The redemption of the land and labor. Can you imagine that there is anyone who Will
not see that here there are two sides to but one question? The point is so clear,
so simple -- who can fail to understand this...?
A people that was completely divorced from nature" that during 2000 years was imprisoned within walls, that became inured to all forms of life except to a life of labor, cannot become once again a living, natural, working people without bending all its will-power toward that end. We lack the fundamental element; we lack labor, labor by/which a people becomes rooted in its soil and in its culture. To be sure, not every individual among other peoples exists by labor. Many among such peoples despise labor and search for a way of life that can maintain itself on the labor of others. But the majority of a living people works in normal fashion; work is ingrained in their lives, and so it is carried on as an organic function. A living people always possesses a great majority to whom labor is its second nature.
Not so among us. We despise labor. Even among our workers there are those who worn because of necessity and with the continual hope of some day escaping from it and leading lithe good life. We must not deceive ourselves. We must realize how abnormal we are in this respect, how alien labor has become to our spirit, and not alone to the individual life, but also to the life of the nation. Quite characteristic of us is the Hebrew expression: "When Israel does the will of the Lord, its work is done by others." These with us are not mere words. The sentiment, whether we are aware of it or not, has become a subconscious attitude within us; a second nature to us.
Now let us assume that somewhere we already have Settled a goodly number of Jews. Will this attitude of ours change there of itself'? Will a transformation of our soul take place without a radical cure? Will not our Jewish people at all times prefer trading, speculation especially business in which others will labor While they will manage the enterprise? Should life compel a certain proportion of them to work, will not these choose mainly urban trades, where the chances for acquiring wealth are greater, and where the opportunity for freeing onself from work comes sooner? Will not the soil be tilled mainly by strangers, and, in general, will not strangers carry on the major industries? Are these natural conditions for a living people?
But who is there that thinks of all this? Who is sensitive to it all? Jewish labor does not exist, nor are we mindful of its absence. Even when we talk of national revival, we are not aware of this problem. We do not miss labor neither as a force to bind man to the soil, to gain possession of the soil, nor as the major bond in the creation of national culture. We have neither land nor a living tongue, nor a productive culture, but of this at least, we are aware. This, at least, we feel; this, at least, we recognize. - be it clearly or dimly. Better still, we are seeking methods whereby we may remedy this condition. On the other hand, if we have no labor then what? Let the gentile work! We shall create a culture and achievements of national scope. We shall enthrone Justice in the world!
What is to be the character of the culture we are proposing to create? We call this culture the regeneration of the spirit. That is, the spirit we are under taking to revive is not a living spirit that fills and vitalizes the entire body, that in turn receives from the body its life-force, but it is an aristocratic sort of spirit setting up its abode within the confines of the heart and mind. It is a culture concerned mainly with ideas. In the matter of ideas, one can adhere to the world-outlook that belongs to the school of Hermann Struck and of the Rabbi of Lida, or to the weltanschauung of the school of Marx and Engels.
We have grown accustomed to look upon culture from just this point of view, for at times culture flourishes even in the Galut. But truth to tell, we neither have nor shall we be able to have a culture in the Galut; that is, a living culture, one that draws its nourishment from life and develops from within itself. We have not culture because we have no life, for life in the Galut is not our life. In the Galut we have a certain cultural wealth bequeathed to us by the past which we revise in times of need according to the spirit of the environment and the times in which we are placed -- that is to say, in harmony with the life which we have been forced to live, along channels of the lives of others, and according to the will of others, and also in harmony with the spirit prevailing in the worlds of others. Then, too, we have a certain ability for adaptation which we have developed in the Galut, an ability to mold the achievement of others to our spirit, to make of the fruit of another's labor "delicacies" to satisfy our palates. It is true that in all that we now possess we have created a good deal, for at times we exercise considerable creative power in our inventions. But we still are far from possessing a living culture.
A living culture embraces the whole of life. Whatever man creates for the sake of life is ·culture; the tilling of the soil, the building of homes, of all kinds of buildings, the paving of roads, and so on. Each piece of work, each deed, each act is an element of culture. Herein is the foundation of culture, the stuff of which it is made. Arrangement, method, shape, the way in which a thing is done - these are forms of culture. What a man does, what he feels, thinks" lives, while he is at work, and while he is not working, the conditions arising from these situations, together with living nature underlying all these relations -- these mold themselves into the spirit of culture. Higher culture draws its nourishment from science, art, beliefs, and opinions, from poetry, ethics, religion. Higher culture or culture in its restrictive sense, the culture to which we especially apply the term when we speak of culture is the butter of culture in general, of culture in its broadest sense. But is it possible to make butter without milk or will man make butter from milk belonging to others, and will the butter then he his very own?
What then are we seeking in Palestine if not that which we cannot find anywhere , else in the world -- the living milk of culture? Our object is not to create today an academic culture when we have as yet nothing; what we have come to create is a living culture in which the academic quality will impregnate life in all its' cells and atoms, a living culture which will need only sufficient churning to produce butter, the higher culture. We aim to create beliefs, opinion on life, the art of life, the poetry of life, the ethics of life, the religion of life; furthermore, from all this we come to forget that link in life, that living link, that connects the present with the past. We are trying to create life, a life of our own, animated by our own spirit through 'Ways that are our ways. Here I see that I am duty-bound to speak more clearly, although my meaning is obvious from what has already been said. Are we not children of God who created things by His word? And if I set out to "create" life, then who like us can "createll everything by one word, the stimulating 'WOrd of the voice of Jacob? We can, therefore, simply say: all that we wish for in Palestine is to work with our very own hands at all things which make up life, to labor with our own hands at all kinds of works, at all kinds of crafts and trades from the most skilled, the cleanest and the easiest to the coarsest, the most despised, the most difficult.
We must feel all that the worker feels, think what he thinks, live the life he lives" in ways that are our ways. Then we can consider that we have our own culture, for then we shall have life.
What does all this teach us?
To me the thing is clear and simple. All this should teach us that from now on our chief ideal must be labor. We were defeated through lack of labor -- I do not say that we sinned -- for we ourselves were not responsible for the situation. Work will heal us. In the center of all our hopes we must place work; our entire structure must be founded on labor. If only we set up work itself as the ideal - rather, if only we bring into the open the ideal of labor, shall we be cured of the disease which attacked us. We shall then sew together the rents by which we were tom from nature. Labor is a lofty human ideal, an ideal of the future. A great ideal in this sense is like the healing sun. Even if it be true that history is not concerned with pointing a moral nor with disseminating knowledge, yet everyone with vision can should learn from history. Our condition in the past, our situation in the present can teach us that we must take the lead in this - we must all work.
We have grown used to hearing the complaint that we have no longer the manpower to accomplish great deeds. What of those Jews who went to the slaughter by the thousands and tens of thousands rather than betray their people and their God? Do not say that the fathers were better than their sons, for this is not so. Those Simons and Reubens who today in Palestine are absorbed in gathering pennies while the life of their nation hanging by a thread is 'of no concern' whatsoever to them... these same Simons and Reubens in those terrible days in the Galut were the very ones who gave their lives as sacrifices for their people. For another spirit was then over them - over the whole nation. There is no need of bringing evidence of this from afar; near and very powerful evidence is at hand. These same Reubens and Simons now in Palestine -- were they not different and not so many years ago, either? Did they not themselves come here in the name of an ideal? Did they not aspire to labor and did they not work hard and undergo suffering and make enormous sacrifices? Then a different spirit was upon them; that spirit, however, has fled.
Let us begin with the creation of a new spirit. Let us begin at the stage to which they first came and upon which we have come to lay the foundation. Let us begin and we shall find our way.
A people that was completely divorced from nature" that during 2000 years was imprisoned within walls, that became inured to all forms of life except to a life of labor, cannot become once again a living, natural, working people without bending all its will-power toward that end. We lack the fundamental element; we lack labor, labor by/which a people becomes rooted in its soil and in its culture. To be sure, not every individual among other peoples exists by labor. Many among such peoples despise labor and search for a way of life that can maintain itself on the labor of others. But the majority of a living people works in normal fashion; work is ingrained in their lives, and so it is carried on as an organic function. A living people always possesses a great majority to whom labor is its second nature.
Not so among us. We despise labor. Even among our workers there are those who worn because of necessity and with the continual hope of some day escaping from it and leading lithe good life. We must not deceive ourselves. We must realize how abnormal we are in this respect, how alien labor has become to our spirit, and not alone to the individual life, but also to the life of the nation. Quite characteristic of us is the Hebrew expression: "When Israel does the will of the Lord, its work is done by others." These with us are not mere words. The sentiment, whether we are aware of it or not, has become a subconscious attitude within us; a second nature to us.
Now let us assume that somewhere we already have Settled a goodly number of Jews. Will this attitude of ours change there of itself'? Will a transformation of our soul take place without a radical cure? Will not our Jewish people at all times prefer trading, speculation especially business in which others will labor While they will manage the enterprise? Should life compel a certain proportion of them to work, will not these choose mainly urban trades, where the chances for acquiring wealth are greater, and where the opportunity for freeing onself from work comes sooner? Will not the soil be tilled mainly by strangers, and, in general, will not strangers carry on the major industries? Are these natural conditions for a living people?
But who is there that thinks of all this? Who is sensitive to it all? Jewish labor does not exist, nor are we mindful of its absence. Even when we talk of national revival, we are not aware of this problem. We do not miss labor neither as a force to bind man to the soil, to gain possession of the soil, nor as the major bond in the creation of national culture. We have neither land nor a living tongue, nor a productive culture, but of this at least, we are aware. This, at least, we feel; this, at least, we recognize. - be it clearly or dimly. Better still, we are seeking methods whereby we may remedy this condition. On the other hand, if we have no labor then what? Let the gentile work! We shall create a culture and achievements of national scope. We shall enthrone Justice in the world!
What is to be the character of the culture we are proposing to create? We call this culture the regeneration of the spirit. That is, the spirit we are under taking to revive is not a living spirit that fills and vitalizes the entire body, that in turn receives from the body its life-force, but it is an aristocratic sort of spirit setting up its abode within the confines of the heart and mind. It is a culture concerned mainly with ideas. In the matter of ideas, one can adhere to the world-outlook that belongs to the school of Hermann Struck and of the Rabbi of Lida, or to the weltanschauung of the school of Marx and Engels.
We have grown accustomed to look upon culture from just this point of view, for at times culture flourishes even in the Galut. But truth to tell, we neither have nor shall we be able to have a culture in the Galut; that is, a living culture, one that draws its nourishment from life and develops from within itself. We have not culture because we have no life, for life in the Galut is not our life. In the Galut we have a certain cultural wealth bequeathed to us by the past which we revise in times of need according to the spirit of the environment and the times in which we are placed -- that is to say, in harmony with the life which we have been forced to live, along channels of the lives of others, and according to the will of others, and also in harmony with the spirit prevailing in the worlds of others. Then, too, we have a certain ability for adaptation which we have developed in the Galut, an ability to mold the achievement of others to our spirit, to make of the fruit of another's labor "delicacies" to satisfy our palates. It is true that in all that we now possess we have created a good deal, for at times we exercise considerable creative power in our inventions. But we still are far from possessing a living culture.
A living culture embraces the whole of life. Whatever man creates for the sake of life is ·culture; the tilling of the soil, the building of homes, of all kinds of buildings, the paving of roads, and so on. Each piece of work, each deed, each act is an element of culture. Herein is the foundation of culture, the stuff of which it is made. Arrangement, method, shape, the way in which a thing is done - these are forms of culture. What a man does, what he feels, thinks" lives, while he is at work, and while he is not working, the conditions arising from these situations, together with living nature underlying all these relations -- these mold themselves into the spirit of culture. Higher culture draws its nourishment from science, art, beliefs, and opinions, from poetry, ethics, religion. Higher culture or culture in its restrictive sense, the culture to which we especially apply the term when we speak of culture is the butter of culture in general, of culture in its broadest sense. But is it possible to make butter without milk or will man make butter from milk belonging to others, and will the butter then he his very own?
What then are we seeking in Palestine if not that which we cannot find anywhere , else in the world -- the living milk of culture? Our object is not to create today an academic culture when we have as yet nothing; what we have come to create is a living culture in which the academic quality will impregnate life in all its' cells and atoms, a living culture which will need only sufficient churning to produce butter, the higher culture. We aim to create beliefs, opinion on life, the art of life, the poetry of life, the ethics of life, the religion of life; furthermore, from all this we come to forget that link in life, that living link, that connects the present with the past. We are trying to create life, a life of our own, animated by our own spirit through 'Ways that are our ways. Here I see that I am duty-bound to speak more clearly, although my meaning is obvious from what has already been said. Are we not children of God who created things by His word? And if I set out to "create" life, then who like us can "createll everything by one word, the stimulating 'WOrd of the voice of Jacob? We can, therefore, simply say: all that we wish for in Palestine is to work with our very own hands at all things which make up life, to labor with our own hands at all kinds of works, at all kinds of crafts and trades from the most skilled, the cleanest and the easiest to the coarsest, the most despised, the most difficult.
We must feel all that the worker feels, think what he thinks, live the life he lives" in ways that are our ways. Then we can consider that we have our own culture, for then we shall have life.
What does all this teach us?
To me the thing is clear and simple. All this should teach us that from now on our chief ideal must be labor. We were defeated through lack of labor -- I do not say that we sinned -- for we ourselves were not responsible for the situation. Work will heal us. In the center of all our hopes we must place work; our entire structure must be founded on labor. If only we set up work itself as the ideal - rather, if only we bring into the open the ideal of labor, shall we be cured of the disease which attacked us. We shall then sew together the rents by which we were tom from nature. Labor is a lofty human ideal, an ideal of the future. A great ideal in this sense is like the healing sun. Even if it be true that history is not concerned with pointing a moral nor with disseminating knowledge, yet everyone with vision can should learn from history. Our condition in the past, our situation in the present can teach us that we must take the lead in this - we must all work.
We have grown used to hearing the complaint that we have no longer the manpower to accomplish great deeds. What of those Jews who went to the slaughter by the thousands and tens of thousands rather than betray their people and their God? Do not say that the fathers were better than their sons, for this is not so. Those Simons and Reubens who today in Palestine are absorbed in gathering pennies while the life of their nation hanging by a thread is 'of no concern' whatsoever to them... these same Simons and Reubens in those terrible days in the Galut were the very ones who gave their lives as sacrifices for their people. For another spirit was then over them - over the whole nation. There is no need of bringing evidence of this from afar; near and very powerful evidence is at hand. These same Reubens and Simons now in Palestine -- were they not different and not so many years ago, either? Did they not themselves come here in the name of an ideal? Did they not aspire to labor and did they not work hard and undergo suffering and make enormous sacrifices? Then a different spirit was upon them; that spirit, however, has fled.
Let us begin with the creation of a new spirit. Let us begin at the stage to which they first came and upon which we have come to lay the foundation. Let us begin and we shall find our way.
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