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JEWISH HISTORY
AN ESSAY IN THE PHILOSOPHY
OF HISTORY
By S. M. Dubnow
PREFACE TO THE GERMAN TRANSLATION
The author of the present essay, S. M. Dubnow, occupies a well-nigh
dominating position in Russian-Jewish literature as an historian and
an acute critic. His investigations into the history of the
Polish-Russian Jews, especially his achievements in the history of
Chassidism, have been of fundamental importance in these departments.
What raises Mr. Dubnow far above the status of the professional
historian, and awakens the reader's lively interest in him, is not so
much the matter of his books, as the manner of presentation. It is
rare to meet with an historian in whom scientific objectivity and
thoroughness are so harmoniously combined with an ardent temperament
and plastic ability. Mr. Dubnow's scientific activity, first and last,
is a striking refutation of the widespread opinion that identifies
attractiveness of form in the work of a scholar with superficiality of
content. Even his strictly scientific investigations, besides offering
the scholar a wealth of new suggestions, form instructive and
entertaining reading matter for the educated layman. In his critical
essays, Mr. Dubnow shows himself to be possessed of keen psychologic
insight. By virtue of this quality of delicate perception, he aims to
assign to every historical fact its proper place in the line of
development, and so establish the bond between it and the general
history of mankind. This psychologic ability contributes vastly to the
interest aroused by Mr. Dubnow's historical works outside of the
limited circle of scholars. There is a passage in one of his books[1]
in which, in his incisive manner, he expresses his views on the limits
and tasks of historical writing. As the passage bears upon the methods
employed in the present essay, and, at the same time, is a
characteristic specimen of our author's style, I take the liberty of
quoting:
"The popularization of history is by no means to be pursued to the
detriment of its severely scientific treatment. What is to be guarded
against is the notion that tedium is inseparable from the scientific
method. I have always been of the opinion that the dulness commonly
looked upon as the prerogative of scholarly inquiries, is not an
inherent attribute. In most cases it is conditioned, not by the nature
of the subject under investigation, but by the temper of the
investigator. Often, indeed, the tediousness of a learned disquisition
is intentional: it is considered one of the polite conventions of the
academic guild, and by many is identified with scientific thoroughness
and profound learning.... If, in general, deadening, hide-bound caste
methods, not seldom the cover for poverty of thought and lack of
cleverness, are reprehensible, they are doubly reprehensible in
history. The history of a people is not a mere mental discipline, like
botany or mathematics, but a living science, a _magistra vitae_,
leading straight to national self-knowledge, and acting to a certain
degree upon the national character. History is a science _by_ the
people, _for_ the people, and, therefore, its place is the open
forum, not the scholar's musty closet. We relate the events of the
past to the people, not merely to a handful of archaeologists and
numismaticians. We work for national self-knowledge, not for our own
intellectual diversion."
[1] In the introduction to his _Historische Mitteilungen,
Vorarbeiten zu einer Geschichte der pol-nischrussischen
Juden_.
These are the principles that have guided Mr. Dubnow in all his works,
and he has been true to them in the present essay, which exhibits in a
remarkably striking way the author's art of making "all things seem
fresh and new, important and attractive." New and important his essay
undoubtedly is. The author attempts, for the first time, a psychologic
characterization of Jewish history. He endeavors to demonstrate the
inner connection between events, and develop the ideas that underlie
them, or, to use his own expression, lay bare the soul of Jewish
history, which clothes itself with external events as with a bodily
envelope. Jewish history has never before been considered from this
philosophic point of view, certainly not in German literature. The
present work, therefore, cannot fail to prove stimulating. As for the
poet's other requirement, attractiveness, it is fully met by the work
here translated. The qualities of Mr. Dubnow's style, as described
above, are present to a marked degree. The enthusiasm flaming up in
every line, coupled with his plastic, figurative style, and his
scintillating conceits, which lend vivacity to his presentation, is
bound to charm the reader. Yet, in spite of the racy style, even the
layman will have no difficulty in discovering that it is not a clever
journalist, an artificer of well-turned phrases, who is speaking to
him, but a scholar by profession, whose foremost concern is with
historical truth, and whose every statement rests upon accurate,
scientific knowledge; not a bookworm with pale, academic blood
trickling through his veins, but a man who, with unsoured mien, with
fresh, buoyant delight, offers the world the results laboriously
reached in his study, after all evidences of toil and moil have been
carefully removed; who derives inspiration from the noble and the
sublime in whatever guise it may appear, and who knows how to
communicate his inspiration to others.
The translator lays this book of an accomplished and spirited
historian before the German public. He does so in the hope that it
will shed new light upon Jewish history even for professional
scholars. He is confident that in many to whom our unexampled past of
four thousand years' duration is now _terra incognita_, it will
arouse enthusiastic interest, and even to those who, like the
translator himself, differ from the author in religious views, it will
furnish edifying and suggestive reading. J. F.
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION
The English translation of Mr. Dubnow's Essay is based upon the
authorized German translation, which was made from the original
Russian. It is published under the joint auspices of the Jewish
Publication Society of America and the Jewish Historical Society of
England. H. S.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE GERMAN TRANSLATION
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
I
THE RANGE OF JEWISH HISTORY
Historical and Unhistorical Peoples
Three Groups of Nations
The "Most Historical" People
Extent of Jewish History
II
THE CONTENT OF JEWISH HISTORY
Two Periods of Jewish History
The Period of Independence
The Election of the Jewish People
Priests and Prophets
The Babylonian Exile and the Scribes
The Dispersion
Jewish History and Universal History
Jewish History Characterized
III
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JEWISH HISTORY
The National Aspect of Jewish History
The Historical Consciousness
The National Idea and National Feeling
The Universal Aspect of Jewish History
An Historical Experiment
A Moral Discipline
Humanitarian Significance of Jewish History
Schleiden and George Eliot
IV
THE HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS
Three Primary Periods
Four Composite Periods
V
THE PRIMARY OR BIBLICAL PERIOD
Cosmic Origin of the Jewish Religion
Tribal Organization
Egyptian Influence and Experiences
Moses
Mosaism a Religious and Moral as well as a Social and Political
System
National Deities
The Prophets and the two Kingdoms
Judaism a Universal Religion
VI
THE SECONDARY OR SPIRITUAL-POLITICAL PERIOD
Growth of National Feeling
Ezra and Nehemiah
The Scribes
Hellenism
The Maccabees
Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes
Alexandrian Jews
Christianity
VII
THE TERTIARY TALMUDIC OR NATIONAL-RELIGIOUS
PERIOD
The Isolation of Jewry and Judaism
The Mishna
The Talmud
Intellectual Activity in Palestine and Babylonia
The Agada and the Midrash
Unification of Judaism
VIII
THE GAONIC PERIOD, OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE ORIENTAL JEWS (500-980)
The Academies
Islam
Karaism
Beginning of Persecutions in Europe
Arabic Civilization in Europe
IX
THE RABBINIC-PHILOSOPHICAL PERIOD, OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE SPANISH
JEWS (980-1492)
The Spanish Jews
The Arabic-Jewish Renaissance
The Crusades and the Jews
Degradation of the Jews in Christian Europe
The Provence
The Lateran Council
The Kabbala
Expulsion from Spain
X
THE RABBINIC-MYSTICAL PERIOD, OR THE HEGEMONY OF THE GERMAN-POLISH
JEWS (1492-1789)
The Humanists and the Reformation
Palestine an Asylum for Jews
Messianic Belief and Hopes
Holland a Jewish Centre
Poland and the Jews
The Rabbinical Authorities of Poland
Isolation of the Polish Jews
Mysticism and the Practical Kabbala
Chassidism
Persecutions and Morbid Piety
XI
THE MODERN PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT (THE NINETEENTH CENTURY)
The French Revolution
The Jewish Middle Ages
Spiritual and Civil Emancipation
The Successors of Mendelssohn
Zunz and the Science of Judaism
The Modern Movements outside of Germany
The Jew in Russia
His Regeneration
Anti-Semitism and Judophobia
XII
THE TEACHINGS OF JEWISH HISTORY
Jewry a Spiritual Community
Jewry Indestructible
The Creative Principle of Jewry
The Task of the Future
The Jew and the Nations
The Ultimate Ideal
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
What is Jewish History? In the first place, what does it offer as to
quantity and as to quality? What are its range and content, and what
distinguishes it in these two respects from the history of other
nations? Furthermore, what is the essential meaning, what the spirit,
of Jewish History? Or, to put the question in another way, to what
general results are we led by the aggregate of its facts, considered,
not as a whole, but genetically, as a succession of evolutionary
stages in the consciousness and education of the Jewish people?
If we could find precise answers to these several questions, they
would constitute a characterization of Jewish History as accurate as
is attainable. To present such a characterization succinctly is the
purpose of the following essay.
JEWISH HISTORY
AN ESSAY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
I
THE RANGE OF JEWISH HISTORY
Le peuple juif n'est pas seulement considérable par son
antiquité, mais il est encore singulier en sa durée, qui a
toujours continué depuis son origine jusqu'à maintenant ...
S'étendant depuis les premiers temps jusqu'aux derniers,
l'histoire des juifs enferme dans sa durée celle de toutes nos
histoires.--PASCAL, _Pensées_, II, 7.
To make clear the range of Jewish history, it is necessary to set down
a few general, elementary definitions by way of introduction.
It has long been recognized that a fundamental difference exists
between historical and unhistorical peoples, a difference growing out
of the fact of the natural inequality between the various elements
composing the human race. Unhistorical is the attribute applied to
peoples that have not yet broken away, or have not departed very far,
from the state of primitive savagery, as, for instance, the barbarous
races of Asia and Africa who were the prehistoric ancestors of the
Europeans, or the obscure, untutored tribes of the present, like the
Tartars and the Kirghiz. Unhistorical peoples, then, are ethnic groups
of all sorts that are bereft of a distinctive, spiritual
individuality, and have failed to display normal, independent capacity
for culture. The term historical, on the other hand, is applied to the
nations that have had a conscious, purposeful history of appreciable
duration; that have progressed, stage by stage, in their growth and in
the improvement of their mode and their views of life; that have
demonstrated mental productivity of some sort, and have elaborated
principles of civilization and social life more or less rational;
nations, in short, representing not only zoologic, but also spiritual
types.[2]
[2] "The primitive peoples that change with their environment,
constantly adapting themselves to their habitat and to
external nature, have no history.... Only those nations and
states belong to history which display self-conscious action;
which evince an inner spiritual life by diversified
manifestations; and combine into an organic whole what they
receive from without, and what they themselves originate."
(Introduction to Weber's _Allgemeine Weltgeschichte_, i,
pp. 16-18.)
Chronologically considered, these latter nations, of a higher type,
are usually divided into three groups: 1, the most ancient civilized
peoples of the Orient, such as the Chinese, the Hindoos, the
Egyptians, the Chaldeans; 2, the ancient or classic peoples of the
Occident, the Greeks and the Romans; and 3, the modern peoples, the
civilized nations of Europe and America of the present day. The most
ancient peoples of the Orient, standing "at the threshold of history,"
were the first heralds of a religious consciousness and of moral
principles. In hoary antiquity, when most of the representatives of
the human kind were nothing more than a peculiar variety of the class
mammalia, the peoples called the most ancient brought forth recognized
forms of social life and a variety of theories of living of fairly
far-reaching effect. All these culture-bearers of the Orient soon
disappeared from the surface of history. Some (the Chaldeans,
Phoenicians, and Egyptians) were washed away by the flood of time, and
their remnants were absorbed by younger and more vigorous peoples.
Others (the Hindoos and Persians) relapsed into a semi-barbarous
state; and a third class (the Chinese) were arrested in their growth,
and remained fixed in immobility. The best that the antique Orient had
to bequeath in the way of spiritual possessions fell to the share of
the classic nations of the West, the Greeks and the Romans. They
greatly increased the heritage by their own spiritual achievements,
and so produced a much more complex and diversified civilization,
which has served as the substratum for the further development of the
better part of mankind. Even the classic nations had to step aside as
soon as their historical mission was fulfilled. They left the field
free for the younger nations, with greater capability of living, which
at that time had barely worked their way up to the beginnings of a
civilization. One after the other, during the first two centuries of
the Christian era, the members of this European family of nations
appeared in the arena of history. They form the kernel of the
civilized part of mankind at the present day.
Now, if we examine this accepted classification with a view to finding
the place belonging to the Jewish people in the chronological series,
we meet with embarrassing difficulties, and finally arrive at the
conclusion that its history cannot be accommodated within the compass
of the classification. Into which of the three historical groups
mentioned could the Jewish people be put? Are we to call it one of the
most ancient, one of the ancient, or one of the modern nations? It is
evident that it may lay claim to the first description, as well as to
the second and the last. In company with the most ancient nations of
the Orient, the Jewish people stood at the "threshold of history." It
was the contemporary of the earliest civilized nations, the Egyptians
and the Chaldeans. In those remote days it created and spread a
religious world-idea underlying an exalted social and moral system
surpassing everything produced in this sphere by its Oriental
contemporaries. Again, with the classical Greeks and Romans, it forms
the celebrated historical triad universally recognized as the source
of all great systems of civilization. Finally, in fellowship with the
nations of to-day, it leads an historical life, striding onward in the
path of progress without stay or interruption. Deprived of political
independence, it nevertheless continues to fill a place in the world
of thought as a distinctly marked spiritual individuality, as one of
the most active and intelligent forces. How, then, are we to
denominate this omnipresent people, which, from the first moment of
its historical existence up to our days, a period of thirty-five
hundred years, has been developing continuously. In view of this
Methuselah among the nations, whose life is co-extensive with the
whole of history, how are we to dispose of the inevitable barriers
between "the most ancient" and "the ancient," between "the ancient"
and "the modern" nations--the fateful barriers which form the
milestones on the path of the historical peoples, and which the Jewish
people has more than once overstepped?
A definition of the Jewish people must needs correspond to the
aggregate of the concepts expressed by the three group-names, most
ancient, ancient, and modern. The only description applicable to it is
"the historical nation of all times," a description bringing into
relief the contrast between it and all other nations of modern and
ancient times, whose historical existence either came to an end in
days long past, or began at a date comparatively recent. And granted
that there are "historical" and "unhistorical" peoples, then it is
beyond dispute that the Jewish people deserves to be called "the most
historical" (_historicissimus_). If the history of the world be
conceived as a circle, then Jewish history occupies the position of
the diameter, the line passing through its centre, and the history of
every other nation is represented by a chord marking off a smaller
segment of the circle. The history of the Jewish people is like an
axis crossing the history of mankind from one of its poles to the
other. As an unbroken thread it runs through the ancient civilization
of Egypt and Mesopotamia, down to the present-day culture of France
and Germany. Its divisions are measured by thousands of years.
Jewish history, then, in its range, or, better, in its duration,
presents an unique phenomenon. It consists of the longest series of
events ever recorded in the annals of a single people. To sum up its
peculiarity briefly, it embraces a period of thirty-five hundred
years, and in all this vast extent it suffers no interruption. At
every point it is alive, full of sterling content. Presently we shall
see that in respect to content, too, it is distinguished by
exceptional characteristics.
II
THE CONTENT OF JEWISH HISTORY
From the point of view of content, or qualitative structure, Jewish
history, it is well known, falls into two parts. The dividing point
between the two parts is the moment in which the Jewish state
collapsed irretrievably under the blows of the Roman Empire (70 C.
E.). The first half deals with the vicissitudes of a nation, which,
though frequently at the mercy of stronger nations, still maintained
possession of its territory and government, and was ruled by its own
laws. In the second half, we encounter the history of a people without
a government, more than that, without a land, a people stripped of all
the tangible accompaniments of nationality, and nevertheless
successful in preserving its spiritual unity, its originality,
complete and undiminished.
At first glance, Jewish history during the period of independence
seems to be but slightly different from the history of other nations.
Though not without individual coloring, there are yet the same wars
and intestine disturbances, the same political revolutions and
dynastic quarrels, the same conflicts between the classes of the
people, the same warring between economical interests. This is only a
surface view of Jewish history. If we pierce to its depths, and
scrutinize the processes that take place in its penetralia, we
perceive that even in the early period there were latent within it
great powers of intellect, universal principles, which, visibly or
invisibly, determined the course of events. We have before us not a
simple political or racial entity, but, to an eminent degree, "a
spiritual people." The national development is based upon an
all-pervasive religious tradition, which lives in the soul of the
people as the Sinaitic Revelation, the Law of Moses. With this holy
tradition, embracing a luminous theory of life and an explicit code of
morality and social converse, was associated the idea of the election
of the Jewish people, of its peculiar spiritual mission. "And ye shall
be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" is the figurative
expression of this ideal calling. It conveys the thought that the
Israelitish people as a whole, without distinction of rank and
regardless of the social prominence of individuals, has been called to
guide the other nations toward sublime moral and religious principles,
and to officiate for them, the laity as it were, in the capacity of
priests. This exalted ideal would never have been reached, if the
development of the Jewish people had lain along hackneyed lines; if,
like the Egyptians and the Chaldeans, it had had an inflexible caste
of priests, who consider the guardianship of the spiritual treasures
of the nation the exclusive privilege of their estate, and strive to
keep the mass of the people in crass ignorance. For a time, something
approaching this condition prevailed among the Jews. The priests
descended from Aaron, with the Temple servants (the Levites), formed a
priestly class, and played the part of authoritative bearers of the
religious tradition. But early, in the very infancy of the nation,
there arose by the side of this official, aristocratic hierarchy, a
far mightier priesthood, a democratic fraternity, seeking to enlighten
the whole nation, and inculcating convictions that make for a
consciously held aim. The Prophets were the real and appointed
executors of the holy command enjoining the "conversion" of all Jews
into "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Their activity cannot
be paralleled in the whole range of the world's history. They were not
priests, but popular educators and popular teachers. They were
animated by the desire to instil into every soul a deeply religious
consciousness, to ennoble every heart by moral aspirations, to
indoctrinate every individual with an unequivocal theory of life, to
inspire every member of the nation with lofty ideals. Their work did
not fail to leave its traces. Slowly but deeply idealism entered into
the very pith and marrow of the national consciousness. This
consciousness gained in strength and amplitude century by century,
showing itself particularly in the latter part of the first period,
after the crisis known as "the Babylonian Exile." Thanks to the
exertions of the _Soferim_ (Scribes), directed toward the
broadest popularization of the Holy Writings, and constituting the
formal complement to the work of the Prophets, spiritual activity
became an integral part of Jewish national life. In the closing
centuries of its political existence, the Jewish people received its
permanent form. There was imposed upon it the unmistakable hallmark of
spirituality that has always identified it in the throng of the
nations. Out of the bosom of Judaism went forth the religion that in a
short time ran its triumphant course through the whole ancient world,
transforming races of barbarians into civilized beings. It was the
fulfilment of the Prophetical promise--that the nations would walk in
the light of Israel.
At the very moment when the strength and fertility of the Jewish mind
reached the culminating point, occurred a political revolution--the
period of homeless wandering began. It seemed as though, before
scattering the Jewish people to all ends of the earth, the providence
of history desired to teach it a final lesson, to take with it on its
way. It seemed to say: "Now you may go forth. Your character has been
sufficiently tempered; you can bear the bitterest of hardships. You
are equipped with an inexhaustible store of energy, and you can live
for centuries, yea, for thousands of years, under conditions that
would prove the bane of other nations in less than a single century.
State, territory, army, the external attributes of national power, are
for you superfluous luxury. Go out into the world to prove that a
people can continue to live without these attributes, solely and alone
through strength of spirit welding its widely scattered particles into
one firm organism!"--And the Jewish people went forth and proved it.
This "proof" adduced by Jewry at the cost of eighteen centuries of
privation and suffering, forms the characteristic feature of the
second half of Jewish history, the period of homelessness and
dispersion. Uprooted from its political soil, national life displayed
itself on intellectual fields exclusively. "To think and to suffer"
became the watchword of the Jewish people, not merely because forced
upon it by external circumstances beyond its control, but chiefly
because it was conditioned by the very disposition of the people, by
its national inclinations. The extraordinary mental energy that had
matured the Bible and the old writings in the first period, manifested
itself in the second period in the encyclopedic productions of the
Talmudists, in the religious philosophy of the middle ages, in
Rabbinism, in the Kabbala, in mysticism, and in science. The spiritual
discipline of the school came to mean for the Jew what military
discipline is for other nations. His remarkable longevity is due, I am
tempted to say, to the acrid spiritual brine in which he was cured. In
its second half, the originality of Jewish history consists indeed, in
the circumstance that it is the only history stripped of every active
political element. There are no diplomatic artifices, no wars, no
campaigns, no unwarranted encroachments backed by armed force upon the
rights of other nations, nothing of all that constitutes the chief
content--the monotonous and for the most part idea-less content--of
many other chapters in the history of the world. Jewish history
presents the chronicle of an ample spiritual life, a gallery of
pictures representing national scenes. Before our eyes passes a long
procession of facts from the fields of intellectual effort, of
morality, religion, and social converse. Finally, the thrilling drama
of Jewish martyrdom is unrolled to our astonished gaze. If the inner
life and the social and intellectual development of a people form the
kernel of history, and politics and occasional wars are but its
husk,[3] then certainly the history of the Jewish diaspora is all
kernel. In contrast with the history of other nations it describes,
not the accidental deeds of princes and generals, not external pomp
and physical prowess, but the life and development of a whole people.
It gives heartrending expression to the spiritual strivings of a
nation whose brow is resplendent with the thorny crown of martyrdom.
It breathes heroism of mind that conquers bodily pain. In a word,
Jewish history is history sublimated.[4]
[3] "History, without these (inner, spiritual elements), is a
shell without a kernel; and such is almost all the history
which is extant in the world." (Macaulay, on Mitford's History
of Greece, Collected Works, i, 198, ed. A. and C. Armstrong
and Son.)
[4] A Jewish historian makes the pregnant remark: "If ever the
time comes when the prophecies of the Jewish seers are
fulfilled, and nation no longer raises the sword against
nation; when the olive leaf instead of the laurel adorns the
brow of the great, and the achievements of noble minds are
familiar to the dwellers in cottages and palaces alike, then
the history of the world will have the same character as
Jewish history. On its pages will be inscribed, not the
warrior's prowess and his victories, nor diplomatic schemes
and triumphs, but the progress of culture and its practical
application in real life."
In spite of the noteworthy features that raise Jewish history above
the level of the ordinary, and assign it a peculiar place, it is
nevertheless not isolated, not severed from the history of mankind.
Rather is it most intimately interwoven with world-affairs at every
point throughout its whole extent. As the diameter, Jewish history is
again and again intersected by the chords of the historical circle.
The fortunes of the pilgrim people scattered in all the countries of
the civilized world are organically connected with the fortunes of the
most representative nations and states, and with manifold tendencies
of human thought. The bond uniting them is twofold: in the times when
the powers of darkness and fanaticism held sway, the Jews were
amenable to the "physical" influence exerted by their neighbors in the
form of persecutions, infringements of the liberty of conscience,
inquisitions, violence of every sort; and during the prevalence of
enlightment and humanity, the Jews were acted upon by the intellectual
and cultural stimulus proceeding from the peoples with whom they
entered into close relations. Momentary aberrations and reactionary
incidents are not taken into account here. On its side, Jewry made its
personality felt among the nations by its independent, intellectual
activity, its theory of life, its literature, by the very fact,
indeed, of its ideal staunchness and tenacity, its peculiar historical
physiognomy. From this reciprocal relation issued a great cycle of
historical events and spiritual currents, making the past of the
Jewish people an organic constituent of the past of all that portion
of mankind which has contributed to the treasury of human thought.
We see, then, that in reference to content Jewish history is unique in
both its halves. In the first "national" period, it is the history of
a people to which the epithet "peculiar" has been conceded, a people
which has developed under the influence of exceptional circumstances,
and finally attained to so high a degree of spiritual perfection and
fertility that the creation of a new religious theory of life, which
eventually gained universal supremacy, neither exhausted its resources
nor ended its activity. Not only did it continue to live upon its vast
store of spiritual energy, but day by day it increased the store. In
the second "lackland" half, it is the instructive history of a
scattered people, organically one, in spite of dispersion, by reason
of its unshaken ideal traditions; a people accepting misery and
hardship with stoic calm, combining the characteristics of the thinker
with those of the sufferer, and eking out existence under conditions
which no other nation has found adequate, or, indeed, can ever find
adequate. The account of the people as teacher of religion--this is
the content of the first half of Jewish history; the account of the
people as thinker, stoic, and sufferer--this is the content of the
second half of Jewish history.
A summing up of all that has been said in this and the previous
chapter proves true the statement with which we began, that Jewish
history, in respect to its quantitative dimensions as well as its
qualitative structure, is to the last degree distinctive and presents
a phenomenon of undeniable uniqueness.
III
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF JEWISH HISTORY
We turn now to the question of the significance to be attached to
Jewish history. In view of its peculiar qualities, what has it to
offer to the present generation and to future generations as a subject
of study and research?
The significance of Jewish history is twofold. It is at once national
and universal. At present the fulcrum of Jewish national being lies in
the historical consciousness. In the days of antiquity, the Jews were
welded into a single united nation by the triple agencies of state,
race, and religion, the complete array of material and spiritual
forces directed to one point. Later, in the period of homelessness and
dispersion, it was chiefly religious consciousness that cemented Jewry
into a whole, and replaced the severed political bond as well as the
dulled racial instinct, which is bound to go on losing in keenness in
proportion to the degree of removal from primitive conditions and
native soil. In our days, when the liberal movements leavening the
whole of mankind, if they have not completely shattered the religious
consciousness, have at least, in an important section of Jewry,
effected a change in its form; when abrupt differences of opinion with
regard to questions of faith and cult are asserting their presence;
and traditional Judaism developed in historical sequence is proving
powerless to hold together the diverse factors of the national
organism,--in these days the keystone of national unity seems to be
the historical consciousness. Composed alike of physical,
intellectual, and moral elements, of habits and views, of emotions and
impressions nursed into being and perfection by the hereditary
instinct active for thousands of years, this historical consciousness
is a remarkably puzzling and complex psychic phenomenon. By our common
memory of a great, stirring past and heroic deeds on the battle-fields
of the spirit, by the exalted historical mission allotted to us, by
our thorn-strewn pilgrim's path, our martyrdom assumed for the sake of
our principles, by such moral ties, we Jews, whether consciously or
unconsciously, are bound fast to one another. As Renan well says:
"Common sorrow unites men more closely than common joy." A long chain
of historical traditions is cast about us all like a strong ring. Our
wonderful, unparalleled past attracts us with magnetic power. In the
course of centuries, as generation followed generation, similarity of
historical fortunes produced a mass of similar impressions which have
crystallized, and have thrown off the deposit that may be called "the
Jewish national soul." This is the soil in which, deep down, lies
imbedded, as an unconscious element, the Jewish national _feeling_,
and as a conscious element, the Jewish national _idea_.
It follows that the Jewish national idea and the national feeling
connected with it have their origin primarily in the historical
consciousness, in a certain complex of ideas and psychic
predispositions. These ideas and predispositions, the deposit left by
the aggregate of historical impressions, are of necessity the common
property of the whole nation, and they can be developed and quickened
to a considerable degree by a renewal of the impressions through the
study of history. Upon the knowledge of history, then, depends the
strength of the national consciousness.[5]
[5] A different aspect of the same thought is presented with
logical clearness in another publication by our author. "The
national _idea_, and the national _feeling_," says
Mr. Dubnow, "must be kept strictly apart. Unfortunately the
difference between them is usually obliterated. National
feeling is spontaneous. To a greater or less degree it is
inborn in all the members of the nation as a feeling of
kinship. It has its flood-tide and its ebbtide in
correspondence to external conditions, either forcing the
nation to defend its nationality, or relieving it of the
necessity for self-defense. As this feeling is not merely a
blind impulse, but a complicated psychic phenomenon, it can be
subjected to a psychologic analysis. From the given historical
facts or the ideas that have become the common treasure of a
nation, thinking men, living life consciously, can, in one way
or another, derive the origin, development, and vital force of
its national feeling. The results of such an analysis,
arranged in some sort of system, form the content of the
national idea. The task of the national idea it is to clarify
the national feeling, and give it logical sanction for the
benefit of those who cannot rest satisfied with an unconscious
feeling.
"In what, to be specific, does the essence of our Jewish national
idea consist? Or, putting the question in another form, what
is the cement that unites us into a single compact organism?
Territory and government, the external ties usually binding a
nation together, we have long ago lost. Their place is filled
by abstract principles, by religion and race. Undeniably these
are factors of first importance, and yet we ask the question,
do they alone and exclusively maintain the national cohesion
of Jewry? No, we reply, for if we admitted this proposition,
we should by consequence have to accept the inference, that
the laxity of religious principle prevailing among
free-thinking Jews, and the obliteration of race peculiarities
in the 'civilized' strata of our people, bring in their train
a corresponding weakening, or, indeed, a complete breaking up,
of our national foundations--which in point of fact is not the
case. On the contrary, it is noticeable that the
latitudinarians, the _libres penseurs_, and the
indifferent on the subject of religion, stand in the forefront
of all our national movements. Seeing that to belong to it is
in most cases heroism, and in many martyrdom, what is it that
attracts these Jews so forcibly to their people? There must be
something common to us all, so comprehensive that in the face
of multifarious views and degrees of culture it acts as a
consolidating force. This 'something,' I am convinced, is the
community of historical fortunes of all the scattered parts of
the Jewish nation. We are welded together by our glorious
past. We are encircled by a mighty chain of similar historical
impressions suffered by our ancestors, century after century
pressing in upon the Jewish soul, and leaving behind a
substantial deposit. In short, the Jewish national idea is
based chiefly upon the historical consciousness." [Note of the
German trl.]
But over and above its national significance, Jewish history, we
repeat, possesses universal significance. Let us, in the first place,
examine its value for science and philosophy. Inasmuch as it is
pre-eminently a chronicle of ideas and spiritual movements, Jewish
history affords the philosopher or psychologist material for
observation of the most important and useful kind. The study of other,
mostly dull chapters of universal history has led to the fixing of
psychologic or sociologic theses, to the working out of comprehensive
philosophic systems, to the determination of general laws. Surely it
follows without far-fetched proof, that in some respects the chapter
dealing with Jewish history must supply material of the most original
character for such theses and philosophies. If it is true, as the last
chapter set out to demonstrate, that Jewish history is distinguished
by sharply marked and peculiar features, and refuses to accommodate
itself to conventional forms, then its content must have an original
contribution to make to philosophy. It does not admit of a doubt that
the study of Jewish history would yield new propositions appertaining
to the philosophy of history and the psychology of nations, hitherto
overlooked by inquirers occupied with the other divisions of universal
history. Inductive logic lays down a rule for ascertaining the law of
a phenomenon produced by two or more contributory causes. By means of
what might be called a laboratory experiment, the several causes must
be disengaged from one another, and the effect of each observed by
itself. Thus it becomes possible to arrive with mathematical precision
at the share of each cause in the result achieved by several
co-operating causes. This method of difference, as it is called, is
available, however, only for a limited number of phenomena, only for
phenomena in the department of the natural sciences. It is in the
nature of the case that mental and spiritual phenomena, though they
may be observed, cannot be artificially reproduced. Now, in one
respect, Jewish history affords the advantages of an arranged
experiment. The historical life of ordinary nations, such nations as
are endowed with territory and are organized into a state, is a
complete intermingling of the political with the spiritual element.
Totally ignorant as we are of the development either would have
assumed, had it been dissevered from the other, the laws governing
each of the elements singly can be discovered only approximately.
Jewish history, in which the two elements have for many centuries been
completely disentangled from each other, presents a natural
experiment, with the advantage of artificial exclusions, rendering
possible the determination of the laws of spiritual phenomena with far
greater scientific exactitude than the laws of phenomena that result
from several similar causes.
Besides this high value for the purposes of science, this fruitful
suggestiveness for philosophic thought, Jewish history, as compared
with the history of other nations, enjoys another distinction in its
capacity to exercise an ennobling influence upon the heart. Nothing so
exalts and refines human nature as the contemplation of moral
steadfastness, the history of the trials of a martyr who has fought
and suffered for his convictions. At bottom, the second half of Jewish
history is nothing but this. The effective educational worth of the
Biblical part of Jewish history is disputed by none. It is called
"sacred" history, and he who acquires a knowledge of it is thought to
advance the salvation of his soul. Only a very few, however, recognize
the profound, moral content of the second half of Jewish history, the
history of the diaspora. Yet, by reason of its exceptional qualities
and intensely tragic circumstances, it is beyond all others calculated
to yield edification to a notable degree. The Jewish people is
deserving of attention not only in the time when it displayed its
power and enjoyed its independence, but as well in the period of its
weakness and oppression, during which it was compelled to purchase
spiritual development by constant sacrifice of self. A thinker crowned
with thorns demands no less veneration than a thinker with the laurel
wreath upon his brow. The flame issuing from the funeral pile on which
martyrs die an heroic death for their ideas is, in its way, as
awe-inspiring as the flame from Sinai's height. With equal force,
though by different methods, both touch the heart, and arouse the
moral sentiment. Biblical Israel the celebrated--medieval Judah the
despised--it is one and the same people, judged variously in the
various phases of its historical life. If Israel bestowed upon mankind
a religious theory of life, Judah gave it a thrilling example of
tenacious vitality and power of resistance for the sake of conviction.
This uninterrupted life of the spirit, this untiring aspiration for
the higher and the better in the domain of religious thought,
philosophy, and science, this moral intrepidity in night and storm and
in despite of all the blows of fortune--is it not an imposing,
soul-stirring spectacle? The inexpressible tragedy of the Jewish
historical life is unfailing in its effect upon a susceptible
heart.[6] The wonderful exhibition of spirit triumphant, subduing the
pangs of the flesh, must move every heart, and exercise uplifting
influence upon the non-Jew no less than upon the Jew.
[6] "If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of
all the nations--if the duration of sorrows and the patience
with which they are borne ennoble, the Jews are among the
aristocracy of every land--if a literature is called rich in
the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say
to a National Tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in
which the poets and the actors were also the heroes?" (Zunz,
_Die synagogale Poesie_. Translation by George Eliot in
"Daniel Deronda.")
For non-Jews a knowledge of Jewish history may, under certain
conditions, come to have another, an humanitarian significance. It is
inconceivable that the Jewish people should be held in execration by
those acquainted with the course of its history, with its tragic and
heroic past.[7] Indeed, so far as Jew-haters by profession are
concerned, it is running a risk to recommend the study of Jewish
history to them, without adding a word of caution. Its effect upon
them might be disastrous. They might find themselves cured of their
modern disease, and in the possession of ideas that would render
worthless their whole stock in trade. Verily, he must have fallen to
the zero-point of anti-Semitic callousness who is not thrilled through
and through by the lofty fortitude, the saint-like humility, the
trustful resignation to the will of God, the stoic firmness, laid bare
by the study of Jewish history. The tribute of respect cannot be
readily withheld from him to whom the words of the poet[8] are
applicable:
"To die was not his hope; he fain
Would live to think and suffer pain."
[7] As examples and a proof of the strong humanitarian influence
Jewish history exercises upon Christians, I would point to the
relation established between the Jews and two celebrities of
the nineteenth century, Schleiden and George Eliot. In his old
age, the great scientist and thinker accidentally, in the
course of his study of sources for the history of botany,
became acquainted with medieval Jewish history. It filled him
with ardent enthusiasm for the Jews, for their intellectual
strength, their patience under martyrdom. Dominated by this
feeling, he wrote the two admirable sketches: _Die Bedeutung
der Juden für Erhaltung und Wiederbelebung der Wissenschaften
im Mittelalter_ (1876) and _Die Romantik des Martyriums
bei den Juden im Mittelalter_ (1878). According to his own
confession, the impulse to write them was "the wish to take at
least the first step toward making partial amends for the
unspeakable wrong inflicted by Christians upon Jews." As for
George Eliot, it may not be generally known that it was her
reading of histories of the Jews that inspired her with the
profound veneration for the Jewish people to which she gave
glowing utterance in "Daniel Deronda." (She cites Zunz, was
personally acquainted with Emanuel Deutsch, and carried on a
correspondence with Professor Dr. David Kaufmann. See
_George Eliot's Life as related in her Letters and
Journals_. Arranged and edited by her husband, J. W. Cross,
Vol. iii, ed. Harper and Brothers.) Her enthusiasm prompted
her, in 1879, to indite her passionate apology for the Jews,
under the title, "The Modern Hep! Hep! Hep!"
[8] Pushkin.
When, in days to come, the curtain rises upon the touching tragedy of
Jewish history, revealing it to the astonished eye of a modern
generation, then, perhaps, hearts will be attuned to tenderness, and
on the ruins of national hostility will be enthroned mutual love,
growing out of mutual understanding and mutual esteem. And who can
tell--perhaps Jewish history will have a not inconsiderable share in
the spiritual change that is to annihilate national intolerance, the
modern substitute for the religious bigotry of the middle ages. In
this case, the future task of Jewish history will prove as sublime as
was the mission of the Jewish people in the past. The latter consisted
in the spread of the dogma of the unity of creation; the former will
contribute indirectly to the realization of the not yet accepted dogma
of the unity of the human race.
IV
THE HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS