Part 12 (1/2)
”What are we, you ask, and what our life? Are we a people like those around us, or only members of a religious community? I will tell you: We are neither a people, nor a brotherhood, we are but a flock--the holy flock of the Lord G.o.d, and the whole earth is an altar for us. Thereon we are laid either as burnt offerings sacrificed by the other peoples, or as victims bound by the precepts of our own Rabbis. A flock wandering in the waste desert, sheep set upon on all sides by the wolves.... We cry out-- in vain! We utter laments--none hears! The desert shuts us in on all sides. The earth is of copper, the heavens are of bra.s.s.
”Not an ordinary flock are we, but a flock of iron. We survive the slaughter. But will our strength endure forever?
”A flock dispersed, undisciplined, without a bond--we are the flock of the Lord G.o.d!”
Not that the idea of a national rebirth displeased the poet. Far from it. Zionism cannot but exercise a charm upon the Jewish heart. But he believed the time had not yet arrived for a national regeneration.
According to his opinion, there was a work of religious liberation to be accomplished before the reconstruction of the Jewish State could be thought of. He defended this idea in a series of articles published in _Ha-Meliz_, of which he was the editor at that time.
The last years of his life were tragic, pathetic. With a torn heart he sat by and looked upon the desperate situation into which the government had put millions of his brethren. To this he alludes in his fable ”Adoni-bezek”, which we reproduce in its entirety, to give a notion of Gordon as a fabulist:
”In a sumptuous palace, in the middle of a vast hall, perfumed, and draped with Egyptian fabrics, stands a table, and upon it are the most delicious viands. Adoni-bezek is dining. His attendants are standing each in his place--his cupbearer, the master baker, and the chief cook. The eunuchs, his slaves, come and go; bringing every variety of dainty dishes, and the flesh of all sorts of beasts and birds, roasted and stewed.
”On the floor, insolent dogs lie sprawling, their jaws agape, panting to snap up the bones and sc.r.a.ps their master throws to them.
”Prostrate under the table are seventy captive kings, with their thumbs and big toes cut off. To appease their appet.i.te they must scramble for the sc.r.a.ps that drop under the table of their sovereign lord.
”Adoni-bezek has finished his repast, and he amuses himself with throwing bones to the creatures under the table. Suddenly there is a hubbub, the dogs bark, and yap at their human neighbors, who have appropriated morsels meant for them.
”The wounded kings complain to the master: O king, see our suffering and deliver us from thy dogs. And Adoni-bezek's answer is: But it is you who are to be blamed, and they are in the right. Why do you do them wrong?
”With bitterness the kings make reply:
”O king, is it our fault if we have been brought so low that we must vie with your dogs and pick up the crumbs that drop from your table? Thou didst come up against us and crush us with thy powerful hand, thou didst mutilate us and chain us in these cages. No longer are we able to work or seek our sustenance. Why should these dogs have the right to bite and bark? O that the just--if still there are such men in our time--might rise up! O that one whose heart has been touched by G.o.d might judge between ourselves and those who bite us, which of us is the hangman and which the victim?”
Toward the end of his days the poet was permitted to enjoy a great gratification. The Jewish notabilities of the capital arranged a celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his activity as a writer.
At the reunion of Gordon's friends on this occasion it was decided to publish an _edition de luxe_ of his poetical works. A final optimistic note was forced from his heart, deeply moved by this unexpected tribute. He recalled the vow once made by him, always to remain loyal to Hebrew, and he recounted the vexations and disappointments to which the poet is exposed who chooses to write in a dead language doomed to oblivion. Then he addressed a salutation to the young ”of whom we had despaired, and who are coming back, and to the dawn of the rebirth of the Hebrew language and the Jewish people.”
However, Gordon never entered into the national revival with full faith in its promises. Until the end he remained the poet of misery and despair.
The death of Smolenskin elicited a last disconsolate word from him. It may be considered the ghetto poet's testament. He compared the great writer to the Jewish people, and asked himself:
”What is our people, and what its literature?
A giant felled to the ground unable to rise.
The whole earth is its sepulchre.
And its books?--the epitaph engraved upon its tomb-stone....”
CHAPTER VIII
REFORMERS AND CONSERVATIVES
THE TWO EXTREMES
Though Gordon was the most distinguished, he was not the only representative of the anti-Rabbinic school in the neo-Hebrew literature.
The decline of liberalism in official state circles, and the frustration of every hope of equality, had their effect in reshaping the policy pursued by educated Jews. Up to this time they had cherished no desire except for external emanc.i.p.ation and to a.s.similate with their neighbors of other faiths. Liberty and justice suddenly removed from their horizon, they could not but transfer their ambition and their activity to the inner chambers of Judaism. Other circ.u.mstances contributed to the result. The economic changes affecting the bourgeoisie and the influence exercised by the realism and the utilitarian tendencies of the Russian literature of the time had not a little to do with the modified aims cherished in the camp of the Maskilim. Jews of education living in Galicia or in the small towns of Russia, who had the best opportunity of penetrating to the intimate life of the people and knowing its day by day misery, could and did make clear, how helpless the ma.s.ses of the Jews were in the face of the moral and economic ruin that menaced them, and how serious an obstacle religious restrictions and ignorance placed in the way of any change in their condition. And therefore they made it their object to extol practical, thoroughgoing reforms.
In religion, they demanded, with Gordon, the abolition of all restrictions weighing upon the people, and a radical reform of Jewish education.