Part 14

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_.