[¹]”... ובמקום שאין אנשים השתדל להיות איש׃“ ב׳ו׳
[¹] “... and in a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” (Ibid. ii. 6.)
refers not only to individual matters, but also to national duties. Several centuries later, Bahia ben Joseph Ibn Pakuda (fl. 1000–1050), who devoted a whole chapter of his Duties of the Heart to the exaltation of trust in God, wrote:—
“Trust in God should not prevent man from doing his utmost in the way of human effort and enterprise. Likewise it is folly to put too much trust in benefactors, however powerful.”
The self-emancipation of the Jewish people is, accordingly, not simply a Jewish idea, it is the Jewish idea. This idea is not of the Ghetto, it is truly Hebraic; it may be opposed to some superstitious notions, but it is religious in the highest sense. Belief in predestination tended to make many Asiatic nations lethargic and indolent. Fatalism killed their energy and stopped all their progress. Relying on others was essentially fatalism. This doctrine was Babylonian; it was never Jewish.
“Ethiopia and Egypt were thy strength, and it was infinite;
Put and Lubim were thy helpers” (Nahum iii. 9).
This was the burden concerning Nineveh, but Israel trusted in God, i.e. in its Genius, in its own moral power, in its self-sacrifice and faithfulness to its ideals.
“That walk to go down into Egypt,
And have not asked at My mouth;