Transcriber's Notes:
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by
=equal signs=.
Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase.
Blank pages have been eliminated.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the
original.
"My Visit to Tolstoy"
Five Discourses
By
Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D. D.
[Illustration]
Philadelphia
1911
My Visit to Tolstoy.
A DISCOURSE, AT TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL,
BY
RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D.
Philadelphia, December 11th, 1910.
My visit to Russia
and its purpose.
In the summer of 1894 I visited Russia for the purpose of proposing
to the Czar a plan that might end or lessen the terrible persecution
of the Jews in his realm. The plan intended was a removal of the
persecuted Jews to unoccupied lands in the interior, there to be
colonized on farms, and to be maintained, until self-supporting, by
their correligionists of other parts of the world.
Refused admission by
Russian government.
Learning that, because a Jew, I would not be admitted into Russia,
I conferred with President Cleveland and Secretary Gresham, both
of whom heartily endorsed my plan and resolved to intervene. The
Russian Minister at Washington declaring his powerlessness to _visé_
my passport, our Secretary of State cabled to the American Minister
at St. Petersburg to obtain the desired permission from the foreign
office, only to receive as reply the words "_Russian government deeply
regrets its inability to accede to request in behalf of Reverend Jewish
divine_."
Determined to test my
citizenship right.
The injustice of the reply determined me more than ever to enter
Russia, if only to make a test case of my citizenship rights. The
treaty between the United States and Russia guarantees to every
American citizen the right of entry on Russian soil, and as an American
citizen that right was mine; my religion being my private affair and
no concern of Russia's. The determination to test the supremacy of
international law over national prejudice aroused a large part of the
American press to a vigorous endorsement of my position. A bill was
introduced in Congress to the effect that the treaty between the two
countries be declared abrogated if an American citizen be turned back
from the gates of Russia by reason of his religion.
Was admitted.
In the height of the agitation I departed for Russia, knocked at the
gates of St. Petersburg--and was admitted. Russia had evidently come to
the conclusion that it was better policy to admit me and to keep her
eyes on me than to allow the agitation and the indignation to continue
in our country.
Met distinguished
Russians.
While within the Russian borders, I was privileged to come in contact
with many prominent Russians, one of them M. Witte, who at that time
was Minister of Finance and practically at the head of the empire,
the Czar, Alexander III, being critically ill in the Crimea, where he
shortly after died.
Tolstoy most
distinguished of all.
But of all the men I met none made the impression that was left upon me
by my visit to Count Leo Tolstoy. It was made possible by Mr. Andrew
D. White, the distinguished scholar and statesman, who at that time
represented our country at St. Petersburg. He had written and asked
the count to meet me and to learn of the mission that brought me to
Russia. The count's daughter, Tatiana, replied that her father would
be pleased to have me visit him, adding that he was just then engaged
in hay-making, and, therefore, had not much leisure. To take as little
of his time as possible I arranged to arrive in the court-yard of his
manor-house at Yasnaya Polyana, late in the afternoon. Approaching a
group of peasants that stood at a well drinking water and mopping their
brows, my travelling-companion, a young Russian lawyer, asked them
where we might find the count. One of them stepped out of the group,
and, lifting his cap, said most courteously that he was Tolstoy, and,
learning my name, he bade me a hearty welcome.
Held me captive from
first meeting.
From the moment I first gazed upon him he held me captive, and, by
a strange psychic power, he has held me enthralled ever since. No
wish of mine has been more fondly cherished in the sixteen years that
have since passed by than that of some day visiting Russia again, and
only for the purpose of seeing once more that strangely fascinating
personality, of listening again to his marvelous flow of wisdom.
His personality.
I had often wondered how a Moses, an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, a Socrates,
looked and talked, denounced and dreamed, the moment I saw and heard
Tolstoy I knew. One hour's talk with him seemed equal to a whole
university course in political and social science; one walk with him on
his estate stored up in the listener more knowledge of moral philosophy
than could be crowded into a year's seminary instruction. Great as was
the power of his pen, immeasurably greater was the power of his living
word. In some mysterious way the flow of his speech seemed to exercise
an hypnotic spell upon the speaker as much as upon the listener. The
speaker seemed at times translated into a super-human being, seemed
inspired, seemed to speak words not his own, as one of the ancient
prophets of Israel must have spoken when he said the words: "Thus saith
the Lord," while the listener seemed scarcely capable of thought or
speech, felt his being almost lose its identity and become merged with
that of the speaker.
At times his voice would sound as Elijah's voice must have sounded
when he said to Ahab, the king, "Thou art he who troubleth Israel,"
and at times it would seem as sweet as the voice of one of Russia's
nightingales. At times his strong, rugged, bearded face would resemble
that of the pictured Jupiter in wrath, and then it would rival in
serenity one of Raphael's saints. At times he would seem to carry on
his shoulders all the woe of the world, resembling one of the mediaeval
pictures of the martyr of Nazareth, and then again he would seem as
care-free and happy as a little babe. He had never learned the art of
concealing his thoughts and emotions. His face and voice were as a
mirror that revealed with microscopic exactness his innermost self.
What he felt moved to speak he spoke; what he felt urged to do he did;
he never stopped to consider whether it will please or displease,
whether it will bring praise or censure upon him. Like a piece of
living, weather-beaten New England granite he looked in his home-spun
crash blouse, his jean trousers girded at the waist with a rope, his
coarse woolen shirt open at the neck, his well-worn bast shoes. He
seemed, indeed, a composite of the looks and traits and thoughts that
characterized the Puritans in the early history of the New England
states.
He lived his life according to his own light. Excepting God, he bowed
to no master. His conscience was his sole rule of right. His law was
his own. His creed was his own. His style of dress, his mode of living
were of his own choosing. His was above all else himself, not an echo
of another. He was the freest man in the most enslaved of lands. His
was the brightest mind in darkest Russia, the most democratic spirit
in the most autocratic of realms. His peasant garb could not hide the
noble man, ennobled by exalted thought and achievement and not by the
will of potentate. His peasant labor could not hide the man born to
command, not by means of knout or sword or prison but by the law of
love and right and truth.
As severe with the
world so gentle with
his own.
As fearless as he was in his denunciations of the wrong-doings of
government and church and society, and as bold as he was in his reform
propositions, so gentle and simple-minded was he at his family table.
I had read that two kinds of meals were served at his table, a frugal
one for himself and a sumptuous one for the rest of his family. The
meal of which I partook was a frugal one for all. I was, however,
little conscious of what I ate. I was held spell-bound by the count's
conversation which dominated the table, and which was carried on in
English, occasionally passing into German or French or Russian.
A table incident.
He was in an especially happy mood that evening. In the mail that
had been brought to the table there were a number of papers. Opening
one of these, the London _Standard_, I believe, he observed that an
article of his had been severely censored by the Russian government.
Large parts of it had been smeared over with black ink. What amused
him was that the parts that were left uncensored were worse than
those that had been blackened out, revealing the stupidity of the
censor. Turning to me, who sat at his right, he said that had the
article been a panegyric on the Czar, it would probably have received
the same treatment, for no matter what he writes, it is daubed over,
here and there, on the general principle that, having been written by
Tolstoy, it must of necessity be revolutionary. Continuing, he told
me that that particular article was one of a series on the subject
of "_Christianity and Patriotism_," which, not being permitted to be
published in Russia, appeared in translation in England. In it he
endeavored to show that Christianity and patriotism were incompatible,
that the latter was an artificial creation, skilfully nourished by
rulers for selfish purposes. On account of it wars are waged, evils are
wrought, sufferings are inflicted by Christians upon Christians, who
are _religiously_ taught to love one another, to forgive one another,
to do good to each other, and who are _patriotically_ trained to hate
and overreach each other. Humanity, he said, must be put in the place
of patriotism. The latter is both stupid and unmoral, _stupid_ because
it leads each nation to regard itself the superior of all others, and
_unmoral_ because it lures nations to possess themselves of advantages
at the cost of others, thus violating the fundamental law of morality,
that of not doing to others what they would not have others do to them.
Humanity makes the whole world every man's country, and every man each
man's brother.
His home over-run by
visitors.
When first introduced to the family I felt that their welcome was not
quite as hearty as was that of the count. I could easily understand the
reason. The presence of guests was almost a daily occurrence, and quite
a burden on the household. The count denied himself to none who had a
genuine purpose for seeking him. But he was out of patience with mere
curiosity seekers or newspaper writers, who sought to rob him of his
valuable time in order to fill a column or two with sensational matter.
One such writer, a lady journalist, came one day for the sole purpose
of having him give her the menu of his vegetarian diet, to tell her
whether his undergarments were of as coarse a fabric as were his outer
clothes, and whether an equally picturesque peasant-garb might not be
designed for women.
Special incident
wins for me family's
special welcome.
My first impression that I was classed with the other afflictions of
the count's universal popularity soon wore off, however, by reason of
a letter to the family which I brought with me from a distinguished
professor. This gentleman had, a short time before, been dismissed from
the university of St. Petersburg because he had published an essay on
_The Ethics of the Talmud_, in which he had endeavored to show the
lofty moral teachings of the Jews. I had made his acquaintance while
in St. Petersburg, and before leaving that city he called on me, and
asked me whether I would not take a letter from him, of an entirely
uncompromising nature, to Tolstoy, inasmuch, as at that particular
time, a letter mailed to the count did not, for easily accountable
reasons, always reach him. I readily consented, and that little
service, the professor having been a great favorite of the count, made
me a welcome guest also to the family.
Approves of stand
taken to gain
admission.
Supper over, the count invited my companion and myself to join him on
a walk and to tell him of what service he could be to me. I told him
of the mission that brought me to Russia and of the difficulties that
were placed in the way of my admission. He approved of the stand I had
taken, but asked me to blame the governments for it, mine as well as
his, and not the Russians, who are a kindly people.
If United States
would take bolder
stand Russia would
yield.
He entered at length upon an exposition showing that if the United
States would refuse to countenance discriminations between her citizens
on account of religious belief, Russia would be obliged to yield. I
told him of the audience which Mr. White and myself had had with M.
Witte, and that the latter had said that, the Czar being sick, nothing
could be done without his consent, that I should state my request
in the form of a petition, written in English and Russian, and that
he would present it to the Czar with his approval upon the latter's
return, and that I had complied with the advice given. The count
had little faith that my petition would ever reach the eyes of the
Czar--and it never did, for the Czar never returned alive. And he had
little faith in all official promises. The men in power at that time he
believed to be either fanatics or cowards. The former sought to secure
for themselves a soft berth in heaven, the latter sought it on earth.
These were afraid to speak out their honest thought and to deal an
honest blow for right and justice. They were afraid of losing caste or
position or of being condemned to penal servitude, as if better persons
than they had not suffered martyrdom before, or were not now paying in
Siberia the price for exercising their right to liberty of thought and
speech.
Approves of my
mission but has
little hope.
He warmly approved of my mission but saw no present possibility of
its realization. Even if the Czar were to feel kindly disposed toward
my plan, Pobiedonostzeff, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, would
interpose his objections to permitting Jews rooting themselves on
Russian soil.
The policy of the Procurator, he said, was to root out the Jews, to
drive them either into the Greek Catholic Church or into exile or
starvation, stupidly attributing the evils of Russia to her tolerance
of non-orthodox-Christian faiths and seeing relief only in their
extinction within the empire. And that miscreant considered himself the
official head of the Russian church, and the administrator of its creed
in the name of Jesus, of him who bade man to love even his enemy, to do
good even to those who do evil, to forgive even those who offend, to
bless even those who curse.
Asks my attitude
toward Jesus, and
defines his.
Stopping suddenly, and turning his face full upon me, he asked "What
is your belief respecting Jesus?" I answered that I regard the Rabbi
of Nazareth as one of the greatest of Israel's teachers and leaders
and reformers, not as a divine being who lived and taught humanly but
as a human being who lived and taught divinely. "Such is my belief,"
said he, and he continued "Your belief, however, is not that of the
Jews in Russia. Many of them have little knowledge of Jesus, and more
of them, I fear, have little love for him. And who can blame them?"
he continued, "they have been made to suffer so much in his name that
it would be little short of a miracle if they loved him. Mohamed was
more honest, he gave to people the choice between the Koran and the
sword. Christians profess love, and practice hatred." I told the count
that through the mediation of Mr. White, the Procurator had consented
to grant me an audience, but not till after the lapse of seven weeks,
after his return from some monastery to which he had retired for
prayer, penance and meditation. "Well may he meditate," said the count,
"on the wrongs he has committed, and even were he to do penance seven
times seven weeks or seven times seven months or seven years, he could
not blot out the guilt that stains his soul, and that has darkened and
cursed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent human beings."
Tells why he escaped
Siberia.
Amazed at the freedom with which he exposed his condemnation of the
most powerful officials of the realm, and convinced that as he spoke to
me he must have spoken often to others, and that the government could
not possibly be ignorant of it, I asked how it was that he had escaped
seizure, exile or imprisonment, to which he replied: "I am not yet
sure that I shall not end my days in Siberia. That I have escaped thus
far is due to the government's sensitiveness of the world's opinion.
It knows of the hold my publications have gained for me on civilized
people. It fears the cry of outrage that would be raised at the
banishment or imprisonment of a man as old as I."
He was at that time sixty-six years old. I have since read, that when
the Czar was one day approached by one of the grand dukes with a
request for the banishment of Tolstoy on the ground that he incited
rebellion against the government and the church, the Czar is said to
have replied, "_Je ne veux pas ajouter a sa gloire une couronne d' un
martyr_"--_I do not wish to add to his glory the martyr's crown_--words
used by Louis XIV of France, when a similar request was made of him.
Under the Poverty
Tree.
After that statement, he walked silently, lost in deep thought,
perhaps picturing to himself his declining days among fellow martyrs
in far-away Siberia, perhaps thinking of the agonies and tortures
and untimely deaths that had been inflicted by a cruel or misguided
government on thousands of Russia's noblest sons and daughters.
Silently he led the way toward a tree that stood near the house, upon a
slight eminence. It was the _Poverty Tree_ that was destined to afford
him beneath its wide spreading branches his last resting place. It
derived its name from the custom of poor peasants laying there their
troubles before the count. Seating himself on a bench beneath the tree
he beckoned to us to seat ourselves along side of him. He continued
silent for some time, while the setting sun bathed his lionine face and
hair in crimson and golden light, and gave him an appearance not unlike
one of the old Norse gods or vikings which the artist's brush has made
familiar to us. At last he resumed his speech.
My Visit to Tolstoy.
(_Continued._)
A DISCOURSE, AT TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL,
BY
RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D.
Philadelphia, December 18th, 1910.
[Resumé--Discourse I: Reason for my visit to Russia and for my
calling on Tolstoy. Description of his appearance and personality.
Some of his views on Russia, its statesmen, its religion, its
misgovernment. A pause under _Poverty Tree_ beneath which he now lies
buried.]
Tolstoy recalled
aid sent from
Philadelphia to
famine-stricken in
Russia.
The first question count Tolstoy put to me, after his long silence,
was from what part of the United States I hailed. Upon my telling
him that Philadelphia was my home, he expressed himself as much
pleased. He recalled the two shiploads of food we sent from our port,
two years earlier, for the relief of the famine-stricken of Russia,
and of the distribution of which he had had personal charge, and he
spoke with pleasure and appreciation of Mr. Francis B. Reeves, our
fellow-townsman, who had accompanied the food-relief.
Said first aid came
from Sacramento
synagogue.
With even keener delight he recalled that the first aid received from
the United States was from the Jewish congregation of Sacramento,
California, which to him was all the more remarkable from the fact
that the district stricken was, through governmental restriction,
uninhabited by Jews. The expression of pleasure turned to one of
sorrow when he remarked that Russia had little deserved such generous
treatment at the hands of Jews,--and he lived to see the manner in
which it was repaid in Kishineff and other places.
Was fond of Quakers.
Reverting to our city, he said that the name of Philadelphia had always
had a pleasant sound for him, partly because of its meaning "_Brotherly
Love_," and partly because it was founded by William Penn. He expressed
a high admiration for Quakers, and asked how strong they were
numerically and whether they are still as opposed to war and resistance
as their founders were. Upon answering his question to the best of my
ability, he asked: "Why is it that war, which is the greatest curse
of mankind, has so many advocates, and peace, the greatest of all
blessings, so few?" After some discussion we both agreed that it was
due to that strange perversity of human nature that sees the right and
approves of it, and yet often willfully chooses the wrong.
Blamed school for
many of present-day
wrongs.
He blamed the schools for many of the errors that obtain in society,
and claimed that there was too much education of the wrong kind, and
too little of the right. In discussing this statement of his, I chanced
to mention that education in the lower grades was compulsory with us.
To this he strongly objected. All compulsion, he said, was wrong. Man
must be gotten to do right by the law of love and not by the rule of
force. Upon my telling him that but for compulsory education some
parents would never send their children to school, he said: "What of
it? The children would probably be no less moral and no less happy
than those of highest education. I have associated with the learned
and the ignorant, and I have found more honor and honesty, more fear
of the Lord and more true happiness, among the unlettered than among
the lettered. The more of education we cram into the heads of the
people the more of the fear of God is crowded out of them. The world
lives by the love of God and not by the primer or the multiplication
table." "What, if you had had no education?" I ventured to ask. Quickly
and feelingly came the answer "The world would have been none the
worse, and I would have been the happier." "What if Jesus and the other
prophets had had no schooling?" I asked. To which he replied "It was
not what they got out of their schools that made them the spiritual and
moral powers they became, but what they got out of their hearts. God
puts more education into the human heart than man has ever been able to
put into the head. Some of the wisest and best people hereabouts are
peasants who have never seen the inside of a school, and who do not
know one letter from another." "What of Paul," I asked, "who certainly
enjoyed the benefits of the Greek schools of his day?" To which he
replied "The schools made of Paul a theologian, and Christianity would
have been the better without the theology of Paul."
Warped by unfavorable
surroundings.
Other objections to some of his paradoxical views on education
suggested themselves to me, but I left them unsaid. I perceived that
while tolerant of objections, his opinions were fixed. He apparently
judged of world-conditions from the view-point of his limited and
unfavorable horizon. Under different conditions, some of his opinions
on education, and on a number of other subjects which we discussed,
would probably have been quite different.
Well informed of
political and social
conditions in United
States.
The conversation turned to social conditions in the United States, and
on these matters he displayed an amount of knowledge that was amazing.
The more I listened the more I wondered, till finally I could not
but ask him how he who wrote and worked so much could find time to
keep himself so well informed of a country so far away as the United
States. To which he replied "Your country has interested me even more
than mine. I have lost hope in mine; all my hope was, at one time,
centered in yours. But yours is a disappointment as much as mine. You
call yourselves a Republic; you are worse than an autocracy. I say
worse because you are ruled by gold, and gold is more conscienceless,
and therefore, more tyrannical than any human tyrant. Your intentions
are good; your execution is lamentable. Were yours the free and
representative government you pretend to have, you would not allow it
to be controlled by the money powers and their hirelings, the bosses
and machines, as you do. I have read _Progress and Poverty_ by Henry
George, and I know what Mr. Bryce says about you in his _The American
Commonwealth_, and I have read and heard even worse things about your
misgovernment than what they say."
Deplored rule of gold
and growth of cities.
We were all right, he continued, as long as we were an agricultural
people. Our modes of life, then, were simple, and our ideals were high.
Politics then was a religion with us and not a matter of barter and
sale. We became prosperous; prosperity brought luxury, and luxury, as
always, brings corruption. The thirst of gold is upon us, and, in our
eagerness to quench it and to gratify our lust of luxury, our one-time
lofty principles and aspirations are dragged down and trampled in
the mire. We build city upon city, and pride ourselves in making one
greater than the other, and, in the mean time, we wipe out village
after village, whence have come our strength and moral fibre. The price
of real estate in the cities is soaring to the skies, while farms are
deserted and farm-houses decay. We tempt the farmer's son and daughter
from field to factory, and when we have exhausted them of their
health and morals we think ourselves charitable when we prolong their
miserable existence in hospitals or reformatories. We forget that our
greatness lay in the pursuit of husbandry, and we seek our salvation in
commerce and in the industries.
Prophesied war of
classes.
With all our stupendous wealth, our slums are as bad, if not worse, as
those of European cities, and we are building up a proletariat class
which will some day prove our undoing. Our rich become degenerates,
and our poor become desperates, and in the struggle to come the
desperate will rise up and slay the degenerate. We keep things quiet
by throwing crumbs of charity to those who are in need of justice more
yet than they are in need of bread. Some day they will tire of crumbs,
and will ask their full share of what the rich eat and have, and, if
denied, they will make short work of it. Our origin and our destiny
should have warned us against repeating the fatal errors of the past.
But for our colossal resources, we would long since have been dashed
against the rocks. We may yet save ourselves by going back to the farm,
and taking up anew the life and labors of our fathers.
Disagreed, yet kept
silent.
In this strain he continued for quite awhile, and the longer he spoke
the sadder grew his speech and the more prophetic became his look. At
length he ceased speaking, and an oppressive quiet ensued. I recognized
that he was deeply moved, and I therefore did not care to contradict
some of his statements which were obviously based on error. In other
of his statements I fully agreed with him, yet, loyalty to my country
forbade my seconding the gloomy prospect he held out for us.
Description of his
relationship with
wife and family.
A fortunate interruption relieved the situation. His wife approached
with a letter or manuscript in hand. He arose, proceeded toward her,
and, for a while, the two conferred together. In all probability it
was a manuscript of his which she was translating or revising. I was
told that she was always doing something of that sort. She was his
consultant, his reviser, his translator, while his daughter, Tatiana,
was his correspondent in a number of different languages. It is said
that his wife copied twenty-one times the four large volumes of his
novel _War and Peace_, and that there has been no novel nor little else
of his writing, since their marriage in 1862, that did not pass through
her hands. He found in her, in the fullest sense of the word, his
help-mate, a woman of great culture as well of great practical sense,
who looked after his literary interests no less than after those of the
household, and who often found it no easy task to be, as has been well
said, "the patient wife of an impatient genius." She bore him thirteen
children, six of whom passed away in their early youth. She fairly
idolized him and skilfully managed to slip, unknown to him, those
little comforts into his life which he required for his well-being and
which he had renounced. Neither she nor the children shared his view
respecting the distribution among the peasantry of his estate and other
property, and keeping for himself no more than an equal share with all
the others. The family believed in availing themselves of the benefits
of civilization, and for that they required the income of the farm
and the royalty of his books. There was quite a wrangle, for a time,
between the family and its head, but it was amicably disposed of in the
end, the count agreeing to their living as they chose, on the condition
that they permitted him to live as he pleased. And so in his Moscow
home as well as in that at Yasnaya Polyana, while the family rooms are
said to be comfortably furnished, his own were poorly fitted out, and
while they have servants and butlers and footmen, he attended to his
own wants, fetched his own water, cobbled his own shoes, and, in summer
time, labored in the field, from morn to night, alongside the commonest
peasant.
Description of his
working room.
Stopping suddenly in his conversation with his wife, and begging us to
excuse him for leaving us, I asked him whether he knew where my bag
was put, as I wanted to get to my writing material for the purpose of
dropping a line to the American Minister. Mr. White had feared that,
not being wanted in Russia, I might get into trouble soon after leaving
the protection of our embassy in St. Petersburg, and he had enjoined
upon me that I keep in constant touch with him, as well as with the
American consuls, while in the interior. The count informing me that
my bag had been placed into his working-room, on the ground floor of
the house, I had a glimpse of the room in which some of the greatest
writings of our time, of all times, first saw the light of day. It
was a small room with an ordinary, bare floor somewhat the worse for
wear, with a vaulted ceiling, and with very thick walls that gave it
the aspect of a mediaeval cloister cell. I have since read that at
one time it was a storeroom, and that from the hooks in the ceiling
were formerly suspended the ham supply for the family. Besides a crude
writing-desk and a few chairs, there seemed to be no other furniture
in the room, and its only ornaments, as far as I can recall, were some
farm implements, tools, and seed bags. The desk was littered over with
books and papers, and showed the kind of disorder one would expect of a
genius like Tolstoy.
Favored suppression
of lawyers.
Upon my return to the tree, I found the count in conversation with my
companion, who told me later that upon Tolstoy's asking him what his
occupation was, and upon his replying that he had graduated from the
law-school of the University of Moscow, and that, owing to restrictive
laws against Jews, he was not permitted to practice, the count had
remarked that the government had done at least one good thing, it had
diminished the number of lawyers.
Amazed at the amount
of poverty in New
York.
Resuming my seat alongside of him, he asked me whether it was true
that New York expended as much as one hundred thousand dollars daily
in public charity. I told him that it probably was true. He then
returned to his discussion on the appalling contrast between the very
rich and the very poor of the large cities in Europe and America. The
rich, he said, would never be as rich as they are nor the poor as poor
if the latter were scattered as farmers over the land. It is their
congregating in large numbers in the cities, he said, that makes
possible the extensive industries and commercial enterprises which
enslave them, and which build up the great fortunes of the rich.
Belittled his own
novels.
"Have you read my book _What To Do_?" he suddenly asked me. I was
obliged to answer "No." I have read it since, and several times, and
profitably, too, but, though I had read quite a number of his books
before I met him, it was exceedingly embarrassing to be questioned
concerning the particular book which I had not read. Not to appear
altogether ignorant of his writings, I proceeded to tell him that I
had read his "War and Peace," "Anna Karénina," etc., etc., and started
telling him how much I admired them, when, with an impatient look and
gesture, he interrupted me, saying "These works are all chaff, chaff,
play-toys, amusing gilded youth and idle women. It is my serious
writings which I want the world to read. I have ceased publishing
novels because readers do not know the meaning of them. They look for
entertainment and not instruction, and even though I write only for the
uplift of man, for the purification of society, they, like the hawk,
seek out only the carrion. They neither recognize themselves under the
fictitious name I adopt, nor do they see their share in the wrongs and
vices and injustices depicted, neither do they perceive that it is for
their co-operation that the novelist appeals when he pleads for the
kingdom of heaven on earth."
Spoke of his book
_What To Do_.
Returning to his book _What To Do_, he said, "even if you have not
read it, you have read the Prophets, and having read them, you know
my teachings. The book is an appeal for pity for the submerged,
for justice for the wronged, for liberation of the oppressed and
persecuted, and for the application of the only remedy--a return to the
simple life and labor on the soil. As our subsistence comes from the
soil so can justice and right and happiness come from it alone. Help
can never come from wealth, for wealth is the creator of poverty and
inequality and injustice. It can not come from the government for that
exists largely for the purpose of keeping up inequality and injustice.
It cannot come from the church, for she fears the Czar more than she
fears God. It cannot even come from the schools which tend to train a
class of people who think themselves too good for manual labor."
Saw solution of
Jewish problem only
in agriculture.
"Your plan to lead your people back to the soil," he continued, "back
to the occupation which your fathers followed with honor in Palestinian
lands, is of some encouragement to me. It shows that the light is
dawning. It is the only solution of the Jewish problem. Persecution,
refusal of the right to own or to till the soil, exclusion from the
artisan guilds, made traders of the Jew. And the world hates the
trader. Make bread-producers of your people, and the world will honor
those who give it bread to it."
Made a request of me.
"There is little chance at present," he continued, "for a Jewish
colonization scheme in Russia. The government does not want to see the
Jews rooting themselves on Russian soil, and spreads the report that
they are unfit for agricultural labor, though I have been reliably
informed that in the few Jewish agricultural colonies that have been
tolerated on the steppes from the time of Alexander I they are as
successful farmers as are the best." And he asked me as a favor that
I make a special trip to those colonies and report to him, preferably
in person, the result of my observations. I was only too anxious to
consent to his request.
And yet another promise he asked of me, and which I gave no less
cheerfully. But of this I shall speak in my next discourse.
My Visit to Tolstoy.
(_Continued._)
A DISCOURSE, AT TEMPLE KENESETH ISRAEL,
BY
RABBI JOSEPH KRAUSKOPF, D. D.
Philadelphia, December 25th, 1910.
RESUMÉ--_Discourse I_: Reasons for my visit to Russia and for my
calling on Tolstoy. His appearance and personality. Some of his views
on Russia, its statesmen, religion, misgovernment. A pause under the
Poverty Tree--his burial place.
_Discourse II_: Recalled food-relief for famine-stricken in Russia
from Philadelphia and from Jewish congregation in California. Admired
Quakers for their opposition to war. Blamed schools for many social
wrongs. Severely criticised political and economical evils of our
country. Ascribed them to growth of cities and to farm-desertions.
His relationship with wife and family. His working-room. Against
lawyers. Belittled his novels. Spoke of his book _What To Do?_ Saw
solution of Jewish problem in agriculture only.
Tolstoy suggests
school for training
American lads in
agriculture.
At the conclusion of my last discourse I made mention of yet another
request count Tolstoy made of me. It was in connection with his
prediction that the Russian government would not look favorably upon
my proposition to colonize Russian Jews upon unoccupied farm-lands in
the interior. "If the plan cannot be entered upon in Russia," he asked,
"why can it not be made successful in the United States? What are you,
Americans, doing to prevent a Jewish problem in your own country? How
long before the evils that are harrowing your people in the old world
may be harrowing them in the new? Your people are crowding into your
large cities by the thousands and tens of thousands. You have built
up Ghettoes worse than those of Europe. There is excuse for it in
Russia; there is no excuse for it in the United States. Yours is the
right to own land and the best of it, and to till as much of it as you
please. Granted that ages of enforced abstention from agricultural
labor have weaned the elder generation from a love of country life and
farm-labor, why may not a love for it be instilled in the young? Lead
your young people to the country and to the farm. Start agricultural
schools for them. Teach them to exchange the yard-stick for the hoe,
the peddler's pack for the seed-bag, and you will solve the problem
while it may yet be solved. You will see the lands tilled by them
overflow, as of old, with milk and honey. You will see them give of
their plenty to the people of the land, and receive in return goodly
profit and esteem. And once again there will arise from among Jewish
husbandmen prophets, lawgivers, inspired bards and teachers to whom the
civilized world will do homage."
At yet greater length he spoke on this subject, and the more he spoke
the more he quickened within me the resolve to do as he wished it to be
done.
Founding of Farm
School promised.
And there, under _The Poverty Tree_, it was where I gave Tolstoy the
solemn promise that upon my return home the earliest task I would enter
upon would be the establishment of an agricultural school for Jewish
lads, and other lads. And the existence of the _National Farm School_,
near Doylestown in this state, is testimony that I kept my promise. I
had gone to Russia to see the Czar, and I saw a greater man instead.
I had gone with a plan for colonizing Russian Jews in Russia, and I
returned with a plan for teaching agriculture chiefly to Russian Jewish
lads in the United States. Verily, "man proposes and God disposes." And
the hundreds of young men who have received their agricultural training
at the National Farm School, and the hundreds of others, young and
old, who, directly and indirectly, have been encouraged by that school
to forsake the congested cities and to take up the farmer's life, owe
their escape from the miseries of the Ghetto, and their enjoyment of
health and happiness, to the promise asked of me by that noblest of all
farmers, count Tolstoy.
Promise kept under
difficulties.
The establishment of the school was not an easy task, nor is its
maintenance easy even now, notwithstanding the excellent record it has
made. The bulk of our people have not yet acquired that profound grasp
of the seriousness of our problem, and of its only possible solution,
that Tolstoy had, sixteen years ago. Therefore is the support of that
school still so meagre. Therefore has it still less than a hundred
students in attendance when it easily could have a thousand, and more,
if it had the means. And, therefore, are our Ghettoes more crowded than
ever, and a greater drain than ever on our charities. That despite
indifference and even hostility the school has persevered is due, to
a very large extent, to the determination to keep sacred a promise
solemnly given to one of the best of men.
Parting from Tolstoy.
It was late that night when I took leave of the count and of some of
the members of his family. Before departing, it was agreed that I
enter at once upon my journey to the Jewish agricultural colonies in
the interior, that I might see them at work during the height of their
harvesting, and a peasant and his wagon were engaged to take me on that
trip. The count bade me a hearty God-speed, and repeatedly urged me to
make my report personally to him, and I promised that I would avail
myself a second time of his proffered hospitality, if my way should
lead me back again to Moscow or St. Petersburg.
Never heard from him
again.
Unfortunately, after my inspection of the Jewish agricultural colonies,
which fully confirmed the favorable reports the count had received of
them, my investigations led me to the Southern and Polish provinces,
and consumed so much of my limited time that a return North was
impossible. And so I never got to see the count again. And I never
heard from him. Neither my report, which I sent to him in writing, nor
my other communications to him, written in Russia and outside of it,
have brought from him a reply. Never a line from him even in answer to
the information sent him that the National Farm School, which he had so
strongly urged, had been founded. Never an acknowledgment from him of
the early annual reports of the School that were sent him to show the
headway it was making.
Probable reason of
silence.
The heartiness of his reception of me, his almost affectionate
farewell, his deep interest in my mission and his earnest invitation
that I repeat my visit to him, preclude the thought that I was
forgotten by him or became indifferent to him after my departure.
There is but one explanation--an explanation strengthened by similar
experiences of others in connection with him--none of my communications
ever reached him. I was not wanted in Russia. I was a _persona non
grata_ to the government; my name was blacklisted, and my mail fell
under the ban of the censor.
With him in spirit
under Poverty Tree.
But, if my mail has never reached him, my thoughts have been with him
often. Many a time have I sat with him, in spirit, under that _Poverty
Tree_. And yet more often will I sit with him there in the future, now
that that site has become _Holy Ground_.
Has become his grave.
Gladly do I forgive the church of Russia many an outrage or blunder
she has perpetrated or permitted to be perpetrated, for the one good
act she has performed--that of refusing Tolstoy sepulture in what
she is pleased to call "consecrated ground." She thus obliged him to
designate as his last resting-place a spot that was one of the dearest
on earth to him, a spot that was intimately associated with his life's
philosophy, a spot located within a confine wherein he ruled more
mightily and more exaltedly than any Czar that ever wielded scepter
in vast Russia, where he wrote those epochal books of his which are
destined some day to become of the basal elements of the religion of
the future.
No Czarian funeral
more solemn than
Tolstoy's.
And even though no priest was nigh when the last rites over his remains
were performed, there were present, besides his family, those who were
more sacred in his eyes than priests or metropolitan, more honorable
than even the Procurator of the Holy Synod--his dearly beloved
peasants. It was these who followed him to his last resting place.
It was these who sang the mortuary hymn _Everlasting Memory_, at his
open grave. It was these, the "orphaned peasantry," as they called
themselves because of his death, who gave his burial a distinction such
as no Czarian funeral procession had ever enjoyed, notwithstanding
ecclesiastical pomp or military display. It was these whose labors and
outlook he had sought to soften and to brighten, who delivered the
briefest and most eloquent eulogy that has, perhaps, ever been spoken:
"_His heart has burst because of his unbounded love for humanity. The
light of the world is extinguished._"
In spite of herself
church has made a
saint of him.
In refusing religious sepulture to the holiest man in Russia, the
Greek orthodox church performed the crowning feat in her long series
of stupidities. And yet, by that act she did, in despite of herself,
the very thing she did not wish to see done. Like Mephistopheles in
Goethe's _Faust_ who, in response to the question who he is, says:
"_Ich bin ein Theil von jener Kraft, die stets das Böse will, und stets
das Gute schafft_," so did she prove herself the power that sought the
evil and yet performed the good. By her act of intolerance she gave
a new saint to Russia, and perhaps the only one she has. By it she
furnished a sanctuary to that country, one that may be destined to make
a Mecca of Yasnaya Polyana, one that may be more piously sought in the
future, and by larger numbers, than any shrine or sanctuary of her own
creation. By that act she shed a halo of immortal glory around the head
of him whom she sought to cover with infamy.
Has two ways of
making saints.
The church has two ways of conferring saintships, a lesser and a
higher one. The lesser distinction she confers upon lesser luminaries,
generally upon those made famous by myth or legend for great endurance
in fasting or penance, or for conquering imaginary devils, for working
fancied miracles, or for displaying fiendish cruelty in persecuting and
exterminating heretics. The higher distinction she confers generally
at the stake or on the gallows, within prison walls or in the torture
chamber, upon men of great minds or great hearts, upon lovers of truth
and fearless enunciators of it, upon men who because of their love of
humanity defy the power that interdicts God's greatest gift to man: the
right to think and the right to believe and speak in accordance with
the canons of reason and with the dictates of conscience.
Still makes of
intolerance an act of
piety.
In asking me the difference between reform and orthodox Judaism in
America, and between American Reform Jews and Russian Karaitic Jews,
and in replying that the difference exists mainly in the synagogue,
that outside of it there is little or no difference in life and in
social relationship, Tolstoy replied: "Our church has not yet arrived
at the stage of tolerance of different religious beliefs. That is the
reason why such people as the Jews and Doukhobors and Stundists are
persecuted, and such men as I are in ill repute. Our church still makes
of religious hatred an act of piety. It still measures God by the
passions of man. Had the church the power in our days which it at one
time had, and were the age of martyrdom not past, she would long since
have silenced me for rebelling against her irrational teaching and for
denouncing her craven supineness in the midst of outrageous wrongs
and injustices, as now they silence men in our country for rebelling
against unjust enactments of the government."
Tolstoy hoped for the
reign of universal
good-will.
Upon my saying that it was fortunate for us of the present day that all
churches have been deprived of their one-time all-controlling power,
since no church has yet been known to have possessed power and not
to have abused it, he replied: "That is true of all power, temporal
as well as of ecclesiastic, and it would be more fortunate still if
governments were as restricted in their power as is the church, if
all power, all authority, were to cease, if the good that is inherent
in every human being were to be given a chance to germinate and to
flourish, and every man learn to live in complete harmony with the
highest of all laws, the law of peace and good-will, which God has
written into the human heart. There would then be no need of armies
and armaments, of courts and police, of prisons and jails, no need of
impoverishing the masses through heavy taxation for the support of
millions of soldiers and officers in idleness, who ought to raise their
own bread by their own handiwork."
Believed that the
Messiah is still to
come.
"On that day," said I, "the Messianic Age, for which the Jews have
hoped and prayed, will surely have dawned." To which he answered: "You,
Jews, are right, the Messiah is still to come, or, if he has come, his
message has not yet entered the hearts of men."