THE HUMANITY OF JEWISH WISDOM
IN my early youth I read—I have forgotten where—the words of the ancient Jewish sage—Hillel, if I remember rightly: ‘If thou art not for thyself, who will be for thee?But if thou art for thyself alone, wherefore art thou’?[48]
The inner meaning of these words impressed me with its profound wisdom, and I interpreted them for myself in this manner: I must actively take care of myself, that my life should be better, and I must not impose the care of myself on other people’s shoulders; but if I am going to take care of myself alone, of nothing but my own personal life, it will be useless, ugly, meaningless. This thought ate its way deep into my soul, and I say now with conviction: Hillel’s wisdom served as a strong staff on my road, which was neither even nor easy.
I believe that Jewish wisdom is more all-human and universal than any other; and this not only because of its immemorial age, not only because it is the firstborn, but also because of the powerful humaneness that saturates it, because of its high estimate of man.
MAXIM GORKY, 1916.
THE PHARISEES[49]
OF all the strange ironies of history, perhaps the strangest is that ‘Pharisee’ is current as a term of reproach among the theological descendants of that sect of Nazarenes who, without the martyr spirit of those primitive Puritans, would never have come into existence.
T. H. HUXLEY.