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, 21a). 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, 62a).
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, 25b). 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, 93b), 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.
Footnotes
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).
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.
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.
4. [i.e., Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine.]
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.]
6. [Baron Edmond de Rothschild.]
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.
8. [A Turkish measure = about ¼ acre.]
9. [The Hebrew paper in which this and the foregoing essay originally appeared.]
10. A. Müller, Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie, XIV., p. 435.
11. Henry George, Progress and Poverty, p. 352.
12. Ed. Zeller, Vorträge, II., p. 434.
13. Du Bois-Reymond, Reden, I., p. 309.
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).]
15. [A familiar quotation from the Talmud—Aboth, V., 23.]
16. The capital then suggested was ten million pounds!
17. [Of the Chovevé Zion.]
18. [The reference is to an article called “The Truth about Palestine,” written after the author’s first visit to that country in 1891.]
19. [Dr. Max Nordau.]
20. [One of a series of three essays on “Political Zionism.”]
21. [Die Welt, the German organ founded by Herzl.]
22. [The first Secretary of the Chovevé Zion, and an opponent of the “spiritual” ideas of Achad Ha-Am.]
23. See my essay Imitation and Assimilation. [Selected essays by Achad Ha-Am, pp. 107-124.]
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.]
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.
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.]
27. In Imitation and Assimilation.
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.]
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.
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.
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.
32. [A second edition was published about a year after the appearance of this Essay.]
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.
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).
35. Autoemancipation, pp. 1-7 [7-11 in the second edition, 1903.]
36. ib. p. 15 [17.]
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.
38. ib. pp. 7-10 [11-13.]
39. ib. pp. 10-11 [13-14].
40. Judenstaat, pp. 24-26.
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.)
42. Autoemancipation, p. 12 [15].
43. ib. p. 16 [18].
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.
45. ib. p. 20 [21].
46. ib. p. 26 [25].
47. Judenstaat, p. 70.
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.
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.)
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.”)
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).
52. Autoem. p. 30 [28].
53. ib. p. 35 [31].
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).
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].)
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.”
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.]
58. [From the preliminary announcement of Ha-Omer.]
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.]
60. [i.e., in 1889.]
61. [An allusion to an old Jewish legend.]
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.]
63. [Russia.]
64. Sombart, Socialismus und sociale Bewegung (1905), p. 61.
65. [S.D. = Social Democrats; S.S. = Zionist Socialists.]
66. [i.e., the Chovevé Zion Hebrew School.]
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.]
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.
69. [i.e., in 1892.]
70. [i.e., the article “Dr. Pinsker and his Pamphlet,” from which the phrase under discussion is quoted.]
71. [i.e., in 1904.]
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.]
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.]
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.
75. [The Biblical Shekel (plural Shekalim) has been adopted as the unit of contribution to the Zionist Organisation.]
76. [The Agrarian Bank is still (1921) only a project.]
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.
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.
79. [i.e., securing the exclusive employment of Jewish labour on Jewish-owned land.]
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.
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.
82. [The quotation is from an Essay called Dr. Pinsker and his Pamphlet, written in 1892.]
83. [From the Supplement to an Essay called Truth from Palestine (II), written in 1894.]
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!
85. [A Hebrew school of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem.]
86. [Maimonides died on the 13th December, 1204.]
87. [Jewish Law.]
88. [Allusion to well-known speeches at Zionist Congresses.]
89. Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Law, chaps. i.-iv.
90. Ibid., chap. iv. 1.
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.]
92. Foundations of the Law, ibid., 7.
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.).
94. Guide, Part III., chap. viii.
95. Foundations of the Law, ibid., 8 and 9.
96. Eight Chapters, chap. i.
97. See Munk, Le Guide des Egarés, I., pp. 304-8 (note).
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.
99. Foundations of the Law, chap. iv., 8, 9.
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).
101. Guide, I., chap. lxviii.
102. According to the division of the sciences current in those days, all this knowledge of true Being is contained in Physics and Metaphysics.
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.
104. Guide, III., chap. xiii., and Introduction to Commentary on the Mishnah, section Zera’im.
105. Introduction cited in last note.
106. Ibid.
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.
108. Guide, III., chaps. xxvii. and liv.; Hilchoth De’oth, chaps. iii. and iv.
109. Introduction to Zera’im.
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.).
111. See Hilchoth De’oth, chap. i.; Eight Chapters, chap. iv.
112. Guide, III., chap. liv.
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.
114. Introduction to Zera’im.
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.
116. Eight Chapters, chap. v.
117. Guide, II., chap. xxv.
118. Guide, II., chaps. xxv. and xvi.
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.
120. See Guide, III., xxvi.
121. Ibid., chaps. xxiii. and xxviii.; see also II., chaps. xxxiv. and xl.
122. See Guide, II., chaps. xxxix. and xl.; and especially the Iggereth Teman.
123. All this is explained in many passages throughout Maimonides’ books, which are too numerous to be particularised.
124. For the “reasons of the commandments” see Guide, III., chaps. xxvi.-xlix.
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.
126. Introduction to Zera’im.
127. Guide, II., chap. xxxix., and III., chap. xxxiv.
128. See Guide, II., chap. xxix.; Eight Chapters, chap. viii.
129. Introduction to Zera’im; see also Foundations of the Law, chaps. ix. and x.
130. Guide, III., chap. li.
131. See R. Shem-Tob’s Commentary on the Guide, loc. cit.
132. Ibid.
133. Maimonides himself describes the contemporary state of culture among his people in several places. See, for instance, the Treatise on Resurrection.
134. Emunoth v’ Deoth, Preface.
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]).
136. Guide, I., chap. lxxi.
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.
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.
139. All this is clearly hinted in Maimonides’ Treatise of the Sanctification of the Name.
140. Guide, III., chap. xxvii.
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.).
142. See Introduction to Commentary on the Mishnah.
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).
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).
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.
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.
147. Guide, Introduction.
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.
149. See the letter of R. Jehudah Alfachar to Kimchi: Collected Responses of Maimonides (ed. Leipsic), Part III., p. 1, et seq.
150. See Dr. Joel’s monograph, Spinoza’s Theologisch-Politischer Traktat auf seine Quellen geprüft, Breslau, 1870.
151. See Kerem Chemed, III., pp. 67-70.
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).
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.
154. Guide, III., chap. xliii. Similarly in chap. xlviii.
155. End of Mishneh Torah.
156. See the Iggereth Teman and the Treatise of the Sanctification of the Name.
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.
158. Introduction to chapter Chelek.
159. See Albo, Ikkarim, Part I, chap. 1.
160. See his Introduction to the Sepher Hammitzvoth.
161. I remarked on this point years ago in “Past and Future.” [See Selected Essays by Ahad Ha’am, p. 87.]
162. Cf. supra, p. 10.
163. See the Treatise on Resurrection.
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.
165. Commentary on the Mishnah, Aboth, chap. i. 17.
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).
167. Jewish Quarterly Review, January, 1897, p. 187.
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.
169. Introduction, pp. xvii. xviii. ci.
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.”]
171. Das Judentum und seine Geschichte (2nd edition), p. 26.
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.
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.
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”!
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.
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.
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.
178. [Divine Presence. See p. 97.]