The New Spirit: a Glimpse
THE colossal Zionist movement representing marvelous activity has stamped Jewish character with an unfamiliar expression. Souls slumbering in the molds of life's routine have awakened from the spell of semi-consciousness. Noble aspirations have settled among the people and influence their daily lives.
The mystic ideality maintained throughout the Diaspora is discovered to contain elements of materialization. A voice of power has proclaimed the discovery aloft, and in it are heard new notes—revived from the dim past—in contrast to the vapid, lifeless sounds of the moment.
Phases in the character of Jewry are undergoing change. A restlessness is manifest, a rising against self-satisfaction and automatic existence. A sense of responsibility stirs the soul. Troubled spirits demand to know whether Jewish destiny is, for millions, none other but the grave, and can the future be healthily shaped but by a combination of all Jewish forces?
Herein lies a message of vast significance for the hour, and for succeeding generations.
Unconcern cannot mark the perpetual dismemberment of power, the loss of vitality beyond hope of redemption. A living thought has kindled a spirit which will not bear with easy heart and conscience the sight of euthanasia by assimilation. Its injunction—arise and be vigorous, lethargy is a crime, a virus which must be supplanted.
Tradition urges to an inspiring faith, a strife worthy of a noble past rich in its display of impersonal effort. The perspective yields a glimpse of Jewish co-operate life, of national dignity, with tolerance—ever capricious—in the somber beyond. Humiliation casts its shadow; multiply and ye become too numerous, prosper and ye become too powerful. Here in the shades lie piled up all the degradation of centuries, and odious to behold, a modern record of inertia and self distrust.
But the old light has not gone out, it reigns over a clear bright future. Its rays are of peace and good omen.
Turn to the light.
Have ye no sympathy with the Spirit?