To Your Tents, oh Israel
I AM writing at a moment when the West of Europe is being gradually thrilled by the cri de cœur from Roumania. It is within the possibilities of fate that what human endeavor could not teach, human need may accomplish. Many, I believe, feel that the Jews are at the Nielah of existence. The world is at the dusk of sorrow, all the Gates are closing, and the Jewish prayer goes up, and because it is the wish, the human, terrestrial heaven is to open and Israel is to enter Zion. So it seems to me thousands are thinking and feeling. I am conscious that one of the great mystic spells is passing wane-like across the world and the new community of thought created by such revivalism, will bind with links of gold the old ideas.
Neither national psychology, nor national sociology admits of catastro: hic thought. “Themills of God grind slowly,” circumstances fashion gradually the destiny which is the first thingwe discover on retrospection, and if we suddenlyface a great human terminus the projection goesback a long way, though no doubt undeceived.After all, the Roumanian government may becomeafraid of the consequence of the wholesale emigration of Jews, — a new view of the hardeningof Pharoh’s heart — the unwise will havelearnt nothing, the gospel of luck will bepreached — “up to the lips and not o,er,” andthe Zionist will be left to “gang his ain gait.”Would Zionism be a whit the less true by reasonof this? No. Need is not the intelligent factorin Zionism, though it is and becomes the motivepower of Zionistic action. The intelligent factormust after all be the basic principle of a movement.
What factor is both intelligent and wide enough to shoulder the diversity of the Diaspora. The Jewish National idea. It is late in the day to preach this platitude of the Zionist platforms. True. But there are ideas which cannot be too often adumbrated; first, because to the believer they must represent the conscious guide of actions; secondly, because there are so many who never understand, realize, or appreciate an idea or a thought until they have learnt it by rote. And we stand more in need of the Shofar blast of our idea today than ever before. For ourselves, the Zionists; for the others who look on, or who in the poverty of hypocritic in-
vention, tell us all the world is now Zionistic — what need for agitation?
With Zionists active, and the Jewish world sorrow-laden, with pressure within and pressure without, mental whirls are possible, as the break of the storms brings its coiling winds. We Zionists, I mean those who clung to National Idealism when we were panless, powerless, and hopeless of the goal, we are no longer alone. Every victory has its latent possibility of disaster. In gaining what has been achieved today, we have gained diversity of thought and differentiation in the motive springs of purpose. All the purposes are conscientiously good, but their objectivity is not so valuable or useful. Already new Shibboleths are arising—new dogmas are being pressed forward with earnestness and an appearance of authority; and smooth excuses are bein: offered for their introduction. There is the spiritual conception which is to sanctify the nation preparatory to the return, the cultural idea, which is to smooth the paths of the future by knowledge, there is still a remnant of that colonization idea which was to bring about the end by the “little drops of water make a mighty ocean” theory. All these things are good provided they remain subversive to the main teaching and doctrine of Zionism. A nation embraces all its elements, political, social, spiritual, ethical, aethetical and cultural.
To your tents, oh Israel! I plead for clear thought and wise conclusions. The policy of ‘“‘do something ” is childish and it brings childish decision. Every factionist in striving to make his battle cry heard endeavors to drownall other faction cries and covers with noise the silent element who belong to the main stream. There is a possibility then of a movement to the angle on the right or the left — what in England is called the cave, and in America is called the capture of the caucus. Such a sequence to our aims is possible if not probable. Reason does not guide those who are in pain or trouble. The Alliance Israelite Universelle set out to unite Jewry round the Return — today the purpose of each Alliance is to foster abroad the educational tendencies existing in the land of its origin. The Chovevi Zion set out to accomplish the return and it bound its muscles with the funeral swathings of its colonization theory. Let us take heed