History of the Jews, Vol. 5 (of 6)

by Heinrich Graetz

The nucleus of the people's faith in God and in their mission, the fundamental doctrine graven on the tablets of stone, were of hoary antiquity, coeval with their representatives. Men especially chosen, and having no connection with the work-a-day actions and turmoil of the people, like the Cherubim at Shiloh, were to shield the sanctuary. This sanctuary only apparently bears a religious stamp, is only apparently theocratic, but its essence is contained in the laws of morality. God is the origin of the doctrine, but not its end, which lies rather in individual and communal life and its legitimate demands.

In this law God is the Holy Will, determining whatever is ethical and good. He is the sacred Type which indicates the way, but not the cause for which actions are to be performed, in order that some definite advantage may accrue. The Israelite creed is, therefore, by no means a dogmatic doctrine, but one of duty. Though a law of deliverance, it has no mystic admixture. But this religion or law of redemption was certainly beyond the comprehension of the people while yet in its infantine stage, and the ideal which was intended to endow it with significance and vitality remained for a long time an enigma to the people. This enigma was first solved by the prophets. A considerable period elapsed even after the prophets had spoken their burning words of fire, before the nation became the guardian of the teachings heard at Sinai, and before they erected a temple for it in their own hearts.

But as soon as this maturity was attained, and the "heart of stone had become a heart of flesh," as soon as the prophetic body were able to dispense with the intervention of the priesthood, they could depart from the scene; they had become superfluous, for the nation itself had attained to a complete comprehension of its own being and its own mission. History shows how this twofold transformation was effected; how the family of a petty sheik became the nucleus of a people; how this small people was humiliated to the condition of a horde; how this horde was trained to become a nation of God through the law of self-sanctification and self-control; and how these teachings, together with a spiritual ideal of God, became breathed into it as its soul.

This national soul likewise grew into the national body, was developed and took the form of laws, which, though they were not subjected to the fluctuations of time, were yet suited to the occurrences of the age. The transformation was effected only amidst severe struggles; obstacles from within and without had to be overcome, and errors and relapses to be amended, before the nation's body could become a fitting organ for the nation's soul. The hidden things had to be revealed, the obscure to be illumined, vague notions to be brought into the light of certainty, before that ideal Israel (as foreshadowed by the prophets in the far distance of time, and which had been expressly distinguished by them from Israel as it then existed with all its defects) might become a "light unto the nations." Assuredly, there is no second people now dwelling upon the globe, or hidden within the stream of time, which, like Israel, has carried with it a pre-ordained law. This people not alone possessed such a law, but also the full conviction that it existed only on account of this law, and in order to be the exponent of this law, and that its sole importance lay in its vocation to announce the truths of salvation. These were to be inculcated not by violence and compulsion, but by example, by action, and by the realization of those ideals which as a people the Israelites were to proclaim.

The profound insight afforded by History has proved that it was the mission of the Greeks to bring to light the ideals of art and science, but the Greeks themselves had no knowledge of this fact.

It was otherwise with the Israelites. Not only was their task apportioned to them, but the revelation was made to them that it was their task, and that without it they were of no more significance than "a drop in the pitcher, or a mote of dust in the balance." Only on this account did the men of God call the Israelites a chosen people. The fact of being chosen imposed on the nation heavier and more important responsibilities, and a greater measure of duty; and when their mission, as the exponents of a special and religious moral conception, became clear to them, the people prized their task beyond all things—more highly than their fatherland and nationality, and even more than life itself. And because they sacrificed themselves, the idea which dominated them attained to enduring existence and to immortality.

The Israelites were the first people who possessed the courage of their own opinions, and who risked all worldly goods for their convictions. They proved that a propaganda-making truth can be sealed only by the blood of its martyrs. The loyalty of their convictions endowed them with steadfastness and endurance. Their inner core cannot have been utterly corrupt, seeing that they were enabled to bid defiance to the destructive force of nearly four thousand years, and to a host of enemies. The history of the Israelite nation in its beginnings is of a decidedly changeful character. Two distinct factors determined its elevation and decadence, one physical, the other spiritual, one political, the other ethical. Suddenly, there gushed forth a spiritual current, strong and foaming like the mountain spring which has been gradually gathering whilst hidden from sight, and the existence of which commenced only at the moment when it issued from its rocky bed.

The appearance of gifted prophets and psalmists from the days of Amos and Isaiah resembles, in its force and fertilizing power, the outpouring of a mountain spring. The prophets and psalmists who sowed the seed of great and ever true thoughts in a charming and attractive form, and who constitute the flower of the Israelite people, could not have arisen and carried out all that they actually effected, unless the previous conditions had been favorable to their purpose. They arose because the soil had been spiritually fertilized for them, and they were understood only because their exalted moral theories of life did not announce anything novel or strange to the people, but they preached what was already well known, in impassioned and poetically illumined words, and were impelled by self-abnegation, zeal, and manly courage.

Even those who do not believe in wonders must admit and admire the marvelous course of Israel's history. Is it not marvelous that just during the untoward conditions of the Babylonian exile, in a country "full of idols and license," and amongst a Judæan nobility who, untaught and unconverted by their sad experience, continued their evil ways during exile—that amid such surroundings a spiritual movement could be developed which found vent in a peculiarly characteristic manner? During the Babylonian exile the psalmists bewailed in touching strains, and with poetic brilliance, their own sorrows and the national misfortunes, and these strains resound even to-day in the high-places of worship.

During this exile that magnificent didactic poem in semi-dramatic form between the suffering Job and his friends was composed, a poem consisting in dialogues on human destiny and Divine Providence, which is almost unrivaled. During this exile the prophets once more addressed their deaf and blind community in poetic strains. Amongst them was that divinely-favored man, the second Isaiah, who was called the "great unknown." His words of fire pour forth with inimitable power, chastising like a father, yet comforting like a mother, wounding as with a lash, yet healing as with balm. This prophet fully established the fundamental idea for the justification of Israel's continued existence, that, by its submission of martyrdom, it is destined to be the servant of God, to become a light to all nations, and to carry salvation to the ends of the earth. Is it less marvelous that Cyrus accorded to the Babylonian exiles the permission to return to their native land, to cultivate the deserted country, to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple in honor of their God, and again to enjoy a certain amount of independence? Still more wonderful is it that prophets had predicted with unqualified certainty the regeneration of the nation in a single day, and that the exodus from Egypt would be succeeded by an exodus from Babylon. Even their prophecy that the heathen would join the Judæan people was fulfilled. Thus the Judæan nationality became resuscitated in their own land, the people became filled with ancient recollections and new hopes, and were determined to realize the exhortations of the prophets. The people preserved their independence in their own country during six hundred years. The proneness to idolatry, which, to a great extent, had been found irresistible in the pre-exilic period, suddenly disappeared, and with it also pagan customs and vices. The Torah, as the law book, was to become the guiding-line of the regenerated nation, whose "heart of stone had been changed into a heart of flesh," and not only of the individual but of the whole community. By periodically reading the Torah in the Synagogue—a custom which was now introduced—and by explaining it at least in one of the school-houses, its teachings became the common property of the higher classes. The Torah was the "Magna Charta" of public life in the same way as the Judæan community developed into a species of "Civitas Dei."