they found heresy, such as the
denial of resurrection, of hell and paradise, and so forth. Only a few
of them understood that Maimonides’ teaching was revolutionary not
because of his attitude on this or that particular question, but because
he dethroned religion altogether from the supreme judgment-seat, and put
reason in its place: because he made it his basic principle that
“whenever a Scripture is contradicted by proof we do not accept the
Scripture,” but _explain_ it in accordance with reason.[149]

This emancipation of reason from its subordination to an external
authority is the great and eternal achievement which has so endeared
Maimonides to all those of our people who have striven after knowledge
and the light. The theoretical system at which Maimonides worked so hard
from his youth to the end of his life has long been swept away, together
with the Arabic metaphysics on which it was based. But the practical
consequence of that system—the emancipation of reason—remains, and has
left its mark on the history of Jewish thought up to the present day.
Every Jew who has left the old school and traversed the hard and bitter
road that leads from blind faith to free reason must have met with
Maimonides at the beginning of his journey, and must have found in him a
source of strength and support for his first steps, which are the
hardest and the most dangerous. This road was traversed not only by
Mendelssohn, but also by Spinoza,[150] and before and after them by
countless thinkers, many of whom won golden reputations within Judaism
or outside it.

S. D. Luzzatto’s criticism of Maimonides, on the ground that his views
on the nature of the soul led to the degradation of reason in Jewish
thought, is superficial. Maimonides, according to him, “laid down what
we must believe and what we must not believe,” whereas before his time
there was no rigid dogma, “and there was no ban on opinions to prevent
each thinker from believing what he thought true.”[151] Now this is not
the place to show how far Luzzatto was from historical accuracy when he
credited pre-Maimonidean Judaism with freedom of thought. To understand
the true nature of that freedom we need only remember how Maimonides’
opponents—who were certainly faithful to the older Judaism—spoke and
acted in the period of conflict. But as regards Maimonides himself,
Luzzatto overlooks the fact that, while his psychological theory no
doubt led him to regard certain opinions as obligatory, he placed the
source of the obligation no longer in any external authority, but
precisely in human reason. That being so, the obligation could not
involve a ban on opinions. For as soon as other thinkers are persuaded
that human reason does not make these particular opinions obligatory,
they are bound, _in conformity with Maimonides’ own system_, to believe
each what he thinks true, and not what Maimonides erroneously thought
true. In other words: if we wish to judge Maimonides’ system from the
point of view of its effects on Judaism, we must look not at the
Thirteen Articles which he laid down as obligatory principles in
accordance with that system, but at the one principle which underlies
all others—that of the supremacy of reason. A philosopher who frees
reason from authority in general must at the same time free it from his
own authority; he cannot regard any view as obligatory except so long as
it is made obligatory by reason. Imagine a man put in prison and given
the key: can he be said to have lost his liberty?[152]


                                   IV


Here ends what I wished to say about the supremacy of reason in
Maimonides’ system; and here I might conclude this Essay. But I should
like to add some remarks on another supremacy—on that of the national
sentiment. In these days we cannot discuss the thought of one of our
great men, even if there are seven hundred years between him and us,
without wanting to know whether and to what extent his thought reveals
traces of that sentiment which we now regard as the most vital element
in the life of Judaism.

But this question really contains two different questions, which have to
be answered differently so far as Maimonides is concerned. The first
question is: Did Maimonides recognise the supremacy of the national
sentiment in the spiritual life of his people, and allow it consciously
and of set purpose an important place in the teaching of Judaism? The
second is: Do we find traces of the supremacy of the national
sentiment—as an unconscious and spontaneous instinct—in the mentality of
Maimonides himself?[153]

The first question cannot be answered in the affirmative: the evidence
is rather on the negative side. Had Maimonides recognised clearly the
strength of the national sentiment as a force in Jewish life, and its
importance as a factor in the development of Judaism, he would
undoubtedly have used it, as Jehudah Halevi did, to explain the numerous
features of Judaism which have their origin in the national sentiment.
At any rate, he would not have endeavoured to invest those features with
a universalistic character. For instance, in seeking reasons for the
commandments he could easily have found that many of them have no
purpose but to strengthen the feeling of national unity; and he would
not have said of the Festivals that they “promote the good feeling that
men should have to each other in their social and political
relations.”[154] Nor would he have said, in dealing with the future
redemption, that “the wise men and the prophets only longed for the days
of the Messiah in order that they might be free to study the _Torah_ and
its wisdom, without any oppression or interference, and so might win
eternal life.”[155] No doubt we do sometimes find in his Letters, and
especially in those that were written to encourage his people in times
of national trouble, feeling references to the fortunes and the mission
of the Jewish people.[156] But despite these isolated and casual
references, only one conclusion can be drawn from the general tenor of
Maimonides’ teaching: that he did not recognise the value of the
national element in Jewish life, and did not allow that element due
weight in his exposition of Judaism.[157] On the other hand, various
indications show that in Maimonides himself the national sentiment was,
without his knowledge, a powerful force: so much so, that it sometimes
actually drove him from the straight road of logic and reason, and
entangled him—of all men—in contradictions which had no ground or
justification in his theory. We shall always find in the psychology of
even the most logical thinker, despite his efforts to give to reason the
undivided empire of his thought, some remote corner to which its sway
cannot extend; and we shall always find a rebel band of ideas, which
reason cannot control, breaking out from that point of vantage to
disturb the order of its realm. Of this truth Maimonides may serve as an
example. It is particularly evident in regard to the dogmas of Judaism
which he laid down, accompanied by a declaration that “if any man
rejects one of these fundamental beliefs, he severs himself from the
community and denies a principle of Judaism: he is called a heretic and
an unbeliever, and it is right to hate him and to destroy him.”[158] As
we have already seen, it is an inevitable consequence of Maimonides’
teaching that the dogmas of religion must be formulated clearly and made
obligatory on the whole people. But in strict accordance with his system
Maimonides ought to have included among the dogmas only those “true
opinions” without which religion could not have been maintained or have
fulfilled its function. And in fact all his dogmas are of that
character, except only the two last—those which assert the coming of the
Messiah and the resurrection. How, then, did he come to include these
two?

This question was raised soon after Maimonides’ own time (especially in
regard to the belief in the Messiah); and his critics rightly pointed
out that before laying down dogmas one must define exactly what is meant
by a dogma, so that we may know how to distinguish between what may and
what may not be properly so called.[159] It is indeed strange that
Maimonides forgot so elementary a rule of logic, and still more strange
when we remember that elsewhere, in enumerating the six hundred and
thirteen commandments of the Law, he was fully alive to the necessity of
explaining first of all “the principles which it is proper to take as a
criterion,” in order to select from the multitude of ordinances in the
_Torah_ those capital commandments from which the rest are derived. For
this reason he fell foul of the earlier enumerations, which he regarded
as ignorantly made and full of mistakes; and for his own part he first
laid down fourteen “principles,” and then proceeded to enumerate the
commandments according to those principles.[160] But if this procedure
was necessary in dealing with the practical commandments, surely it was
even more necessary in the case of the dogmas of faith. How, then, did
it happen that Maimonides embarked on so important a task as the
enumeration of dogmas without first laying down some principle by which
to guide himself?

It seems to me that we have to do here not with a casual mistake, but
with one of those facts which indicate that the national sentiment was
strong enough in Maimonides to conquer even logic. If Maimonides had set
out to define the term “dogma” in its purely religious sense, he could
not have found the slightest justification for regarding the national
belief in a future redemption as a dogma. But he felt that a national
hope was necessary to the existence of the nation; and without the
existence of the nation the continuance of its religion is unthinkable.
It was this feeling that made him for once oblivious of logic, and
prevented him from clearing up in his own mind the nature of religious
dogmas in general, so that he might be able to include among them that
national belief on which the nation depends for its existence, although
it has no direct relation to the maintenance of religion as such.[161]

So also with the belief in resurrection, by which our people has always
set great store in its exile. Every individual Jew has suffered the pain
of exile not merely in his own person, but as a member of his people;
his indignation and grief have been excited not by his private trouble
only, but by the national trouble. He could find personal consolation in
the hope of eternity in paradise; but this did not blunt the edge of the
national trouble, which demanded its consolation in the prospect of a
bright future for the nation. In those days the individual Jew was no
longer, as in ancient times, keenly conscious that successive
generations were made one by the organic life of the nation; and he
could not therefore find consolation in the happiness which awaited his
people at the end of time, but which he himself would not share. Hence
he clung to the belief in resurrection, which offered what he required—a
reward to himself for his individual share of the national grief. Just
as every Jew had participated, during his own lifetime, in the national
sorrow, so would every Jew be privileged in the future to see with his
own eyes the national consolation and redemption.[162] Thus the belief
in resurrection was complementary to the belief in the Messiah. United,
they gave the people heart and strength to bear the yoke of exile and to
battle successfully against a sea of troubles, confident that sooner or
later the haven would be reached. When, therefore, Maimonides found it
written in the Mishnah (beginning of chapter _Chelek_) that he who
denies resurrection forfeits eternal life, he did not feel any need to
explain this statement in a sense opposed to its literal meaning, as he
usually did when his system so demanded, but took it just as he found
it, and made it a dogma. He satisfied his heart at the expense of his
head.

Strangely enough, Maimonides himself was perplexed over the question of
resurrection, and could not explain why he clung to a belief which it
was not easy to combine with his own theory of the soul and the future
life. When he formulates the dogmas in his Commentary on the Mishnah, he
passes hurriedly over this one, and dismisses it in a few words, as
though he were afraid that if he lingered at this point logic would
catch him up and ask awkward questions. In the _Mishneh Torah_, again,
he does not explain this dogma at all, either at the beginning of the
book, where he deals with the Foundations of the Law, or at the end,
where he discusses the Messianic Age. This omission led some of his
critics to suspect that he did not really believe in a literal
resurrection of the body, but explained it in the sense of the rebirth
of the soul hereafter (on which he enlarges very often). This suspicion
made him very indignant, and he wrote a whole treatise to prove that he
had never intended to take resurrection in any but its literal sense. On
the contrary, he maintained that the belief must be accepted literally,
and that it was in no way inconsistent with what he had written or with
his general view.[163] But the arguments in this treatise are all very
weak, and the general impression which it leaves is that he did not
clearly understand his own mind. He felt instinctively that he could not
give up this belief, though it was foreign to his system; but it was
only with great difficulty that he could explain why he allowed it such
importance. It was, of course, impossible for a man like Maimonides to
admit to himself that he was following feeling rather than reason. He
tried therefore to justify his standpoint on rational grounds, but
without success.[164]

We find the same struggle between philosophical system and national
sentiment in Maimonides’ attitude to the Hebrew language. From the point
of view of his system he naturally saw no difference between one
language and another: what matters is the idea, not its external dress.
Hence he lays it down that speech “is not to be forbidden or allowed,
loved or despised, according to the language, but according to the
subject. That which is lofty may be said in whatever language; that
which is mean may not be said in any language.”[165] Practising what he
preached, he wrote most of his books not in Hebrew, but in Arabic,
because he thought that by being written in the ordinary language of his
age and his surroundings they would be of greater use from the point of
view of their subject-matter. The only book that he wrote in Hebrew was
the _Mishneh Torah_; and here also he was guided by practical
considerations. He chose the language of the Mishnah because he wanted
his people to regard the book with respect as a kind of second Mishnah.
The beautiful Mishnaic language would carry off the “true opinions,”
which needed the help of a sacred language to make them holy and bring
them under the ægis of religion. Thus far Maimonides the philosopher.
But in his letters we find clear indications that after he had finished
his work his national sentiment proved stronger than his philosophy, and
he regretted that he had not written his other works in Hebrew as well.
Not only that, but he actually thought of translating them into the
national language himself, so as “to separate that which is precious
from that which is defiled, and to restore stolen goods to their
rightful owner.” But the decline of his powers in old age did not permit
him to carry out this intention, and the Hebrew translation had to wait
for other hands. Some of it was done in his lifetime; and his letter to
the translator of the _Guide_ shows how pleased he was.[166]

But there is really no need to look for the influence of the national
sentiment in particular parts of Maimonides’ work. His work as a whole
cannot be fully understood unless we allow for this sentiment. Of
course, as we have seen, Maimonides’ efforts to improve religion were
the result of his philosophy, which taught him that religion must be
made fit to fulfil its function in the spheres of theory and practice;
and for his own part he certainly believed that he was actuated solely
by this conviction, and was doing, as needs he must, what reason
demanded of him. But we, who look at things in the light of modern
psychology, which tells us that intellectual conviction is not
sufficient to produce sustained effort unless it is accompanied by a
strong emotion, whereby the will is roused to conquer all obstacles—we
cannot conceive the possibility of arduous work without a compelling
emotion. And when we look for the emotion which is most likely to
furnish an explanation in this particular case, we shall find none
except the national sentiment.

For we know, on the one hand, that religious laws were for Maimonides
nothing but an instrument of education—a means of confirming people in
true beliefs and good habits of life. Moreover, he regarded many of them
(sacrifices and the ceremonial associated with sacrifices) as merely a
necessary evil, designed to restrict a bad practice which had taken root
in the national life at an early period, and could not be abolished
entirely; and even this justification applied only to the laws as a
whole, while their details, as we saw above, were in his opinion wholly
without meaning or significance. And yet, holding such views, he worked
day and night for ten years to collect all these laws and arrange them,
with meticulous exactness, down to their smallest details. Whoever
realises the enormous labour that it required to get together the mass
of legal prescriptions, scattered over an extensive literature, must
admit that no man can be qualified for the work (even if he recognises
its usefulness from a certain point of view) unless the work itself has
a strong attachment for him. To see the usefulness of the work is not
enough; it must be a real labour of love. What then can have kept
Maimonides to his task if not the national sentiment, which made him
love his people’s Law and ancient customs even where his philosophy did
not attach to them any particular importance?

And on the other side, Maimonides could not have laboured to turn
Judaism into a pure philosophy without the help of the national
sentiment. We can understand the religious philosopher who tries to
effect a compromise between religion and philosophy. The impelling force
is his religious feeling: anxious to save religion from the danger
threatened by rationalism, he adopts the familiar expedient of dressing
religion in the trappings of philosophy, so as to safeguard its
essential meaning. But when a philosopher starts, as Maimonides did,
with the conviction that there is no room for compromise, but that
religion is compelled, willy-nilly, to teach only what reason approves
and when he labours indefatigably to purify religious belief of all
super-rational elements, and to turn its essential content into a pure
philosophical system, and all this by long and devious methods, which
reason cannot always approve: then we are bound to ask what emotion it
was that gave him the strength and the will-power required for so
difficult a task. Religious emotion certainly gained nothing from a
process by which religion was driven from its own throne and deprived of
its letters patent as a guide to eternal happiness along a private road
of its own. Philosophical emotion—if the term may be used—might have
gained more if Maimonides had accepted and prescribed the method adopted
by free-thinkers before and after him—that of leaving faith to the
believing masses and being satisfied for his own part with reason alone.
But the national sentiment did gain a great deal by the transformation
of the Jewish religion—the only national inheritance which had survived
to unite our scattered people in exile—into philosophical truth, firmly
based on rational and (as Maimonides sincerely believed) irrefragable
proofs, and consequently secure for all time against assault.

So we come finally to the conclusion that Maimonides, too, like the
other Jewish thinkers, had as the ultimate aim of his great work (though
perhaps he did not realise it clearly) the shaping of the content and
form of Judaism into a fortress on which the nation could depend for its
continuance in exile. There is only this difference: that whereas his
predecessors held Judaism secure because it was _above_ reason,
Maimonides came and said: “No! Judaism is secure because it _is_
reason.”

Footnote 86:

  [Maimonides died on the 13th December, 1204.]

Footnote 87:

  [Jewish Law.]

Footnote 88:

  [Allusion to well-known speeches at Zionist Congresses.]

Footnote 89:

  _Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Law_, chaps. i.-iv.

Footnote 90:

  _Ibid._, chap. iv. 1.

Footnote 91:

  _Guide_, Part I., chap. i. [In rendering quotations from the _Moreh
  Nebuchim_ (_Guide for the Perplexed_) the translator has used Dr.
  Friedländer’s English version so far as possible.]

Footnote 92:

  _Foundations of the Law_, _ibid._, 7.

Footnote 93:

  In the upper world Aristotle’s philosophy postulates the existence of
  forms divorced from matter: they are the “separate Intelligences,”
  which emanate one from another and are eternal (see _Foundations of
  the Law_, _ibid._, and _Guide_, Part II., chap. iv.).

Footnote 94:

  _Guide_, Part III., chap. viii.

Footnote 95:

  _Foundations of the Law_, _ibid._, 8 and 9.

Footnote 96:

  _Eight Chapters_, chap. i.

Footnote 97:

  See Munk, _Le Guide des Egarés_, I., pp. 304-8 (note).

Footnote 98:

  _Guide_, Part I., chaps. lxx. and lxxii. and _passim_. For details see
  Munk (_ibid._), and Dr. Scheyer’s monograph, _Das Psychologische
  System des Maimonides_, Frankfort a/M, 1845.

Footnote 99:

  _Foundations of the Law_, chap. iv., 8, 9.

Footnote 100:

  There is some ground for thinking that Maimonides thought of the
  eternal existence after death of the possessors of “acquired
  intellect” not as personal, but as a common existence in which they
  are all united as a single separate being. See _Guide_, III., chap.
  xxvii., and _Foundations_, _ibid._, and chap. ii., 5-6. This has been
  pointed out by Dr. Joel in _Die Religionsphilosophie des Mose ben
  Maimon_, Breslau, 1876 (p. 25, note).

Footnote 101:

  _Guide_, I., chap. lxviii.

Footnote 102:

  According to the division of the sciences current in those days, all
  this knowledge of true Being is contained in Physics and Metaphysics.

Footnote 103:

  All this teaching is scattered up and down Maimonides’ works, partly
  in explicit statements and partly in hints (see, _e.g._, _Guide_,
  III., chap. li.). Dr. Scheyer was the first to work out these
  definitions in detail (_ibid._, chap. iii.). In general it must be
  remembered that Maimonides nowhere explains his whole system in
  logical order, and we are therefore compelled, if we would understand
  his system as it was conceived in his mind, to make use of scattered
  utterances, hints, and half-sentences written by the way, to explain
  obscure statements by others more precise, and to resort freely to
  inference.

Footnote 104:

  _Guide_, III., chap. xiii., and Introduction to _Commentary on the
  Mishnah_, section _Zera’im_.

Footnote 105:

  Introduction cited in last note.

Footnote 106:

  _Ibid._

Footnote 107:

  _Guide_, III., chap. li. Maimonides does not there emphasise the
  difference between practical studies on the one hand and mathematics
  and logic on the other, because this is not germane to his purpose at
  the moment. But the distinction is necessarily implied.

Footnote 108:

  _Guide_, III., chaps. xxvii. and liv.; _Hilchoth De’oth_, chaps. iii.
  and iv.

Footnote 109:

  Introduction to _Zera’im_.

Footnote 110:

  Maimonides’ attitude to perfection of character is most clearly
  revealed by the fact that he calls it “bodily perfection,” in contrast
  to “perfection of the soul,” which is _intellectual_ perfection
  (_Guide_, III., chap. xxvii.).

Footnote 111:

  See _Hilchoth De’oth_, chap. i.; _Eight Chapters_, chap. iv.

Footnote 112:

  _Guide_, III., chap. liv.

Footnote 113:

  See _Eight Chapters_, end of chap. iv. and beginning of chap. v.
  Lazarus (_Ethik des Judentums_, I., chap. xiv.) fails to notice this
  difference between Aristotle and Maimonides, and therefore finds it
  strange that Maimonides introduces Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean
  into Jewish ethics.

Footnote 114:

  Introduction to _Zera’im_.

Footnote 115:

  See _Guide_, III., chaps. xxvii., xxxiv. Maimonides is not explicit on
  the relation of the minority to social morality; but his view on this
  question is evident from what he says in the chapters quoted, and
  _passim._

Footnote 116:

  _Eight Chapters_, chap. v.

Footnote 117:

  _Guide_, II., chap. xxv.

Footnote 118:

  _Guide_, II., chaps. xxv. and xvi.

Footnote 119:

  Maimonides explains his views on the methods of divine revelation and
  the nature of prophecy in general, and of the prophecy of Moses in
  particular, in several places: especially in _Guide_, II., chaps.
  xxxii.-xlviii., and in _Mishneh Torah_, section _Foundations of the
  Law_, chap. vii. But for our present purpose we need not enter into
  these speculations. It suffices to say that here also he was true to
  his own system. The Prophet is for him the most perfect “actual man”;
  and the divine inspiration reaches the Prophet through that separate
  Intelligence (“active intellect”) which is, according to the
  philosophical system adopted by Maimonides, charged with the guidance
  of the world and with the raising of all forms (including the form of
  the soul) from potentiality to actuality.

Footnote 120:

  See _Guide_, III., xxvi.

Footnote 121:

  _Ibid._, chaps. xxiii. and xxviii.; see also II., chaps. xxxiv. and
  xl.

Footnote 122:

  See _Guide_, II., chaps. xxxix. and xl.; and especially the _Iggereth
  Teman_.

Footnote 123:

  All this is explained in many passages throughout Maimonides’ books,
  which are too numerous to be particularised.

Footnote 124:

  For the “reasons of the commandments” see _Guide_, III., chaps.
  xxvi.-xlix.

Footnote 125:

  For instance: there is a reason for sacrifices in general. “But we
  cannot say why one offering should be a lamb, whilst another is a ram;
  and why a fixed number of them should be brought.... You ask why must
  a lamb be sacrificed and not a ram? but the same question would be
  asked, why a ram had been commanded instead of a lamb, so long as one
  particular kind is required. The same is to be said as to the question
  why were seven lambs sacrificed and not eight; the same question might
  have been asked if there were eight.” _Guide_, III., chap. xxvi.

Footnote 126:

  Introduction to _Zera’im_.

Footnote 127:

  _Guide_, II., chap. xxxix., and III., chap. xxxiv.

Footnote 128:

  See _Guide_, II., chap. xxix.; _Eight Chapters_, chap. viii.

Footnote 129:

  Introduction to _Zera’im_; see also _Foundations of the Law_, chaps.
  ix. and x.

Footnote 130:

  _Guide_, III., chap. li.

Footnote 131:

  See R. Shem-Tob’s Commentary on the _Guide_, _loc. cit._

Footnote 132:

  _Ibid._

Footnote 133:

  Maimonides himself describes the contemporary state of culture among
  his people in several places. See, for instance, the _Treatise on
  Resurrection_.

Footnote 134:

  _Emunoth v’ Deoth_, Preface.

Footnote 135:

  R. Jehudah Halevi, despite his profound knowledge of contemporary
  philosophy, says categorically: “He who accepts this [the Law]
  completely, without scrutiny or argument, is better off than he who
  investigates and analyses” (_Cuzri_, II., xxvi. [Dr. Hirschfeld’s
  translation]).

Footnote 136:

  _Guide_, I., chap. lxxi.

Footnote 137:

  As to the state of mind of the forced converts at that time see what
  Maimonides says in the _Treatise of the Sanctification of the Name_
  and the _Iggereth Teman_.

Footnote 138:

  See Section II. above. Note especially what Maimonides says about
  prophecy in the Introduction to his _Commentary on the Mishnah_
  (written at the time when he lived among the forced converts). Some of
  this is quoted in Section II. He writes there with such incisive force
  as to make it clear that he has left the realm of pure speculation and
  theory, and has a practical object connected with actual circumstances
  which had stirred him deeply at the time.

Footnote 139:

  All this is clearly hinted in Maimonides’ _Treatise of the
  Sanctification of the Name_.

Footnote 140:

  _Guide_, III., chap. xxvii.

Footnote 141:

  We find all the principles of his system in the Introduction to his
  first book (the _Commentary on the Mishnah_), and again at the end of
  his last book (_Guide_, III., chap. li.).

Footnote 142:

  See Introduction to _Commentary on the Mishnah_.

Footnote 143:

  “This is not the place to treat of this matter; but it is my
  intention, wherever a matter of belief is mentioned, to explain it
  briefly. For I love to teach nothing so much as one of the principles
  of religion” (end of _Berachoth_).

Footnote 144:

  Especially important in this connection are the Introductions to
  _Zera’im_, to chapter _Chelek_ (where he brings in all the principles
  of religion), and to _Aboth_ (_Eight Chapters_).

Footnote 145:

  His Preface makes it clear that he regarded his book as a sort of
  Mishnah in a new form; and it seems (though he does not say it in so
  many words) that he intended to hint at this idea by the title of the
  book—_Mishneh Torah_.

Footnote 146:

  There were many writers who suspected that Maimonides’ idea was to do
  away altogether with the study of the Talmud. But this suspicion could
  arise only from failure to understand clearly the real purpose of the
  book. Even theories are presented here in dogmatic form; but could it
  possibly be imagined that Maimonides wanted to do away with the study
  of philosophy by the long method of argument and proof—that study
  which he regarded as the purpose of the human race? The truth is that
  he had in view the social function of religion, and for this reason he
  set forth both theories and practical commands in brief and in a
  manner suited to the comprehension of ordinary men. He left it to the
  chosen few to study the principles of both the theoretical and the
  practical law, and to obtain from the original sources a knowledge of
  the reasons for both.

Footnote 147:

  _Guide_, Introduction.

Footnote 148:

  After the publication of the _Guide_ many people discovered that its
  opinions were already contained in the innocent-looking dicta of the
  _Mishneh Torah_, especially in its first part (_The Book of Science_),
  and from that time onward they regarded that book also as heretical,
  and waged war on it as well as on the _Guide_.

Footnote 149:

  See the letter of R. Jehudah Alfachar to Kimchi: _Collected Responses
  of Maimonides_ (ed. Leipsic), Part III., p. 1, _et seq._

Footnote 150:

  See Dr. Joel’s monograph, _Spinoza’s Theologisch-Politischer Traktat
  auf seine Quellen geprüft_, Breslau, 1870.

Footnote 151:

  See _Kerem Chemed_, III., pp. 67-70.

Footnote 152:

  I may remark in passing that Luzzatto (_ibid._) accuses Maimonides of
  yet another disservice to Judaism. By making opinions the essential
  element of perfection Maimonides, according to him, abolished the
  difference between the righteous man and the wicked. “The
  philosopher,” he says, “may commit theft, murder, and adultery, and
  yet attain eternal life: salvation does not depend on merit.” This
  charge was already brought against Maimonides by his medieval
  opponents, but it is quite mistaken. Maimonides insists, over and over
  again, that until a man has moral perfection it is impossible for him
  to reach intellectual perfection to the degree necessary for the
  attainment of acquired intellect. See, for instance, the passage from
  the introduction to _Zera’im_ quoted above (p. 174).

Footnote 153:

  Though the conception of “nationalism” in its current sense is modern,
  the national sentiment itself has existed in our people at all times;
  and its existence and value have been realised in our literature in
  every period, from the Bible and the Talmud to the literature of
  Chassidism, though it used to be called by other names (“the love of
  Israel,” etc.). But the sentiment and its expression do not appear to
  the same extent or in the same form in all ages and in all
  individuals, and it is therefore legitimate to ask what was the
  attitude of any particular age or any particular thinker to the
  national sentiment. An interesting book might be written on the
  history of the national sentiment and consciousness in Israel, dealing
  with their different manifestations in different ages, their growth
  and decline, and their expression in the life of the nation and the
  thought of its great men in each period.

Footnote 154:

  _Guide_, III., chap. xliii. Similarly in chap. xlviii.

Footnote 155:

  End of _Mishneh Torah_.

Footnote 156:

  See the _Iggereth Teman_ and the _Treatise of the Sanctification of
  the Name_.

Footnote 157:

  A German Jewish scholar, Dr. D. Rosin, in his monograph on the ethics
  of Maimonides (_Die Ethik des Maimonides_, Breslau, 1876), finds under
  the heading of “Nationalism” (p. 148) only two laws in the whole
  _Mishneh Torah_ which allude to the duties of the Jew to his people.
  But in fact the two laws which he quotes (_Hilchoth T’shubah_, chap.
  iii. 11, and _Hilchoth Matnath ’Aniim_, chap. x. 2) emphasise rather
  the unity of the members of one faith.

Footnote 158:

  Introduction to chapter _Chelek_.

Footnote 159:

  See Albo, _Ikkarim_, Part I, chap. 1.

Footnote 160:

  See his Introduction to the _Sepher Hammitzvoth_.

Footnote 161:

  I remarked on this point years ago in “Past and Future.” [See
  _Selected Essays by Ahad Ha’am_, p. 87.]

Footnote 162:

  Cf. _supra_, p. 10.

Footnote 163:

  See the _Treatise on Resurrection_.

Footnote 164:

  Luzzatto (_ubi supra_) seems to suspect that Maimonides’ whole
  treatment of resurrection was insincere, and that he was deliberately
  throwing dust in the reader’s eyes, in order to conceal his heresy.
  But this suspicion is absurd: Maimonides was a man who was not afraid
  openly to reject even the immortality of the soul, and to recast all
  the fundamental beliefs of Judaism. Any unbiassed reader of the
  treatise must realise that Maimonides defends resurrection with
  perfect sincerity, but that he is unable to find the real grounds of
  his own conviction, because he looks for them in his reason and not in
  his feelings.

Footnote 165:

  _Commentary on the Mishnah, Aboth_, chap. i. 17.

Footnote 166:

  See his letters to Joseph ben Gabar, to the community of Lunel, and to
  R. Samuel Ibn Tibbon (_Collected Responses of Maimonides_ (Leipsic),
  Part II., pp. 16, 27, 44).




                        JUDAISM AND THE GOSPELS
                                 (1910)


English Jewry is at ease. There are no doubt traces here and there of
anti-Semitism, nor are there wanting in the inner life of the community
indications of what may be called “servitude in freedom.” But when all
allowances are made, the Jews enjoy a firmer and a more secure position
here than in other countries, and anxiety for the future, with all that
it involves, plays a smaller part in their mental life. Hence their
internal development is more “normal” than elsewhere; it is less at the
mercy of external and accidental influences; it is rather determined by
the spiritual and cultural resources of the community itself, and
corresponds at any given time to the extent of those resources. To this
circumstance is due the comparatively late appearance of the Reform
movement in Anglo-Jewry. True, in the heyday of the German Reform
movement a few people in England attempted to follow the German example;
but their small experiment never grew to considerable dimensions, or
showed any capacity for development. The reason is that whereas in
Germany there was an external, political impulse towards Reform—the
desire to combat anti-Jewish feeling, and thus to facilitate the
attainment of civil and political rights—in England this motive was less
felt. For though certain political restrictions were still in force, the
position of the Jews was much better, and their relations with non-Jews
were much more satisfactory, than in Germany.

But in more recent years education and the circumstances of life have
brought about a change in the internal, spiritual condition of the
Anglo-Jewish community: a new generation has arisen, which is very far
removed from the _spirit_ of Judaism. It is this internal change in the
Jews which has called into being the Reform movement which we now see
developing before our eyes. To the difference in origin corresponds a
difference in character. In Germany the Reform movement, practical in
its motives, took a practical shape. Geiger and other Reformers
endeavoured, on the one side, to alter the religious practices, and to
bring them into conformity with what they conceived to be the needs of
the time; but on the other side they laid stress on the grandeur of the
religious and moral principles on which Judaism peculiarly was based,
and tried to emphasise the _difference_ between Judaism and
Christianity. But in England the Reform movement springs from a
spiritual cause—from a conviction on the part of many Jews that they are
spiritually _akin_ to their Christian environment. It is not merely the
external observances of traditional Judaism that fail any longer to
appeal to them; its innermost spirit, the fundamental ideas by which it
is distinguished from Christianity, have lost their hold. Hence the
movement here aims right at the heart; it wants to change the _spirit_
of Judaism, and to overthrow its historical foundations, so as to reduce
its distinctive features to a small compass, and to bring it as closely
as possible into accord with the Christian ideas of the non-Jewish
community. Thirteen years ago this movement was begun in England by a
body of young men, who thus straightforwardly and clearly expressed
their aim:

“... Our triumphant emancipation is now working out its natural result
upon us. Constant intercourse with non-Jews and extensive secular
education must materially affect our opinions. We, who are young and
earnest lovers of our religion, are struggling with new ideas which we
hardly dare to formulate, because they are contrary to all accepted
traditions. Such are the notions that our separateness seems now merely
external and artificial, our racial distinctiveness often scarcely
perceptible, and our religious ideas almost identical with those of
Theists and true Unitarians.”[167]

But as it was difficult for them, in spite of everything, to abandon
Judaism altogether, and to join the “Theists and true Unitarians,” they
conceived the idea of attaining their object in the reverse way. They
would transform Judaism itself, until it should contain nothing but the
fundamental ideas of the “Theists and true Unitarians,” and then—so they
fondly imagined—these latter would come and find shelter in Judaism, and
so the “external and artificial” distinction would be comfortably and
pleasantly removed! This movement did not take definite shape at the
time, and after a while it disappeared and was no longer heard of. But
the causes which had given it birth did not cease to work silently
beneath the surface; and quite recently it has come forth again into the
light of day, to play its part in the visible life of Anglo-Jewry. This
time it appears in a more concrete form and with a clearer consciousness
of the goal for which it is making. Its promoters have come to see,
after all, that even if their Judaism is to teach the very doctrine of
the “liberal” Christian sects, there will still be an “external and
artificial” distinction between themselves and the non-Jew, so long as
they do not accept the _source_ of that doctrine—so long as they do not
admit, with the “liberal” Christians, that the New Testament is the last
word in religious and moral development, and Jesus the most perfect
embodiment of the religious and moral ideal. For in matters of religion
men value not alone the abstract beliefs in themselves, but also—and
perhaps more highly—the historical and psychological roots from which
those beliefs have grown up in their hearts. It was well said many years
ago by Steinthal that if ever a new religion, a philosophical religion,
suited to modern times, should unite Jews and Christians, they would
still be divided on the question whether the Old Testament or the
Gospels had contributed in greater measure to the birth of the new
religion.

Our English Reformers, therefore, have decided to remove even this
stumbling-block from the path which leads to unity, and have decreed
that the New Testament (or at least the Gospels) must be considered a
part—and the most important part—of Judaism, and that Jesus must be
regarded as a prophet—and the greatest of the prophets—in Israel. This
pronouncement is certainly a step forward along a certain line of
development, of which we are not yet at the end. We need not therefore
be surprised if these Reformers do not realise the strangeness of their
attitude, with its combination of contradictory and mutually destructive
postulates. Whereas revolution overthrows the old at a single stroke,
and puts the new in its place, evolution destroys and builds in
sections, so that, until its work is complete, it is full of
contradictions and inconsistencies—the old and the new jostling one
another in confusion, and creating by their unnatural juxtaposition the
impression of a caricature, which is obvious to the onlooker, but not to
those who are engaged in the work. So this Reformed Judaism, which wants
to be two opposites—Jewish and Evangelist—at once, has its place as a
rung in the middle of the ladder, a step on the road of evolution to its
final goal. At this stage of the journey our Reformers still think that
it is possible to put the Gospels _beside_ the Old Testament and the
Talmud. But when they reach the next stage they will recognise that the
two cannot exist side by side, but only one above the other, and that
when one stands the other falls. The early Christians went through the
same process: they regarded their “message” at first simply as a part of
Judaism; but when they had travelled the full length of their
development, they saw that the Gospels meant the overthrow of the very
foundations of Judaism, and then they left it altogether.

If anybody is doubtful about the true character and tendency of this
movement, let him read the commentary on the Synoptic Gospels recently
published by the leader of the movement, Mr. C. G. Montefiore. The
author makes no secret of the fact that the book has been written for
Jewish readers, with the object of convincing them that the New
Testament ought to occupy an important position in Judaism at the
present time, albeit from a Jewish point of view. The claims of the
“Jewish point of view” he thinks to satisfy by his frequent efforts to
show that the Law of the Rabbis was not so bad as it is painted by the
authors of the New Testament and its commentators, and that in many
respects the old Judaism rose to the level of the Gospels, nay, had in
certain details actually more of truth.[168] But the general atmosphere
of the book is so utterly alien from the essential character of Judaism
as to make one fact clear beyond a shadow of doubt to any Jew in whom
Judaism is still alive—that the Gospels can be received only into a
Judaism which has lost its own true spirit, and remains a mere corpse.

The author is doubtless correct in saying that a Jewish commentary on
the New Testament is needed at the present time.[169] Living in a
Christian environment, we imbibe a culture in which many Christian ideas
and sentiments are inwoven, and it is therefore necessary for us to know
their source, so as to be able to distinguish between them and the
universal elements of culture. But this Jewish commentary must be far
removed from any polemical propagandist intention on one side or the
other. Its sole object must be to _understand_ thoroughly the teaching
of the Gospels, to define with _scientific_ accuracy its character, the
foundations on which it rests, and the differences which distinguish it
from Judaism. What is needed is not the “scientific accuracy” of the
Christian commentators (that spring from which Mr. Montefiore drinks
with such avidity), who set out with the preconceived idea that the
teaching of the Gospels is superior to that of Judaism, and use their
“science” merely to find details in support of this general belief. When
a writer claims to be “scientific,” he must recognise above all that in
the field of religion and morality it is impossible to set up a
universal scientific criterion, by which to measure the different
teachings, and to pronounce one superior to another. In this sphere
everything is relative, and the judge brings to his task a subjective
standard of his own, determined by his temperament, his education and
his environment. We Jews, being everywhere a minority, are always
subject to various influences, which counteract and weaken each other;
and we, therefore, are possibly better able than others to understand
objectively ideas which are not our own. Hence it was indeed right that
there should be a Jewish commentary (not a Jewish panegyric) on the New
Testament. Such a commentary might perhaps have enabled Jews of our
author’s stamp to recognise that it is possible to treat with
seriousness and justice a religion which is strange to us, without
shutting our eyes to the gulf which separates it from ourselves.

I should like to dwell for a brief space on the nature of this “gulf.”
So large a subject needs a whole book for its full treatment; but
something, it seems to me, ought to be said just at this moment—and
perhaps the need is not confined to England.

If the heathen of the old story, who wished to learn the whole _Torah_
standing on one leg,[170] had come to me, I should have told him: “‘Thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image or any likeness’—that is the
whole _Torah_, and the rest is commentary.” The essential characteristic
of Judaism, which distinguishes it from other religions, is its absolute
determination to make the religious and moral consciousness independent
of any definite human form, and to attach it _immediately_ to an
_abstract_ ideal which has “no likeness.” We cannot conceive
Christianity without Jesus, or even Islam without Mohammed. Christianity
made a god of Jesus, but that is not the important fact. Even if Jesus
had remained the “son of man,” had been only a prophet, as Mohammed is
to the Mussulmans, that would not have affected the thing that really
matters—the attachment of the religious and moral consciousness to the
figure of a particular man, who is regarded as the ideal of absolute
perfection, and the goal of men’s vision; to believe in whom is an
essential part of a religion inconceivable without him. Judaism, and
Judaism alone, depends on no such human “likeness.” God is the only idea
of absolute perfection, and He only must be kept always before the eye
of man’s inner consciousness, in order that many may “cleave to his
attributes.” The best of men is not free from shortcomings and sins, and
cannot serve as an ideal for the religious sentiment, which strives
after union with the source of perfection. Moses died in his sin, like
any other man. He was simply God’s messenger, charged with the giving of
His Law; his image was not worked into the very fabric of the religion,
as an essential part of it. Thus the Jewish teachers of a later period
found nothing to shock them in the words of one who said in all
simplicity: “Ezra was worthy to be the bearer of the Law to Israel, had
not Moses come before him” (_Sanhedrin_, 21_a_). Could it enter a
Christian mind, let us say, to conceive the idea that Paul was worthy to
be the bearer of the “message,” had not Jesus come before him? And it
need scarcely be said that the individual figures of the other Prophets
are not an essential part of the fabric of Judaism. Of the greatest of
them—Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, and others—we do not even know who or what
they were; their personalities have vanished like a shadow, and only
their words have been preserved and handed down from generation to
generation, because they were not _their_ words, but “the word of the
Lord that came unto them.”

This applies equally to the Messiah, who is awaited in the future. His
importance lies not in himself, but in his being _the messenger of God_
for the bringing of redemption to Israel and the world. Jewish teachers
pay much more attention to “the days of the Messiah” than to the Messiah
himself. One of them even disbelieved altogether in a personal Messiah,
and looked forward to a redemption effected by God Himself without an
intermediary; and he was not therefore regarded as a heretic.

This characteristic of Judaism was perhaps the principal obstacle to its
wider acceptance. It is difficult for men in general to find
satisfaction in an abstract ideal which offers no hold to the senses; a
human figure much more readily inspires enthusiasm. Before the triumph
of Christianity the Greeks and the Romans used to accuse the Jews of
having no God, because a divinity without “any likeness” had for them no
meaning; and when the time came for the God of Israel to become also the
God of the nations, they still could not accept His sway without
associating with Him a divine ideal in human form, so as to satisfy
their need for a more concrete and nearer ideal.

This is not the place to discuss the origin of this distinctive
preference on the part of Israel for an _abstract_ religious and moral
ideal. Be the reason what it may, the fact remains true, and has been
true these thousands of years; and so long as Israel undergoes no
fundamental change, and does not become something different, it cannot
be influenced on the religious side by a book like the Gospels, which
finds the object of religious devotion and moral emulation not in the
abstract Godhead alone, but first and foremost in a man born of woman.
It matters not whether he be called “Son of God,” “Messiah,” or
“Prophet”: Israel cannot accept with religious enthusiasm, as the word
of God, the utterances of a man who speaks in his own name—not “thus
saith the Lord,” but “_I_ say unto you.” This “I” is in itself
sufficient to drive Judaism away from the Gospels for ever. And when our
author speaks in glowing terms of the religious and moral exaltation
which spring from attachment to Jesus as the ideal of holiness and
perfection, meaning, as is evident from his tone, to introduce this
attachment into Judaism (pp. cvii, 210, 527), he is simply proving that
he and those who think with him are already estranged from the essential
nature of Judaism, which does not recognise ideal holiness and
perfection in man. “Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am
holy”—that is Judaism. “Ye shall be holy, because the Messiah (or the
Prophet) is holy”—that is an ideal better calculated, no doubt, to
inspire enthusiasm and exaltation among the peoples; but it will never
kindle the religious fire in Israel unless the very last drop of true
Judaism be dried up. It was not for nothing that our ancient teachers
called God “_the holy one_, blessed be He”: for Judaism absolute
holiness exists only in the one God. We have had no doubt, at various
periods, our mystic sects, which, influenced consciously or
unconsciously by foreign ideas, have here turned aside more or less from
the Jewish road. But the sect is only a temporary and partial
phenomenon, pointing to some internal disease which affects the national
life in a given period. Our history shows that the end of these sects is
to die out, or to leave Judaism. Sects come and sects go, but Judaism
remains for ever.

This fundamental tendency of Israel to rise clear of “any likeness” in
its religious and moral life is evident not only in relation to the
religious and moral _ideal_, but also in relation to the religious and
moral _goal_. There is no need to dilate on the well-worn truth that the
Law of Judaism sees its goal not in the “salvation” of the individual
man, but in the prosperity and perfection of the general body; that is
to say, of the nation, and, in “the latter end of days,” of the whole
human race—a collective idea which has no defined concrete form. In the
most fruitful period of Judaism, the period of the Prophets and “the
giving of the Law,” it had no clear idea on the subject of the survival
of the soul and reward and punishment after death. All the enthusiasm of
the Prophets and their disciples was derived not from this source, but
from the conviction of their being children of “the chosen people,”
which was entrusted by God (as they believed) with the mission of
embodying religion and morality, in their highest form, in its national
life. Even in later times, when the Babylonian exile had destroyed the
nation’s freedom, and the desire for individual salvation had
consequently come to play a part in the religious consciousness, the
_highest_ good of Judaism still remained collective. Scholars will need
no proof of this fact. For those who are not scholars it will be
sufficient to examine the daily and festival prayer-books, in order to
realise that only a small part of the prayers turns on the particular
needs of the individual, while most deal with the concerns of the
_nation_ and the human race in general.

Which of these two goals is “superior”? This question has already been
endlessly debated; and the truth is that we cannot here establish a
scale of values. A man may attain to the highest eminence in his
religious and moral life, whether he pursues this goal or that. But
individual salvation is certainly nearer to the hearts of most men, and
is better suited to kindle their imagination and to inspire them with
the desire for moral and religious perfection. If Judaism, as
distinguished from other religions, prefers the collective goal, this
only means that here also there makes itself felt that tendency to
abstraction and to the repudiation of the human image which is peculiar
to Israel. So long as this tendency remains—so long, that is, as our
people does not lose its essential character—no true Jew will be able to
feel any great fondness for the doctrine of the Gospels—a doctrine which
rests (despite our author’s endeavours to present the matter in a more
favourable light, cf. pp. 211, 918) wholly and solely on the pursuit of
individual salvation.

The tendency of Judaism which I have mentioned shows itself in yet one
other matter, and this perhaps the most important—in the basis of
morality. It is an oft-repeated formula that Jewish morality is based on
_justice_, and the morality of the Gospels on _love_. But it seems to me
that not all those who draw this distinction fully appreciate its
meaning. It is usual to regard the difference only as one of degree, the
moral scale and its basis being the same in either case. Both doctrines,
it is supposed, are directed against egoism; but the Christians hold
that their religion has reached a higher stage, while the Jews refuse to
admit their claim. Thus the Christian commentators point proudly to the
_positive_ principle of the Gospels: “Whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so unto them” (Matt, vii. 12; Luke vi. 31),
and thereby disparage Judaism, which has only the _negative_ principle
of Hillel: “What is hateful to thyself do not unto thy neighbour.” Mr.
Montefiore debates the matter, and cannot make up his mind whether the
positive principle really embraces _more_ in its intention than the
negative, or whether Hillel and Jesus meant the same thing. But of this
at least he is certain, that if Hillel’s saying were suddenly discovered
somewhere in a positive form, the Jews would be “rather pleased,” and
the Christians would be “rather sorry” (p. 550).

But if we look deeper, we shall find that the difference between the two
doctrines on this point is not one of less or more, but that there is a
fundamental difference between their views as to the basis of morality.
It was not by accident that Hillel put his principle in negative form;
the truth is that the moral basis of Judaism will not bear the positive
principle. If the positive saying were to be found somewhere attributed
to Hillel, we should not be able to rejoice; we should have to impugn
the genuineness of a “discovery” which put into Hillel’s mouth a saying
opposed to the spirit of Judaism.

The root of the distinction lies here also, as I have said, in the love
of Judaism for _abstract_ principles. The moral law of the Gospels
beholds man in his individual shape, with his natural attitude towards
himself and others, and asks him to reverse this attitude, to substitute
the “other” for the “self” in his individual life, to abandon plain
egoism for inverted egoism. For in truth the altruism of the Gospels is
neither more nor less than inverted egoism. Altruism and egoism alike
deny the individual _as such_ all _objective_ moral value, and make him
merely a _means_ to a subjective end; but egoism makes the “other” a
means to the advantage of the “self,” while altruism does just the
reverse. Now Judaism removed this subjective attitude from the moral
law, and based it on an abstract, objective foundation, on _absolute
justice_, which regards the individual as such as having a moral value,
and makes no distinction between the “self” and the “other.” According
to this view, it is the sense of justice in the human heart that is the
supreme judge of a man’s own actions and of those of other men. This
sense must be made independent of individual relations, as though it
were some separate abstract being; and before it all men, _including the
self_, must be equal. All men, including the self, must develop their
lives and their faculties to the utmost possible extent, and at the same
time each must help his neighbour to attain that goal, so far as he is
able. Just as I have no right to ruin another man’s life for the sake of
my own, so I have no right to ruin my own life for the sake of
another’s. Both of us are men, and both our lives have the same value
before the throne of justice.

I know no better illustration of this point of view than the following
well-known _B’raitha_: “Imagine two men journeying through the desert,
only one of whom has a bottle of water. If both of them drink, they must
both die; if one of them only drinks, he will reach safety. Ben P’tura
held that it was better that both should drink and die, than that one
should witness the death of his comrade. But Akiba refuted this view by
citing the scriptural verse, ‘and thy brother shall live with thee.’
_With thee_—that is to say, thine own life comes before thy neighbour’s”
(_Baba M’zia_, 62_a_).

We do not know who Ben P’tura was, but we do know R. Akiba, and we may
be sure that through him the spirit of Judaism speaks. Ben P’tura, the
altruist, does not value human life for its own sake; for him it is
better that two lives should perish, where death demands but one as his
toll, so long as the altruistic sentiment prevails. But Jewish morality
regards the question from an objective standpoint. Every action that
leads to loss of life is evil, even though it springs from the purest
feelings of love and mercy, and even if the sufferer is himself the
agent. In the case before us, where it is possible to save one of the
two souls, it is a moral duty to overcome the feeling of mercy, and to
save. But to save whom? Justice answers—let him who can save himself.
Every man’s life is entrusted to his keeping, and to preserve your own
charge is a nearer duty than to preserve your neighbour’s.

But when one came to Raba, and asked him what he should do when one in
authority threatened to kill him unless he would kill another man, Raba
answered him: “Be killed, and kill not. Who hath told thee that thy
blood is redder than his? Perhaps his blood is redder” (_P’sachim_,
25_b_). And Rashi, whose “sense of Judaism” generally reveals to him the
hidden depths of meaning, correctly understands the meaning here also,
and explains thus: “The question only arises because thou knowest that
_no religious law is binding in the face of danger to life_, and
thinkest that in this case also the prohibition of murder ceases to be
binding _because thine own life is in danger_. But this transgression is
unlike others. _For do what thou wilt, there must here be a life
lost._... Who can tell thee that thy life is more precious in the sight
of God than his? Perhaps his is more precious.”

If a man brought a question like this to a Christian priest, the priest
would certainly begin to expatiate in glowing terms on the duty of a man
to sacrifice his life for another, to “bear his cross” in the footsteps
of his “Messiah,” so that he might win the kingdom of heaven—and so
forth. But the Jewish teacher weighs the question in the scales of
objective justice: “Seeing that in either case a life must be lost, and
there is none to say which of the two lives is more precious in God’s
sight, therefore your own danger does not entitle you to break the sixth
commandment. Be killed; kill you must not!” But suppose the case
reversed; suppose the question to be “Another is going to be killed, and
I can save him by giving my life instead of his, what shall I do?” Then
Raba would have replied: “Let such a one be killed, and do not destroy
thyself. For do what thou wilt there must here be a life lost; and who
hath told thee that his blood is redder than thine? Perhaps thine own is
redder.” From the standpoint of Judaism every man’s blood is as red as
any other’s, every soul is “precious in the sight of God,” be it mine or
another’s, therefore no man is at liberty to treat his life as his own
property; no man has a right to say: “I am endangering myself; what
right have others to complain of that?” (Maimonides’ Code, _Laws of
Murder_, XI. 5). The history of Judaism can tell, indeed, of many acts
of self-sacrifice, the memory of which will remain precious and holy for
all time. But these are not cases of one life given for the preservation
of another similar life, they are sacrifices of human life for “the
sanctification of the Name” (the religious ideal) or for “the good of
the community” (the religious goal).

And justice demands that we rise above sentiment not only in deciding as
between the self and another, but also in deciding as between two other
persons. Forty years ago Abraham Geiger—the man in whom our latter-day
“Reformers” see their spiritual father—pointed out that the Jewish
commandment “Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause”
reveals a morality of unparalleled loftiness.[171] All other moral codes
warn us only against favouring the persons of the rich and the powerful;
and the Gospels, as is well known, favour the persons of the poor, and
have much to say of their merits and their future greatness. All this is
very well from the point of view of the heart; but a morality based on
justice rises above sentiment, and teaches that it is our duty to help
the poor man if we are able, but that mercy must not induce us so far to
sin against justice as to favour the poor man in his suit.

Herbert Spencer anticipates, as the highest possible development of
morality, the transformation of the altruistic sentiment into a natural
instinct, so that at last men will be able to find no greater pleasure
than in working for the good of others. Similarly Judaism, in conformity
with its own way of thought, anticipates the development of morality to
a point at which _justice_ will become an instinct with good men, so
that they will not need long reflection to enable them to decide between
different courses of action according to the standard of absolute
justice, but will _feel_ as in a flash, and with the certainty of
instinct, even the slightest deviation from the straight line. Human
relations and social grades will not affect them in the least, because
the “true judge” within them will pronounce justly on each deed, swayed
by no human relation to the doer or the sufferer, considering not
whether this one or that is the self or another, is rich or poor. And
since Judaism associated its moral aspirations with the “coming of the
Messiah,” it attributed to the Messiah this perfection of morality, and
said that “he will smell and judge” (_Sanhedrin_, 93_b_), on the basis
of the scriptural verse: “And shall make him of quick understanding
[Heb. “smell”] in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the
sight of his eyes.” “Because the smell is a very delicate sense, he
gives the name of _smell_ to the most delicate feeling ... that is to
say, the Messiah _with little attention will feel which men are good,
and which evil_” (Isa. xi. 3, with Kimchi’s commentary).

But this development lies far ahead in the hidden future. At present the
human race still lacks the instinctive “sense of justice,” and even the
best men are apt to be blinded by self-love or prejudice, so as to be
unable to distinguish between good and evil. At present, therefore, we
all need some touchstone, some fundamental principle, to help each of us
to avoid weighting the scales of justice to suit his own ends or satisfy
his personal inclinations. Such a principle Hillel gave us: “What is
hateful to thyself do not unto thy neighbour.” Altruism teaches: “What
thou desirest that others should do unto thee, that do thou unto them.”
In other words: take the circle of egoism, and put in its _centre_,
instead of the “self,” the “other”; then you will know your whole duty.
But Judaism cannot find satisfaction in this substitution, because it
demands that _justice_ shall be placed at the centre of the
circle—justice, which makes no distinction between “self” and “other.”
Now in the circle of egoism there is no place for justice except in a
negative form. What egoism does _not_ wish for itself—that, certainly it
will be just _not_ to do to another. But what egoism _does_ wish for
itself is something which has no limits; and if you oblige a man to _do_
this to others, you are inclining the scales of justice to the side of
the “other” as against the “self.”

Even that “great principle in the Law” (as R. Akiba called it), “thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” though in form it appears to be
positive, is in reality, if rightly understood, negative. If the Torah
had meant that a man must love his neighbour to the extent of
sacrificing his life for him, it would have said: “Thou shalt love thy
neighbour _more than_ thyself.” But when you love your neighbour _as_
yourself, neither more nor less, then your feelings are in a state of
perfect equilibrium, with no leaning either to your side or to your
neighbour’s. And this is, in fact, the true meaning of the verse.
“Self-love must not be allowed to incline the scale on the side of your
own advantage; love your neighbour as yourself, and then inevitably
_justice_ will be the deciding factor, and you will do nothing to your
neighbour that you would consider a wrong if it were done to yourself.”
For proof that this is the real meaning we have only to look further in
the same passage of Leviticus, where we find: “And if a stranger sojourn
with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that
dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou
shalt love him as thyself (Lev. xix. 33, 34). Here it is evident that to
love the stranger “as thyself” means to carry out the negative precept
“ye shall not vex him”; and if the stranger is expressly placed on the
same footing as the native, this shows that in relation to the native
also the intention is only that self-love must not prove a stronger
motive than justice.

But in the Gospels the commandment “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself” receives an altruistic sense: it means that your own life is
less important than your neighbour’s. Hence it is possible to find some
small justification for the habit which Christians have of attributing
this verse to the Gospels, as though it appeared there, and not in the
Mosaic Law, for the first time. It is true that _the meaning which they
put on the verse_ belongs not to our Law, but to the Gospels.[172]

But it must be remembered that in addition to the relation of individual
to individual, there is another and more important moral relation—that
of nation to nation. Here also some “great principle” is needed to keep
within bounds that _national_ egoism which is fraught, perhaps, with
even greater danger to the collective progress of humanity than
individual egoism. If we look at the difference between Judaism and
Christianity, in regard to the basis of morality, from this point of
view, we shall see at once that the altruism of the Gospels is in no way
suited to serve as a basis for international relations. A nation can
never believe that its moral duty lies in self-abasement, and in the
renunciation of its rights for the benefit of other nations. On the
contrary, every nation feels and knows that its moral duty is to keep
its position and use its powers as a means of creating for itself
satisfactory conditions of life, in which it can develop its
potentialities to the utmost. Since, then, Christian nations could not
base their relations one with another on the moral basis of their
religion, national egoism inevitably remained the sole determining force
in international politics, and “patriotism,” in the Bismarckian sense,
attained the dignity of the ultimate moral basis.

But the Jewish law of justice is not confined within the narrow sphere
of individual relations. In its Jewish sense the precept, “Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself,” can be carried out by a whole nation in
its dealings with other nations. For this precept does not oblige a
nation to sacrifice, for the benefit of other nations, its life or its
position. It is, on the contrary, the duty of every nation, as of the
individual human being, to live and to develop to the utmost extent of
its powers; but at the same time it must recognise the right of other
nations to fulfil the like duty without let or hindrance, and
“patriotism”—that is, national egoism—must not induce it to disregard
justice, and to fulfil itself through the destruction of other
nations.[173] Hence Judaism was able thousands of years ago to rise to
the lofty ideal expressed in the words, “Nation shall not lift up sword
against nation.” This ideal is, in fact, only an inevitable logical
consequence of the idea of absolute justice, which lies at the
foundation of Judaism.

Many pages might be filled with the further development of these general
ideas; and as many more might without difficulty be given to an
exposition of the differences between the two doctrines in points of
detail, in such a way as to show that the detailed differences are but
the outcome of the broad and fundamental difference between Judaism and
Christianity, and that all the compromises and concessions whereby Mr.
Montefiore tries to make peace between the two creeds have no real
value, either theoretical or practical. But it is not my purpose here to
write a book, and I will content myself, so far as general principles
are concerned, with the brief hints above set forth. As for details, I
will touch here on only one point, to which our author himself attaches
more than ordinary importance, and will leave the reader to draw his own
conclusions as to the rest.

The Gospels, unlike Judaism, forbid divorce, either absolutely, as in
the version of Mark (x. 2-12), or with an exception in the case of
unfaithfulness, as in the version of Matthew (xix. 3-12). At the present
time, when all Christian nations are struggling with the prohibition of
divorce, which came to them from the Gospels, and are trying to annul it
or restrict its operation within narrow limits, it may be taken as
fairly evident that the recognition of divorce, even on other grounds
than unfaithfulness, is demanded by the conscience of society. Nor is it
surprising that Judaism, with its essentially social aim, has been true
to its general spirit in its attitude on this question, and has decided,
with the school of Hillel, that divorce is permissible not alone on the
ground of unfaithfulness, but also when there is from other causes a
rupture of the bond of sympathy between man and wife. The important
thing here is not the cause, but the effect—the rupture within the home,
which must lower the moral tone of the life of the family, and interfere
with the proper upbringing of the children. Long experience has taught
Judaism that there is no reason to go back on this decision. Even the
enemies of Israel cannot deny that Jewish family life has reached a high
level of morality; and a result like this does not come about by a
miracle, in the teeth of the national code of law, least of all in the
case of the Jews, whose life has always been so profoundly influenced by
the prescriptions of the _Torah_.[174] It must indeed be admitted that
at first only the husband had the right of divorce, and no wife could
divorce her husband. In conformity with the primitive view (a view still
widely accepted all over the world) that man alone is important, and
woman is but “an help meet for him,” it was demanded above all things of
the husband that his position in the home should correspond to his moral
obligations as the father of the family, and that he should not be
compelled by law to live with a woman who was distasteful to him, and to
become the father of “children of a hated wife.” But when once it came
to be recognised that married life cannot tolerate constraint, this
recognition, limited at first to the side of the husband, was bound to
be gradually extended to the wife. Hence arose the provisions under
which a man may be compelled to divorce his wife (_K’thuboth_, ch. vii).
These provisions enabled the wife to obtain a divorce against the
husband’s will, by decree of the courts, on many and various grounds.
Thus it is impossible to assert that Judaism does not allow a woman to
divorce her husband. In the cases just mentioned it is, in fact, the
wife who divorces, though the bill of divorcement is technically given
by the husband. What matters is not who performs the legal action, but
whose wish it is that brings about the divorce. This tendency to
emancipate the wife reached its highest development in the dictum of
Maimonides, that if a woman says “My husband is distasteful to me, and I
cannot live with him,” although she gives no specific reason for her
dislike, the husband is yet compelled to divorce her, “because she is
not like a captive woman, that she should consort with a man whom she
hates” (_Laws of Marriage_, xiv. 8). Here we see the Jewish attitude to
marriage in its full development. Marriage is a social and moral cord,
the two ends of which are in the hearts of husband and wife; and if the
cord is broken at either end—whether in the husband’s heart or in the
wife’s—the marriage has lost its value, and it is best that it should be
annulled. It is true that the jurists who came after Maimonides could
not rise to the conception of so perfect an equality of the sexes, and
did not wholly accept his dictum. But the mere fact that the greatest
authority deduced this decision _from the Talmud_ (and the Talmud, in
fact, affords ground for his view—see _Maggid Mishnah ad loc._) is proof
conclusive as to the real tendency of the Jewish law of divorce, and
shows whither it leads in the straight line of development.

But the New Testament view of marriage and divorce reveals a very
different tendency (Matthew and Mark, _locc. citt._; Paul, First Epistle
to the Corinthians, vii.). As in all the teaching of the Gospels, so
here the important thing is _individual_ salvation. For the sake of his
individual salvation it is better that a man should not marry at all,
but should “suffer,” and be “a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.”
But he who has not strength to suffer may enter into the covenant of
marriage with a woman; only this covenant, too, is an _individual_
matter, based on _religious mysteries_, not a social and moral act, and
therefore it can never be annulled, even if it results in injury to the
life of society. “He which made them at the beginning made them male and
female and said ... they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no
more twain, but one flesh. _What therefore God hath joined together, let
not man put asunder._” From this standpoint it is immaterial whether
there is love or hatred between the couple, whether their union is or is
not a good thing for the life of the family and of society. All this
does not affect the real point: God has united them, and how shall man
dare to separate them?[175]

The Catholic Church, correctly understanding the Gospel teaching, has
built countless houses of refuge for celibates of both sexes, and has
forbidden divorce absolutely, without regard to all the evil results of
this prohibition in the embitterment of the life of families and the
moral corruption of thousands of men and women. Other Christian Churches
have stopped short of this extreme, but have still been unable to free
themselves from the Gospel standpoint, so that until recently they have
tried to restrict and render ineffective the recognition of divorce. But
now at last all Christian nations are beginning to see that this
standpoint is not productive of good to the world, and are approaching
nearer to the Jewish view.[176]

But Christian theologians, in commenting on the Gospels, cannot give up
that great principle of theirs, that the Gospel teaching is always based
on a higher morality than that of Judaism. And in this case, too, they
have found a way—rather far-fetched, it is true—of establishing the
truth of their principle. In forbidding divorce, they say, Jesus only
meant to protest against the injustice of Judaism to the wife, who could
be divorced but could not divorce. He therefore took the right of
divorce away from the husband, so that he should have no advantage over
the wife. Here, then, is moral “progress,” a battle on woman’s behalf
against the oriental barbarism of the Jews, and so forth. We might
perhaps point out that there was a more sensible way of bestowing
equality on the wife, if that was Jesus’ object—to wit, by giving the
wife also the right of divorce. And we might ask, further, how it is
that Matthew, who allows the husband to divorce his wife for _her_
unfaithfulness, never hints at any right on the part of the wife to
demand a divorce from the husband on the ground of _his_
unfaithfulness.[177] Where, in fact, is the vaunted assertion of the
wife’s rights? The commentators vouchsafe no answer to these plain and
simple questions. But, indeed, there is no need of much questioning. It
must be perfectly clear to all who read these passages in the Gospels
without pre-conceived ideas that Jesus, in prohibiting divorce, had not
the remotest notion of fighting the wife’s battle. The plea is from
beginning to end a theological invention, designed to bolster up the
theory.

Let us now see what our _Jewish_ commentator has to say on this subject
(pp. 235-42, 508-10, 688-92). Whoever has not the leisure or the
inclination to read the whole eleven hundred pages of Mr. Montefiore’s
book will find it sufficient to read the pages given to this question,
in order to obtain an adequate idea of the real spirit which prevails
among our author’s following. As he repeatedly pours out the vials of
his wrath in harsh and crude denunciations of the Jewish law of divorce,
his tone is that of a monk just emerging, Gospel in hand, from his
retreat, who has no desire to know anything whatever as to the views
which prevail at the present day in the world around him. It is “to his
eternal dishonour” that Hillel allowed divorce on other grounds than
that of unchastity; it is “most unfortunate” for the Rabbinic law that
it endorsed his decision. But “the unerring ethical instinct of Jesus
led him to put his finger upon the weak spots and sore places of the
established religion,” and “of all such weak spots and sore places this
was the weakest and the sorest.” Hence “in no other point was the
opposition of Jesus to the Rabbinic law of profounder significance” (p.
235). In this strain our author continues, with a varied selection of
choice phrases. Nor does he forget to adopt from the Christian
commentators the theory that the Gospels were fighting the wife’s
battle; he repeats it several times, here also in a tone of harsh
condemnation of Judaism and grateful praise of Jesus (p. 240 and
elsewhere). It does not occur to him that the Christian commentators
were driven to invent this theory because they saw that from the
standpoint of our own age the prohibition of divorce is not in itself a
sign of moral progress. But if the recognition of divorce on other
grounds than that of unfaithfulness is “an eternal dishonour,” then of
course there is no need to invent this plea of a battle for the wife’s
rights, the mere prohibition being sufficient proof of “progress.” Nay,
there seems to be more lost than gained by this “battle,” for if that
was really the intention of the prohibition of divorce, then the
prohibition must of necessity be absolute (to the exclusion even of the
ground of unfaithfulness), since otherwise we are at a loss to
understand why the wife, too, was not permitted to obtain a divorce on
that ground. But our author himself admits that the prohibition of
divorce in case of unfaithfulness had very evil results (p. 242). Where,
then, is the “unerring ethical instinct”? There are other similar
difficulties, and even plain inconsistencies, to be found in our
author’s treatment of this subject. But we have already dwelt on it at
sufficient length. Whoever reads all the related passages in the book
will be satisfied that there is here neither logic nor “science,” nor
true, unbiassed judgment, but such partiality to Jesus and the Gospels
as the most pious Christian might envy.

It may be worth while, by way of completing the picture, to add just one
further point. When our author reaches the end of the passage in
Matthew, where the “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake” are
extolled, he finds himself in some perplexity (pp. 690, 691). Clearly,
his moral sense is revolted. But how gentle is his language! You will
find nothing here about “eternal dishonour” or the like. He lowers his
voice in submissive reverence, and tries to find excuses for the Gospel,
so that you cannot recognise in him that “higher tribunal” which
condemned without mercy what he thought the “weak spot” in _the law of
his ancestors_. True, this fact demands no comment; but I am reminded of
the author’s anticipation (Introduction, p. xix) that Christian critics
would find him too Jewish, and Jewish critics too Christian, and I
merely wish to remark that this difference of attitude will stamp him,
even in the eyes of Jewish critics, as, in one respect at least, _too
much of a Jew_.

After what has been said above, it may perhaps appear to many that it
was not worth while to give so much attention to such a book, and
possibly from the point of view of scholarship and literature they are
right. But, as I have already hinted, the book deserves special
attention as a revelation of the psychology of a certain section of
Jews. It shows us a new kind of Jew, hitherto unknown to history, who
has lost every trace of the mighty sorrow which his ancestors felt for
the exile of the nation and the exile of the _Shechinah_,[178] and who
yet has a sorrow of his own—the sorrow of a meaningless isolation. He
sees that the world has gone its own way, leaving the Jews alone with
their _Torah_. This isolation is not unbearable so long as the Jew
understands or feels that it is necessary to the preservation of his
sacred ideals; but the real need for it can certainly not be felt by
those Jews who think that the difference between themselves and their
neighbours is “external and artificial,” and for whom Judaism is nothing
but a dear inheritance, which must be preserved out of respect for their
fathers. Hence they seek in various ways to escape from their isolation.
Thirteen years ago they believed that they could attain their object by
basing Judaism on certain universal beliefs of the Theists. Now they
recognise that this is not enough; they go a step further, and tack on
Jesus and the Gospels. This development appears clearly from many
passages in the book under notice, of which I will quote here one of the
most explicit:

“Dogmatic Christianity in the course of centuries may disappear;
Trinitarianism may be succeeded by Unitarianism; but the words of Jesus
will still continue to move and cheer the heart of man. If Judaism does
not, as it were, come to terms with the Gospels, it must always be, I am
inclined to think, a creed in a corner, of little influence and with no
expansive power. Orthodox Jews would, I suppose, say that they want no
more. Liberal Jews should be less easily satisfied” (p. 906).

We can certainly understand the state of mind of these Jews; but they
themselves ought also to understand it aright. They would then see that
their state of mind has no relation to the question of “orthodox” and
“liberal” Judaism in the usual sense of the words. A Jew may be a
liberal of liberals, without forgetting that Judaism was born “in a
corner” and has always lived “in a corner,” apart from the great world,
which has never understood it, and therefore hates it. Such was the lot
of Judaism before the rise of Christianity, and such it has remained
since. History has not yet satisfactorily explained how it came about
that a tiny nation in a corner of Asia produced a unique religious and
moral point of view, which has had so profound an influence on the rest
of the world, and has yet remained so foreign to the rest of the world,
unable to this day either to conquer it or to surrender to it. This is a
historical phenomenon to which, despite a multitude of attempted
answers, we must still attach a note of interrogation. But every true
Jew, be he “orthodox” or “liberal,” feels deep down in his being that
there is something in the spirit of our people—though we know not what
it is—that kept it from the high-road taken by other nations, and
impelled it to build up Judaism on those foundations for the sake of
which the people remains to this day confined “in a corner” with its
religion, being incapable of renouncing them. Let them who still have
this feeling remain within the fold; let them who have lost it go
elsewhere. _There is no room here for compromise._

Footnote 167:

  _Jewish Quarterly Review_, January, 1897, p. 187.

Footnote 168:

  Notes of this kind are found right through the book (see e.g. pp.
  498-503, 691-3, and many other places); and it is unfair of some
  Jewish critics to have passed over this fact in silence, and to have
  described the book as though it were throughout simply an attack on
  Judaism.

Footnote 169:

  Introduction, pp. xvii. xviii. ci.

Footnote 170:

  [The story is that a heathen made this demand of Hillel, whose reply
  was: “What is hateful to thyself do not unto thy neighbour—that is the
  whole _Torah_, and the rest is commentary: go thou and fulfil it.”]

Footnote 171:

  _Das Judentum und seine Geschichte_ (2nd edition), p. 26.

Footnote 172:

  John Stuart Mill writes: “In justice to the great Hebrew lawgiver, it
  should always be remembered that the precept to love thy neighbour as
  thyself already existed in the Pentateuch; and very surprising it is
  to find it there” (_Three Essays on Religion_, 2nd edition, p. 98).
  Had Mill understood the precept in its original sense, he would
  certainly not have been surprised to find it in the Mosaic Law. But
  even so logical a thinker could not free himself from the influences
  of his education and his environment, and he did not see that a
  meaning had been read into this verse which was opposed to its literal
  sense.

Footnote 173:

  The Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovioff was the first, if I am not
  mistaken, to attempt to find a moral basis for international relations
  in the precept “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” taken in
  the sense mentioned above. This philosopher was an untiring student of
  Judaism, for which he had an appreciation unusual among Christians—a
  fact not without its significance.

Footnote 174:

  Mr. Montefiore, indeed, does not admit this. In his opinion the
  morality of Jewish family life is a fact not because of the laws, but
  in spite of them. If you ask how such a thing is possible, he replies
  somewhat as follows: It has already been remarked that Judaism does
  not obey the laws of cause and effect, and we sometimes see a certain
  tendency in Jewish life which ought logically to have certain effects,
  but has in practice just the opposite results (p. 335). Truly an easy
  and comfortable “philosophy of history”!

Footnote 175:

  Even Matthew, who permits divorce on the ground of unfaithfulness,
  makes this exception (as some Christian commentators have pointed out)
  only because the sanctity of the marriage is profaned by the sin, and
  the divine union is annulled of _itself_. The point of view is
  essentially the same in both versions.

Footnote 176:

  In England the question has become so acute that the Government has
  appointed a Commission to find means of making divorce easier. Men of
  knowledge and experience, in evidence before the Commission, have
  expressed the opinion that the restriction of the possibility of
  divorce has very evil results.

Footnote 177:

  In England the law to-day is still in the spirit of Matthew; the
  wife’s unfaithfulness is sufficient ground of divorce for the husband,
  but the reverse does not hold good.

Footnote 178:

  [Divine Presence. See p. 97.]




                                 INDEX


 _Abstract_ ideal—a characteristic of Jewish religious and moral
    outlook, 230 _sqq._, 235 _sq._

 Achad Ha-Am, vii, viii, xii, xxii

 Agrarian Credit Bank, 138 _sq._, 144

 Akiba, R., 237, 241.

 _Alliance Israélite Universelle_, 46 (footnote)

 Altruism = inverted egoism, 236, 240-3

 Anti-Semitism, 42 _sq._, 61 sqq., 67 _sqq._, 81, 134 _sq._, 223

 Arabs, xx, 144, 147

 —— National characteristics of, 20

 Assimilation, 25, 50, 54, 64, 97, 106 _sqq._, 223

 Assimilationists, 82

 _Auto-Emancipation_, viii, 57;
   analysed, 61-80;
   compared with _Der Judenstaat_, 81-83


 Balfour Declaration, xii sqq.

 “Baron,” The—_See_ “Rothschild”

 Basle Programme, 133, 143, 154, 158

 Bezalel (School of Arts and Crafts), 160

 British Government and Zionism, xiv _sqq._ (See also “Uganda”)


 “Capturing labour,” 146, 149, 152


 Centre, spiritual, 120-129
   (_See_ also “Palestine”)

 _Chalukah_, 3, 4

 Charter, xi, 57, 84

 _Chibbath Zion_, viii _sq._, 15, 25, 32 _sq._, 41 _sq._, 44 (footnote),
    45, 48, 54, 56, 89 (footnote), 94

 _Chovevé Zion_, viii _sqq._, 15 _sqq._, 29, 42, 52, 55 _sqq._, 84, 97
    _sq._, 111 (footnote), 124, 134

 Christianity, 224 _sqq._

 —— and Judaism, 229 _sqq._

 Chwolson quoted, 23

 Collectivism, Jewish, 8, 180, 233 _sq._, 239

 Colonies, Palestinian, ix, 2, 14, 19, 36, 58, 141-153, 155-7

 Colonisation of Palestine, ix, xi, 2, 13, 18, 29, 38, 44 (footnote),
    130 _sqq._, 138 _sqq._

 Congress, Zionist: 1st, x, 25 _sqq._, 32 _sqq._, 35, 38, 48 _sqq._,
    124, 130

 —— 7th, 101

 —— 10th, 130 _sqq._


 Culture, Jewish national, 45, 47 _sqq._, 91, 157-160


 Democracy, 98

 “Demonopathy,” 63

 Diaspora, xiv, 39, 44, 85, 101, 111, 123 _sq._, 155 _sq._, 160, 162

 _Die Welt_ (Zionist organ), 33 (footnote), 50, 53

 Diplomacy, 28, 31, 99

 Divorce, Jewish and Christian attitude to, 244-9


 Egoism, 11

 —— attitude of Judaism and of Christianity to, 235, 240-3

 Emancipation, viii, 43, 50, 66 _sq._, 107

 English Jewry, 223 _sqq._

 English Jews, 78


 _galuth_, viii _sq._, xx, 44, 75, 92, 95

 —— twofold character of, 96 _sq._, 99, 101, 104, 110, 123 _sq._

 Geiger, Abraham, 239

 Ghetto, exodus of Judaism from, 43

 “Golden Rule,” positive and negative forms of, 235 _sq._

 Gospels, 226 _sqq._, 234 _sqq._, 242 _sqq._, 247 _sqq._


 Hebrew education in Palestine, 157-9

 Hebrew language, x, 33, 91 _sqq._, 110, 136 (footnote), 155-6, 158
    _sq._, 218 _sq._

 Hebrew literature, 91 _sq._, 112 _sq._

 Hebrew type of life in Palestine, 155 _sq._, 158

 Herzl, Dr. Theodor, x _sqq._, 33, 38, 39, 48, 53, 57, 59, 74, 77
    _sqq._, 88 _sq._

 _Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden_, 46 (footnote), 159

 Hillel, 229 (footnote), 235, 240, 245, 249


 Ideas, new—conditions necessary for their success, 5 _sqq._

 —— misunderstanding of, due to psychological causes, 120 _sq._

 —— process of development of, 1, 92 _sq._, 112

 Impudence, 114 _sqq._

 Individualism, Christian, 234

 —— Jewish, 9 _sqq._, 17, 22

 “Ingathering of the Exiles,” 38, 81, 96, 111


 Jesus, 226, 230, 248 _sqq._

 _Jewish Chronicle_, 136 (footnote)

 Jewish Colonisation Association, 151

 “Jewish problem,” x, 25, 34 _sqq._, 61 _sqq._

 —— moral aspect of, 35, 40 _sqq._, 69, 73 _sqq._, 81, 124, 164

 _Jewish Quarterly Review_, quotation from, 225

 “Jewish State,” x, xx, 26 _sqq._, 35 _sqq._, 45 _sqq._, 54, 62, 70
    _sqq._, 78, 82 _sq._, 85, 133

 Jewish Territorial Organisation, xii, 101 (footnote)

 Jochanan ben Zakkai, R., 45

 Judaism and political Zionism, 45 _sqq._, 48

 —— and the ideal of internationalism, 242 _sqq._

 ——, problem of, 42 _sqq._, 61

 —— spirit of, 44, 224, 229 _sqq._

 Judaism and Christianity, 224, 229 _sqq._

 _Judenstaat, Der_, x, 57, 74, 77 _sqq._, 81 _sqq._, 85, 89

 Justice, basis of Jewish morality, 234 _sqq._

 —— in international relations, 243-4


 Kimchi quoted, 240


 Labour problem in Palestine, 146-152


 Law of Moses, 8, 11, 22, 181 _sqq._, 242

 “Liberal” Judaism, 252 _sq._

 Lilienblum, Moses Leib, 34, 47

 Love, basis of morality of Gospels, 234 _sqq._

 Luzzatto, S. D., his criticisms of Maimonides, 210, 218 (footnote)


 Maimonides quoted, 238, 246

 —— his commanding place in Jewish thought, 162-3

 —— his philosophical system, 164-181

 —— his attitude to revealed religion, 181-194

 —— supremacy of Reason in his system, 194-202, 209-211

 —— his principal works, 203-207

 —— his “heresy,” 208-9

 —— his attitude to the national sentiment, 212-222

 —— his attitude to the Hebrew language, 218-9

 May Laws, viii _sq._

 Messiah, xxii, 27, 32, 114 _sqq._, 153

 —— in Maimonides’ system, 215 _sqq._, 231 _sq._

 Messianic Age, 10, 62

 Messianism, xi _sq._, 117 _sqq._

 Mill, John Stuart, quoted, 242 (footnote)

 “Mission” of Israel, 75 _sq._

 Montefiore, Mr. C. G., 227 _sqq._ 234, 244, 245 (footnote), 249 _sqq._

 Moses, 77, 85, 230
   (_See_ also “Law of Moses”)


 National characteristics, 20 _sqq._

 —— consciousness, 74, 76, 84

 —— idea, 1 _sqq._, 17

 —— sentiment, ix _sq._, 3, 8 _sqq._, 15, 18, 21 _sqq._, 212 _sqq._

 —— spirit, 92, 97, 101 _sq._, 106 _sqq._, 113, 136, 140, 253
   (_See_ also “Culture”)

 National Bank, 138

 National Fund, xi, 28, 37, 80, 139 _sq._, 148, 156-7, 160

 National Home, xii, xv _sqq._

 National rights, 64-5 (footnote)

 Nationalism, Jewish, birth of, 1, 93

 New Testament, 226 _sqq._, 247

 Nietzsche, 180

 Nordau, Dr. Max, 30, 34 _sq._, 134



 Palestine as spiritual centre of Jewry, 44, 97, 101, 110, 120-129, 132,
    136, 154-5, 160

 Pentateuch (_See_ “Law of Moses”)

 Petach-Tikvah, 153 (footnote)

 Pinsker, Dr. Leo, viii, x, 56-90

 —— his pamphlet, 61-83

 —— his merits and his reputation, 84-90

 Pogroms, viii _sq._

 “Proletarian Zionism,” 128 _sq._

 Prophets, 26 _sq._, 30 _sq._, 45, 83, 231, 233


 Rashi quoted, 237

 Redemption, xx, 30, 38, 100 _sqq._, 137, 152 _sqq._, 157 _sq._

 Reform Movement in Judaism, 223 _sqq._

 Religion as common bond of Jews, 3

 —— satisfies individual needs, _ib._

 —— in Maimonides’ system, 181 _sqq._, 220 _sqq._

 Resurrection, belief in, 10, 11

 —— in Maimonides’ system, 215 _sqq._


 Revival, 12, 94, 99, 109 _sqq._, 156

 Rishon-le-Zion, 18

 Romanticism, 113


 Rothschild, Baron Edmond de, ix, 4


 Self-preservation, instinct of, 131 _sq._

 _Shechinah_ (Divine Presence), 97, 252

 _Shekalim_, 137

 Smolenskin, Perez, 89 (footnote)

 Socialism, 102, 105, 118 (footnote), 119, 128 (footnote)

 Solovioff, Vladimir, 243 (footnote)

 Sombart, W., 103

 Spencer, Herbert, 239

 “Spiritual” (_See_ “Centre,” “Revival,” and “Zionism”)

 “Spiritual proletariat,” 105

 Subliminal self, 121, 126, 136

 “Summa Summarum,” xiii

 _Synoptic Gospels_, Mr. C. G. Montefiore’s, 227 _sqq._


 Tel-Aviv, 157

 “Territorialism,” 100

 “The Wrong Way,” vii

 “Thirteen Articles,” 163

 _Torah_, 229, 245
   (_See_ also “Law of Moses”)



 “Uganda,” xi, 100 _sq._

 Utilitarians, 17


 _Völkerrechtlich_, 35, 37, 49, 53


 Western Jews, ix _sq._, 32, 40 _sq._, 51, 54


 Yemenite Jews, 152 (footnote)



 Zionism, “political,” 25, 27, 32 _sq._, 37, 39 _sqq._, 45, 48 _sqq._,
    57 _sq._, 60 _sq._, 71 _sqq._, 80, 86 _sqq._, 99 _sqq._, 126, 132
    _sqq._

 —— “practical,” 132 _sq._, 135 _sq._

 —— “spiritual,” 61, 100, 104, 126, 129

 “Zion-Zionists” (_Zioné Zion_), xii, 100 _sq._




 ● Transcriber’s Notes:
    ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
    ○ Footnotes have been moved to follow the essays in which they are
      referenced.