And yet it was not really so. It was a dark time, and the storm was ghastly enough, but the lightning has revealed things that might otherwise have remained hidden. Rather should we believe that the time of the greatest trial for Jewry denoted a high self-recollection, and with it the commencement of a true gathering and union. In times of great stress men discover their own deeper selves. Great trouble somehow digs into the very foundation of a man’s existence, and he cannot explore there without finding what is most essential in him. When some tremendous trouble sends its plough through his heart of hearts, then he becomes aware of wonderful things he has never suspected before.
Now it is well worth our while to weigh all this and to make it part of our outlook and equipment as we face the great present events. Because, for one thing, it should go a long way towards delivering us from the worst of all fears—the fear of to-morrow and the next day, and all the days that the future hides. Nine out of ten of us are perpetually spoiling what is happening by dread of what may happen, so that we can all join Disraeli in saying that we have had many troubles, but the worst have been those that never happened. If only we could let the morrow be anxious for itself! But, to a large extent, we can, if we will, school ourselves to it;
“וכימיך דבאך׃...”
דברים לג׳ כה׳[¹]
is a promise perpetually justified by the best psychological findings and historic experience in the life of nations. It is really the fact, that our “day” stirs and heightens our strength. Only when challenged, do we know what we are capable of. Modern psychology tells us that “the human individual lives usually far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. He energizes below the maximum, and he behaves below his optimum.” And to rise to our maximum and optimum we need some unusual stimulus or some unusual idea of necessity.
[¹] “... And as thy days, so shall thy strength be.”—Deut. xxxiii. 25.
Jewish history has revealed this truth several times. One individual or another, one small group or another—separated from the masses of the people—may fall away from Jewry; whoever can do that to-day has never belonged to it. The majority, however, remain loyal, and are never more loyal than in times of stress. The illusion is destroyed that a man can live a truly moral life in a time of trial while he is only a spectator of the life of society. In the Jews, convulsed by the events of the war, the new unity of Jewry showed itself. The situation was so serious, so full of menace for all that we hold dear, that every thinking Jew saw that he must in these days help to create and maintain the moral energies which alone can carry him through the crisis. At this time the Jew had a duty to his country and a duty to Judaism. To his country he owed, as a citizen, duties which could not be shirked. Every support was to be given to all patriotic efforts for the prosperity, the victory, and the glory of the country. To Judaism he owed the obligation of securing and defending not only the existence, but also the development and the realization of its traditional ideals, and of strengthening its unity. The first expression of this unity was an increase of self-consciousness. Jewry was affected by the war, but the essential problems of the Jews in the modern world were not altered by the war.
When we speak of Jewry, we speak of a living historic, ethnic and cultural—although not political—nationhood, existing potentially in its unity, independently of the Jewries of the countries in the various forms of their divided destinies, and their dissensions at the present moment. We strive to fix and to assure it—as far as external conditions allow it—in the Diaspora. And when we wish to prepare for it a sort of central Metropolis, an organic chef-lieu in Palestine—we are not engaged in adding one more nationality to the existing nationalities which fight against and watch one another suspiciously. It is not the question of introducing Jewry into the divisions of the nations, to be absorbed by them, and thus to contribute to their conflicts, but it is rather a question of aiming at the union of all that is noble and just in the nations and in ourselves. We want our own centre of simple active life, because the spiritual and intellectual element without the simple active life degenerates into subtlety and trickiness. We want—at least, for a section of our nationality—normal life, with its variety and interpretation of different influences of Nature. This is a question in which every Jew should be interested, because not only does the nobility of a nation depend on the presence of the national consciousness, but also the nobility of each individual. Our dignity and our rectitude are proportioned to our sense of relationship to something great, admirable, pregnant with possibilities, worthy of sacrifice, a continual inspiration by the presentation of aims larger than everyday life and personal ease.
What was the attitude of the Zionist Organization with regard to these great events? Why was the Zionist Organization more interested in the war than any other section of Jewry? And why is Zionism at present more up to date than it ever was? In order to answer properly these questions we have to cast a retrospective glance on the history of the last twenty years, and to recall to the minds of the readers a few important facts which, although dealt with in this work in previous chapters, must be again reviewed in their connection with the present political situation.
Twenty years ago several hundred Jews from all parts of the world met in the Swiss town of Basle and held a congress—the first Jewish congress in history.