Moses Hess

“ But, fortunately, people have gone so far in life, as well as in science, as to deny the typical and the creative; and as a result the vapor of idealism, on the one hand, and the dust of atomism on the other, rest like mildew on the red corn, and stifle the germinating life in the bud. It is against these encroachments on the most sacred principles of creative life that the national tendencies of our time react, and it is against these destructive forces that I appeal to the original national power of Judaism. ”

“ Just as only after the completion of the organic life-sphere, namely, after the creation of man, the Sabbath of Nature began, so will the historical Sabbath begin only after the completion of the development of social life, after the creation of a harmonious social organization in which production and consumption will be in a state of equilibrium. We stand at present on the eve of the historical Sabbath. Our age is still the age of speculation. But speculation can, by its very nature, be the inheritance of only a minority. ”

“ The Jewish religion, thought Heine, and with him all the enlightened Jews, is more of a misfortune than a religion. But in vain do the progressive Jews persuade themselves that they can escape this misfortune through enlightenment or conversion. Every Jew is, whether he wishes it or not, solidly united with the entire nation; and only when the Jewish people will be freed from the burden which it has borne so heroically for thousands of years, will the burden of Judaism be removed from the shoulders of these progressive Jews, who will ultimately form only a small minority. ”

“ What modern science knows about the law of generation and development operating in the three life-spheres, the cosmic, organic and social, I have already discussed elsewhere. But I have come to the conclusion, through my scientific and historical studies, that there is only one law governing all movement and life phenomena of all the spheres of the universe, the organisms of the earth and the nations of history. There is as little infinite, indeterminate progress in the social human world, as there is in the plant and animal world, at the end of which stands the natural, undeveloped man. ”

“ To this coming cult, Judaism alone holds the key. This "religion of the future" of which the eighteenth century philosophers, as well as their recent followers, dreamed, will neither be an imitation of the ancient pagan Nature cult, nor a reflection of the neo-Christian or the neo- Judaism skeleton, the specter of which haunts the minds of our religious reformers. Each nation will have to create its own historical cult; each people must become like the Jewish people, a people of God. ”

“ The French nation has, since the great Revolution, been calling to the other nations for help. But the nations have turned a deaf ear to the voice from the distance and have lent a not unwilling ear to the tumult of reaction in their own midst. To-day, this roar deafens only the people in certain parts of Germany, those who, by dint of political trickery, are aroused to the pitch of enthusiasm for the kings and war lords. But the other nations hear and follow the call of France. ”

“ It is only with the national rebirth that the religious genius of the Jews, like the giant of legend touching mother earth, will be endowed with new strength and again be reinspired with the prophetic spirit. No aspirant for enlightenment, not even a Mendelssohn, has so far succeeded in crushing the hard shell with which Rabbinism has encrusted Judaism without, at the same time, destroying the national ideal in its innermost essence. ”

“ Classical Paganism, how ever, saw its genius disappear with its culture, the roots of which lay only on the surface of life, and which were consequently swept away by the tide of barbarous tribes which flooded the ancient world during the closing period of antiquity. To the pagans, who saw the gradual disappearance of their own creative genius, along with the environment wherein it acted, it appeared, one day, that the divine harmony of the pluralistic world is no more divine and sacred but God-forsaken, and, finally, Paganism sought refuge in its opposite, the creative spirit of Judaism. ”

“ But when we see a nation, torn from its cradle in its early childhood, and after having tasted all the bitterness of exile is brought back to its land, only to be tossed again into the wide world; and that nation, during the eighteen centuries of its wandering has displayed such remarkable powers of endurance, suffering age-long martyrdom :without extinguishing in its heart the fire of patriotism, then we just admit that we are standing before an infinite mystery, unparalleled in the history of humanity."
In these few words there is concentrated the whole history of Israel. ”

“ If it is gratifying to see that inspired poets and writers champion the cause of our nationality, it is still more fortunate that the loyalty to a people, with whose help the oppressed nation will reawaken, was not unknown among the Jews. What would this people, I mean the French, think of us, when during the springtime of nations, the daybreak of the French Revolution, not a sound of loyalty and sympathy was heard in the midst of our nation? ”

“ The rigid crust of orthodox Jewry will melt when the spark of Jewish patriotism, now smoldering under it, is kindled into a sacred fire which will herald the coming of the spring and the resurrection of our nation to a new life. On the other hand, Occidental Judaism is surrounded by an almost undissolvable crust, composed of the dead residue of the first manifestation of the modern spirit, from the inorganic chalk deposit of an extinct rationalistic enlightenment. ”

“ Those reformers keenly appreciated the historical basis of a religion and knew well that the old basis cannot be arbitrarily replaced by a new one. Our reformers, on the contrary, attempted to reform the basis itself. Their reforms have only a negative purpose-if they have any aim at all-to firmly establish unbelief in the national foundation of the Jewish religion. No wonder that these reforms only fostered indifference to Judaism and conversions to Christianity. ”

“ And just as at the time of the first French Revolution, German literature and philosophy, which were then at their height, could not protect the ghost of a German empire from its fate, so are all our orators, writers and poets of to-day unable to revive the political corpse of Germany, the soul of which had departed long ago in the unfortunate peasant war. Great popular leaders and patriotic heroes do not descend from the skies, but grow out of the deep soil of the people and its history. ”

“ Mask yourself a thousand times over, change your name, religion and character, travel throughout the world incognito, so that people may not recognize the Jew in you; yet every insult to the Jewish name will strike you, even more than the pious man who is permeated with the spirit of Jewish solidarity and who fights for the honor of the Jewish name. ”

“ The most touching point about these Hebrew prayers is, that they are really an expression of the collective Jewish spirit; they do not plead for the individual, but for the entire Jewish race. The pious Jew is above all a Jewish patriot. The "new" Jew, who denies the existence of the Jewish nationality, is not only a deserter in the religious sense, but is also a traitor to his people, his race and even to his family. If it were true that Jewish emancipation in exile is incompatible with Jewish nationality, then it were the duty of the Jews to sacrifice the former for the sake of the latter. ”

“ Until the French Revolution, the Jewish people was the only people in the world which had, simultaneously, a national as well as a humanitarian religion. It is through Judaism that the history of humanity became a sacred history. I mean by that, that process of unified organic development which has its origin in the love of the family and which will not be completed until the whole of humanity becomes one family, the members of which will be united by the holy spirit, the creative genius of history, as strongly as the organs of a body are united by the creative natural forces. ”

“ Here, as in the cosmic life-sphere, the field of operation of which is infinite space, everything is generated, develops, accomplishes its aim in life, and then decays and dissolves in order to arise again to a new life entity in the eternal, infinite, unified and divine cycle of universal life. What we call "progress" is no more than the development of a being from the germ stage to the mature life stage. ”

“ In the sacred beehive of religion, we still hear a continuous buzzing of those insects who would rather see a mighty sword in the hands of the barbarians, than greet the resurrection of nations and hail the revival of a free and great thought inscribed on their banner. This is undoubtedly the reason why Israel did not make any attempt to become master of his own flocks, why the Jews, after wandering for two thousand years, are not in a position to shake the dust from their weary feet. ”

“ It is a very prevalent error, most likely borrowed from Christianity, that an entire view of life can be compressed into a single dogma. I do not agree with Mendelssohn that Judaism has no dogmas. I claim that the divine teaching of Judaism was never, at any time, completed and finished. It has always kept on developing, its development being based upon the harmonizing of the Jewish genius with that of life and humanity. Development of the knowledge of God, through study and conscientious investigation, is not only not forbidden in Judaism, but is even considered a religious duty. ”

“ This monarch missed his great opportunity to raise Germany, by means of supporting social, political and religious reform, to the dignity of a useful modern State, to liberate it from the yoke of Feudalism and save it from disruption, and finally to create for himself a nation and to give to the people a real king, to create a modern monarchy which would support all the oppressed peoples and terrify the conquering mediaeval lords of war. ”

“ Although neither Wihl nor the other Jewish writers and poets have expressed themselves for our own political regeneration, they have, at least, shown to the world that progressive Judaism also cherishes patriotic memories, and that through some stimulus this poetic and ideal patriotism may be converted into a strong and mighty force of action. And, therefore, I do not doubt, that from now on, progressive Jews will labor for the political regeneration of our people with the same energy that other Jews, in other times, have labored for the emancipation of the Jews in the lands of exile. ”

“ Those who stand between revolution and reaction, the mediators, who have an appointed purpose to push modern Society on its path of progress, will after society becomes strong and progressive, be swallowed up by it. The nurses of progress, who would undertake to teach the Creator himself wisdom, prudence and economy; those carriers of culture, the saviors of Society, the speculators in politics, philosophy and religion, will not survive the last storm. And along with the other nurses of progress our Jewish reformers will also close their ephemeral existence. ”

“ The belief in a rational, and therefore cognizable, divine Law, as revealed to humanity in the teaching and life of Judaism, this belief in a divine Providence, in a place of creation, is not a blind, fatalistic belief in destiny, although it excludes arbitrary and lawless freedom. I do not assert, with the materialists, that the organic and spiritual world is subjected, like the inorganic world, to the same laws as an external mechanism. ”

“ In their attempt to base the granting of equal rights to all men on the primitive uniformity of all races and types, the humanitarians confound the organization of social life on the basis of solidarity, which is the result of a long and painful process of historical development, with a readymade, inorganic equality and uniformity, which becomes rarer and rarer the farther back we go in history. The reconciliation of races follows its own natural laws, which we can neither arbitrarily create nor change. ”

“ They fancy that a recently manufactured prayer or hymn book, wherein a philosophical theism is put into rhyme and accompanied by music, is more elevating and soul-stirring than the fervent Hebrew prayers which express the pain and sorrow of a nation at the loss of its fatherland. They forget that these prayers, which not only created, but preserved for millenniums, the unity of Jewish worship, are even to-day the tie which binds into one people all the Jews scattered around the globe. ”

“ Rome was not built in a day, and the New Jerusalem must needs take time for its construction.
What we have to do at present for the regeneration of the Jewish nation is, first, to keep alive the hope of the political rebirth of our people, and next, to reawaken that hope where it slumbers. When political conditions in the Orient shape themselves so as to permit the organization of a beginning of the restoration of a Jewish State, this beginning will express itself in the founding of Jewish colonies in the land of their ancestors, to which enterprise France will undoubtedly lend a hand. ”

“ Those commendable efforts to improve the condition of Jewish labor will, therefore, while they indirectly cause the destruction of the Jewish cult, be as fruitless, on the whole, as the endeavors of the Reform movement, which leads directly to the same result. In exile, the Jewish people cannot be regenerated. Reform or philanthropy can only bring it to apostasy and to nothing else, but in this no reformer, not even a tyrant will ever succeed. ”

“ Without regeneration there can be no people, and without a people, in the modern sense of the word, there can be no modern patriotism. Present-day German patriotism, which expresses itself only in verbal protestations against our neighbors, while it has neither the courage nor the talent to occupy itself with the work of regeneration, is only an air bubble. Germany does not suffer from the oppression of a foreign yoke, nor is there any fear that it will suffer in the future, as the patriots would have us believe, but it is ailing as a result of its murdered revolution ”

“ I agree with you in your view of human life and believe, also, that moral freedom is the destiny of man as well as of humanity. But to me this goal of humanity is identical with the recognition of God, which Judaism proclaimed at the very beginning of its history, and to the spread and development of which it has always contributed, and which, since Spinoza, it has made accessible to all historical nations. ”

“ Far be it from me to minimize the untiring labor of the Jewish scholars to whom our present Jewish generation owes its education, social position, and mental and moral progress, and whom alone we have to thank for the fact that in the midst of an almost universal social disintegration the Jewish family still serves as a model of moral conduct. These scholars and teachers are the successors of the ancient rabbis, who were the support and stay of Judaism during the long two thousand year exile, and who, nevertheless, never formed themselves into a caste. ”