/ must be heard throughout the land in no uncertain terms, in homes, at clubs, at institution meetings, wherever you may go. Every question asked must be answered, which implies that our own Zionists must first educate themselves in Zionist knowledge. Take the time and patience to do this. The occasion demands this of you.
Fellow Zionists, in calling into being the Jewish Congress, we have invoked the great resources and strength of the Jewish people. This strength requires training. It must have direction. It will have to be molded to become the source from which the Jewish nationality may receive power and force. In the direction of this strength, you and all organized Zionists are called upon to participate, and to offer your time, thought and resources without stint.
We are living in stirring times. Millions of our brethren are suffering indescribable misery, and are uncertain of what the next day will bring forth. They are suffering because they are Jews and because of the neglect of Jewry to rectify the anomalies of Jewish life. We should associate ourselves with their grief and sorrow not only in words of sympathy but by self-sacrifices and by giving up to some extent the same comforts which they are compelled to go without. While Israel is troubled, let no Zionist be content. Let a holy fire of enthusiasm and devotion animate your spirit!
A way has been created for your sacrifices to be made effectively. Be true to your ideals, and become an active force in the revival of Jewish national life.
The Season of Freedom
NEGEZFISJESACH is known as “The Season of HS N Freedom,” but the exodus from Egypt N V is not our only season of freedom. As %) During our long historical career we Mfoss77%% had many such seasons; but each of AEEL FR : a, RER AN them was so different in its scope, na- ERBN N ture and consequences, so differently effected our future destiny and resulted in so differently shaping our individual and national character, that we may with advantage cast a cursive glance or— to employ a geographical term—take “a bird’s eye view” of these seasons.
The Jews were slaves in Egypt. The term “slaves” must, however, be qualified. At the time of the exodus there were six hundred thousand Jews in Egypt. They had never been made slaves by right of conquest. They had never been a subdued or vanquished tribe. They came into the country by invitation, as members of a privileged aristocratic family. They were descendants of an old princely dynasty, a member of which was once premier of the realm and saved the land from starvation. They only lived in the country a comparatively short time—two hundred and ten years. They were enslaved by the arbitrary will of a despotic monarch. Is it possible that such a people, however intellectually suppressed, or even morally degraded, should not preserve some traditions of the past, should not retain and foster some ideals of liberty? It is more probable that not even the will and genius of a Moses could have saved the people if the people were real slaves—slaves in soul as well as in body. The traditional legend has it that our ancestors in Egypt preserved their original names, dress, and language. Does it not point clearly to the fact that although bodily enslaved—they still considered themselves spiritually superior to their “masters?”’ The Talmudic legend allegorically describing that they have passed through forty-nine gates of impurity, but the fiftieth gate was still pure—perhaps best illustrates their real psychological condition. This last gate was their ideal of liberty. Deep within their souls they cherished that great ideal and waited for an opportune moment. And when that moment came the people believed. A people who believes in the ideal of freedom is not a slave-people.
This epoch characterizes the Jewish dream of freedom.
Eight hundred years later Israel became a great nation. Spiritually and morally the greatest of his time —perhaps of all times. He had established a commonwealth upon principles of social justice, equity and righteousness, The monotheistic idea which in former generations many have been somewhat vague and shaky had now permeäted the entire nation and became part of its soul. Its marvellous literature contained not only the finest poetry that ever sprang from the human heart, but the highest moral teachings and a new conception of the world in which man— great and free—was the central figure. The practical abolition of the traffic in slavery, in which the Arian peoples indulged down to the eighteenth century of the present era, is the outstanding feature of the Jewish genius. “The children of Israel are Mine”—says Jehovah—“they are not to be sold as slaves” The man desiring to be a slave is to have his ears bored to the door-post. When we remember that the ancient world regarded slavery as the pillar of social life; when we remember that Aristotle tells us that “agricultural implements are divided into three classes —articulate, semi-articulate and inarticulate, namely slaves, oxen and wagon.” When we remember that slaves were bought and sold like cattle, but treated much worse; when we remember that in the Rome of Caesar’s age four hundred and fifty thousand citizens were the lords of a slave empire at least twice as populous as the United States, when we remember the unspeakable cruelties perpetrated on these “implements”—we must involuntarily bow our heads to the Jewish genius and high conception of man and his place in the world. “Have we not all one father? Did not one God .create us all?” exclaims the Jewish prophet. The existence of the Jewish state was the incarnation of the greatest of mankind’s ideals— the ideal of freedom.
This epoch was our practice of freedom.
* * * Time went on. Palestine produced prophets whose conceptions were not limited to their own land and people, but embraced the entire world and the whole of the human race. Jerusalem with its Temple be-