Hasidism

“ While warring with one another, Rabbinism and Hasidism found a point of contact in their common hatred of the new Enlightenment, which proceeded from the Mendelssohn circle in Berlin. If Rabbinism opposed secular knowledge actively, looking upon it as a competitor who contested its own spiritual monopoly, Hasidism opposed it passively, with its whole being, prompted by an irresistible leaning towards mental drowsiness and "pious fraud." Hasidism and its inseparable companion Tzaddikism, the products of a mystical outlook on life, were powerless against cold logical reasoning. ”

“ For a while a cessation of hostilities was evident in the camp of Israel. The reforms introduced by the Gaon, and propagated by his disciples, began to {122} bear fruit. Hasidism itself underwent a radical change under the leadership of Rabbi Shneor Zalman of Ladi (1747-1813) and Jacob Joseph of Polonnoy, who, unlike their colleagues of the Ukraine, were learned in the Talmud and familiar with the sciences. Protests by Hasidim themselves against the irreverent spirit that developed after the death of the Besht, had in fact been heard before. ”

“ In 1841, forty-five delegates, representing the six chief committees of the Lovers of Enlightenment, assembled in Vilna, and thence issued an appeal in which they adopted as their platform the elevation of the moral standards of adults by urging them to follow useful trades and discouraging the Jewish proclivity to business as much as possible; a reform of the prevailing system of the education of the young; the combating, if possible the eradication, of Hasidism, the fountainhead, as they thought, of ignorance and superstition ”

“ Hasidim, adherents of Judah Hasid, I 209
emigrate to Palestine, I 209 ff
adherents of Hasidism; see Hasidism
struggle between H. and old-orthodox (Mithnagdim) , I 238, 274, 278, 375 f
H. of Vilna rejoice over death of Gaon, I 375
granted right of secession by Statute of 1804, I 356, 379
H. of Old-Constantinov "protest" against Nicholas I., II 22
H. of Poland refuse to discard Jewish dress, II 145
Hasidism, founded by Besht, I 222
doctrine of, expounded by Besht, I 22, 224 ff
counteracts Rabbinism, I 224 f ”

“ But in the long run the popular organism was injuriously affected by this mystic opium. The poison rendered its consumers insensible to every progressive movement, and planted them firmly at the extreme pole of obscurantism, at a time when the Russian ghetto resounded with the first appeals calling its inmates toward the light, toward the regeneration and the uplift of inner Jewish life.
3. THE RUSSIAN MENDELSSOHN (ISAAC BAER LEVINSOHN) It was in the hot-bed of the most fanatical species of Hasidism that the first blossoms of Haskalah [1] timidly raised their heads. ”

“ But the conditions of its life in exile are not suitable. In our time culture wears in each country the garb of the national spirit, and the stranger who would woo her must sink his individuality and become absorbed in the dominant spirit. For this reason Judaism in exile cannot develop its individuality in its own way. When it leaves the Ghetto walls it is in danger of losing its essential being or -- at best -- its national unity: it is in danger of being split up into as many kinds of Judaism, each with a different character and life, as there are countries of the Jewish dispersion. ”

“ Yet, after all, I confess that Western “Zionism” is very good and useful for those Western Jews who have long since almost forgotten Judaism, and have no link with their people except a vague sentiment which they themselves do not understand. The establishment of a Jewish State by their agency is at present but a distant vision; but the idea of a State induces them meanwhile to devote their energies to the service of their people, lifts them out of the mire of assimilation, and strengthens their Jewish national consciousness. ”

“ Needless to say, if the political ideal is not attained, it will have disastrous consequences, because we shall have lost the old basis without finding a new one. But even if it is attained under present conditions, when we are a scattered people not only in the physical but also in the spiritual sense—even then Judaism will be in great danger. Almost all our great men, those, that is, whose education and social position fit them to be at the head of a Jewish State, are spiritually far removed from Judaism, and have no true conception of its nature and its value. ”

“ The Eastern form of the moral trouble is absolutely different from the Western. In the West it is the problem of the Jews, in the East the problem of Judaism. The one weighs on the individual, the other on the nation. The one is felt by Jews who have had a European education, the other by Jews whose education has been Jewish. The one is a product of anti-Semitism, 43and is dependent on anti-Semitism for its existence ”

“ Why are we so different from any other race or nation? Or are those of our people really right, who say that we have ceased to be a nation and are held together only by the bond of religion? But, after all, those who take that view can speak only for themselves. It is true that between them and us there is no longer any bond except that of a common religion and the hatred which our enemies have for us; but we ourselves, who feel our Jewish nationality in our own hearts, very properly deride anybody who tries to argue out of existence something of which we have an intuitive conviction. ”

“ But in the East, the home of refuge of Judaism and the birthplace of Jewish Chibbath Zion, this "political" tendency can bring us only harm. Its attractive force is at the same time a force repellent to the moral ideal which has till now been the inspiration of Eastern Jewry. Those who now abandon that ideal in exchange for the political idea will never return again, not even when the excitement dies down and the State is not established: for rarely in history do we find a movement retracing its steps before it has tried to go on and on, and finally lost its way. ”

“ For, seeing that the source of anti-Semitism lies in our lack of a concrete national existence, which would compel the other nations to recognise in us a nation equal to themselves in status, it follows plainly that the more we assimilate—the more we imitate our surroundings and whittle away our national distinctiveness—the less concrete and the more spiritual will our national existence become; and the more, therefore, will the ghost-fear which begets anti-Semitism grow in intensity. ”

“ So “Zionism” in the minds of the Prophets expanded, and produced that great vision of the end of days, when the wolf should lie down with the lamb, and nation should no longer lift up the sword against nation—and then Israel too should dwell securely in his land. And so this ideal for humanity has always been and will always be inevitably an essential part of the national ideal of the Jewish people; and a “Jewish State” will be able to give the people rest only when universal Righteousness is enthroned and holds sway over nations and States. ”

“ And so political Zionism cannot satisfy those Jews who care for Judaism: its growth seems to them to be fraught with danger to the object of their own aspiration.
The secret of our people's persistence is -- as I have tried to show elsewhere [3] --that at a very early period the Prophets taught it to respect only spiritual power, and not to worship material power. For this reason the clash with enemies stronger than itself never brought the Jewish nation, as it did the other nations of antiquity, to the point of self-effacement. ”

“ Only a few years ago it was regarded as a mark of a blood-thirsty disposition to admit that the Jewish problem was a problem, or even that the Jew was a Jew. Through much misunderstanding certain friends of mine and myself have persisted in disregarding the silence thus imposed; but facts have fought for us more effectively than words. By this time nobody is more conscious of the Jewish problem than the most intelligent and idealistic of the Jews. The folly of the fashion by which Jews often concealed their Jewish names, must surely be manifest by this time even to those who concealed them. ”

“ The Arabs fear exactly the three things which he says they need. Only the Arabs would call it a knowledge of financial trickery and an experience of political intrigue, and the power given by hoards of money not only of their own but of other peoples. About Dr. Weizmann and the true Zionists this is self-evidently unjust; but about Jewish influence of the more visible and vulgar kind it has to be proved to be unjust. Feeling as I do the force of the real case for Zionism, I venture most earnestly to implore the Jews to disprove it, and not to dismiss it. ”

“ If it were really the aim of "Zionism" to bring the people back to Judaism -- to make it not merely a nation in the political sense, but a nation living according to its own spirit -- then the Congress would not have postponed questions of national culture -- of language and literature, of education and the diffusion of Jewish knowledge -- to the very last moment, after the end of all the debates on rechtlich and völkerrechtlich, on the election of X. as a member of the Committee, on the imaginary millions, and so forth. ”

“ This is a form of psychic disease which we are powerless to cure. In all ages men have feared all kinds of ghosts which their imaginations have seen; and Israel appears to them as a ghost—but a ghost which they see with their very eyes, not merely in fancy. Thus the hatred of the nations for Jewish nationality is a psychic disease of the kind known as “demonopathy”; and having been transmitted from generation to generation for some two thousand years, it has by now become so deep-rooted that it can no longer be eradicated. ”

“ So he devotes himself to the ideal with all the ardour of which he is capable; he gives rein to his fancy, and lets it soar as it will, up above reality and the limitations of human power. For it is not the attainment of the ideal that he needs: its pursuit alone is sufficient to cure him of his moral sickness, which is the consciousness of inferiority; and the higher and more distant the ideal, the greater its power of exaltation.
This is the basis of Western Zionism and the secret of its attraction. But Eastern Chibbath Zion has a different origin and development. ”

“ From the standpoint of Judaism every man’s blood is as red as any other’s, every soul is “precious in the sight of God,” be it mine or another’s, therefore no man is at liberty to treat his life as his own property; no man has a right to say: “I am endangering myself; what right have others to complain of that?” (Maimonides’ Code, Laws of Murder, XI. 5) . The history of Judaism can tell, indeed, of many acts of self-sacrifice, the memory of which will 239remain precious and holy for all time. ”

“ If there are these differences of opinion as regards the characteristics of the Arabs, who have never been uprooted and driven into exile, can anybody have the assurance to dogmatise about the characteristics of a people like our own, which has been scattered among different peoples these two thousand years? Can anybody be so all-knowing as to distinguish with precision between those characteristics which are innate and original in us, and those which have been produced in us by our own environment in exile ”

“ For Jews the exodus is confined to certain countries, and is due to toleration; but Judaism has come out (or is coming out) of its own accord wherever it has come into contact with modern culture. This contact with modern culture overturns the defences of Judaism from within, so that Judaism can no longer remain isolated and live a life apart. The spirit of our people strives for development: it wants to absorb those elements of general culture which reach it from outside, to digest them and to make them a part of itself, as it has done before at different periods of its history. ”

“ Hence we see on the one hand that individual Gentiles live in peace and amity with their Jewish acquaintances, while retaining their deep-seated animosity against Jews as a people, and on the other hand that, throughout all the periodical changes of national tendencies and international relations, all nations remain at all times the same in their hatred of the Jews, just as they remain always the same in their hatred of the other kinds of ghosts in whose existence they believe. ”

“ The true test of Zionism may seem a topsy-turvy test. It will not succeed by the number of successes, but rather by the number of failures, or what the world (and certainly not least the Jewish world) has generally called failures. It will be tested, not by whether Jews can climb to the top of the ladder, but by whether Jews can remain at the bottom; not by whether they have a hundred arts of becoming important, but by whether they have any skill in the art of remaining insignificant. ”

“ Thus we find that even where the number of Jews is small, they bring down on themselves the resentment and hatred of their neighbours because of their success in 69the struggle for existence, and the advantage which their ability and pertinacity gain for them over their competitors in the various walks of life; and where the Jewish settlement is considerable, anti-Semitism finds its food—even without any success on the Jewish side—in the mere fact of their existence: for their existence is bound, poor and cramped though it be, to lead to competition which their neighbours will feel. ”