Yes, the time has come to begin planting, and planting not alone our literature, but also our spirit in all its aspects. All that now runs to waste in exile, voluntarily or involuntarily, must be gathered together and planted “on its own native soil,” and every man in whom the Jewish spirit lives is bound to help in this planting to the utmost of his power, because therein lies our life and our last hope.
“Romanticism,” our young men will say with a smile.
Let them smile—until they grow old enough to understand life as it is, and not as it appears through the glasses of a ready-made doctrine. Then they will understand that what they contemptuously call “romanticism” is the crown of life and the source of man’s superiority over the brute. They will understand, too, that this very anti-romantic doctrine has its attraction principally because of its romantic element—because it offers scope for devoted service in the cause of a distant ideal. But if ever there comes a day when that ideal is realised, and romanticism disappears entirely, then there will arise a new generation, which will curse that day for the hunger it has brought—a hunger not for bread, but for romanticism, for some ideal striving which can once more give scope for exaltation, for sacrifice, and so fill the emptiness of a life of peace and plenty.
“WHEN MESSIAH COMES”
(1907)
“When Messiah comes, impudence will be rife.”
This ancient saying has been used so often as a weapon of controversy, that familiarity has robbed it of its sting. For this reason let me say at the outset that I quote it here for no controversial purpose, but wish, on the contrary, to point out that it really draws attention to a natural and permanent connection between two phenomena of human life, whereof the one is an inevitable consequence of the other. And like every objective truth, it neither censures nor reproves, but simply states a fact.
What we call “impudence” is not as a rule an original, inborn vice, but a quality which develops after birth out of a man’s exaggerated belief in his own worth, strength, wisdom or what not. This exaggerated opinion of himself makes a man hold himself more proudly than he ought before his betters, and censure and decry everybody who will not accept him at his own valuation. Now most men, in times of normal tranquillity, cannot help seeing that knowledge and experience are necessary for the conduct of human affairs, and that not all men have attained an equal degree of development or an equal level of ability and judgment. And so this “impudence” comes to be regarded as a bad thing, because it indicates either an excessive conceit of oneself—as though one were superior to the whole world in learning and experience, and were above criticism—or an excessive stupidity—as though one were unaware that there is anything in life which calls for learning and understanding, and that not everybody is equally competent to pronounce judgment on everything.
But this quality wears a different aspect “when Messiah comes”—that is to say, when a certain body of men, no longer able to submit quietly to life’s tribulations, find or invent some Messiah who is to release them from all their troubles. Whether the Messiah is conceived by them as an individual, or as a collective body, or even merely as a new theory—the result is the same. Believing firmly in their Messiah, seeing in him the fountain of salvation, and consequently also the symbol of truth and goodness, and regarding themselves simply as his followers and his disciples, they naturally cease to recognise distinctions between man and man, or to admit any superiority in wisdom over folly, or in age over youth. For all alike are as dust compared with the Messiah, and all alike receive (or ought to receive) his teaching with passive acquiescence and unquestioning faith. No need any longer for superior knowledge or long experience in order to be able to distinguish between truth and falsehood, between good and evil. All can come in on equal terms and take truth and good ready-made from the Messiah’s storehouse. Whoever disagrees with what comes out of the storehouse, be he never so old and learned, is obviously a fool, an old heretic whom any stripling is entitled to despise. Those who stand outside the Messianic camp are astonished at this sudden decay of morals, at this upsetting of the proper relation between young and old, between the nobodies and the somebodies. “Impudence,” they cry indignantly. But the Messianists themselves do not, and cannot, see anything wrong in their conduct. For it is in truth only an inevitable consequence of their fundamental belief that the Messiah puts great and small on one level, and that there are no longer high and low, but only brothers in Messiah and enemies of Messiah.
Thus the appearance of a Messiah and the growth of impudence are naturally and inevitably connected; and we therefore find that they have always appeared together, in every country and at every time, from the earliest days until the present. When an individual Messiah arose in Israel at the end of the period of the Second Temple, his first devotees—mostly very simple folk—rejected their national leaders and sages with scorn and contempt: precisely as did later the devotees—not less unlearned—of that corporate Messiah which was revealed to them in the form of the Tsaddikim, who, as intermediaries between Israel and his God, were to lighten the burden of galuth and hasten the redemption.[[67]] Both have their parallel in this present generation, which also has its Messiah, or rather Messiahs. But the modern Messiahs and the modern impudence are rather different in form, as is only natural, seeing that times have changed.
The Messiah of old was above reason and above nature, and faith in the redemption which he was to bring about was based not on logical demonstration, but on miracles, like the confounding of destiny and the upsetting of natural laws. Hence his followers needed no great cleverness in order to meet criticism. They met every possible objection by a single argument. “He who can overthrow nature is not precluded from accomplishing a supernatural redemption, and therefore any difficulty based on natural laws is out of court.” Any child can master this simple argument in a trice—and straightway he is of Messiah’s company, one of his followers and evangelists, like all the other believers. For this reason the “impudence” of the Messianists of old was similarly simple and obvious, and had no need to force itself into an artificial mould. So-and-so denies the truth or the power of the Messiah: is there any room for discussion? The fellow, be he who he may, is a scapegrace, and all honour to whoever is first with an insult or a stick.
To-day things are different. Four centuries of free thought and the unravelling of nature’s mysteries have left their mark on the human race. To-day even a Messiah cannot defy reason and nature, but is compelled to base his redemption on logical demonstrations, and to put his message in the form of a system founded on nature and experience. Essentially, indeed, everything is as it used to be: the real basis of Messianism, now as then, is faith in a speedy redemption, a faith which has its roots not in reasoned demonstration, but in the craving to be redeemed. But the exigencies of our age do not allow faith any longer to ignore the demands of reason and nature. Even faith is compelled to speak their language if it would satisfy the modern man. So we get scientific systems of a Messianic character, which, differing one from another, have all this much in common, that their scientific soundness is very much open to question, but leaves no doubt in the minds of the believers, who really need nothing more than the phraseology of science, as a seemly outer cloak for their faith. As the necessary phraseology is there, and the cloak is ready to hand, the believers hold on to the cloak with the utmost tenacity; every one of its threads is sacrosanct, and woe to him who disturbs a single one. They seem to feel unconsciously that if there is too much handling of their cloak, too much examination of its threads in the light of reason and genuine science, it will not be long before it is torn to tatters—and then what will become of their faith? Whence we find in all Messianic camps, to-day no less than of old, a fierce hatred of any attempt at criticism from within, and unlimited impudence towards those who stand without: but whereas this hatred and this impudence used to appear undisguised and unashamed, to-day they cloak themselves in reason and science, and so appear to be different. You must not think that X. is pilloried and jeered at because he has attacked their Messiah. Heaven forbid! Freedom of opinion is their first principle. No: his crime is that he has an axe to grind, and perverts scientific truth—which is, of course, solely and only that which is set forth for all time under hand and seal in this Manifesto or that Programme, and beyond it there is nothing.[[68]]