1891
Students of jurisprudenceknow (and who knows so well as the Jew?) that the laws and statutes of everynation are not all observed and obeyed at all times in the same degree; that inall countries and in all ages there are certain laws, be they new or old, whichare perfectly valid according to the statue book, and are yet disregarded bythose who administer justice, and are wholly or largely ineffective inpractice.
If one examines a law ofthis kind, one will always find that its spirit is opposed to the spirit thatprevails at the time in the moral and political life of society. If it is a newlaw, it will be found to have come into existence before its time, to have beenthe work of lawgivers whose spiritual development was in advance of that of thegeneral body of society. If it is an old law, we shall find that its day ispast, that society in its spiritual development has left behind it the spiritof those old lawgivers. In either case, this particular law, being out ofharmony with the spirit that governs the progress of life in that particularage, may be valued and honored like all the other laws, but has no power tomake itself felt in practice.
And yet reformers act quiterightly when they anticipate the course of events, and put laws on the statuebook before the time has come when they can be practically effective; andconservatives also act rightly when they secure the survival in the statutebooks of laws whose time has gone by. Both parties know that they are doinggood service, each for its own cause. They both understand that the spirit ofsociety moves in a circle, now forwards, now backwards, and that in thiscircular movement it may arrive, sooner or later, at the stage of developmentthat these laws represent. When that time comes, it will be a matter ofimportance whether the laws are there in readiness or not. If they are, thespirit of society will quickly enter into them, as a soul enters into a body,and will inform them with life, and make them active forces, while they will befor the spirit a definite, material form, through which its preeminence will besecured. But if there is not this material form waiting for the spirit to enterinto it; if the spirit is compelled to wander bodiless until it can create foritself a new corporeal vesture, then there is danger that, before the spiritcan gain a firm footing where it desires to stay, the wheel may turn again, andthe favorable moment be lost.
This is true not only ofwritten laws and statues, but also of the unwritten ideas and judgments of thehuman mind. In every age you will find certain isolated beliefs and opinions,out of all relation to the ruling principles on which the life of that age isbuilt. They lie hidden in a water-tight compartment of the mind, and have no effectwhatever on the course of practical life. Ideas such as these are mostlysurvivals, inherited from earlier generations. In their own time they werefounded on current conceptions and actual needs of life; but gradually thespirit of society has changed: the foundations on which these ideas rested havebeen removed, and the ideas stand by a miracle. Their appearance of life isillusory: it is no real life of motion and activity, but the passive life of anold man whose "moisture is gone, and his natural force abated."Anthropologists (such as Tylor and many after him) have found aged creatures ofthis description in every branch of life; and they live sometimes to aremarkable age.
So much for the survivals.But there are here also anticipations, children who have not reached their fullstrength--ideas born in the minds of a few men of finer mould, who stand abovetheir generation, and whom favoring circumstances have enabled to disseminatetheir ideas, and to win acceptance for them, before their time: that is, beforethe age is fully able to understand and assimilate them. These ideas, beingonly learned parrot-wise, and being out of harmony with the prevailing spirit,are left, like the survivals, outside the sphere of active forces. Their lifeis that of the babe and the suckling. Grown men fondle them, take pleasure intheir childish prattle, sometimes play with them; but never ask their advice ona practical question.
And yet, so long as thebreath of life remains in them, there is hope both for the anticipations andfor the survivals: for the one in the forward march of the spirit, for theother in its backward trend. And so here also we must say that philosophershave done well to work for the dissemination of their new opinions, or thestrengthening of the old opinions to which they have been attached, withoutcaring whether the age was fit to receive them, whether it received them fortheir own sake or for the sake of something else, whether it could find in thema mode of life and a guide in practice. These philosophers know that a liveweakling is better than a dead Hercules; that so long as an idea lives in thehuman mind, be it but in a strange and distorted form, be its life but apassive life confined to some dim, narrow chamber of the mind-- so long it mayhope in the fulness of time to find its true embodiment; so long it may hope,when the right day dawns, to fill the souls of men, to become the living spiritthat informs all thoughts and all actions.
For an instance of ananticipation, take the idea of the Unity of God among the Jews in the period ofthe Judges and the Kings, until the Babylonian Exile.
Hume and his followers haveproved conclusively that what first aroused man to a recognition of his Creatorwas not his wonder at the beauty of nature and her marvels, but his dread ofthe untoward accidents of life. Primitive man, wandering about the earth insearch of food, without shelter from the rain or protection against the cold,persecuted unsparingly by the tricks of nature and by wild beasts, was not in aposition to take note of the laws of creation, to gaze awe-struck at the beautyof the world, and to ponder the question "whether such a world could bewithout a guide." [Midrash, Lek Leka, 39]. All his impulses, feelings andthoughts were concentrated on a single desire, the desire for life; in thelight of that desire he saw but two things in all nature--good and evil: thatwhich helped and that which hindered in his struggle for existence. as for thegood, he strove to extract from it all possible benefit, without muchpreliminary thought about its source. But evil was more common and more readilyperceptible than good: and how escape from evil? This question gave his mind norest; it was this question that first awoke in him, almost unconsciously, thegreat idea that every natural phenomenon has a lord, who can be appeased bywords and won over by gifts to hold evil in check. Yes, and also--the ideadeveloped of itself--to bestow good. Thus all the common phenomena of nature becamegods, in more or less close contact with hum an life and happiness; the earthbecame as full of deities as nature of good things and evil.
But it was not only fromnature and her blind forces that primitive man had to suffer. The hand of hisfellow-man too was against him. In those days there were no states or kingdoms,no fixed rules of life or ordinances of justice. The human race was dividedinto families, each living its own life, and each engaged in an endless war ofextinction with its neighbor. The evil cased by man to man was sometimes evenmore terrible than the hostility of nature. And her also man sought and foundhelp in a divine power; only in this case he did not turn to the gods ofnature, who were common to himself and his enemies. Each family looked for helpto its own special god, a god who had no care in the world but itself, nopurpose but to protect it from its enemies. Thus, when in course of time thesefamilies grew into nations living a settled life, and the war of man againstman took on a more general form; when the individual man was able to sit atpeace with his household in the midst of his people, and the process ofmerciless destruction was carried on by nation against nation, not by familyagainst family: then the family gods disappeared, or sank to the level ofhousehold spirits; but their place was filled by national gods, one god foreach nation, whose function it was to watch over it in time of peace, and topunish its enemies in time of war.
part 2
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This double polytheism,natural and national, has its source, therefore, not in an accidental error ofjudgment, but in the real needs of the human soul and the conditions of humanlife in primitive ages. Since these needs and these conditions did not idffermaterially in different countries, it is no matter for wonder that among allancient peoples we find the same faith (though names and external forms vary):a faith in nature-gods, who help man in his war with nature, and in nationalgods, who help the nation in its war with other nations. But in some cases thebelief in the nature-gods is more prominent, in others the belief in thenational godsl this is determined by the character and history of theparticular nation, by its relation to nature and its status among otherpeoples.
Hence, when the abstractidea of the Unity of God arose and spread among the Israelites in early days,it could not possibly be anything but an anticipation. Only a select few had atrue and living comprehension of the idea, compelling the heart fo feel and thewill to follow. The masses, although they heard the idea preached times withoutnumber by their Prophets, and thought that they believed in it, had only anexternal knowledge of it; and their belief was an isolated belief, not linkedwith actual life, adn without influence in practice. It was in vain that theProphets labored to breathe the spirit of life into this belief. It was so farremoved from the contemporary current of ideas and feelings, that it could notpossibly rood itself firmly in the heart, or find a spiritual thread by whichto link itself with actual life.
The author of the Book ofJudges has a way of complaining of the fickleness of our ancestors in thosedays. In time of trouble they always turned to the God of their forefathers;but when he had saved them from their enemies, they regularly returned to theservice of toerh gods, "and remembered not the Lord their God who haddelivered them from all their enemies round about." But, in fact, ourancestors were not so fickle as to change their faith like a coat, andalternate between two opposed religions. They had always one faith-- the earlydouble polytheism. Hence, in time of national trouble, of war and persecution atthe hands of other nations, "the children of Israel cried unto the Lordtheir God." It was not that they repented, in the Prophetic sense,and resolved to live henceforth as believers in absolute Unity. They turned to theGod of their ancestors, to their own special national God, andprayed Him to fight their enemies. When the external danger was over, and thenational trouble gave way to the individual troubles of each man and eachhousehold, they returned to the everyday gods of nature.
It was only after thedestruction of the Temple, when the spirit of the exiled people had changedsufficiently to admit of a belief in the Unity, that the Prophets of the timefound it easy to uproot the popular faith, and to make the idea of the Unitysupreme throughout the whole range of the people's life. it was not that thepeople suddenly looked upwards and was struck with the force of the"argument from design;" but the national disaster had strengthenedthe national feeling, and raised it to such a pitch that individual sorrowsvanished before the national trouble. The people, with all its thoughts andfeelings concentrated on this one sorrow, was compelled to hold fast to its oneremaining hope: its faith in its national God and in the greatness of His powerto save His people, not merely in its own country but also on foreign soil. Butthis hope could subsist only on condition that the victory of the Babylonianking was not regarded as the victory of the Babylonian gods. Not they, but theGod of Israel, who was also the God of the world, had given all countries overto the king of Babylon; and He who had given would take away. For all the earthwas His: "He created it, and gave it to whoso seemed right in Hiseyes." [Rashi onGen.i.I]. Thus atlength the people understood and felt the sublime teaching, which hitherto ithad known from afar, with mere lip-knowledge. The seed which the earlierProphets had sown on the barren rock burst into fruit now that its time hadcome. When the Prophet of the Exile cried in the name of the Lord, "Towhom will ye liken Me and make Me equal?...I am God, and there is noneelse," his words were in accord with the wishes of the people and itsnational hope; and so they sank into the heart of the people., and wiped outevery trace of the earlier outlook and manner of life.
This national hope, asembodied in the idea of the return to Palestine, affords, in a much later age,an instance of a "survival."
It is a phenomenon ofconstant occurrence, that an object pursued first as a means comes afterwardsto be pursued as an end. Originally it is sought after not for its own sake,but because of its connection with some othe robject of desire; but in courseof time the habit of pursuing and esteeming the first object, though only forthe sake of the second, creates a feeling of affaction for the first, which isquite independent of any ulterior aim; and this affection sometimes becomes sostrong that the ulterior aim, which was its original justification, issacrificed for its sake. Thus it is with the miser. He begins by loving moneyfor the enjoyment that its use affords; he ends by forgetting his originalobject, and develops an insatiable thirst for money as such, which will notallow him even to make use of it for the purposes of enjoyment.
part 3
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Similarly, the greatreligious idea, which, at the time of its revival, after the destruction of thefirst Temple, was meant to be only a foundation and support for the nationalhope, grew and developed in the period of the second Temple, until it becamethe whole content of the nation's spiritual life, and rose superior even tothat national ideal from which it drew its being. Religion occupied the firstplace, and everything else became secondary; the Jews demanded scarcelyanything except to be allowed to serve God in peace and quiet. When this wasconceded, they were content to bear a foreign yoke silently and patiently; whenit was not, they fought with the strength of lions, and knew no rest until theywere again free to devote themselves uninterruptedly to the service of theirHeavenly Father, whom they loved now not for the sake of any national reward,but with a whole-hearted affection, beside which life itself was of no account.
Thus it came about that,after the destruction of the second Temple. what the Jews felt most keenly wasnot the ruin of their country and their national life, but "thedestruction of the House [of God]:" the loss of their religious center, ofthe power to serve God in His holy sanctuary, and to offer sacrifices at theirappointed times. Their loss was spiritual, and the gap was to be filled byspiritual means. Prayers stood for sacrifices, the Synagogue for the Temple.the heavenly Jerusalem for the earthly, study of the Law for everything. Thusarmed, the Jewish people set out on its long and arduous journey, on itswanderings "from nation to nation." It was a long exile of much studyand much prayer, in which the national hope for the return to Zion was neverforgotten. But this hope was not now, as in the days of the Babylonian exile, ahope that materialized in action, and produced a Zerubbabel, and Ezra, aNehemiah; it was merely a source of spiritual consolation, enervating itspossessor, and lulling him into a sleep of sweet dreams. For now that thereligious ideal had conquered the national, the nation could no longer besatisfied with little, or be content to see in the return to Zion merely itsown national salvation. "The land of Israel" must be "spreadover all the lands." in order "to set the world right by the kingdomof the Eternal," in order that "all that have breath in theirnostrils might say, The Lord God of Israel is King." And so, hoping formore than it could possibly, achieve, the nation ceased gradually to do evenwhat it could achieve; and the idea of the return to Zion, wrapped in a cloudof phantasies and visions, withdrew from the world of action, and could nolonger be a direct stimulus to practical effort. Yet, even so, it never ceasedto live and to exert a spiritual influence; and hence it had sometimes aneffect even on practical life, although insensibly and indirectly. At first ourancestors asked in all sincerity and simplicity, "May not the Messiah cometoday or tomorrow?" and ordered their lives accordingly. Afterwards theircourage drooped; their belief in imminent salvation became weaker and weaker,and no longer dictated their everyday conduct; but even then it couldoccasionally be blown into flame by some visionary, and become embodied in amaterial form, as witness the so-called "Messianic" movements, inwhich the nation strove to attain its hope by practical methods, which were asspiritual and religious as the hope itself. But from the day when the last"Messiah" (Sabbatai Zebi) came to a bad end, and the spread ofeducation made it impossible for any dreamer to capture thousands of followers,the bond between life and the national hope was broken; the hope ceased toexert even a spiritual influence on the people. to be even a source of comfortin time of trouble, and became an aged, doddering creature -- a survival.
It had almost becomeunthinkable that this outworn hope could renew its youth, and become again themainspring of a new movement, least of all a rational and spontaneous movement.And yet that is what has happened. The revolutions of life's wheel have carriedthe spirit of our people from point to point on the circle, until now it beginsto approach once more the healthy and natural condition of two thousand yearsago. This ancient spirit, roused once more to life, has breathed life into theancient ideal, has found in that ideal its fitting external form, and become toit as soul to body.
But it is not for us, whosee "the love of Zion" in its new form, full of life and youthfulhope, to treat with disrespect the aged survival of past generations. It is notfor us to forget what the new spirit owes to this neglected and forgottensurvival, which our ancestors hid away in a dim, narrow chamber of theirhearts, to live its death-in-life until the present day. For, but for thissurvival, the new spirit would not have found straightway a suitable body withwhich to clothe itself; and then, perhaps, it might have gone as it came, andpassed away without leaving any abiding trace in history.
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Translatedfrom the Hebrew by Leon Simon c 1912, Jewish Publication Society of America