A MIRACLE
The whole history of our new Zionism with Herzl at the head of the movement appears to me as a miracle. It is a living protest against our old Rationalists.
The Rationalist theory of life is that wonderful things do not happen. But we all know that wonderful things do happen; that wonderful people are born into the world with powers that seem to be different not only in degree but even in kind from the powers of the great mass of men; that they produce results in proportion to these powers. There can be no doubt that to many of the witnesses who saw them face to face, our Prophets seemed to be such wonderful people; and because the Rationalists cannot understand the means by which they worked upon men, they have no right to be prejudiced against the evidence that they did so work upon men.
We have seen this miracle in the life of Theodor Herzl.
The critics tell us that Herzl was a poet, that he was a great orator and this was clearly part of his greatness; it was not his paramount title to our admiration. Does his title rest upon the fact that he put all his powers at the service of a noble ideal and that having set himself to realize Zionism, he sincerely tried to accomplish his life's purpose? This was not a miracle. The miracle was—the unexampled sweep of his wing, “sailing with supreme dominion” not only through “the azure deep of air,” bit “beyond the flaming bounds of Place and Time.”
Herzl's ingenious naivety, his unconsciousness of conditions and circumstances, his unlimited enthusiasm: these constitute the miracle, for which we praise him. We praise him because he was so far above us; we praise him in his height, as we should praise a star. We praise him because he interprets us so convincingly to ourselves, showing us in his magic mirror, our Jewish pride in all its mingled greatness.
And is this "Herzl-Kultus" which has captured so many thousands of us not a miracle?
The secret of his extraordinary career, of his power over men, seems to be chiefly explained by two factors which have ever decided the destinies of men, namely, genius and personal magnetism. All who came in contact with Herzl bear witness to the great charm of his personality, a charm which even his greatest opponents felt and readily admitted. Can charm be defined and explained? It is a complex of human qualities, physical, moral and intellectual; the fine flower of certain exceptional organizations. Physical beauty may not be present in any exceptional degree, moral qualities may show but poorly, and intelligence may be less conspicuous than in many persons who have no charm at all. But the wholly inexplicable outcome is the mysterious combination of charm, which we all recognize by its effects though we know nothing of its nature.
He appeared at a time of moral weakness among the \Vestern Jews; all that was hope had vanished, all that was counted on had miscarried, all that was real had gone. His generation heard a voice which said: “Thou shalt live and thou knowest whither to go, but nobody will show thee the way; do not dare to turn aside, for any swerving from the right way would be irreparable ruin, but thou art not to find any support save in thyself. Thou must act, for thy action will become a foundation for the future, but thou shalt be without any means of action. Thy sphere will be very limited, but thy responsibility immense. Thou shalt not have any comfort or glory, for thy destiny is modest labor, nor a hero's death, because thou art necessary and thou hast not the rieht to disappear,. Thou shouldst know that thou shalt neither cut through the knot with a sword like a soldier, nor even knaw it like the mouse which freed the lion, but thou shalt disentangle it during thy whole life and if thou shalt make thy fingers to bleed to-day, thou art to continue to-morrow with bloody fingers. Thou art not to have any illusions concerning thyself nor concerning other people, but thou must preserve thy faith and thy love