Among all the literatures of the world the Jewish literature is the
only one that did not develop in any one land and the destinies
of which are not connected with any one country. It has neither a
certain local odor nor a certain local color, and it has seldom been
the product of local conditions. There are a good many scholars who
go so far as to say that the Jews had litterateurs only and not a
literature, because the conception of a national literature involves
national territory, a national political organization, and national
traditions. A people, these scholars say, may produce a great numbers
of writers and poets and may still be said not to possess a national
literature. Formerly scholars who argued to that effect may have been
right. If we take into consideration the psychological continuity of
Jewish literature ever since the Jews began their career as a wandering
people, we are justified in doubting the wisdom of this conception.
Although Jewish literature has undergone many radical changes (the
change in language being only one prime fact) and although it has
been as restless as the Jewish people, compelled to wander from one
country to another, it has still succeeded in preserving certain prime
qualities and characteristics which entitle it to bear the proud name
of national literature. It is easy to recognize the age of a Jewish
literary document, but it is not so easy to ascertain the place and
locality where it was produced. The Hebrew-Italian school of the
eighteenth century resembles in many respects the Hebrew-Spanish school
of the Middle Ages, and the Russian-Hebrew school of the present time
has much similarity not only to the various Hebrew schools of the
twelfth and the eighteenth centuries but even to the Biblical period.
It suffices only to mention the name of Bialik to show how near we are
today to the spirit of the Biblical period.
This is true of Hebrew poetry but not of Hebrew prose. Here the
results of migration are very noticeable. The Jewish literature of
the Alexandrian period has hardly anything in common with Babylonian
Jewish literature, and the literature created in the Provence is
quite different in character from that created in Central Asia or in
Africa. In other words, while the contemplative Jewish mind succeeds
in preserving its chief original qualities, the meditative Jewish mind
was subject to certain degrees of assimilation. As long as the Hebrew
language was the means of expression for the Jewish literary spirit
the effect of migration from one country to another was to make Jewish
literature more picturesque and more interesting. But it did not fill
the literary mind with new contents. Sometimes the effect of the new
surroundings was not felt at all. This is due to the fact that, with
the Hebrew language as cultivated by the Jews, there goes a certain
philosophy of life and of things. The fate of the Jews throughout the
ages, more or less similar in every land, contributed also to the
psychological continuity of the Hebrew literary mind. This expresses
itself best in the Hebrew elegy. When one reads Bialik's "Poems of
Wrath," one thinks at once of Hebrew poems of a similar kind written
hundreds of years ago. Hebrew prose on the other hand underwent slight
changes during the Jewish migrations.
Since the Jews have entered modern civilization and have adopted
the language of the Gentiles as a medium of literary expression,
the effects of migration on the Jewish literary mind have begun to
make themselves felt in a rather unpleasant way. This unpleasantness
consists not in the variety of languages in which modern Jewish
literature is so rich, but in the variety of ideas and conceptions
which the Hebrew language imposed on the individual. The works of
Jewish writers who write in European languages, even if they deal only
with Jewish subjects, do not belong to Jewish literature alone; we
cannot proclaim these works as our national possessions because of the
very non-Jewish elements which characterize them.
On another occasion we have already shown how Jewish historiography and
our history of Jewish literature have been influenced by non-Jewish
elements. It goes without saying that all the other branches of our
prose literature, as far as they have not been written in Hebrew, are
strongly influenced by non-Jewish elements to a very great extent.
Very often it is difficult to recognize what is Jewish and what is
non-Jewish in these works. Everyone acquainted with the theological
developments of Judaism within the last hundred years knows how
Jewish theology in the west has gradually become alienated from its
Jewish origin and come nearer to a Christian point of view. No less an
important theologian than Schleiermacher characterized so-called modern
Judaism as being very similar to modern Christianism. It will readily
be understood that it was not Christianity that came nearer to Judaism
but, on the contrary, Judaism that came nearer Christianity. It would,
of course, be wrong and historically untrue to say that only in modern
times has a non-Jewish element begun to creep into Jewish literature.
It is moreover a fact that ever since the Jews have used foreign
tongues for literary expression, they have been compelled to admit
non-Jewish elements into their works. This is true of Philo and to a
certain extent even of Maimonides' "Moreh." Is it not peculiar that all
the great mediators between Judaism and the Gentile world have written
their philosophical works either in Greek or in Arabic or in some
modern language, and that those Jewish philosophers who have written
their philosophical works in Hebrew have never tried to play the rôle
of mediators? Philo, who wrote in Greek, tried to mediate between
Platonism and Judaism. Maimonides, who wrote the "Moreh" in Arabic,
tried to mediate between Aristotelism and Judaism, and Herman Cohen
tries to mediate between Kantianism and Judaism. There are, of course,
exceptions to the rule. Nachman Krochmal was a thorough Hegelian and
wrote his "Moreh" in Hebrew. But this is just the exception which
proves the rule. Most of our philosophers who wrote in Hebrew developed
a more or less purely Hebrew philosophy and contributed to the
development of the Hebrew mind which found its purest expression in the
Bible, the Talmud and the Haggaddah.
All this would go to show that the psychological continuity of the
Hebrew literary mind and the true development of the Jewish mind can
best be safeguarded through the medium of Hebrew. Hebrew is to the
Jews and to the literature of the Jewish people more than a language.
It replaces the many elements required for the sound development of
a national literature which we have not, such as a country, local
traditions, a national political organization, and so on. As long as
Hebrew is the medium of literary expression among the Jews, Jewish
literature deserves the name of a national literature and is a
national literature. If, however, the Jewish mind does not express
itself any more through the medium of Hebrew, the productions of this
mind do not solely belong to us and are not part and parcel of our
national property. They belong to the others as well as to us and
probably more to them. Herein lies the importance of Hebrew for the
development of Judaism and the Jewish mind.