Ten Essays on Zionism and Judaism

by Ahad Ha'am

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.”