Leading Thoughts of Achad Ha-am
AMIDST a galaxy of bright stars to shine as the most lustrous is certainly not a small distinction. But great distinction must rest on rare merit. Literary artists, scholars and thinkers who speak to their people in the Hebrew language are more numerous in Russia now than ever before. But there is one among those intellectuals who has for a considerable number of years enjoyed the enviable distinction of being generally regarded as the greatest intellectual force and the soundest sociological thinker among the Eastern Jews of the present generation. He is known all the world over by his pseudonym, "Achad Ha-am," "One of the People." Very few know, or care to know, that his real name is "Asher, the son of Isaiah Ginzberg." He is the founder and chief exponent of that system which may be roughly named "Spiritual Zionism." The name, however, must not mislead us. The word spiritual in this case does not designate any particular phase of the well-known movement. Few thoughtful men will admit that any new form of spirituality may cure the multifarious and deeply seated ills of which the Jewish people are suffering at the present time. Achad Ha-am is neither a religious enthusiast nor a mystic dreamer. He is one of the most scientific sociologists as well as one of the most penetrating psychologists of the day. And to all this is added the rare gift—I mean rare with philosophers—of sound, practical and far-seeing judg-
ment. As a philosopher he discerns causes and analyzes motives; as a practical man of affairs he knows how to estimate the meaning and value of concrete facts.
A searching study of present Jewish conditions everywhere, and particularly in Russia, convinced him that economic ills, political misfortunes, rabid anti-Semitism and so on, are but the symptoms of the disease. The germs of the malady lie deeper, far, far in the national soul, destroying atom by atom every sound particle of national self-respect and aggregate efficiency. Spiritual Zionism, therefore, in order to reach the ultimate essentials of the bewildering Jewish problem, seeks to penetrate the innermost depths of national consciousness and makes that its point of departure. Spiritual Zionism in this sense is practically an attempt to solve the larger part of the Jewish problem by the most thoroughgoing and the most comprehensive system ever devised.
The fundamental ideas of Achad Ha-am are developed in a collection of essays written in Hebrew and published at Odessa in 1895 under the suggestive title "On the Parting of the Ways." These essays originally were occasional contributions to Hebrew dailies and monthlies published in Russia.
In the introduction to this book, the author calls especial attention to the remarkable recent awakening of the national Jewish consciousness.
During many centuries Israel lived the hard life of an exile. Oppression and sor-