You Gentiles Maurice Samuel 1924 217pgs REL

7/27/2019 You Gentiles Maurice Samuel 1924 217pgs REL

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/you-gentiles-maurice-samuel-1924-217pgs-rel 1/217

You Gentiles

By Maurice Samue lA u t h o r o f " T h e O u t s i d e r , " " W h a t e v e r G o d s . "

ko~)a1/3

XU, . - t-

New York

Harcourt, Brace and Company-



COPYRIGHT, 1 9 2 4 , BY

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMP ANY, INC .

P u b l i s h e d , Au g u s t , 1 9 2 4

S e c o n d p r i n t i n g . O c t ob e r , 1 9 2 4

T h i r d p r i n t i n g , N o v e m b e r , 1 9 2 4

F o u r t h p ri n t i n g , D e c e m b e r , 1 9 2 4

F i f t h p r in t i n g , M a r c h , 1 9 2 5

1



ContentsPAGE

The Question . . . .7

S p o r t . 38

Gods . . 64

Utopia . . 78

Loyalty1D i s c i p l i n e . . 1 0 7

The Reckoning 124But as Moderns . . .

1 3 5

W e , t h e D e s t r o y e r s 1 4 4

The Games of Science . 1 5 6

T h e Masses . 1 7 7

S o l u t i o n a n d D i s s o l u t i o n 1 8 8

T h e M e c h a n i s m o f D i s s o l u t i o n 1 9 6

Is There Any Hope? . . 210A Last Wo rd

0 ! q 221



Y o u G e n t i l e s



I

T h e Q u e s t i o n

I

THESE l a s t t e n y e a r s a n d m o r e I h a v e b e e n

a s k i n g m y s e l f , w i t h i n c r e a s i n g u r g e n c y , a

n u m b e r o f q u e s t i o n s :

I s t h e r e a n y s p e c i a l s i g n i f i c a n c e i n t h e d i s -

t i n c t i o n I h a v e s o l o n g c h e r i s h e d - t h e d i s -

t i n c t i o n o f " J e w - g e n t i l e " - n o t t o b e f o u n d

in the class of distinctions implied in

"American-Foreigner" or "Englishman-For-

e i g n e r " ? I s t h e r e , b e t w e e n u s J e w s a n d y o u

g e n t i l e s , t h a t i s b e t w e e n t h e J e w o n t h e o n e

hand and the Englis hman, the F renchman,

t h e A m e r i c a n o n t h e o t h e r h a n d , t h a t w h i c h

t r a n s c e n d s a l l t h e d i f f e r e n c e s w h i c h e x i s t

a m o n g y o u r s e l v e s , s o t h a t , i n r e l a t i o n t o u s ,

y o u a r e g e n t i l e s f i r s t , a n d a f t e r w a r d s ( a n d

w i t h o u t p a r t i c u l a r r e l e v a n c e i n t h i s c o n n e c -

t i o n ) E n g l i s h m e n , F r e n c h m e n , A m e r i c a n s ?

7




O r i s t h e r e n o t h i n g m o r e i m p l i e d i n t h a t

d i s t i n c t i o n , J e w - g e n t i l e , t h a n ( i n a g e n e r a l

w a y ) i n t h e d i s t i n c t i o n s J e w - A m e r i c a n , A m e r -

ican-Englishman, Englishman-Frenchman?

I n o t h e r w o r d s , a r e w e J e w s b u t p a r t o f

t h e g e n t i l e s , A m e r i c a n s , E n g l i s h m e n , J e w s ,

F r e n c h m e n , o r i s t h e r e a d e e p e r c l e a v a g e b e -

t w e e n u s ? I s t h i s W e s t e r n w o r l d d i v i d e d p r i -

marily into t wo parts-you gen tile s ; we

J e w s ?

F r o m t h e o u t s e t I s h a l l b e a s k e d : "Even

i f y o u s u s p e c t t h e e x i s t e n c e o f s u c h a p r i m a l

cleavage, beyond the reach of ordinary

n a t i o n a l o r r a c i a l c l a s s i f i c a t i o n s , w h a t p u r -

p o s e c a n y o u h a v e i n u r g i n g i t u p o n t h e a t -

t e n t i o n o f t h e w o r l d ? H a s i t a n y p r a c t i c a l

a p p l i c a t i o n ? D o e s i t i n a n y f a s h i o n c l a r i f y

t h e s t a t u s o f t h e J e w, o r g i v e g r e a t e r c o g e n c y

t o s u c h c l a i m s o f h i s a s a r e s t i l l u n s a t i s f i e d ? "

T h i s q u e s t i o n w i l l b e a s k e d o f m e b y m a n y

J e w s - b u t i n p a r t i c u l a r i t w i l l b e a s k e d w i t h

t h e u t m o s t i n s i s t e n c e b y t h o s e J e w s w h o h a v e

b a s e d o u r c a s e f o r n a t i o n a l r i g h t s , n a t i o n a l

8




e q u a l i t y , p r e c i s e l y o n t h i s a s s u m p t i o n - t h a t

w e J e w s a r e a p e o p l e l i k e a l l o t h e r p e o p l e s ,

s i m i l a r i n n e e d s a n d i m p u l s e s : t h a t w e a r e

J e w s , y o u a r e E n g l i s h m e n , y o u a r e I t a l i a n s ,

y o u a r e A m e r i c a n s ; t h a t w e , t h e wo r l d ' s r a c e s

o r p e o p l e s , a r e a l l o f u s s i m i l a r i n o u r d i f f e r -

e n c e s .

Leaving on one side those who deny the

e x i s t e n c e o f a n y d i s t i n c t i o n s a t a l l , t h o s e , t h a t

i s , w h o s a y t h a t t h e J e w i s e i t h e r a F r e n c h -

m a n , a n A m e r i c a n o r a n E n g l i s h m a n a c c o r d -

i n g t o t h e p l a c e o f h i s b i r t h , I w o u l d a n s w e r :

" F o r m e t h e o r d i n a r y n a t i o n a l i s t o r r a c i a l

c l a s s i f i c a t i o n h a s n o t s u f f i c e d . "

I f I h a v e l o n g p o n d e r e d t h i s q u e s t i o n o f

J e w a n d g e n t i l e i t i s b e c a u s e I s u s p e c t e d f r o m

t h e f i r s t d a w n i n g o f J e w i s h s e l f - c o n s c i o u s n e s s

t h a t J e w a n d g e n t i l e a r e t w o w o r l d s , t h a t

b e t w e e n y o u g e n t i l e s a n d u s J e w s t h e r e l i e s

a n u n b r i d g e a b l e g u l f . S i d e b y s i d e w i t h t h i s

b e l i e f g r e w a n o t h e r , w h i c h i s r e l a t e d t o t h e

p r a c t i c a l a s p e c t o f t h e d i s t i n c t i o n .

I d o n o t b e l i e v e t h a t , s i t u a t e d a s w e a r e

9




i n y o u r m i d s t , s c a t t e r e d a m o n g y o u f r o m o n e

e n d o f t h e W e s t e r n w o r l d t o t h e o t h e r , w e

h a v e t h e r i g h t t o r e t a i n o u r i d e n t i t y i f w e

a r e b u t a n o t h e r a d d i t i o n t o t h e g e n t i l e p e o -

p l e s . ( N o r , b y t h e w a y , d o I b e l i e v e t h a t

w e c o u l d h a v e r e t a i n e d i t s o l o n g h a d t h i s

b e e n t h e c a s e. ) I f w e a r e b u t o n e m o r e p e o -

p l e a d d e d t o t h e l o n g r o s t e r o f p e o p l e s , l i v i n g

and dead, we have no claim worth whil e,

u n d e r t h e s e c i r c u m s t a n c e s , t o c o n t i n u i t y o f

s e p a r a t e c o n s c i o u s n e s s . Such a claim could

n e v e r h a v e a r i s e n h a d w e r e m a i n e d s e c u r e ,

segregated on our own soil-it would have

b e e n o u r t a c i t b i r t h r i g h t . B u t a s i t i s , o u r

e x i s t e n c e i s s e c u r e d a t a n i n f i n i t e e x p e n s e o f

s p e c i a l e f f o r t o n o u r p a r t , a n d o f p e c u l i a r d i s -

c o m f o r t t o y o u . Wherever the Jew is found

h e i s a p r o b l e m , a s o u r c e o f u n h a p p i n e s s t o

h i m s e l f a n d t o t h o s e a r o u n d h i m . E v e r s i n c e

h e h a s b e e n s c a t t e r e d i n y o u r m i d s t h e h a s

h a d t o m a i n t a i n a c o n t i n u o u s s t r u g g l e f o r t h e

c o n s e r v a t i o n o f h i s i d e n t i t y . Is it worth

w h i l e , i n t h e f a c e o f t h i s d o u b l e b u r d e n , o u r

o w n a n d y o u r s , t o p e r p e t u a t e w h a t m a y b e ,

1 0



The Question

a f t e r a l l , a n a d d i t i o n o f o n e u n i t t o s c o r e s

o f s i m i l a r u n i t s ? W e r e t h e s e c e n t u r i e s o f

a l t e r n a t e t o r t u r e a n d r e s p i t e n o t a d i s p r o -

p o r t i o n a t e l y h i g h p r i c e f o r t h e r i g h t t o i n -

c r e a s e b y o n e p a g e t h e a l r e a d y o v e r b u r d e n e d

r e c o r d s o f t h e n a t i o n s ?

W e r e i t m y b e l i e f , a s i t i s , a t l e a s t i n e x -

p r e s s i o n , t h e b e l i e f o f m a n y f e l l o w - J e w s , t h a t

o u r r i g h t t o e x i s t i s f o u n d e d o n o u r s i m i l a r i t y

to other peoples, that where American or

B e l g i a n o r I t a l i a n h a s a r i g h t t o h o m e l a n d ,

c u l t u r e , h i s t o r y , p a r l i a m e n t , w e J e w s h a v e

t h e s a m e r i g h t , f o r t h e s a m e r e a s o n s , a n d

f o r n o o t h e r r e a s o n s - w e r e t h i s m y b e l i e f , I

could not find the heart to continue the

s t r u g g l e o r t o u r g e t h e , s t r u g g l e u p o n o t h e r s .

T h e e f f o r t i s t o o s e v e r e ; t h e p r i c e i s t o o h i g h :

t h e g u e r d o n i s i n s i g n i f i c a n t . Were we l ike

other peoples we ought to have done what

o t h e r p e o p l e s , u n d e r s i m i l a r c i r c u m s t a n c e s ,

would do : a p e o p l e d r i v e n f r o m i t s h o m e l a n d ,

a people ground into dust and carried by

w i n d s o f m i s f o r t u n e i n t o e v e r y c o r n e r o f t h e

w o r l d , h a s n o r i g h t t o i n f l i c t , i t s w o e s a n d

1 1



You Gentiles

l o n g i n g s o n o t h e r s . I t s h o u l d c e a s e t o e x i s t ,

i t s h o u l d r i d t h e w o r l d o f i t s i m p o r t u n a t e

p r e s e n c e .

S u c h w o u l d b e m y b e l i e f i f I s a w i n o u r -

s e l v e s o n l y t h e r e p l i c a , w i t h t h e p r o p e r v a r i -

a t i o n s , o f t h e r e s t o f t h e w o r l d . B u t t h i s i s

n o t m y b e l i e f , f o r I s e e o t h e r w i s e . Years

o f o b s e r v a t i o n a n d t h o u g h t h a v e g i v e n i n -

c r e a s i n g s t r e n g t h t o t h e b e l i e f t h a t w e J e w s

s t a n d a p a r t f r o m y o u g e n t i l e s , t h a t a p r i m a l

d u a l i t y b r e a k s t h e h u m a n i t y I k n o w i n t o t w o

d i s t i n c t p a r t s ; t h a t t h i s d u a l i t y i s a f u n d a -

m e n t a l , a n d t h a t a l l d i f f e r e n c e s a m o n g y o u

g e n t i l e s a r e t r i v i a l i t i e s c o m p a r e d w i t h t h a t

w h i c h d i v i d e s a l l o f y o u f r o m u s .

I a m a w a r e t h a t t h is i s a t h e s i s wh i c h c a n -

not be supported by diagrams, tables and

l o g a r i t h m s . It cannot even be urged with

t h e a p p a r e n t h a l f - c o m p u l s i o n o f s o c i a l a n d

e c o n o m i c l a w s . The cogency of what I have

t o s a y d o e s n o t d e p e n d o n r e f e r e n c e t o o b -

v i o u s a n d i n e l u c t a b l e l a w s , n a t u r a l p r o c e s s e s

a c k n o w l e d g e d a n d a c c e p t e d . I a m a l s o a w a r e

t h a t t h e w ei g h t o f w h a t i s c a l l e d l e a r n e d o p i n -

1 2



The Q u e s t i o n

i o n w i l l b e t h r o w n a g a i n s t m e , t h a t m y c o n -

t e n t i o n w i l l m e e t w i t h t he r i d i c u l e o f f a c i l e

c o m m o n s e n s e a n d o f s c h o l a r s h i p . Neverthe-

l e s s I s e t i t d o wn c l e a r l y t h a t i n t h i s W e s t e r n

w o r l d t h e r e a r e e s s e n t i a l l y t w o p e o p l e s a s

s p i r i t u a l f o r c e s , o n l y t w o h u m a n s e c t i o n s w i t h

e s s e n t i a l m e a n i n g Jew and gentile .

B u t a t l e a s t w h a t c r e d e n t i a l s ` h a v e I t o

o f f e r - s i n c e t h e p r e s e n t a t i o n o f c r e d e n t i a l s

m u s t a l w a y s p r e c e d e t h e p r e s e n t a t i o n o f t h e

t h e s i s ? W h a t c l a i m h a v e I o n t h e a t t e n t i o n

o f t h e w o r l d ?I c a n o n l y a n s w e r t h a t t h i s

b o o k , b e i n g a s e r i o u s b o o k , m u s t c a r r y i t s

o w n c r e d e n t i a l s , a n d d o e s n o t a t t e m p t t o b o r -

r o w i m p o r t a n c e f r o m o u t s i d e s o u r c e s . I o f f er

m y s e l f o n l y a s a J e w w h o h a s l i v e d , o b s e r v e d

and thought : my experiences and contacts

h a v e b e e n s o m e w h a t m o r e v a r i e d t h a n t h o s e

o f m o s t m e n , b u t t h i s h a s l i t t l e t o d o w i t h

my views . T h e t r u t h w h i c h i s s p r e a d o v e r

t h e w h o l e wo r l d i s a l s o c o n t a i n e d i n a n y p a r t

o f i t . T h e l a w s o f g r a v i t a t i o n a r e i m p l i e d

a s c o m p l e t e l y i n t h e f a l l i n g o f a p e b b l e t o

e a r t h a s i n t h e r u s h o f t h e s u n a g a i n s t t h e

1 3




c o u n t e r - r u s h of i t s c o m p a n i o n s t a r s . The l a w

o f E i n s t e i n w o r k s n o l e s s t r u l y i n t h e c r a w l -

i n g o f a s n a i l t h a n i n t h e d i z z y v i b r a t i o n o f

t h e f a s t es t a t o m i c s u b - u n i t . These laws are

m o r e e a s i l y o b s e r v e d i n t h e o n e s e t o f c a s e s

t h a n i n t h e o t h e r : t h a t i s a l l .

I f I h a v e t o u c h e d t h e t r u t h i t h a s b e e n

p r i m a r i l y t h r o u g h c o n t a c t w i t h l i f eand Ih a v e r e g a r d e d b o o k s a s b u t a c l a s s o f l i v i n g

t h i n g s , t o b e o b s e r v e d a n d i n t e r p r e t e d a n d

p l a c e d i n t h e i r s e t t i n g . L i f e i t s e l f , o b s e r v a -

t i o n o f m e n a n d w o m e n , s i n g l y a n d i n m a s s e s ,

a knowledge of their works (among which

b o o k s a r e i m p o r t a n t ) , a f e e l i n g f o r t h e i r d e -

s i r e s , p e r c e p t i o n o f t h e i r i n t e n t i n c i t i e s ,

l a w s , t h e a t e r s , g a m e s , w a r s , a l l t h i s h a s

b r o u g h t m e t o t h e c o n c e p t i o n I s h a l l s e t f o r th .

A l l s c h o l a r s h i p - p a r t i c u l a r l y t h a t s c h o l a r s h i p

w h i c h d e a l s w i t h t h e m a n i f e s t a t i o n s o f m a n ' s

d e s i r e s a n d f e a r s - c o n s i s t s o f u n a u t h o r i t a t iv e

m a r g i n a l n o t e s , w h i c h a r e o f i n t e r e s t c h i e f l y

a s g i v i n g u s s o m e i n s i g h t i n t o t h e n a t u r e o f

those who jotted them down .

I t d o e s n o h a r m t o k n o w t h e h i s t o r y t h a t

1 4



The Question

i s i n b o o k s ; b u t t h e o n l y a u t h e n t i c h i s t o r y i s

around us . I t i s m a d e d a i l y i n n e w s p a p e r s ,

t h e a t e r s , m e e t i n g s , e l e c t i o n c a m p a i g n s . And

i s i t l e s s v a l u a b l e t o k n o w w h a t t h e w a i t e r

s a i d a t t h e S i m p l i c i s s i m u s c a b a r e t i n V i e n n a

when I was there three years ago than to

know what Terence reports a slave to have

said in Rome when he was there two thou-

sand years ago? What if my nei ghbor, the

P r o f e s s o r , r e a d s G r e e k r a t h e r l e s s f l u e n t l y

t h a n d i d a c e r t a i n t h i c k - w i t t e d A t h e n i a n c i t i -

z e n w h o l i v e d i n t h e t i m e o f P e r i c l e s a n d b y

n o m e a n s a s w e l l a s I r e a d E n g l i s h ? I s t h a t

proof of wisdom or understanding? An d

s u p p o s i n g m y n e i g h b o r o n t h e o t h e r s i d e , t h e

f a m o u s p r o f e s s o r o f H i s t o r y , k n o w s r a t h e r

l e s s a b o u t t h e P e l o p o n n e s i a n w a r t h a n t h e

i n t e l l i g e n t c o l l e g e s t u d e n t k n o w s a b o u t t h e

W o r l d W a r - i s t h a t P r o f e s s o r t h e r e f o r e w i s e r

t h a n m o s t m e n , i s h i s o p i n i o n o n l i f e m o r e

v a l u a b l e ? And supposin g another scholar

p u r p o r t s t o t e l l u s w h a t t h e a n c i e n t E g y p -

t i a n s b e l i e v e d , a n d f r o m h i s a c c o u n t o f t h i s

d e a d r e l i g i o n p r e t e n d s t o t e a c h t h e s e c r e t s

1 5




o f f a i t h . Can he tel l me what J ohn Doe

o r I s a a c L e v y b e l i e v e s ? D o e s J o h n D o e b e -

l i e v e t h a t C h r i s t r o s e f r o m t h e d e a d ? R e a l l y

b e l i e v e t h a t , a s a p l a i n t r u t h , a s h e w o u l d b e -

l i e v e i t i f h i s m o t h e r , w h o m h e b u r i e d f i v e

years ago, sho uld s uddenly come walkin g

i n t o h i s h o u s e , r o t t e d a w a y a n d c l a d i n h e r

t a t t e r e d c e r e m e n t s - b e l i e v e i t a s s i m p l y a n d

a s t e r r i b l y ? And does Isaac Levy believe

t h a t t h e w a t e r s o f t h e R e d S e a w e r e d i v i d e d ,

a s h e w o u l d b e l i e v e i t i f o n e d a y , b e l o w t h e

Williamsburg Bridge, he were t o s ee the

w a t e r s s p l i t , r e a r , a n d f a l l a g a i n ? And if

n e i t h e r J o h n D o e n o r I s a a c L e v y b e l i e v e s a s

c o g e n t l y a s t h i s , t h e n w h a t d o t h e y r e a l l y

b e l i e v e , i f t h e y b e l i e v e a n y t h i n g a t a l l ? A n d

i f t h e p r o f e s s o r c a n n o t a n s w e r t h e s e q u e s -

t i o n s , w h a t d o e s h e m e a n w h e n h e s a y s t h a t

t h e E g y p t i a n s b e l i e v e d t h a t O s i r i s r o s e f r o m

t h e d e a d ? A n d w h a t d o h i s r e p o r t s m a t t e r ?

T h e r e i s n o t e s t o r g u a r a n t e e o f a m a n ' s

w i s d o m o r o f h i s r e l i a b i l i t y b e y o n d w h a t h e

s a y s a b o u t l i f e i t s e l f . L i f e i s t h e t o u c h s t o n e :

b o o k s m u s t b e r e a d a n d u n d e r s t o o d i n o r d e r

1 6



T h e Q u e s t i o n "

t h a t w e m a y c o m p a r e o u r e x p e r i e n c e i n l i f e

w i t h t h e s i n c e r e r e p o r t o f t h e e x p e r i e n c e o f

o t h e r s . But such and such a one, who has

r e a d a l l t h e b o o k s e x t a n t o n h i s t o r y a n d a r t ,

i s o f n o c o n s e q u e n c e u n l e s s t h e s e a r e t o h i m

an indirect commentary on what he fe els

around hi m .

H e n c e , i f I h a v e d r a w n c h i e f l y o n e x p e r i -

e n c e a n d c o n t e m p l a t i o n a n d l i t t l e o n b o o k s -

w h i c h o t h e r s w i l l d i s c o v e r w i t h o u t m y a d m i s -

sion-this does not affect my competency,

w h i c h m u s t b e j u d g e d b y s t a n d a r d s i n f i n i t e l y

m o r e d i f f i c u l t o f a p p l i c a t i o n . L i f e i s n o t s o

s i m p l e t h a t y o u c a n t e s t a m a n ' s n e a r n e s s

t o t r u t h b y g i v i n g h i m a c o l l e g e e x a m i n a t i o n .

Such examinations are mere games-they

h a v e n o r e l a t i o n t o r e a l i t y . Y ou may desire

some such easy standard by which you can

j u d g e w h e t h e r o r n o t a m a n i s r e l i a b l e : D o e s

he kno w much hist ory? Much biol ogy?

Much psycholo gy? I f n o t , h e i s n o t w o r t h

l i s t e n i n g t o . B u t i t i s p a r t o f t h e f r i v o l i t y

o f o u r o u t l o o k t o r e d u c e l i f e t o a s e t o f r u l e s ,

a n d t h u s s a v e o u r s e l v e s t h e a g o n y o f c o n -

1 7




s t a n t r e f e r e n c e t o f i r s t p r i n c i p l e s . No : s t a n d -

a r d i z e d k n o w l e d g e i s n o g u a r a n t e e o f t r u t h .

P u t d o w n a s i m p l e q u e s t i o n - a l i v i n g q u e s -

t i o n , l i k e t h i s : "Should A . h a v e k i l l e d B. ? "

A s k i t o f t e n f o o l s : f i v e w i l l s a y " Y e s , " f i v e

w i l l s a y " N o . " A s k i t o f t en i n t e l l i g e n t m e n :

f i v e w i l l s a y " Y e s , " f i v e w i l l s a y " No . "

A s k i t o f t e n s c h o l a r s : f i v e w i l l s a y " Y e s , "

f i v e w i l l s a y " No . " T h e f o o l s w i l l h a v e n o

r e a s o n s f o r t h e i r d e c i s i o n : t h e i n t e l l i g e n t m e n

will have a f ew reasons for and as many

a g a i n s t ; t h e s c h o l a r s w i l l h a v e m o r e r e a s o n s

f o r a n d a g a i n s t . B u t w h e r e d o e s t h e t r u t h

l i e ?

W h a t , t h e n , s h a l l b e t h e c r i t e r i o n o f a

m a n ' s r e l i a b i l i t y ?

T h e r e i s n o n e . Y o u c a n n o t e v a d e y o u r r e -

s p o n s i b i l i t y t h u s b y e n t r u s t i n g y o u r s a l v a t i o n

i n t o t h e h a n d s o f a p r i e s t - s p e c i a l i s t . A sim-

p l e t o n m a y b r i n g y o u s a l v a t i o n a n d a g r e a t

philosopher may confound you .

A n d s o t o l i f e d i r e c t , a s I h a v e s e e n i t

w o r k i n g i n o t h e r s a n d f e l t i t w i t h i n m y s e l f ,

I refer the truth of what I say . And to

1 8




b o o k s I r e f e r o n l y i n s o f a r a s t h e y a r e m a n i -

f e s t a t i o n s o f l i f e .

I I

B u t a n o t h e r q u e s t i o n , m o r e s u b t l e a n d d i s -

t u r b i n g , m u s t b e f a c e d . I h a v e s a i d , " T h e r e

a r e t w o l i f e - f o r c e s i n t h e w o r l d I k n o w : J e w -

i s h a n d g e n t i l e , o u r s a n d y o u r s . " I f t h i s b e

a t r u t h , w e m u s t n o t b e d r i v e n f r o m i t i f ,

l i k e m a n y o t h e r t r u t h s , i t i s o v e r l a i d a n d o b -

s c u r e d b y t h e i r r e l e v a n c i e s o f l i f e , b y t h e i n -

t e r s e c t i o n a n d c o n f u s i o n o f c u r r e n t s . Here

i s t h e g e n t i l e l i f e - f o r c e : h e r e i s t h e J e w i s h

l i f e - f o r c e . What their origin was I cannot

say. I c a n o n l y s u r m i s e d i m l y w h a t c i r c u m -

s t a n c e s , r e a c t in g u p o n w h a t o r i g i n a l i m p u l s e s ,

p r o d u c e d t h e J e w i sh l i f e - f o r c e a n d t h e g e n t i l e

l i f e - f o r c e . I can only affirm-to the Jews,

i n t h e m a i n , b e l o n g s t h e J e w i sh l i f e - f o r c e , a

c o n s i s t e n t a n d c o h e r e n t f o r c e , a d i r e c t i o n i n

h u m a n t h o u g h t a n d r e a c t i o n . To you others

b e l o n g s t h e g e n t i l e l i f e - f o r c e , a m o d e o f l i f e

a n d t h o u g h t d i s t i n c t f r o m o u r s . B u t t h e b o r -

1 9



You G e n t i l e s

d e r l i n e i s n o t c l e a r . N o t a l l o f u s J e w s a r e

r e p r e s e n t a t i v e o f t h e J e w i s h l i f e - f o r c e : n o t

a l l o f y o u g e n t i l e s a r e a l t o g e t h e r a l i e n t o

i t .

W e h a v e l i v e d f o r m a n y c e n t u r i e s i n c l o s e

c o n t i g u i t y , i f n o t i n i n t i m a c y . O u r p r o p h e t i c

b o o k s , o u r m o s t c h a r a c t e r i s t i c i n f l u e n c e , h a v e

b e e n r e a d t o y o u f o r m a n y h u n d r e d s o f y e a r s .

S o m e t h i n g i n t h e s e b o o k s h a s d e v e l o p e d h e r e

a n d t h e r e , a m o n g y o u , a l a t e n t i n d i v i d u a l i m -

p u l s e t o o u r J e w i s h w a y o f l i f e a n d t h o u g h t .

E s s e n t i a l l y o u r p r o p h e t i c b o o k s c a n n o t c h a n g e

y o u r g e n t i l e n a t u r e : b u t i n s t r a y , p r e d e s -

t i n e d h e a r t s t h e y b r i n g f o r t h f r u i t . Your

o u t l o o k o n l i f e , y o u r d o m i n a n t r e a c t i o n s , a r e

t h e s a m e t o - d a y a s t h e y w e r e t w o t h o u s a n d

y e a r s a g o . A l l t h a t h a s c h a n g e d i s t h e i n -

s t r u m e n t o f e x p r e s s i o n . You live the same

l i f e u n d e r d i f f e r e n t f a i t h s . But something

c l i n g s t o y o u h e r e a n d t h e r e r e s e m b l i n g t h e

o r i g i n a l f o r m o f t h e f a i t h w e g a v e y o u . Here

a n d t h e r e o u r s o m b e r e a r n e s t n e s s b r e a k s o u t

o n t h e d a z z l i n g k a l e i d o s c o p e o f y o u r h i s t o r y.

A n d w e , f o r a l l o u r s e g r e g a t i o n h a v e c a u g h t ,

20




p a r t i c u l a r l y o f l a t e , s o m e t h i n g o f y o u r w a y

o f l i f e . As a few gentiles have spoken in

J e w i s h t o n e s , s o m o r e t h a n o n e J e w s p e a k s

t h e l a n g u a g e o f t h e g e n t i l e . J e w s l i v e a g e n -

t i l e l i f e h e r e a n d t h e r e , w h i l e g e n t i l e l i v e s

g i v e e x p r e s s i o n t o J e w i s h e m o t i o n s .

Y e t t h e c l e a v a g e i s t h e r e , a b y s m a l a n d u n -

d e n i a b l e . I n t h e m a i n , w e a r e f o r e v e r d i s -

t i n c t . O u r s i s o n e l i f e , y o u r s i s a n o t h e r .

Such accidental conf usio ns as make some

N o r t h e r n e r s d a r k e r t h a n S o u t h e r n e r s d o e s n o t

a f f e c t t h e l a w t h a t t h e S o u t h e r n e r i s d a r k e r -

s k i n n e d . The law holds none the less for

a c c i d e n t a l a n d c o n t r a d i c t o r y c a s e s .

You may even have Je ws in your midst

w h o d i d n o t l e a r n t h e i r w a y o f l i f e f r o m u s ,

a n d d i d n o t i n h e r i t i t f r o m a J e w i s h f o r b e a r .

W e m a y h a v e a u t h e n t i c g e n t i l e s i n o u r m i d s t :

t h e s e s i n g l e p r o t e s ts a r e o f n o a c c o u n t : t he y

a r e e x t r e m e a n d i r r e l e v a n t v a r i a t i o n s .

A n d o f a s l i t t l e a c c o u n t a r e t h e o c c a s i o n a l

t r a n s f e r e n c e s o f c u s t o m s a n d c o n v e n t i o n s ,

t a k e n o v e r i n t h e m a s s . We may have cus-

toms and conventions of yours imposed on

2 1




our fundamental way of life-even a s y o u

h a v e t h e s u r f a c e c r e d o o f a J e w i s h f a i t h i m -

p o s e d o n y o u r w a y o f l i f e . But in the end

y o u r t r u e n a t u r e w o r k s i t s e l f i n t o t h e p a t t e r n

o f t h e b o r r o w e d f a i t h , a n d e x p r e s s e s i t s e l f u n -

d e n i a b l y . S o w e , b o r r o w i n g f r o m y o u , f i n a l l y

a s s i m i l a t e t h e l o a n a n d i n t i m e m a k e i t e s -

s e n t i a l l y o u r s .

B e y o n d a l l t h e s e i r r e l e v a n c i e s w h i c h h i d e

a t t i m e s b u t d o n o t c h a n g e t h e i s s u e l i e s t h at

c l e a r a n d f a t e f u l d i v i s i o n o f l i f e - J e w i s h a n d

g e n t i l e . B e c a u s e I h a v e m i n g l e d i n t i m a t e l y

w i t h t h e J e w i s h w o r l d a n d w i t h t h e g e n t i l e

w o r l d , I k n o w w e l l h o w e a s i l y e x c e p t i o n s o b -

s c u r e t h e r u l e : b u t I k n o w j u s t a s w e l l t h e

unsounded abyss between us . What I have

learned in your midst stands in my mind

s h a r p l y s e v e r e d f r o m w h a t I h a v e l e a r n e d i n

t h e m i d s t o f m y p e o p l e . I l i s t e n t o y o ur l i f e ,

t o t h e b r i l l i a n t c h o r u s w h i c h g o e s u p f r o m

l a n d s , g o v e r n m e n t s , c i t i e s , b o o k s , c h u r c h e s ,

m o r a l i t i e s : and in my mind I can no more

c o n f u s e i t w i t h t h e t o n e o f J e w i s h l i f e t h a n

I c o u l d c o n f u s e t h e ro a r i n g o f a t e m p e s t w i t h

22




t h e d e l i b e r a t e u t t e r a n c e o f t h e s t i l l , s m a l l

v o i c e . I r e p e a t : it is of l i fe I s p e ak, of masses

of men and women : o f t h e t h i n g s t h e y s a y

a n d d o : o f t h e i r d a i l y s e l v e s , a s I h a v e k n o w n

them . I t i s o f l i f e a t f i r st h a n d t h a t I s p e a k :

o f y o u r s e l v e s a s y o u a r e i n m a s s e s a n d s i n g l y ,

o f m y o w n p e o p l e a s I k n o w t h e m . My con-

v i c t i o n c a m e f i r s t f r o m t h i s c o n t a c t , a n d f r o m

m e d i t a t i o n o n i t s m e a n i n g . I l e a r n e d t h i s

b e l i e f o f m i n e n o t i n b o o k s , n o t i n h i s t o r y , b u t

i n M a n c h e s t e r , P a r i s , B e r l i n , V i e n n a , N e w

York . S o g e n t i l e s , I c o n c l u d e d , h a v e a w a y

o f l i v i n g a n d t h i n k i n g , w h e r e v e r t h e y m a y

be . S o J e w s h a v e a w a y o f l i v i n g a n d t h i n k -

i n g . Had no books ever been written, were

t h e r e n o h i s t o r i e s t o r e f e r t o , I w o u l d h a v e

c o m e t o t h i s b e l i e f .

I d o n o t b e l i e v e t h a t t h i s p r i m a l d i f f e r e n c e

between gentile and Jew is reconciliable .

You and we may come to an understanding,

n e v e r t o a re c o n c i l i a t i o n . T h e r e w i l l b e i r r i -

t a t i o n b e t w e e n u s a s l o n g a s w e a r e i n i n t i -

m a t e c o n t a c t . F o r n a t u r e a n d c o n s t i t u t i o n

a n d v i s i o n d i v i d e u s f r o m a l l o f y o u f o r e v e r

23




-not a mere conviction, not a mere lan-

g u a g e , n o t a m e r e d i f f e r e n c e o f n a t i o n a l o r

r e l i g i o us a l l e g i a n c e . W i t h t h e b e s t w i l l o n

b o t h s i d e s , s u c c e s s f u l a d a p t a t i o n t o e a c h

o t h e r w i l l a l w a y s b e i n s e c u r e a n d t r a n s i e n t .

W a v e s o f l i b e r a l i t y m a y a f f e c t o u r m u t u a l

r e l a t i o n s h i p f r o m t i m e t o t i m e: w e s h a l l d e -

l u d e o u r s e l v e s - y o u a n d w e - w i t h t h e b e l i e f

t h a t w e h a v e b r i d g e d t h e g u l f . Many will

p a s s t h e i r l i v e s i n t h a t d e l u s i o n . B u t , a s h a s

c o m e t o p a s s s o o f t e n , t h e d i f f e r e n c e w h i c h

i s d e e p e r t h a n w i l l , d e e p e r t h a n c o n s c i o u s -

n e s s , w i l l a s s e r t i t s e l f . T h e r e i s a l i m i t t o

o u r m o r a l o r m e n t a l p o s s i b i l i t i e s . We cannot

c l i m b o u t o f o u r s e l v e s . The complete and

p e r m a n e n t r e c o n c i l i a t i o n o f y o u r w a y o f l i f e

w i t h o u r s i s b e y o n d t h a t l i m i t .

O f c o u r s e i t i s t h e f r e q u e n t t h e m e o f e d i -

t o r s , o f p o p u l a r p r o f e s s i o n a l o p t i m i s t s a n d

o f g u l l i b l e a n d f a c i l e p u b l i c i s t s t h a t t h e p a t h

t o r e c o n c i l i a t i o n b e t w e e n J e w a n d g e n t i l e i s

t h e p a t h o f k n o w l e d g e - o r , r a t h e r , o f i n f o r -

mation . The more you know concerning our

h i s t o r y , o u r c u s t o m s , o u r b e l i e f s , t h e n e a r e r

24



The Question

y o u w i l l f i n d u s t o y o u , t h e l e s s y o u w i l l d i s -

l i k e u s . B u t t h i s i s f u t i l e ( a n d u n r e l i a b l e )

a m i a b i l i t y . I t i s b y n o m e a n s e v e n a g e n e r a l

r u l e t h a t t h e b e s t - i n f o r m e d p e o p l e a r e t h e

l e a s t a c c e s s i b l e t o a n t i - S e m i t i s m , t h a t t h e

most backward countries are the most in-

f e c t e d . H e r e i s a c u l t , o r a t l e as t a f ee l i n g ,

w h i c h s i t s w i t h e q u a l g r a c e o n t h e g r o s s e s t

o f y o u r p e a s a n t r y a n d t h e m o s t r e f i n e d o f

y o u r a r i s t o c r a c y . I n t h e o n e c a s e i t i s f o r t i -

f i e d b y s u p e r s t i t i o n , i n t h e o t h e r c a s e b y a l l

t h e i n f o r m a t i o n t h a t " s c i e n t i f i c " r e s e a r c h i n t o

p h i l o s o p h y , h i s t o r y , e t h n o g r a p h y a n d a n t h r o -

pology can accumulate . Not that, in my

o p i n i o n , t h e a r i s t o c r a t k n o w s u s b e t t e r t h a n

t h e p e a s a n t , t h e s c h o l a r b e t t e r t h a n t h e b o o r .

But even if you should understand us-and

I o f f e r y o u t h i s t o w a r d t h a t e n d - w e w o u l d

n o t f i n d m u t u a l t o l e r a n c e a n y e a s i e r .

T h i s b o o k , t h e r e f o r e , c a n n o t b e p r e s e n t e d

a s a n e f f o r t t o a c h i e v e a n e n d w h i c h f r o m

t h e o u t s e t i s d e c l a r e d i m p o s s i b l e . I do not

propose to combat anti-Semitism . I only

w i s h t o p r e s e n t w h a t s e e m s t o m e i t s t r u e

25




e x p l a n a t i o n i n t h e h o p e o f c h a n g i n g s o m e o f

i t s m a n i f e s t a t i o n s .

I I I

W e s h a l l n o t c o m e t o u n d e r s t a n d t h e n a -

t u r e o f th e p r i m a l d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n g e n t i l e

a n d J e w i f w e a t t e m p t t o t r e a t i t m e r e l y a s

a d i f f e r e n c e i n a c c e p t e d d o g m a s a n d p h i l o s o -

p h i e s . A r e l i g i o n , i n i t s f o r m u l a t e d e s s e n c e ,

i s s e l d o m t h e r e a l r e l i g i o n , t h e p r a c t i c e a n d

b e l i e f . C r e e d s w h i c h i n t h e i r f o r m u l a t e d e s -

s e n c e a r e a l i e n t o a p e o p l e m a y b e a c c e p t e d

b y t h e p e o p l e . B u t t h e t r u e n a t u r e o f t h e

p e o p l e a s s e r t s i t s e l f . The f orm and dogma

o f th e r e l i g i o n a re r e t a i n e d : b u t t h e f a b r i c ,

t h e i n s t i t u t i o n s , t h e t r u e r e a c t i o n s w h i c h

make the religion what i t i s o u t s i d e o f i t s

s a c r e d b o o k s - t h e s e a r e t h e i n d i c e s t o i t s a c -

t u a l f o r c e a n d s i g n i f i c a n c e . T h e r e i s s u c h

a t h i n g a s c o n v e r s i o n o f a m a n ' s o p i n i o n s : '

t h e r e i s n o s u c h t h i n g ( o u t s i d e t h e f i e l d o f

l o n g a n d l a b o r i o u s p s y c h o t h e r a p y i n i n d i v i d -

u a l c a s e s ) a s c o n v e r s i o n o f a m a n ' s n a t u r e .

26




T h a t i s b e y o n d t h e r e a c h o f c o n s c i o u s e f f o r t ,

c e r t a i n l y b e y o n d t h e r e a c h o f t h e m i s s i o n a r y .

C h a n g e a m a n ' s o p i n i o n s a n d h i s n a t u r e w i l l

s o o n l e a r n t o e x p r e s s i t s e l f t h r o u g h t h e n e w

m e d i u m .

T h i s I p r e f a c e t o my o b s e r v a t i o n s o n t h e

d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n J e w a n d g e n t i l e b e c a u s e

I a n t i c i p a t e t h e c o m m o n p l a c e a l l u s i o n t o t h e

s i m i l a r i t y o f o u r c r e e d s , t o t h e i d e n t i t y o f

s o u r c e a n d t o t h e o r i g i n o f t h e f o u n d e r o f

y o ur re l i g i o n . C h r i s t i a n i t y ( t h e r e a l i t y , n o t

t h e c r e d o ) i s n o t a v a r i a n t o f J u d a i s m , w h a t -

e v e r C h r i s t o r h i s c h r o n i c l e r s m a y h a v e i n -

tended . Your nature is the same today as

it was before the advent of Christianity .

W i t h i n t h e f r a m e w o r k o f a n o t h e r c r e e d y o u r

i n s t i n c t s w o u l d h a v e w o v e n a s i m i l a r d e s i g n .

A n d i f n o t r e l i g i o u s , t h i s d i f f e r e n c e c e r -

t a i n l y c a n n o t b e i n t h e n a t u r e o f a p h i l o s o -

phy or a Welt anschauun g . I t i s t r u e t h a t a

man's nature dictates his philosophy and

Weltanschauung, e v e n a s i t d o e s h i s r e l i g i o n .

But we must also remember that our logic

i s n e a r l y a l w a y s a t v a r i a n c e w i t h o u r n a t u r e s :

27




a m a n ' s n a t u r e e x p r e s s e s i t s el f o n l y i n d i r e c t l y

- i s n e v e r f o u n d i n t h e f a c e v a l u e o f h i s a s -

s e r t i o n s . S u r e l y w e d i f f e r i n r e l i g i o n a n d p h i -

l o s o p h y - b u t o n l y i f w e c o n s i d e r r e l i g i o n a n d

p h i l o s o p h y n o t a s a s s e r ti o n s b u t a s t h e p r a c -

t i c e , o r a r t o f l i f e , p r e s e n t e d i n t h e i r n a m e .

T h o u g h y o u a n d w e w e r e t o a g r e e o n a l l f u n -

d a m e n t a l p r i n c i p l e s , a s o p e n l y s t a t ed , t h o u g h

w e s h o u l d a g r e e t h a t t h e r e i s o n l y o n e G o d ,

t h a t w a r i s e v i l , t h a t u n i v e r s a l p e a c e i s t h e

m o s t d e s i r a b l e o f h u m a n i d e a l s , y e t w e s h o u l d

r e m a i n f u n d a m e n t a l l y d i f f e r e n t . The lan-

g u a g e o f o u r e x t e r n a l e x p r e s s i o n i s a l i k e , b u t

t h e l a n g u a g e o f o u r i n t e r n a l m e a n i n g i s d i f -

f e r e n t . Y o u c a l l t h a t l i n e , i n t h a t p a r t o f

t h e s p e c t r u m , r e d ; s o d o w e . But who will

e v e r k n o w t h a t t h e s e n s a t i o n " r e d " i n you

i s t h e s e n s a t i o n " r e d " i n u s ?

L i f e i s f l u i d a n d d o g m a s a r e f i x e d : a n d l i f e ,

t r y i n g t o c o m e t o t e r m s w i t h d o g m a s , d o e s

n o t e a s i l y b r e a k w i t h t h e m , b u t e n d o w s t h e m

w i t h a l m o s t i n f i n i t e p l a s t i c i t y . Under the

s a m e d o g m a s a m a n w i l l k i l l a n o t h e r o r d i e

r a t h e r t h a n l i f t h i s h a n d t o k i l l . One gen-

28




O r a t i o n m e a n s o n e t h i n g i n a d o g m a : a n o t h e r

g e n e r a t i o n m e a n s a n o t h e r t h i n g . A n d a t l a s t

e v e n t h e e l a s t i c i t y o f t h e d o g m a w i l l n o t s t a n d

t h e s t r a i n : a s u d d e n w a v e o f e m o t i o n c o m e s

t o r e i n f o r c e a c c u m u l a t e d r e s e n t m e n t : there is

a r e v o l u t i o n a n d a n e w r e l i g i o n i s f o u n d e d ;

new dogmas are accepted . Perhaps they do

not answer the need ; p e r h a p s t h e y e x p r e s s

o n l y a p a s s i n g f a s h i o n ; p e r h a p s t h e y a r e n o

n e a r e r t h a n t h e o l d d o g m a s t o a r e c o n c i l i a -

t i o n b e t w e e n p h i l o s o p h y a n d i n s t i n c t . But

t h e y m a y t a k e r o o t . A n d t h e p r o c e s s b e g i n s

a l l o v e r a g a i n . I n s t i n c t e n d u r e s f o r g l a c i a l

a g e s ; r e l i g i o n s r e v o l v e w i t h c i v i l i z a t i o n s .

L e t u s d i f f e r e n t i a t e , t h e n , b e t w e e n a r e -

l i g i o n a s a d o g m a a n d t h e s a m e r e l i g i o n a s

a p r a c t i s e d a r t o r w a y o f l i f e . We may com-

p a r e r e l i g i o n w i t h r e l i g i o n : t h a t i s l e g i t i m a t e

a n d f r u i t f u l . B u t l e t u s , i n s o d o i n g , c o m -

p a r e d o g m a w i t h d o g m a , p r a c t i c e w i t h p r a c -

t i c e : and even when we treat of dogma let

u s be careful to distinguish between the

d o g m a a s p r o c l a i m e d a n d t h e d o g m a a s i t i s

transmuted by the emotions .

2 9




A n d c e r t a i n l y b e t w e e n t h e d o g m a s o f y o u r

r e l i g i o n s a n d o u r s t h e r e i s l i t t l e d i f f e r e n c e -

for we gave you the dogmas . I t i s a b s u r d

t o a s s e r t t h a t t h e s o l e d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n y o u

a n d u s i s t h a t y o u b e l i e v e t h e M e s s i a h h a s

a l r e a d y c o m e w h i l e w e b e l i e v e t h a t h e i s y e t

t o c o m e ; o r t h a t y o u b e l i e v e ( e v e n i n t h e o r y )

i n t h e d o c t r i n e o f f o r g i v e n e s s w h i l e w e b e -

l i e v e i n t h e d o c t r i n e o f r e t a l i a t i o n . Even i n

t h e o r y t h i s d i f fe r e n c e i s t r i f l i n g i n t h e f a c e

o f t h e o v e r w h e l m i n g b u l k o f c o m m o n i n s p i -

r a t i o n . T h e d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n u s i s a b y s -

mal : i t i s n o t a d i s a g r e e m e n t a b o u t a h i s t o r i c

f a c t o r a b o u t a c o m m a n d m e n t w h i c h n e i t h e r

o f u s o b s e r v e s . In some of these dogmatic

d i s a g r e e m e n t s w e m a y f i n d t h e k e y t o o u r d i f -

f e r e n c e s : t h e y d o n o t c o n s t i t u t e t h e d i f f e r -

e n c e . A f e w o f t h e m ( t h o s e w h i c h h a v e n o t

b e e n s t r e t c h e d t o a c c o m m o d a t e y o u r i n s t i n c t s

b u t e x p r e s s t h e m r e a d i l y ) w e r e c a u s e d b y t h e

d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n u s . T h e y d i d n o t c a u s e i t .

That primal dif ference, which I have

s e n s e d m o r e a n d m o r e k e e n l y a s I h a v e t a s t e d

m o r e a n d m o r e o f l i f e , y o u r l i f e a n d o u r l i f e ,

30




I s a d i f f e r e n c e i n t h e s u m t o t a l s o f o u r r e -

s p e c t i v e e m o t i o n s u n d e r t h e s t i m u l u s o f t h e

e x t e r n a l w o r l d ; i t i s a d i f f e r e n c e i n t h e e s -

s e n t i a l q u a l i t y o r t o n e o f o u r m e n t a l a n d

s p i r i tu a l b e i n g . Life is to you one thing-

t o u s a n o t h e r . A n d a c c o r d i n g t o t h e s e t w o

e s s e n t i a l q u a l i t i e s w e m a k e a n s w e r t o t h e

needs and impulse s which are common to

b o t h o f u s .

T o y o u l i f e i s a game and a gallant ad-

v e n t u r e , a n d a l l l i f e ' s e n t e r p r i s e s p a r t a k e o f

t h e s p i r i t o f t h e a d v e n t u r o u s . T o u s l i f e i s

a s e r i o u s a n d s o b e r d u t y p o i n t e d t o a d e f i n i t e

a n d i n e s c a p a b l e t a s k . Y o u r r e l a t i o n s t o g o d s

a n d m e n s p r i n g f r o m t h e j o y a n d r h y t h m o f

the t emporary comradesh ip or enmity o f

s p i r i t . O u r r e l a t i o n t o G o d a n d m e n i s d i c -

t a t e d b y a s o m b e r s u b j e c t i o n t o s o m e e t e r n a l

p r i n c i p l e . Y o u r w a y o f l i f e , y o u r m o r a l i t i e s

a n d c o d e s , a r e t h e r u l e s o f a g a m e - n o n e t h e

l e s s s e v e r e o r e x a c t i n g f o r t h a t , b u t n o t i n -

s p i r e d b y a s e n s e o f f u n d a m e n t a l p u r p o s e f u l -

n e s s . O u r w a y o f l i f e , o u r m o r a l i t y a n d c o d e ,

d o n o t r e f e r t o t e m p o r a r y r u l e s w h i c h g o v e r n

3 1






t i o n t o i n t e l l i g e n c e , w h e t h e r p u r i t y h a s re l a -

t i o n t o t h e s t a t e o f m i n d . Honor means but

o n e t h i n g - t o d o t h e h o n o r a b l e t h i n g , w h e t h e r

i t b e h o n o r i n d u e l i n g , h o n o r a m o n g t h i e v e s ,

honor of women ; l o y a l t y m e a n s t h e q u a l i t y

o f b e i n g l o y a l i n d e p e n d e n t o f r i g h t o r wr o n g ;

p u r i t y m e a n s t h e c h a s t i t y o f t h e b o d y o r t h e

d e n i a l o f d e s i r e - a s s u c h ; i t i s r e l a t e d t o th e

game, not to God .

F o r u s t h e s e d i s t i n c t i o n s d o n o t e x i s t , f o r

w e a r e s e r i o u s i n o u r i n t e n t i o n s . W e w i l l n o t

a c c e p t y o u r r u l e s b e c a u s e w e d o n o t u n d e r -

stand them . Right and wrong is the on ly

d i s t i n c t i o n w e a r e f i t t e d b y o u r n a t u r e t o a p -

p r e c i a t e . W e a r e p u z z l e d b y y o u r p u n c t i l i o s ,

y o u r q u a i n t d i s t i n c t i o n s , y o u r g e n t l e m a n ' s

c o m m e i t f a c t s . We are amazed whe n yo u

f i g h t f o r t h e m ; we are struck dumb when

y o u d i e f o r t h e m - a s o n g o n y o u r l i p s .

Not that we do not know how to die for

a c a u s e . B u t w e m u s t d i e f o r a s e r i o u s c a u s e ,

f o r a r e a s o n , f o r r i g h t , f o r G o d . Not for a

s l o g a n w i t h o u t m e a n i n g , f o r a s y m b o l f o r i t s

o w n s a k e , f o r a r u l e f o r i t s o w n s a k e . We33



You G e n t i l e s

, . w i l l d i e f o r t h e right-not f o r " t h e r i g h t

t h i n g. ) )

T h i s d i f f e r e n c e i n b e h a v i o r a n d r e a c t i o n

springs from something much more earnest

a n d s i g n i f i c a n t t h a n a d i f f e r e n c e i n b e l i e f s : i t

s p r i n g s f r o m a d i f f e r e n c e i n o u r b i o l o g i c

equipment . I t d o e s n o t a r g u e t h e i n f e r i o r i t y

, o f t h e o n e o r t h e o t h e r . I t i s a d i f f e r e n c e i n

t h e t a k i n g o f l i f e w h i c h c a n n o t b e a r g u e d .

Y o u h a v e y o u r w a y o f l i f e , w e o u r s . In your

system of life we are essentially without

"honor . " I n o u r s y s t e m o f l i f e y o u a r e e s s e n -

t i a l l y w i t h o u t m o r a l i t y . I n y o u r s y s t e m o f

l i f e w e m u s t f o r e v e r a p p e a r g r a c e l e s s ; t o u s

.y o u m u s t f o r e v e r a p p e a r G o d l e s s .

Seen from beyond both of us, there is

n e i t h e r r i g h t n o r w r o n g . T h e r e i s y o u r W e s t -

e r n c i v i l i z a t i o n . I f y o u r s e n s e o f t h e i m p e r -

m a n e n c e o f t h i n g s , t h e e s s e n t i a l s p o r t i n e s s

- o f a l l e f f o r t , t h e g a m e s o m e n e s s a n d g a m e n e s s

o f l i f e , h a s b l o s s o m e d i n e v e n t s a n d l a w s l i k e

. t h e s e I h a v e s e e n a r o u n d m e , i t c a n n o t , f r o m

. a n e x t e r n a l p o i n t o f v i e w ( n e i t h e r y o u r s n o r

34




o u r s ) b e c l a s s i f i e d a s r i g h t o r w r o n g . Warm

for Helen and for Jenkins' ear ; d u e l s f o r -

h o n o r a n d f o r g a m b l i n g d e b t s , d e a t h f o r a

f l a g , l o y a l t i e s , g a l l a n t g e s t u r e s , a w o r l d t h a t

c e n t e r s r o u n d s p o r t a n d w a r , w i t h a s y s t e m

o f v i r t u e s r e l a t e d t o t h e s e ; a r t t h a t s p r i n g s

not from God but from the joyousness and'

s u f f e r i n g o f t h e f r e e m a n , a w o r l d o f p l a y -

w h i c h t a k e s d e a t h i t s e l f a s p a r t o f t h e p l a y ,

t o b e a p p r o a c h e d a s c a r e l e s s l y a n d p l e a s a n t l y

a s a n y o t h e r - t u r n o f c h a n c e , c i t i e s a n d s t a t e s

a n d m i g h t y e n t e r p r i s e s b u i l t u p o n t h e s a m e

r u s h o f f e e l i n g a n d e n e r g y a s c a r r i e s a f o o t b a l l

t e a m - a n d i n t h e s a m e i d e o l o g y - t h i s i s t h e

e f f l o r e s c e n c e o f t h e W e s t e r n w o r l d . I t h a s a

m a g n i f i c e n t , e v a n e s c e n t b e a u t y . I t i s a v a l -

i a n t d e f i a n c e o f t h e g l o o m o f t h e u n i v e r s e ,

a warrior's shout into the ghastly void-a

f u t i l e t h i n g t o u s , b e a u t i f u l a n d b o y i s h . F o r

a l l i t s i n c o n s i s t e n c i e s a n d f a i l u r e s w i t h i n i t -

s e l f , i t h a s a c h a r m a n d r h y t h m w h i c h a r e

unknown to us . We could never have built -

a w o r l d l i k e y o u r s .

35




T h e e f f l o r e s c e n c e o f o u r l i f e , g i v e n f r e e

r o o m , i s p r o f o u n d l y d i f f e r e n t . We have n one

o f t h i s j o y o u s g a m e s o m e n e s s . We f ight and

s u f f e r a n d d i e , e v e n a s w e l a b o r a n d c r e a t e ,

n o t i n s p o r t a n d n o t u n d e r t h e r u l e s o f s p o r t ,

b u t i n t h e f e e l i n g a n d b e l i e f t h a t w e a r e p a r t

o f a n e t e r n a l p r o c e s s . We canno t have art

s u c h a s y o u h a v e , a f r e e a n d c a r e l e s s l y r i c a l

b e a u t y , s o n g s a n d e p i c s . O u r s e n s e o f b e a u t y

s p r i n g s f r o m i m m e r s i o n i n t h e u n i v e r s e , f r o m

a g l o o m y d e s i r e t o s e e j u s t i c e d o n e i n t h e

name of God . M o r a l i t y i t s e l f w e t a k e s i m p l y

, a n d s e r i o u s l y : w e h a v e n o n e o f y o u r a r b i t r a r y

r e g u l a t i o n s , y o u r f i n e f l o u r i s h e s a n d d i s c i -

p l i n e d g a l l a n t r i e s : we only know right o r

wron g : a l l t h e r e s t s e e m s t o u s c h i l d i s h i r r e l -

evance . When G o d s p e a k s i n u s , w h e n h i s

o v e r w h e l m i n g w i l l d r i v e s u s t o u t t e r a n c e w e

a r e g r e a t : o t h e r w i s e w e a r e f u t i l e . With you

t h e r e c a n n o t b e a q u e s t i o n o f f u t i l i t y . Web e l o n g t o t h e O n e m a s t e r i n g G o d : y o u b e l o n g

t o t h e r e p u b l i c o f p l a y f u l g o d s .

T h e s e a r e t w o w a y s o f l i f e , e a c h u t t e r l y

. a l i e n t o t h e o t h e r . E a c h h a s i t s p l a c e i n t h e

36




w o r l d - b u t t h e y c a n n o t f l o u r i s h i n t h e s a m e

s o i l , t h e y c a n n o t r e m a i n i n c o n t a c t w i t h o u t

antagonism. T h o u g h t o l i f e i t s e l f e a c h w a y

i s a p e r f e c t u t t e r a n c e , t o e a c h o t h e r t h e y a r e

e n e m i e s .

37



I I

S p o r t

`THE m o s t a m a z i n g t h i n g i n y o u r l i f e , t h e

m o s t i n c o n t r a s t w i t h o u r s , i s i t s s p o r t . Byt h i s I d o n o t m e a n s i m p l y y o u r f o n d n e s s f o r

p h y s i c a l e x e r c i s e , y o u r p h y s i c a l e x u b e r a n c e ,

b u t t h e p s y c h o l o g i c a l a n d s o c i a l i n s t i t u t i o n a l i -

z a t i o n o f s p o r t , i t s o r g a n i z a t i o n , i t s p r e d o m i -

n a n t r o l e a s t h e o u t l e t a n d e x p r e s s i o n o f y o u r

s p i r i t u a l e n e r g i e s .

I w i l l n o t g o i n t o t h e h i s t o r y o f s p o r t s

. a m o n g y o u , c o n t r a s t i n g i t w i t h i t s a b s e n c e

f r o m o u r r e c o r d s a n d e m o t i o n s . B u t s u r e l y

t h e r e i s s o m e t h i n g o f e x t r a o r d i n a r y s i g n i f i -

c a n c e i n t h e p r e d o m i n a n c e o f s p o r t s i n y o u r

. f i r s t h i g h c i v i l i z a t i o n , t h e i r r e l i g i o u s c h a r a c -

t e r a n d t h e i r h o l d o n t h e a f f e c t i o n a n d a t t e n -

t i o n o f t h e m a s s e s . That the overwhelming

s i g n i f i c a n c e o f t h i s m a n i f e s t a t i o n o f l i f e h a s

b e e n i g n o r e d i s d u e e s s e n t i a l l y t o t h e p o m -

p o s i t y o f h i s t o r i a n s , w h o c a r e f o r d i g n i t y a n d

3 8



S p o r t

" s c h o l a r s h i p " m o r e t h a n f o r t r u t h , a n d w h o , .

o f t e n l a c k i n g t h e s h r e w d n e s s , i n s i g h t , c y n i -

c i s m , c r a f t i n e s s , v u l g a r i t y , a f f e c t i o n a n d l i v e -

w i r e n e s s , i n b r i e f , t h e w o r l d l i n e s s , t o u n d e r -

s t a n d w h a t i s g o i n g o n a r o u n d t h e m i n n e w s -

p a p e r s , p o l i t i c s a n d m o v e m e n t s , t h i n k t h e y

c a n n e v e r t h e l e s s u n d e r s t a n d h i s t o r y , w h i c h .

t h e y s e e m t o r e g a r d n o t a s y e s t e r d a y ' s a c t s

o f t h e p e o p l e a r o u n d t h e m t o - d a y , b u t a s a

d e t a c h e d a n d p e c u l i a r sy s t e m , i n a c c e s s i b l e t o

o r d i n a r y a n d u n c u l t u r e d i n t e l l i g e n c e . I n e e d' ,

n o t g o t o a n c i e n t h i s t o r y. Whe n I re ad

" s e r i o u s " a c c o u n t s o f t h e h i s t o r y o f o u r o w n

t i m e s , a n d s e e i n w h a t a s e e m i n g c o n s p i r a c y

o f s t u p i d i t y o u r h i s t o r i a n s i g n o r e t h e m o s t

p o t e n t m a n i f e s t a t i o n o f m o d e r n l i f e - s p o r t ,

f o o t b a l l , b a s e b a l l - a n d c o n c e n t r a t e almost

e x c l u s i v e l y o n s u c h t r i v i a l i t i e s a s p o l i t i c s ,

w h i c h n o o n e t a k e s s e r i o u s l y , I a m f i l l e d w i t h

a s t o n i s h m e n t a n d d e s p a i r . Such men canno t

w r i t e t r u e h i s t o r y . B u t s o m e r e c o r d s t h e r e

a r e , a n d h o w e v e r s m a l l t h e a t t e n t i o n w h i c h

" s e r i o u s " h i s t o r i a n s h a v e g i v e n t o t h i s , w e -

m u s t f e e l t h a t t h e c h i e f f r e e p a s s i o n , t h a t i s ,

39




t h e c h i e f p a s s i o n n o t i n e v i t a b l y a r o u s e d b y

t h e s t r u g g l e f o r e x i s t e n c e , t h e c h i e f s p i r i t u a l

p a s s i o n , w a s s p o r t : w i t n e s s t h e e l a b o r a t e r e -

l i g i o u s c e l e b r a t i o n o f s p o r t i n g e v e n t s b u i l t

o n a t h l e t i c c o n t e s t s : w i t n e s s t h e a d u l a t i o n ,

t h e l o v e , t h a t w a s p o u r e d o u t t o a t h l e t i c

p r o d i g i e s ; w i t n e s s t h e d e d i c a t i o n o f t h e hi g h -

e s t , m o s t i n s p i r e d t a l e n t s , t o t h e i r g l o r i f i c a -

t i o n : w i t n e s s t h e t r e m e n d o u s m a s s p a s s i o n s

e n l i s t e d i n s p o r t i n g e v e n t s i n A t h e n s , i n

Rome, in Byzantium and elsewhere .

B u t i n t h i s r e g a r d , a s i n m o s t o t h e r s , h i s -

t o r y i s b y f a r l e s s i m p o r t a n t t h a n c o n t a c t w i t h

l i f e . I n e e d n o t s t u d y h i s t o r y o r r e a d b o o k s

to know what sport means to you . I have

o n l y t o f e e l t h e e m o t i o n s a r o u n d m e , r e a d

y o u r n e w s p a p e r s , w a t c h t h e r e c o r d s o f y o u r

u n i v e r s i t i e s . T h e m o s t c e r t a i n , t h e m o s t c o n -

s i s t e n t , t h e m o s t s u s t a i n e d a n d i n t e n s e f r e e

e m o t i o n i n y o u r l i f e i s s p o r t . And when here

i n A m e r i c a ( a s , i n d e e d , e l s e w h e r e t o o ) s o m e

o f y o u r p r o f e s s o r s a n d e d u c a t i o n a l i s t s d e p l o r e

a n d c o n d e m n t h e p r e p o n d e r a t i n g r o l e o f s p o r t

i n t h e s c h o o l s , t h e y f a i l t o u n d e r s t a n d y o u r

4 0



Sport

s p i r i t . Y o u r s p i r i t i s s p o r t : p a r t i c u l a r l y y o u r

y o u n g m e n , w h o a r e n o t y e t a b s o r b e d i n t h e

s t r u g g l e f o r e x i s t e n c e , a n d w h o s e e m o t i o n s

a r e t h e r e f o r e f o r t he l a r g e s t p a r t f r e e , m u s t

f i n d i n s p o r t , i n g a m e s , i n c o n t e s t s , t h e m o s t

s a t i s f a c t o r y e x p r e s s i o n o f t h e i r i n s t i n c t s .

F o r t h e m o s t p a r t , o f c o u r s e , b o t h p r o f e s -

s o r a n d p u b l i c , d e s p i t e o c c a s i o n a l j o k e s a t

t h e i r o w n e x p e n s e a n d a t t h e e x p e n s e o f t h e

i n s t i t u t i o n , s y m p a t h i z e w i t h t h e a t t i t u d e o f

t h e y o u n g a n d e n c o u r a g e i t n o t o n l y b y t h e i r

e n e r g e t i c i n t e r e s t i n o r g a n i z e d s p o r t o u t s i d e ,

b u t b y t h e p a s s i o n a t e a t t e n t i o n w i t h w h i c h

t h e y f o l l o w t h e s p o r t i n g r e c o r d s o f t h e c o l -

l e g e s . I t i s a c o m m o n p l a c e t h a t t h e s c h o l a s -

t i c a c h i e v e m e n t s o f t h e u n i v e r s i t i e s a r e b o t h

u n i n t e l l i g i b l e a n d u n i n t e r e s t i n g t o t h e v a s t

m a s s o f g r a d u a t e s , a n d t h a t a c a d e m i c w o r k

c a n i n n o w i s e c o m p e t e w i t h a t h l e t i c a c h i e v e -

m e n t i n t a k i n g t h e h e a r t a n d i n t e r e s t b o t h o f

t h e s e a n d o f t h e g e n e r a l p u b l i c . And eve n

those who can understand the conte nt of

s c h o l a s t i c a c h i e v e m e n t a r e a l s o d r a w n m o r e

p o w e r f u l l y t o w a r d s p o r t i n g a c h i e v e m e n t .

4 1



You Gentiles

I d o n o t a g r e e a t a l l w i t h t h e f e w c r i t i c s

o f y o u r u n i v e r s i t i e s w h o s e e i n t h i s s t a t e o f

a f f a i r s t h e d e c l i n e o f t h e s p i r i t o f t h e c o u n -

t r y a n d o f i t s e d u c a t o r s . T h i s s t a t e o f a f f a i r s

i s n o t d e c a d e n c e , b u t t h e f u l l a n d v i g o r o u s

b l o s s o m i n g o f y o u r s p i r i t . T h i s i s y o u r w a y

of l i fe .

The contention of the majority of your

e d u c a t o r s , t h a t t h e m o r a l i n s t i n c t i s t r a i n e d

o n t h e f o o t b a l l a n d b a s e b a l l f i e l d , i n b o x i n g ,

r o w i n g , w r e s t l i n g a n d o t h e r c o n t e s t s , i s a t r u e

o n e , i s t r u e r , p e r h a p s , t h a n m o s t o f t h e m

r e a l i z e . Y o u r i d e a l m o r a l i t y i s a s p o r t i n g

m o r a l i t y . T h e i n t e n s e d i s c i p l i n e o f t h e g a m e ,

t h e s p i r i t o f f a i r p l a y , t h e q u a l i t i e s o f e n -

d u r a n c e , o f g o o d h u m o r , o f c o n v e n t i o n a l i z e d

s e r i o u s n e s s i n e f f o r t , o f l o y a l t y , o f s t r u g g l e

w i t h o u t m a l i c e o r b i t t e r n e s s , o f r e a d i n e s s t o

f o r g e t l i k e a s p o r t - a l l t h e s e a r e b r o u g h t o u t

i n t h e i r s h e e r e s t a n d c l e a n e s t s t a r k n e s s i n

w e l l - o r g a n i z e d a n d c l o s e l y r e g u l a t e d c o l l e g e

s p o r t s . A n d o n t h e e x p e r i e n c e s a n d l e s s o n s

w h i c h t h e s e s p o r t s i m p l y y o u r e n t i r e s p i r i t u a l

l i f e i s i n e v i t a b l y f o u n d e d .

42



S p o r t

I t i s t h e r e f o r e u n j u s t t o t r e a t t h i s a s p e c t

o f y o u r l i f e f l i p p a n t l y : y o u y o u r s e l v e s o f t e n

f a i l t o r e c o g n i z e ( e x c e p t i n u n a c k n o w l e d g e d

i n s t i n c t ) h o w de e p l y i t i s r o o t e d i n y o u r l i f e .

I n h a v i n g s u n d e r e d i t f r o m t h e o v e r t a n d o r -

g a n i z e d h o m a g e w h i c h y o u p a y t o s p i r i t u a l

v a l u e s ( i n t h e c h u r c h , t h a t i s ) y o u h a v e s p l i t

y o u r s e l v e s . Hence the comparative weak-

n e s s o f y o u r o r g a n i z e d c h u r c h e s , w h i c h a r e

founded on a misconception . S p o r t i s f o r

y o u a s e r i o u s s p i r i t u a l m a t t e r . I t i s t h e

p r o p e r s y m b o l i z a t i o n , t h e p e r f e c t r i t u a l ,

w h e r e i n y o u r s p i r i t u a l f o r c e s , fi n d i n g e x p r e s -

s i o n , a l s o f i n d e x e r c i s e a n d s u s t e n a n c e . They

w e r e c l e a n e r - w i t t e d w h o , b e f o r e t h e a d v e n t

o f C h r i s t i a n i t y , a s s o c i a t e d s p o r t i n t i m a t e l y

w i t h y o u r r e l i g i o u s l i f e . T o - d a y y o u a r e p r a c -

t i s i n g o n a v a s t s c a l e t h e t r o u b l e d h y p o c r i s y

of unhappy converts who have been con-

vinced in reason of a new religion, but

whose proper and healthy instincts drive

t h e m t o s u r r e p t i t i o u s h o m a g e t o o l d e r g o d s .

W e r e s p o r t g i v e n i t s r i g h t p l a c e a g a i n i n

y o u r a c k n o w l e d g e d s p i r i t u a l i n s t i t u t i o n , t h e

4 3



You Gentiles

c h u r c h , you would be h a p p i e r , c l e a n e r ,

s t r o n g e r .

F o r , t h e p r e m i s e o n c e g r a n t e d t h a t l i f e i t -

s e l f i s b u t a j o y o u s a d v e n t u r e , a c o m b a t , a

p a s s a g e - a t - a r m s , y o u c a n n o t d o b e t t e r t h a n

s y m b o l i z e t h i s p r e m i s e i n y o u r a t h l e t i c c o n -

t e s t s , i n O l y m p i a d s , w i t h l o c a l w o r s h i p c o n -

d u c t e d o n t h e v i l l a g e g r e e n a n d i n t h e a t h l e t i c

h a l l s a n d a c a d e m i e s o f t h e c i t i e s . T h e r i g o r

o f t h e r u l e s ( o r s a c r e d r i t e s ) w h i c h a t t e n d e d

t h e o p e n a s s o c i a t i o n o f s p o r t w i t h r e l i g i o n

t e s t i f i e s t o t h e p r o f o u n d i n n e r c o m p u l s i o n

w h i c h m a k e s t h e t w o i d e n t i c a l . I n d e e d , e v e n

w h e n r e l i g i o n a n d s p o r t h a v e b e e n s u n d e r e d ,

t h e r e i s m o r e m o r a l o d i u m a t t a c h e d t o b a d

s p o r t s m a n s h i p ( c h e a t i n g i n t h e g a m e , c o w -

a r d i c e , s e l l i n g o u t , s t r i ki n g f o u l a n d s o o n ) ' '

t h a n t o t h e c o n t r a v e n t i o n o f a m o r a l i n j u n c -

t i o n b e a r i n g n o s p o r t i n g c h a r a c t e r . You can-

n o t , t h e r e f o r e , d o b e t t e r , f r o m y o u r p o i n t o f

v i e w , t h a n i n s t i l i n t o y o u r y o u n g a k e e n l o v e

a n d a d m i r a t i o n o f r i g h t s p o r t s m a n s h i p , a n d

e n c o u r a g e t h e i r p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n s p o r t s g o v -

e r n e d b y s e v e r e r e g u l a t i o n s . Trained with

44



S p o r t

s u f f i c i e n t c o n s i s t e n c y , t h e y w i l l c a r r y i n t o t h e i r

a d u l t l i f e a n e v e r - i m m a n e n t s e n s e o f r i g h t

and wrong according to your lights . An d

n o b e t t e r t r a i n i n g c o u l d b e d e v i s e d , o f c o u r s e ,

t h a n t h a t w h i c h i s a s s o c i a t e d w i t h y o u r m o s t

p o w e r f u l e d u c a t i o n a l i n s t i t u t i o n s .

I t i s t r u e t h a t t h e s y s t e m , e v e n w h e n s e e n

f r o m i t s o w n p o i n t o f v i e w , h a s i t s p o t e n t i a l

e v i l s . P a r t i s a n s h i p m a y b e c o m e s o k e e n t h a t

i t t h w a r t s t h e p u r p o s e o f t h e s p o r t i n s t i t u -

t i o n . The desire to win or to be on the

w i n n i n g s i d e m a y b e c o m e s o b i t t e r a s t o o ve r -

r u l e t h e m o r a l s e n s e ; and combats between

c h a m p i o n s ( a s o n c e b e t w e e n t h e p r i n c i p a l s

o f o p p o s i n g a r m i e s ) m a y a c t u a l l y d i s c o u r a g e

i n d i v i d u a l p a r t i c i p a t i o n . B u t e v e r y s y s t e m ,

i f i t i s a l i v i n g t h i n g , i s s u b j e c t t o t h i s d a n -

g e r . A n d e v e n o u t o f t h e e v i l s i d e y o u m a y

draw good . I f m i l l i o n s w a t c h w i t h b r e a t h l e ss

i n t e r e s t t h e c o m b a t o f c h a m p i o n s , t h a t c o m -

bat, conducted under the truest sporting

r u l e s , b e c o m e s a g r e a t i n f l u e n c e , a n d f i n e , g e n -

t l e m a n l y a t h l e t e s m a y b e c o m e t h e t e a c h e r s

o f t h e n a t i o n .

45




A n d a g a i n , s e e n w i t h i n i t s e l f , s p o r t - m o r a l -

i t y h a s a s s e v e r e a d i s c i p l i n e ( i f n o t , f r o m

o u r p o i n t o f v i e w , a n y s p i r i t u a l s i n c e r i t y ) a s

a God-morality . I t i s a s d i f f i c u l t a n d a s

exacting to be a gentleman as to be good .

I n m a n y r e s p e c t s , o f c o u r s e , t h e t w o c o n c e p t s

o v e r l a p , t h o u g h t h e y a r e d i ff e r e n t l y c e n t e r e d .

B o t h c a l l f o r r e s t r a i n t , f o r c o n s i d e r a t i o n o f

r u l e s . Both are an advance on moral an-

a r c h y .

I n t h u s c h a r a c t e r i z i n g y o u r e t h i c a l c o n -

c e p t s , I h a v e a l r e a d y i n d i c a t e d t h e e ss e n t i a l

d i f f e r e n c e w h i c h s e p a r a t e s t h e m f r o m o u r s .

T h e r e i s n o t o u c h o f s p o r t m o r a l i t y i n o u r

w a y o f l i f e , i n o u r p r o b l e m s o f h u m a n r e l a -

t i o n s h i p . O u r l i f e m o r a l i t y c a n n o t b e s y m -

b o l i z e d i n a m i n i a t u r e r e p r o d u c t i o n . Weh a v e n o p l a y - p r e s e n t a ti o n o f l i f e . O u r y o u n g ,

e v e n l i k e o u r a d u l t s , a r e r e f e r r e d a t o n c e t o

t h e f i r s t s o u r c e , t o t h e w o r d o f G o d , t o t h e

w o r d o f t h e p r o p h e t o r t e a c h e r s p e a k i n g i n

t h e n a m e o f G o d . O r , t o s e c u l a r i z e t h i s s t a t e -

m e n t , o u r y o u n g , l i k e o u r a d u l t s , a r e i m b u e d

w i t h a f e e l i n g o f t h e a b s o l u t e i n t h e i r m o r a l

46






Robin Hoods and Claude Duvals were noth-

i n g b u t l o w r u f f i a n s , d e v o i d ev e n o f c h i v a l r y :

b u t t h e i r s i g n i f i c a n c e i s n o t i n w h a t t h e y w e r e ,

but in what you make of them in worship .

T h e p e r s i s t e n c e o f t h e t y p e s i s e v i d e n t t o - d a y

as much as ever, when popular fancy is

charmed and youth tempted into emulation

b y t h e " R a f f l e s " a n d " L u p i n s " o f t h e w o r l d

o f b o o k s . At no time have we J ews sympa-

t h i z e d w i t h t h i s t y p e . W e a r e i n s e n s i b l e t o

t h e a p p e a l o f " t h e c o r r e c t " a n d t h e g r a c e f u l

a s a s u b s t i t u t e f o r o u r m o r a l i t y . Knightly

o r u n k n i g h t l y , c o u r t l y o r u n c o u r t l y , s p o r t s -

m a n l i k e o r t h e o p p o s i t e i n o u r r e a l l i f e m e a n

n o t h i n g . We only ask : I s i t r i g h t o r i s i t

wron g?

F o r t h e r u l e s w h i c h y o u b r i n g i n t o l i f e

f r o m t h e a t h l e t i c f i e l d h a v e n o r e l a t i o n t o

t h e u l t i m a t e m o r a l v a l u e o f y o u r a c t s a n d

s e r v e o n l y t o g i v e y o u t h e m o r a l s a t i s f a c t i o n

o f h a v i n g o b e y e d s o m e r u l e o r o t h e r w h i l e

doing exactly what you want to do . Thus,

grown and intelligent as you may be, you

g o v e r n t h e h u n t i n g o f a n i m a l s w i t h t h e m o s t

48



Sport

c u r i o u s a n d se r i o u s l y - t a k e n r e g u l a t i o n s . Y o u

m u s t n o t s h o o t a p i g e o n o r a r a b b i t i n s p o r t

u n l e s s s u c h a n d s u c h r e g u l a t i o n s a r e o b e y e d

- i t i s " u n s p o r t s m a n l i k e ." You make a great

m o r a l t o - d o a b o u t t h e s e r e g u l a t i o n s . But

w h a t , i n G o d ' s n a m e , h a s t h i s t o d o w i t h t h e

r i g h t o r w r o n g o f k i l l i n g d e f e n s e l e s s a n i m a l s

f o r s p o r t ?

Y o u h a v e a t t e m p t e d t o i n f u s e i n t o b u s i -

n e s s , w h i c h y o u h a v e m a d e t h e s t a r k t r a n s l a -

t i o n i n t o m o d e r n s o c i a l t e r m s o f t h e o l d k i l l -

a n d - b e - k i l l e d c h a o s , a n i n e f f e c t u a l g a l l a n t r y

w h i c h w i l l a g a i n g i v e y o u t h e s e n s e o f " p l a y -

i n g t h e g a m e " w h i l e g i v i n g f r e e c o u r s e t o

y o u r w o r s t i n s t i n c t s . I mean that, apart

f r o m t h e n e c e s s i t i e s o f t h e l a w , y o u a t t e m p t

t o b r i n g i n t o t h e f i e l d o f b u s i n e s s t h e c u r i o u s

p u n c t i l i o o f t h e f e n c i n g m a s t e r - c o u r t e s i e s

a n d p r e t e n s e s , s l o g a n s a n d p a s s w o r d s , w h i c h

m i t i g a t e o n l y i n a p p e a r a n c e t h e p r i m a l s a v -

a g e r y o f t h e s t r u g g l e . " S e r v i c e , " " t h e g o o d

o f t h e p u b l i c , " " a s q u a r e de a l "-l l t h e c a t c h -

w o r d s o f t h e a d v e r t i s i n g s c h o o l s w h i c h g i v e

a f l a v o r o f g a m e s o m e f r i e n d l i n e s s t o a w o r l d

49




t h a t i s e s s e n t i a l l y - m e r c i l e s s - t h i s i s n o t i n -

t e n t i o n a l l y i n g , i t i s n o t d e l i b e r a t e h y p o c r i s y .

Y o u b e l i e v e t h a t h o m a g e t o t h e s e f o r m s c o n -

s t i t u t e s a m o r a l i t y . It does constitute a

morality-of a kind . W e , o n o u r p a r t , r e c -

ognize no particular system that divides

b u s i n e s s f r o m t h e r e s t o f l i f e . O n e i s a s h o n -

e s t i n b u s i n e s s a s i n a n y t h i n g e l s e . For us

b u s i n e s s h a s n o t a s p e c i a l i z e d i d e a l i s m o r

c o u r t e t i q u e t t e , a p a r t i c u l a r i z e d c o d e o f

honor . We are honest and truthf ul or we

a r e n o t h o n e s t a n d t r u t h f u l : i t h a s n o t h i n g

t o d o w i t h o u r b e i n g i n " t h i s g a m e " o r i n

" t h a t g a m e , " a s h o p k e e p e r o r a t a i l o r o r a

banker. And because we cannot, by reason

o f o u r n a t u r e , f o l l o w y o u i n t h e s e p l a y f u l

c a r a c o l e s a n d c u r v e t i n g s , b u t d r i v e s t r a i g h t

t o t h e p u r p o s e , u s i n g t h e p l a i n c o m m o n s e n s e

a n d h o n e s t y o r d i s h o n e s t y o f t h e o c c a s i o n ,

y o u a r e b o u n d t o r e g a r d u s ( a s m a n y o f y o u

d o ) a s l a c k i n g i n " e t i q u e t t e " - t h a t i s , i n

y o u r m o r a l i t y .

A s i m i l a r d i v i s i o n i n o t h e r es s e n t i a l o p i n -

i o n s i l l u s t r a t e s t h e p r i m a l d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n

50



S p o r t

u s . Your attit ude toward combat (duels,

w a r s ) a n d a l l t h e v i r t u e s p e r t a i n i n g t o i t , i s

o n e f r o m w h i c h w e s h r i n k . To you courage

i s a n e n d i n i t s e l f , t o b e g l o r i f i e d , w o rs h i p e d ,

a s i m p a r t i n g m o r a l i t y t o a n a c t . T o u s , c o u r -

a g e i s m e r e l y a m e a n s t o a n e n d . Hence your

c o u r a g e i s c o m b a t i v e , o u r s p a s s i v e , y o u rs o f -

f e n s i v e , o u r s d e f e n s i v e . H e r o i c s p l a y a g r e a t

p a r t i n y o u r i d e a l i s m - n o n e i n o u r s . T o f i g h t

i s n e v e r a g l o r i o u s b u s i n e s s t o u s . I t i s a

d i r t y b u s i n e s s : we perform it when we must

( a n d I s u p p o s e t h e r e i s v e r y l i t t l e t o c h o o s e

b e t w e e n y o u a n d u s i n t h e m a t t e r o f c o u r a g e ) ,

b u t w e c a n n o t p r e t e n d t h a t t h e f i l t h y n e c e s -

s i t y i s a h i g h v i r t u e . " D u l c e e t d e c o r u m e s t

p r o p a t r i a m o r i " i s n o t a J e w i s h s e n t i m e n t :

f o r i t i s n o t s w e e t t o d i e f o r a n y t h i n g : b u t

i f w e m u s t d i e f o r i t , w e w i l l .

N o r d o w e g l o r i f y t h e w a r r i o r a s a w a r r i o r ,

d e s p i t e o c c a s i o n a l i n d i v i d u a l d e f e c t i o n s o f

ours from that view . If my brother goes

mad and attacks me, and I must slay him

i n s e l f - d e f e n s e , h o w c a n I b e h a p p y o v e r i t ?

I t i s a c r u e l a n d m i s e r a b l e b u s i n e s s , t o b e

5 1



You Gentiles

f i n i s h e d w i t h a s s o o n a s p o s s i b l e , t o b e f o r -

g o t t e n a s s o o n a s p o s s i b l e . T h i s i s e s s en t i a l l y

t h e J e w i s h a t t i t u d e t o w a r d w a r a n d w a r r i o r s .

I d o n o t f i n d i n t h e B i b l e d e l i g h t i n w a r a n d

w a r r i o r s . O u r e x u l t a t i o n i n v i c t o r y w a s n o t

t h e g l o r i f i c a t i o n o f t h e w a r r i o r , b u t o n l y a

f i e r c e j o y a t h a v i n g s u r v i v e d . W e f o u g h t b i t -

t e r l y , v i n d i c t i v e l y , i n o r d e r t o k i l l : a n d o u r

God was a God of war . But however this

m a y b e , I k n o w w i t h u t t e r c e r t a i n t y c o n c e r n -

i n g u s a s w e a r e t o - d a y t h a t t h e c o n s c i o u s

J e w , t h e J e w s t e e p e d i n J e w i s h l i f e , d e s p i s e s

t h e f i g h t e r a s s u c h , a b h o r s w a r : and though

h e c a n d i e f o r h i s f a i t h as w e l l a s a n y o n e e l s e ,

r e f u s e s t o m a k e a j o y o u s r i t u a l o f c o m b a t .

F o r w h e n y o u g e n t i l e s a s s e r t t h a t y o u a b -

h o r w a r , y o u d e c e i v e y o u r s e l v e s . W a r i s t h e

s u b l i m e s t o f t h e s p o r t s a n d t h e r e f o r e t h e m o s t

d e e p l y w o r s h i p e d . Do you mourn when you

m u s t f i g h t ? I s a n a t i o n p l u n g e d i n t o g l o o m

w h e n a d e c l a r a t i o n o f w a r a r r i v e s ? Do yo u

s e a r c h y o u r h e a r ts c l o s e l y , c r u e l l y , t o d i s c o v e r

w h e t h e r y o u y o u r s e l v e s a r e n o t t o b l a m e t h a t

t h i s m o n s t r o u s t h i n g h a s c o m e t o p a s s ? Doe s

5 2



Sport

a t r e m o r o f t e r r o r g o t h r o u g h y o u - " P e r h a p s

w e a r e g u i l t y " ? D o y o u c l a m o r f o r t h e r e c -

o r d s o f t h e l o n g c o m p l i c a t i o n s w h i c h h a v e

u s h e r e d i n t h i s h o r r o r ? D o y o u g o t o y o u r

t a s k o f d ef e n s e o r o f f e n s e d a r k l y , g r i m l y , b i t -

t e r l y ? N o , y o u h a n g o u t y o u r m o s t g o r g e o u s

b a n n e r s , y o u p l a y m e r r y m u s i c , y o u r b l o o d

r u n s s w i f t l y , h a p p i l y , y o u r c h e e k s b r i g h t e n

a n d y o u r e y e s s p a r k l e . A g l o r i o u s a c c e s s i o n

o f s t r e n g t h m a r k s t h e t h r o w i n g d o w n o r t h e

a c c e p t a n c e o f t h e g a g e . From end to end

o f t h e l a n d t h e t i d i n g s r i n g o u t , a n d e v e r y

man and woman of mettle every "red-

b l o o d e d " m a n a n d w o m a n , i t c h e s f o r a h a n d

i n i t .

Let me say clearly that I do not think

a l l o f y o u a r e f i g h t i n g h e r o e s . I have no

d o u b t t h a t m i l l i o n s o f y o u , i n e v e r y c o u n t r y ,

w e n t t o w a r r e l u c t a n t l y . B u t t h i s d o e s n o t

c o n t r a d i c t m y c o n t e n t i o n . I t o n l y m e a n s t h a t

m i l l i o n s o f y o u a r e n o t c a p a b l e o f l i v i n g u p

t o t h e i d e a l m o r a l i t y w h i c h y o u c h e r i s h . But

e v e n t h e g r e a t e s t c o w a r d , e v e n t h e m o s t u n -

w i l l i n g c o n s c r i p t t o y s , i n h i s e m o t i o n s , wi t h

53




t h e a d v e n t u r e s and triumphs o f war . I

s p e a k , t h r o u g h o u t this b o o k , o f t h e i d e a l s

to which you aspi re and from which you

d r a w y o u r m o r a l i n s p i r a t i o n . . A n d i t i s c e r -

t a i n t h a t w a r i t s e l f , i n d e p e n d e n t l y o f a l l a i m s

a n d j u s t i f i c a t i o n s , i s a p r i m e n e c e s s i t y t o y o u :

a n d a d e c l a r a t i o n o f w a r i s t h e l o n g - a w a i t e d

s i g n a l o f r e l e a s e , g r e e t e d w i t h e x t r a v a g a n t

a n d h y s t e r i c a l j o y . I t i s n o t l o v e o f c o u n t r y

w h i c h i n d u c e s t h i s f l o o d o f h a p p i n e s s - i t i s

c o m b a t , t h e g l o r y o f s p o r t , t h e g a m e , t h e

m a g n i f i c e n c e o f t h e g r e a t e s t o f a l l c o n t e s t s .

A g a i n , t h e y w e r e c l e a n e r - w i t t e d , t h o s e o f

you who declared openly and frankly that

w a r i s t h e n a t u r a l p u r s u i t o f n o b l e m e n a n d

o f k i n g s . T h e h i g h e s t a n d m o s t l i f e - p a s s i o n -

a t e a m o n g y o u , t h e m o s t e x a l t e d , w e r e t o b e

d e d i c a t e d a b o v e a l l o t h e r s t o y o u r w a y o f l i f e .

C o n v e r s e l y , t h e b a s e s t a m o n g y o u w e r e a c -

c o u n t e d a s u n w o r t h y o f a d m i t t a n c e i n t o t h e

s p l e n d i d c o m p a n y o f w a r r i o r s . T h e s c u l l i o n

m u s t n o t d a r e t o a s p i r e t o c o m b a t i v e d i s t i n c -

t i o n . T o - d a y , a s o f o l d , y o u h a v e n o t h i n g

b u t c o n t e m p t ( r e v e a l e d i n i t s t r u e i n t e n s i t y

54



Sport

i n t i m e o f w a r ) f o r t h e t r u e p a c i f i s t . Y o u r

n a t u r e i s t o - d a y w h a t i t w a s a t h o us a n d y e a r s

ago . " I n t h e s o m b e r o b s t i n a c y o f t h e B r i t i s h

w o r k e r s t i l l s u r v i v e s t h e t a c i t r a g e o f t h e

S c a n d i n a v i a n B e r s e r k e r ." And vain and fu-

t i l e a n d f o o l i s h a r e a l l t h e s e e f f o r t s t o d a m

u p a n d t o c h o k e t h e e x t r e m e s t a n d m o s t c h e r -

i s h e d o u t l e t o f y o u r n a t u r a l i n s t i n c t .

B u t i n w a r , a s i n a l l o t h e r g a m e s o f l i f e ,

y o u s a t i s f y y o u r m o r a l i t y b y m e a n s o f a m a z -

i n g p u n c t i l i o s . T o k i l l t h u s l e a v e s y o u c l e a n :

t o k i l l o t h e r wi s e i s u n g e n t l e m a n l y. In a few

o f t h e s e f i n e p o i n t s i n t h e c o n d u c t o f w a r a n d

o f d u e l s t h e r e m a y l u r k s o m e t r u e m o r a l s i g -

n i f i c a n c e . B u t i t a m a z e s u s t h a t i n t h e e x e r -

c i s e o f t h i s p u n c t i l i o y o u f i n d s u f f i c i e n t r i g h t -

e o u s n e s s t o e a s e y o u r c o n s c i e n c e a l t o g e t h e r .

W e r e y o u t r u l y c o n c e r n e d w i t h r i g h t a n d

wron g - i n s t e a d o f w i t h t h e s p o r t i n g " r i g h t

t h i n g , " w i t h h o n o r , w h a t a f l o o d o f h o r r o r

a n d o f p i t y a n d o f p r o s t r a t i o n w o u l d f o l l o w

e a c h o f y o u r w a r s : w i t h w h a t f r a n t i c h a s t e

you would fly to the consolation of each

o t h e r ; with what tremors of moral terror

55




y o u w o u l d e x a m i n e a g a i n a n d a g a i n t h e c a t a s -

trophic madness from which you have just

emerged . Mercifu l God! You have just

s l a i n t e n t h o u s a n d , a h u n d r e d t h o u s a n d m e n ,

f a t h e r s a n d s o n s : i n t h e r e d r a g e o f c o m b a t

you have disemboweled t h e m , s u f f o c a t e d

them, drowned them, torn them limb f rom

l i m b , b l i n d e d t h e m . A m i l l i o n l o v i n g p a re n t s ,

c h i l d r e n , f r i e n d s h a v e w a k e n e d s w e a t i n g i n

t h e n i g h t o u t o f a t e r r i b l e v i s i o n o f l a s t d e -

s p a i r s , o f c o n t r a c t e d , s c r e a m i n g a g o n i e s . An d

now, when it is over, do you run to your

churches, and with streaming eyes, f l i n g

y o u r s e l v e s a t t h e f o o t o f p r i e s t a n d a l t a r ,

t e r r i f i e d l e s t t h e m u r d e r y o u h a v e c o m m i t t e d

m i g h t h a v e b e e n a v o i d e d , l e s t a t l e a s t s o m e

o f t h e g u i l t r e s t u p o n y o u r h e a d ? F o r s u r e l y

i f e v e n t h e f a i n t e s t s t a i n o f c u l p a b i l i t y , t h e

m i n u t e s t b l o t , a g r a i n , a n a l l b u t i n v i s i b l e

f l e c k , a n o v e r s i g h t , m o m e n t a r y i m p a t i e n c e ,

p r i d e , c a r e l e s s n e s s , l e a v e y o u n o t u t t e r l y ,

u t t e r l y , u t t e r l y b l a m e l e s s , y o u h a v e n e e d o f

a l l t h e D i v i n e C o m p a s s i o n , a l l t h e i n f i n i t e

f o r g i v e n e s s o f G o d .

5 6



S p o r t

B u t y o u r w a r s h a v e n e v e r e n d e d , s i n c e h i s -

t o r y r e c o r d s t h e m , s a v e w i t h t h e s a m e o u t -

b u r s t s o f p r i d e a n d i n s o l e n c e a s b e g a n t h e m .

W a s t h e r e e v e r a T e D e u m t u r n e d i n t o a c r y

of Mea culpa? Was eve r a war entered in

a h i s t o r y b o o k s a v e a s a g l o r i o u s a d v e n t u r e ,

g l o r i o u s i n v i c t o r y , g l o r i o u s i n d i s a s t e r ? An d

e v e n i f , a f t e r a h u n d r e d y e a r s , a h i s t o r i a n

h e r e a n d t h e r e d a r e s t a r n i s h t h e s t a i n l e s s r e c -

o r d s o f y o u r p u r p o s e s w i t h a s i n g l e p l a u s i b l e

d o u b t , w a s t h e r e e v e r a n a w a k e n i n g o f g u i l t

a t h o u s a n d t h p a r t a s s t r o n g a s t h e a w a k e n -

i n g o f p r i d e a n d h a p p i n e s s w h i c h a c c o m p a n i e s

t h e r e c a l l i n g o f t h e e x p l o i t s o f a n y w a r , h o w -

e v e r r e m o t e ?

Y o u h a v e j u s t p a s s e d t h r o u g h t h e w i l d e s t

a n d m o s t u n i v e r s a l o f a l l w a r s . S e a r c h y o u r

m e m o r i e s a n d y o u r p r e s s w e l l . Whe re was

t h e h u s h e d h u m i l i t y , t h e a w e , t h e s h u d d e r i n g

a m a z e m e n t w h i c h s h o u l d h a v e f a l l e n o n t h e

w o r l d w h e n t h e A r m i s t i c e w a s d e c l a r e d ? Did

y o u n o t s t r a i g h t w a y s e n d f o r t h e m i s s a r i e s t o

bargain and barter, to accuse and to de-

nounce? And above all to maintain your

5 7




n a t i o n a l dign ity! What d i g n i t y , p r a y ? .

W h a t w a s l e f t o f d i g n i t y t o a s i n g l e o n e o f

you? What was left of decency to any who

h a d j o i n e d i n t h e f u r i o u s a n d b l a s p h e m o u s

r e v e l r i e s o f t h o s e f i v e y e a r s ?

You hate war? Nonsense ; y o u e n j o y i t .

I f , i n t h e p a s s i n g t i r e d n e s s w h i c h f o l l o w s t h e

s t r e n u o u s e x e r t i o n , y o u p a u s e a w h i l e t o r e -

f l e c t , y o u d o n o t d a r e t o t h i n k i n t o t h e r o o t -

c a u s e s a n d e v i l s l e s t i n d e e d y o u m a k e w a r

i m p o s s i b l e . Y o u t i n k e r w i t h a f e w r e g u l a -

t i o n s , g a s l a w s , Flammenwer f er r u l e s , a r m e d

a n d u n a r m e d s h i p s a n d s i m i l a r l y f u t i l e t r i v -

i a l i t i e s . Y o u c a l l e a c h o t h e r " b a d s p o r t s " -

a n d a d a y l a t e r y o u a r e p r e p a r e d , i f t h e o c c a -

s i o n o f f e r s , t o e m b a r k a g a i n o n t h e e x h i l a r a t -

i n g e n t e r p r i se .

Y e t , I s a y , f o r a l l t h i s , y o u c a n n e v e r b e

g u i l t y i n y o u r o w n e y e s , n o t o n e o f y o u . De-

n u n c i a t i o n c a n o n l y c o m e f r o m o n e w h o d o e s

n o t s h a r e y o u r m o r a l i t y . Y o u r c o n s c i e n c e

c a n n o t b e s e a r e d , f o r y o u h a v e d o n e n o w r o n g .

W a r i s t h e h i g h - m a r k o f y o u r l i f e , t h e t r u e

a n d t r i u m p h a n t e x p r e s s i o n o f y o u r i n s t i n c t s .

5 8



Sport

A n d t h e r e f o r e , w h a t e v e r c h u r c h a n d r e l i g i o n

m a y p r e a c h i n t h e i n t e r v a l s b e t w e e n a c t u a l

f i g h t i n g , y o u r e m e m b e r a l l y o u r w a r s w i t h

w i s t f u l a n d l o n g i n g p r i d e a s t h e g r e a t e s t

e v e n t s i n y o u r e x i s t e n c e . The splendor of

w a r, i n p r e p a r at i o n a n d i n a c t i o n a n d i n r e c o l -

l e c t i o n , i n t h e r h y t h m o f t r a i n i n g a r m i e s , i n

t h e f r a n t i c e x c i t e m e n t o f b a t t l e , i n t h e g l o r i -

ous commemoration of monu ment and song

a n d t a p e s t r y , i s t h e f l o w e r o f y o u r c i v i l i z a -

t i o n , m a t e r i a l a n d s p i r i t u a l . I n n o t h i n g a r e

y o u a s ef f ic i e n t a s i n w a r ; i n n o t h i n g a s t r u e

t o y o u r s e l v e s . S t r a i n e d t o t h e u t m o s t i n t h i s

t e r r i f i c g a m e y o u r s p l e n d i d f a c u l t i e s f i n d f u l l

a n d v e h e m e n t e x e r c i s e . And whosoe ver from

under the shadow of God upbraids you and

d i s c o u r a g e s y o u , i s y o u r e t e r n a l e n e m y .

I c a n n o t u n d e r t a k e , w h i l e d e v e l o p i n g t h i s

t h e m e , t o a n s w e r a l l o f t h e o b j e c t i o n s w h i c h

o c c u r e v e n t o m e . I n p a r t , o f c o u r s e , s o m e

o f t h e s e o b j e c t i o n s a r e u n a n s w e r a b l e , a n d a r e ,

i n m y o p i n i o n , o n l y o v e r b o r n e b y c o u n t e r -

o b j e c t i o n s . I n p a r t t h e y a r e f u t i l e o b j e c -

59




t i o n s . But in touching on some of them, I

may make my viewpoint clearer . I s h a l l b e

r e m i n d e d t h a t w h e r e v e r w a r w a s d e c l a r e d w e

J e w s h a v e r e s p o n d e d a s r e a d i l y a n d a s e a g e r l y

a s y o u g e n t i l e s . S t a t i s t i c s ( w h i c h a r e q u i t e

r e l i a b l e i n s u c h r u l e - o f - t h u m b m a t t e r s ) b e a r

t h i s o u t . B u t I d o n o t b e l i e v e t h a t w e d i d

s o f r o m m o t i v e s t h a t r e s e m b l e d y o u r s . Many

r e a s o n s c o m p e l l e d u s . We are everywhere,

t o a l a r g e e x t e n t , a l i e n s . A s e n s e o f i n f e r i o r -

i t y i n s t a t u s d r i v e s u s t o e x t r e m e s o f s a c r i f i c e

i n j u s t i f y i n g o u r c l a i m s t o e q u a l i t y . More

t h a n t h a t : w e J e w s a r e s o f r e q u e n t l y a n d s o

v i g o r o u s l y r e m i n d e d , i n a l l c o n s t i t u t i o n a l l y

g o v e r n e d a n d l i b e r a l c o u n t r i e s , t h a t w e ou g h t

t o b e g r a t e f u l f o r p e r m i s s i o n t o l i v e t h e r e ,

t h a t w e d e ve l o p a g r a t i t u d e w h i c h i s n o t o n l y

d i s p r o p o r t i o n a t e b u t o c c a s i o n a l l y g r o t e s q u e .

O u r c h i l d r e n , i n s c h o o l s a n d e l s e w h e r e , a r e

t a u g h t , y e a r i n , y e a r o u t , t o c o n t r a s t t h e i r

p r e s e n t f r e e d o m a n d e q u a l i t y o f o p p o r t u n i t y

with the oppression and bitterness which

w a s t h e l o t o f t h e i r p a r e n t s e l s e w h e r e . F r e -

q u e n t l y t h e c o n t r a s t , a s p a i n t e d i n t h e i r

6 0



Sport

i m a g i n a t i o n , i s n o t a d u p l i c a t e o f t h e r e a l i t y .

However this may be, these incessant and

vehemen t reminders produce t h e i r e f f e c t .

T h e c h i l d a l m o s t c o m e s t o b e l i e v e t h a t i t w a s

f o r t h e e s p e c i a l b e n e f i t o f o p p r e s s e d f o r e i g n -

ers that America became a "free country"

a n d , i n s t e a d o f a c c e p t i n g A m e r i c a n f o r m s o f

g o v e r n m e n t l e v e l - h e a d e d l y , w i t h t h e p r o p e r

d e g r e e o f a p p r e c i a t i o n a n d c r i t i c i s m , h e d e -

v e l o p s a s u p p r e s s e d h y s t e r i a o f g r a t i t u d e .

T h i s i s n o t a h e a l t h y a n d n a t u r a l f e e l i n g .

Children should not be made to feel such

t h i n g s . A n d i f i t c o m e s t o t h e m a t t e r o f c o n -

t r i b u t i o n s t o ' l i b e r t y , w e J e w s h a v e d o n e a s

m u c h f o r t h e e n f r a n c h i s e m e n t o f m a n a s a n y

o t h e r p e o p l e . B u t t h e J e w , t h e o p p r e s s e d p a r

e x c e l l e n c e , b e g i n s t o l o o k u p o n A m e r i c a ' s l i b -

e r t y a s a p e r s o n a l f a v o r . No wonder then

t h a t J e w s wi l l r u s h t o f i g h t f o r A m e r i c a . Y e t ,

d e s p i t e t h e c o n t r a d i c t i o n o f f i g u r e s t h e r e i s

s t i l l a s t r o n g i m p r e s s i o n a b r o a d t h a t t h e J e w s

" f a i l e d i n t h e i r d u t y , " w e r e " s l a c k e r s . " This

f e e l i n g r i s e s f r o m a n i n s t i n c t i v e a p p r e c i a t i o n

o f t h a t d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n u s . We Jews don't

6 1




l i k e f i g h t i n g . Y o u g e n t i l e s d o . Moreover,

b e c a u s e y o u l i k e f i g h t i n g , y o u a r e m u c h m o r e

s k i l f ul t h a n w e i n h i d i n g o c c a s i o n a l r e l u c t a n c e

t o f i g h t . I n d e e d , i t i s o b v i o u s t h a t t h e m o r e

f e a r f u l y o u a r e o f t a k i n g a h a n d i n t h e c o m -

b a t , t h e m o r e y o u w i l l g l o r i f y a n d i d e a l i z e i t :

w h i l e t h e J e w w h o i s a f r a i d a d d s a c t u a l a n d

o v e r t d i s l i k e t o h i s c o w a r d i c e .

B u t a p a r t f r o m t h i s , w e m u s t n o t f o r g e t

t h a t w i t h t h e s c h o o l s o f t h e W e s t e r n w o r l d

o p e n t o o u r c h i l d r e n , your v i e w o f t h i n g s i s

g r a d u a l l y b e i n g i m p o s e d o n o u r a l i e n p s y -

c h o l o g y . O f t h e r e a l a n d a p p a r e n t s u c c e s s e s

o f y o u r e f f o r t I w r i t e e l s e w h e r e i n t h i s b o o k .

B u t h e r e l e t m e n o t e t h a t t h e J e w i s h c h i l d

i n y o u r s c h o o l s i s m a d e t o f e e l t h a t n o t t o

l i k e f i g h t i n g i s a s i g n o f c o m p l e t e i n f e r i o r i t y .

D e t e r m i n e d t o b e c o m e y o u r e q u a l , h e e s s a y s ,

o f t e n w i t h s u c c e s s , t o b e c o m e w a r l i k e i n h i s

a t t i t u d e . B u t i t i s a n a r t i f i c i a l s u c c e s s . He

d o e s f r o m a n i m p e r i o u s s e n s e o f d u t y w h a t

y o u d o b y i n s t i n c t . H e f i g h t s b y f o r c i n g h i m -

se l f to it . H e h a s n o t y o u r n a t u r a l g i f t a n d

i n c l i n a t i o n f o r i t .

62



S p o r t

O f c o u r s e I s h a l l b e t o l d , i n e s t a b l i s h i n g

t h i s d i s t i n c t i o n a m o n g o t h e r s , t h a t i t i s " d a n -

g e r o u s t o g e n e r a l i z e . " I t i s c u r i o u s w i t h

w h a t f i n a l i t y t h i s c o m m o n p l a c e i s s u p p o s e d

t o c r u s h t h e g e n e r a l i z e r . S u p p o s e i t i s t r u e

t h a t i t i s d a n g e r o u s t o g e n e r a l i z e : a r e n o t

m a n y n e c e s s a r y t h i n g s d a n g e r o u s like be ar-

i n g c h i l d r e n a n d d i g g i n g c o a l ? A t r u t h is n o n e

t h e l e s s a t r u t h b e c a u s e i t i s a d a n g e r o u s t r u t h-i. e . , o p e n t o e a s y a b u s e . N e v e r t h e l e s s , t h e

m o s t s e r i o u s t r u t h s c a n o n l y b e s t a t e d - a s

g e n e r a l i t i e s . A n d t h i s m o s t s e r i o u s t r u t h i s

a m o n g t h e m , t h i s c o n t r a s t i n a t t i t u d e t o w a r d

w a r o f J e w a n d g e n t i l e . A n d a s l o n g a s t h e

c o n t r a s t e x i s t s , i t w i l l b e s t r o n g e r t h a n w i l l ,

s t r o n g e r t h a n r e a s o n . A s l o n g a s w e a r e a t

o p p o s i t e p o l e s , w e s h a l l h a v e t o m a k e c o n -

t i n u o u s a n d s t r e n u o u s e f f o r t s t o g e t o n s i d e

b y s i d e .

6 3



I I I

Gods

T H I S i s t h e e s s e n c e o f o u r d i f f e r e n c e: t h a t

we are serious, you are not . The French

s h a d i n g o f t h e w o r d c o m e s n e a r e r m y m e a n -

i n g : v o u s n ' e t e s p a s s e r i e u x . N o t a s a m a t -

t e r o f i n t e n t , b u t a s a m a t t e r o f c o n s t i t u t i o n .

T h i s l a c k o f s e r i o u s n e s s , t h u s u t t e r i n g i t s e l f

i n y o u r e t h i c s, a n d g o ve r n i n g t h e c h ar a c te r o f

y o u r r e l a t i o n s t o e a c h o t h e r , m u s t a l s o g o v -

e r n y o u r r e l i g i o n , y o u r s y m b o l i z e d r e l a t i o n s

w i t h t h e u n i v e r s e . A n d I h a v e a l w a y s f e l t ,

i n c o n t e m p l a t i n g y o u r r e l i g i o u s e x p e r i e n c e s

a n d d e c l a r a t i o n s , t h e s a m e a l i e n a t i o n f r o m

them as from your morality . Y o u r f e e l i n g

f o r G o d h e a d p a r t a k e s o f t h e i m a g i n a t i v e a n d

l y r i c a l p l a y f u l n e s s w hi c h i s y o u r e s s e n t i a l n a -

t u r e , a n d w h a t e v e r m a y b e t h e f o r m a l c r e e d

i nw h i c h y o u r f e e l i n g s a r e w r a p p e d t h e i r t r u e

n a t u r e c a n n o t b e h i d d e n .

64



Gods

'You g e n t i l e s a r e e s s e n t i a l l y p o l y t h e i s t s

and t o s o m e e x t e n t i d o l w o r s h i p p e r s . WeJ e w s a r e e s s e n t i a l l y m o n o t h e i s t s . I w o u l d a s -

s e r t t h i s e v e n i f i t w e r e n o t k n o w n t h a t w e

h a v e b e e n s i n g l e d o u t f o r c e n t u r i e s b y o u r

o b s t i n a t e m o n o t h e i s m . I w o u l d a s s e r t i t o n

t h e b a s i s o f m y o b s e r v a t i o n s o f t h e w o r l d s I

have known .

M o n o t h e i s m i s a d e s p e r a t e a n d o v e r w h e l m -

i n g c r e e d . I t c a n b e t h e e x p r e s s i o n o f n o n e

b u t t h e m o s t s e r i o u s n a t u r e s . I t i s a f u n d a -

m e n t a l c r e e d w h i c h e n g u l f s i n d i v i d u a l a n d

mass in an unfathomable sea of unity : I n

m o n o t h e i s m t h e r e i s n o r o o m l e f t f o r i n d i v i d -

u a l p r i d e s a n d d i s t i n c t i o n s , n o r o o m f o r j o y f u l

a s s e r t i v e n e s s . Monotheism m e a n s i n f i n i t e

a b s o l u t i s m , t h e c r u s h i n g t r i u m p h o f t h e O n e ,

t h e c r u s h i n g a n n i h i l a t i o n o f t h e o n e s .

T o t h e s e r i o u s n a t u r e i t i s i n c o n c e i v a b l e

t h a t t h i s w o r l d s h o u l d b e a t t h e c h a n g i n g

m e r c y o f o p p o s i n g a n d u n c o n t r o l l e d f o r c e s :

that gods of varying power and purpose

s h o u l d b e m a k i n g a s p o r t o f t h e i r o w n w i t h

u s a n d t h e m s e l v e s . B u t t o t h e s p o r t i n g n a -

65




t u r e t h e g h a s t l y u n i t y o f a l l l i f e a n d p o w e r ,

t h e g r i m a n d s e m p i t e r n a l - s e t t l e d p r e d e s t i n a -

t i o n o f a l l e f f o r t i s , w h e n a c c e s s i b l e , a n i n -

t o l e r a b l e t h o u g h t .

W e J e w s a r e i n c a p a b l e o f p o l y t h e i s m . Y o u

g e n t i l e s a r e i n c a p a b l e o f m o n o t h e i s m .

G i v e n , i n t h e m o s t e x p l i c i t t e r m s , t h e d e f i -

n i t i o n o f m o n o t h e i s m , w h i c h y o u h a v e t r i e d

a s s i n c e r e l y a s l i e s i n y o u r p o w e r t o a c c e p t ,

y o u s t i l l f a i l t o m a k e i t y o u r o w n . I f l i f e h e re

i s a s p o r t a n d a n h e r o i c e p i c , t h e o r i g i n s o f

l i f e m u s t b e t h e s a m e . L e t t h e e x c e p t i o n s

a m o n g y o u p r o c l a i m w h a t t h e y w i l l : I know

t h a t t h e c r e e d s o f y o u r m a s s e s , a s I h a v e h e a r d

t h e m e x p o u n d e d f r o m p u l p i t s a n d i n h o m e s ,

a s I h a v e r e a d o f t h e m i n b o o k s a n d i n p e r i o d -

i c a l s , a r e p o l y t h e i s t i c c r e e d s . O f t h e t h r e e -

i n - o n e , t h e t h r e e i s s t r e s s e d , th e o n e i s t h e r e -

l u c t a n t c o n c e s s i o n t o t h e d o g m a .

F o r w h e r e t h e r e i s t h e h a p p y a n d i m a g i n a -

t i v e g e n t i l e s p i r i t t h e r e c a n n o t b e t h e c o m -

p l e t e a n d u n c o n d i t i o n a l p r o s t r a t i o n o f t h e

i n d i v i d u a l . This utter breakdown of self

: w h i c h i s r e v e a l e d i n o u r p r a y e r s b e f o r e G o d ,

66



Godsi n o u r f e e l i n g s t o w a r d s h i m , i s a n e x p e r i -

ence which you are too proud to share .

M o s t o f o u r p r a y e r s a r e h e l p l e s s r e p e t i t i o n s

o f o u r h e l p l e s s n e s s , t h e s t a m m e r i n g s o f a

child overwhelmed, overmastered, by con-

t e m p l a t i o n o f t h e s u p r e m e U n i t y . You can-

n o t p r a y t h u s : a t n o t i m e , e v e n i n t h e p r e s -

e n c e o f t h e g o d s , d o y o u l o s e y o u r s e l f - p o s -

s e s s i o n , y o u r d i g n i t y . You too pray, but

y o u r p r a y e r s , c o m p a r e d w i t h o u r s , a r e r e -

q u e s t s . Y o u r o f f e r s o f s e r v i c e t o C h r i s t t h e

G o d a r e t h e o f f e r s o f a v a s s a l t o a p o w e r -

f u l s u p e r i o r . Our prayers, . t o o , b e g s o m e -

t h i n g , b u t r e q u e s t s o f o u r s a r e f o l d e d i n a n

a b a s e m e n t , a h u m i l i t y w h i c h w o u l d b e r e v o l t -

i n g t o y o u .

H e n c e i t i s t h a t y o u h a v e n e v e r , i n t h e s e

m a n y c e n t u r i e s o f C h r i s t i a n i t y , p r o d u c e d u t -

t e r a n c e s l i k e t h o s e o f t h e p r o p h e t s , o f j o b

and of David . Y o u r i n s p i r a t i o n s c o m e f r o m

o t h e r s o u r c e s , n o t f r o m t h e o n e s o u r c e . Your

g o d s a r e e s s e n t i a l l y g o d s o f t h e wo r l d , n o t o f

t h e u n i v e r s e . T h e u n i v e r s a l a s p e c t o f d i v i n -

i t y , i t s a t t r i b u t e s o f i n f i n i t y a n d e t e r n i t y , i t s

67




omnipotence-these f ind only your formal

acknowledgment : but emotionally you are

u n f i t t e d t o g i v e t h e m t h e t r u e a c k n o w l e d g -

ment of complete and almost incoherent

abasement . T h a t l a n g u a g e i s a l i e n t o y o u r

s p i r i t - t h e t e r r o r o f t h e i n f i n i t e c a n n o t t o u c h

y o u , t h e e t e r n a l y o u k n o w a s i t w e r e by sym-

b o l a n d f o r m u l a - b u t n o t b y h o r r i f i e d e x p e r i -

e n c e . Y o u r v e r y p r o f e s s i o n s o f h u m i l i t y a r e

l i k e p r o u d t r u m p e t - b l a s t s , a n d a l l y o u r a b a s e -

m e n t s o f r o y a l t y , y o u r H a p s b u r g b u r i a l c e r e -

m o n i e s a n d a n o i n t i n g s b y p r i e s t s a r e b u t a r -

t i s t i c f l o u r i s h e s w hi c h b r i n g i n t o g r a c e f u l r e -

l i e f t h e t r u e s o l d i e r l i n e s s o f y o u r c h a r a c t e r .

I do not remember even having met the

e x c e p t i o n s w h i c h m u s t e x i s t a m o n g y o u : I d o

not remember ever having heard a gentile

p r a y w i t h t h a t a b a n d o n m e n t , t h a t a b j e c t n e s s ,

t h a t ( a s i t m u s t s e e m t o y o u ) f u l s o m e n e s s o f

homage which characterizes ou r prayer .

Only they who (like us) are broken under

t h e b u r d e n o f r e a l i z a t i o n o f t h e i n f i n i t e c a n

p r a y t h u s ; o n l y t h e y w h o , i n d r e a m s a n d i n

w a k i n g e c s t a s i e s a n d , a b o v e a l l , i n i n s t i n c t ,

68



Gods

h a v e b e e n t o u c h e d w i t h t h e r a g e o f t h e U n -

d e n i a b l e P o w e r c a n u t t e r s u c h a d o r a t i o n a s

o u r s .

Our very anthropomorphisms reflect the

d i f f e r e n c e i n o u r s p i r i t . W i t h o u r p e r s o n i f i e d

G o d w e h o l d s p e e c h s u c h a s y o u w o u l d n e v e r

h o l d . W h e n w e t r a n s l a t e i n f i n i t e e x t e n t i n t o

i n f i n i t e . i n d i v i d u a l p o w e r , w e s h a d o w f o r t h a

B e i n g , c h a r g e d w i t h a n i n t e n s i t y o f e x is t e n c e ,

a c o n c e n t r a t i o n o f l i f e a n d f o r c e , w h i c h y o u

a r e u n a b l e t o a p p r e h e n d , b e i n g t o o f r e e i n

s p i r i t t o a t t r i b u t e t o a n y o u t s i d e f o r c e s u c h

unt rammeled and unapproachabl e tyranny .

S o y o u r g o d s , t o o , a r e p l a y t h i n g s , h i g h e r

p o w e r s i n t h e t e m p e s t u o u s g a m e o f l i f e . A l l

y o u r m y t h o l o g i e s w e r e t a l e s o f a d v e n t u r e -

f o r y o u r v e r y g o d s a r e n o t s e r i o u s . And most

f a s c i n a t i n g a r e t h e t a l e s o f t h o se g o d s w h i c h

y o u f a s h i o n e d w he n y o u r f i r s t b r i l l i a n t b l o s -

s o m i n g i n G r e e c e s t a r t e d o u t o f y o u r t u r b u -

l e n t soi l . W h o c o u l d c o n c e i v e t h e m y t h o l o g y

o f G r e e c e a s * a p r o d u c t o f t h e J e w i s h p e o p l e ?

T h a t g r a c e , t h a t s u n n y c h a r m , t h a t a d v e n t u r -

ousness, that quarrelsomeness-could gods

69



You Gentiles

l i k e t h e s e e v e r h a v e s p r u n g f r o m u s ? T h e

e m p t i n e s s o f l i f e a n d s p a c e a n d t i m e b r o u g h t

f o r t h o u t o f y o u r f r e e a n d b o u n d i n g i m a g i n a -

t i o n a h o s t o f b e i n g s , w h i c h y o u i m a g e d w i t h

i n f i n i t e l o v e l i n e s s i n s t o n e . One god for

h e a v e n a n d o n e f o r t h e b o w e l s o f e a r t h a n d

o n e f o r t h e s e a , a n d g o d s f o r m u s i c a n d t r a g -

e d y , g o d s f o r c o m m e r c e a n d f o r v o y a g i n g - -

was no t this a charming game, a game of

c h i l d r e n ? Can any one say t h a t t h i s w a s a

serious and desperate attempt to become,

i n c o n c e p t , o n e w i t h t h e u n i v e r s a l s p i r i t o f

l i f e ?

C o m p a r e w i t h t h i s o u r o w n f i r s t g r o p i n g s ,

o u r o w n f i r s t c l u m s y e x p r e s s i o n o f t h e u n i v e r -

s a l s p i r i t w h i c h s o u g h t u t t e r a n c e i n u s . Eve n

a s a n a b s o l u t e t r i b a l r u l e r o u r G o d w a s O n e ,

w a s m a s t e r , a s e r i o u s G o d . A n d o u t o f t h a t

G o d - u n i t y w h i c h w e f e l t e v e n i n o u r p r i m i -

t i v e l i m i t a t i o n s , g r e w a t l a s t t h a t c o n c e p t

w h i c h t o u c h e d w i t h u n d y i n g e c s t a s y t h e l i p s

o f o u r p r o p h e t s a n d c a s t o v e r t h e l i f e o f t h e

e n t i r e p e o p l e , f o r a l l t i m e , t h e s h a d o w o f

o m n i p r e s e n c e a n d o m n i p o t e n c e . Even when

70



G o d s

o u r G o d w a s a j e a l o u s G o d , h i s j e a l o u s y w a s

a b s o l u t e : he would brook no homage but to

h i m , n o a c k n o w l e d g m e n t b u t o f h i m . B u t t h e

j e a l o u s i e s o f y o u r g o d s w e r e o n l y t h e j e a l o u s -

i e s o f s p o r t . T h e y d i d n o t s e e k u n i v e r s a l

m a s t e r y a n d e x c l u s i v e n e s s - o n l y s u p e r i o r i t y .

To be p r i m u s i n t e r p a r e s w a s t h e a m b i t i o n o f

y o u r g o d s , w i t h m a s t e r y e a c h i n h i s o w n d o -

main : b u t o u r G o d s o u g h t u n i v e r s a l d o m i n i o n

in o ur hearts-such dominion as made all

o t h e r h o m a g e i n c o n c e i v a b l e .

Y o u r g o d s g a v e y o u l o v e l i n e s s a n d j o y a n d

b a t t l e . Y o u l i k e d y o u r g o d s a n d s e r v e d t h e m

w i t h a l t e r n a t i n g l o y a l t i e s : you pitted one

a g a i n s t t h e o t h e r , a p p e a l e d f r o m o n e t o t h e

o t h e r , p l o t t e d w i t h o n e a g a i n s t t h e o t h e r .

Y o u r g o d s w e r e k i n g s a n d p r i n c e l i n g s , m i g h t -

i e r t h a n y o u a n d m o r e s p l e n d i d . But no god

o f y o u r s w a s t h e K i n g o f K i n g s i n y o u r s o u l .

Y o u r g o d s h a v e n e v e r g r o w n u p , n o r a n y s i n -

gle one among them . Nor have you gro wn

i n t o y o u r g o d , b u t h a v e a l w a y s r e m a i n e d e x -

t e r n a l , p r o u d a n d w a r l i k e a n d f r e e , p a y i n g

homage a s o f o l d , b u t r e t a i n i n g t h e m a s t e r y

7 1




o v e r y o u r s e l v e s . You do not know of a God

w h o i s A L L , a God in whom you are, a God

w h o h a s r e d u c e d y o u t o t h e d u s t , t o t h e i n f i n -

i t e s i m a l , i n w h o m y o u a r e a b r e a k i n g f o a m -

a b u b b l e o n a n i n f i n i t e s e a it breaks : a n d

i t w a s b o r n a n d i s g o n e , f o r e v e r a n d e v e r .

And so, despite occasional exceptions,

w h i c h I a c k n o w l e d g e f r e e l y , t h e de d i c a t i o n o f

a l l l i f e , a l l b e i n g , t o G o d ' s w i l l a n d w a y , i s

a l i e n t o y o u . Y o u a r e n o t n a t u r a l l y s t e e p e d

in God . Y o u s a l u t e h i m a n d b r i n g h i m h o m -

age . Y o u r r e l a t i o n s w i t h y o u r g o d s a r e o c c a -

s i o n a l , e v e n i f i n e v i t a b l e : but you cannot

c o m p a r e t h a t w i t h t h e i m m a n e n c e a n d i n t i -

m a c y o f G o d - h e a d i n J e w i s h l i f e . God is a

c o m m o n - p l a c e e x p e r i e n c e i n J e w i s h l i f e . He

i s t h e t a c i t c o n t i n u o u s m i r a c l e o f a l l o u r d a y s

a n d n i g h t s , t h o u g h t s a n d e x p e r i e n c e .

W e c a n n o t c o n c e i v e o f a d u a l i t y - r e l i g i o n

a n d l i f e , t h e s a c r e d a n d t h e s e c u l a r . A J e w i s a

J e w i n e v e r y t h i n g , n o t m e r e l y i n p r a y e r s a n d

i n s y n a g o g u e . I n t h e e y e s o f a p i e t i s t , a Je w

w h o d o e s n o t f o l l o w t h e r u l e s a n d r e g u l a t i o n s

o f t h e s y n a g o g u e , w h o e v e n d e n i e s a l l d o g m a

72



Gods

i s n o t a n o n - J e w : h e i s a b a d J e w , a s i n f u l a n d

r e b e l l i o u s J e w .

I n t h e o r t h o d o x w o r l d o f J e w r y , e v e r y a c t

a n d i n c i d e n t i s a n a c k n o w l e d g e d J e w i s h p h e -

nomenon : a c k n o w l e d g e d , t h a t i s , o p e n l y , b y

p r a y e r . The whole day is saturated with

God, or with J ewishness . Our Jewishness

i s n o t a c r e e d - i t i s o u r s e l f , o u r t o t a l i t y .

I n d e e d , i t m a y b e f a i r l y s a i d t h a t t h e s u r -

e s t e v i d e n c e o f y o u r l a c k o f s e r i o u s n e s s i n

r e l i g i o n i s t h e f a c t t h a t y o u r r e l i g i o n s a r e n o t

n a t i o n a l , t h a t y o u a r e n o t c o m p r o m i s e d a n d

d e d i c a t e d , en masse, t o t h e f a i t h . F or what

v a l u e h a s G o d f o r y o u i f y o u d o n o t s u r r e n d e r

t o h i m , e v e n f o r m a l l y , a l l y o u r g i f t s a n d f a c u l -

t i e s , a l l y o u r s k i l l a n d e m o t i o n ? T h i s i s a n

a m a z i n g d u a l i t y o f a l l e g i a n c e : o n e i s a n E n g -

lishman first-and then a Christian! An

A m e r i c a n f i r s t , a n d t h e n a B a p t i s t ! Y o u r

m o s t g e n e r o u s l o y a l t i e s , y o u r r e a d ie s t s a c r i -

f i c e s , a r e i n s p i r e d b y y o u r n a t i o n a l i s m . Your

f a c u l t i e s a r e n a t i o n a l : y o u c l a i m , " T h i s i s

t y p i c a l l y A m e r i c a n , " " T h i s i s t y p i c a l l y B r i t -

i s h , " " T h i s i s t y p i c a l l y F r e n c h . " You cut

73





Gods

o r d w h i c h h a s c o m e t o m y a t t e n t i o n . For we

m u s t d i s t i n g u i s h b e t w e e n a p a t r o n o r t u t e l a r y

g o d a n d a n a t i o n a l g o d . T h e f i r s t i s a n e s p e -

c i a l l y a s s i g n e d p o w er . T h e s e c o n d i s t h e c o m -

p l e t e r e f l e x o f t h e p e o p l e , a g o d w h o i s b o r n

with the people, who is its r a i s o n d ' e t r e ,

w i t h o u t w h o m t h e p e o p l e w o u l d n o t h a v e c o m e

i n t o n a t i o n a l e x i s t e n c e . You have had patron

o r a p p r o p r i a t e d g o d s : w e h a v e a n a t i o n a l G o d .

I n t h e h e a r t o f a n y p i o u s J e w , G o d i s a J e w .

I s y o u r G o d a n E n g l i s h m a n o r a n A m e r i c a n ?

T h e r e i s n o r e a l c o n t r a d i c t i o n b e t w e e n t h i s

confes sed anthropomorphism and my claim

t h a t w e J e w s a l o n e u n d e r s t a n d a n d f e e l t h e

u n i v e r s a l i t y o f G o d . In anthropomorphism

w e m e r e l y s y m b o l i z e G o d : w e r e d u c e t h e i n f i -

n i t e , t e m p o r a r i l y , t o t a n g i b l e p r o p o r t i o n s : w e

m a k e i t a c c e s s i b l e t o d a i l y r e f e r e n c e . For

n e i t h e r w e n o r y o u c a n c a r r y o n t h e b u s i n e s s

o f o r d in a r y l i v i n g o n t h e p l a n e o f c o n s t a n t a b -

s t r a c t i o n . I t i s n o t b e c a u s e o f y o u r a n t h r o -

p o m o r p h i s m t h a t I a c c u s e y o u r r e l i g i o u s f e e l -

i n g s o f b e i n g t r i v i a l . I t i s b e c a u s e o f t h e

m a n n e r o f y o u r a n t h r o p o m o r p h i s m , i t i s b e -

75




cause of what your anthropomorphism pro-

d u c e s .

A n d t h u s , b y n a t u r a l r e a c t i o n , w e i n o u r

anthropomorphism are a l l t h e m o r e p e r s o n a l

b e c a u s e i n o u r a b s t r a c t i o n w e a r e t r u l y a b -

s t r a c t . B e c a u s e w e a l o n e a r e d e d i c a t e d t o

the infinite, our God, when anthropomor-

phized, is our own God . I might say that

t h e r e i s n o J e w w h o d o e s n o t b e l i e v e i n G o d .

T h e f r e e - t h i n k i n g J e w s , t he a g n o s t i c o r a t h e -

i s t i c J e w l i k e m y s e l f , s i m p l y d o e s n o t a n t h r o -

pomorphize hi m. I n h i s r e l i g i o u s e m o t i o n s

t h e a t h e i s t J e w i s a s d i f f e r e n t f r o m t h e a t h e i s t

g e n t i l e a s t h e c o n f e s s i n g J e w f r o m t h e c o n -

f e s si n g g e n t i l e - C h r i st i a n .

F o r i f g o d s a r e t h e r a t i o n a l i z e d e x p l a n a -

t i o n o f r e l i g i o u s e m o t i o n s t h e y d i f f e r i n a c -

c e p t a n c e a n d d e n i a l e v e n a s t h e s e e m o t i o n s

d i f f e r . A n d o f c o u r s e b y " r e l i g i o u s " e m o t i o n s

we only mean one aspect of all emotions .

Your emotions, your life-reactions diff er

f u n d a m e n t a l l y f r o m o u r s - w h y , I c a n n o t t e l l .

B u t a s i n m o r a l i t y y o u a r e f r e e r , s p o r t i n g a n d

76



Godsv a r i e g a t e d , s o y o u r g o d s a r e m a n y , v a r i e d a n d

manly . And our gloomy and merciless mono-

t h e i s m , i n t o l e r a n t i n a b s t r a c t i o n a n d i n p e r -

sonification, is the eternal enemy of your

gods .

7 7



I v

U t o p i a

THE dreams of men concerning the latter

d a y s a r e a c o m m o n i n d e x t o t h e i r i d e a l s o f

l i f e , f o r n o o n e w i l l t h i n k o f t h e f u t u re e x c e p t

a s h i s o w n . T h e s e d r e a m s , l i k e t h e i r c l o s e

k i n , t h e n i g h t d r e a m , a r e e x t r a o r d in a r i l y d i f f i -

c u l t o f i n t e r p r e t a t i o n - m u c h m o r e d i f f i c u l t

than the psychoanalyst would have us be-

l i e v e . B u t o n o c c a s i o n s t h e y a r e p r e s e n t e d

w i t h u n m i s t a k a b l e c l a r i t y a n d d i r e c t n e s s - b y

t h e p r o p h e t s .

T h e f u n c t i o n s o f t h e p r o p h e t a s a s e e r a n d

a f o r e s e e r h a v e b e e n c o n f o u n d e d f o r t h i s r e a -

s o n . T h e t r u e p r o p h e t s e e s i n t o t h e u l t i m a t e

longings of his group-longings which may

e v e n r u n c o u n t e r t o t h e d ay ' s d e s i r e s . These

u l t i m a t e l o n g i n g s a r e s h i f t e d i n t o t h e f a r f u -

t u r e - b e y o n d t h e r e a c h o f t e m p o r a l c o m p l i -

c a t i o n s a n d c o m p r o m i s e s : a n d h e t h a t u n v e i l s

78



Uto pia

a m a n ' s i n m o s t l o n g i n g s w i n s c r e d e n c e a s h a v -

i n g f o r e s e e n t h e t r u e f i n a l i t y o f l i f e .

I have chosen Plato's Republic and our

o w n H e b r e w p r o p h e t s a s t h e b a s i s o f c o n t r a s t

b e t w e e n y o u r d r e a m s o f t h e l a t t e r d a y s a n d

o u r s , b e t w e e n y o u r l o n g i n g s f o r p e r f e c t i o n

a n d o u r s . I h a v e c h o s e n P l a t o b e c a u s e o f a l l

t h e s e e r s w h o h a v e s p r u n g u p i n y o u r m i d s t

h e i s t h e m o s t u n i v e r s a l l y a c c e p t e d , a n d o f a l l

U t o p i a s y o u r t h i n k e r s r e f e r t o h i s m o s t f r e -

q u e n t l y : t h a t i s t o s a y , h e c o m e s n e a r e s t t o

y o u r d e s i r e s . H e n c e i n d i s c u s s i n g h i m , I a m

d i s c u s s i n g y o u .

I h a v e u s e d t h e p h r a s e " o f a l l t h e s e e r s w h o

h a v e s p r u n g u p i n y o u r m i d s t " b e c a u s e i t i s

true that you stil l mention the Hebrew

p r o p h e t s m o r e f r e q u e n t l y t h a n P l a t o . B u t it is

o f s i n g u l a r a n d f i n a l s i g n i f i c a n c e t h a t a s s oo n

a s y o u d e v e l o p f r e e i n t e l l i g e n c e a n d d e s i r e

e x p r e s s i o n f o r i t , y o u t u r n f r o m o u r p r o p h e t s

t o y o u r o w n . T h e o v e r w h e l m i n g b u l k o f y o u r

i n t e l l i g e n t d i s c u s s i o n o f l i f e a n d t h e e n d o f

l i f e c e n t e r s r o u n d t h e f r e e p h i l o s o p h e r s o r

s e e r s - a n d a m o n g t h e s e y o u h a v e m a d e P l a t o

79



You G e n t i l e s

p r e e m i n e n t . P l a t o ' s a n a l y s i s o f t h e i d e a l

l i f e s t i l l a p p r o a c h e s y o u r d r e a m s m o s t i n t i -

mately .

I n v e s t i g a t i n g t h e t r u e n a t u r e o f m o r a l i t y ,

P l a t o b o d i e s f o r t h h i s i d ea l o f a p e r f e c t s t a t e ,

a n d , w i t h t h e l i c e n s e o f a d r e a m g i v i n g f r e e

r e i g n t o h i s i m a g i n a t i o n , u n f o l d s s t e p b y s t e p

his famous Republic . N o c o n s i d e r a t i o n s o f

p r a c t i c a l i t y o r o f f e a s i b i l i t y w e r e t h e r e t o

c h e c k t h e c a r e e r o f h i s f a n t a s y . The Repub-

l i c i s t o h i m l i f e a s i t s h o u l d b e a n d a s h e

w o u l d l i k e t o s e e i t : t h e a p o t h e o s i s o f h u m a n

a s p i r a t i o n .

C o n t r a s t t h i s w i t h t he v i s i o n s o f h i s a l m o s t

c o n t e m p o r a r i e s , t h e J e w i s h p r o p h e t s , a n d i n

t h i s c o n t r a s t y o u w i l l f i n d a g a i n t h e k e y t o

o u r e s s e n t i a l d i f f e r e n c e .

The Republic of Plato is an institu-

t i o n , o r g a n i z e d w i t h i n f i n i t e i n g e n u i t y a n d

d e d i c a t e d t o t h e d e l i g h t s o f t h e b o d y a n d

the mind . I t d r a w s i t s i n s p i r a t i o n f r o m t h e

pure j o i d e v i v r e o f t h e i d e a l m a n o f p e r f e c t

p h y s i c a l a n d p s y c h i c h e a l t h . You would seek

i n v a i n t h a t e x t r a n e o u s c o m p u l s i o n o f a G o d

80



Utopia

w h i c h t h e H e b r e w s c a l l e d i n s p i r a t i o n . There

i s n o s o m b e r p a s s i o n d r i v i n g t o c r e a t i o n , n o

i n t o l e r a n t d e m a n d s i m p o s s i b l e o f f u l f i l m e n t .

I t i s n o t G o d c r e a t i n g m a n i n h i s m o l d : i t

i s m a n c r e a t i n g G o d , o r t h e g o d s , i n h i s mold :

g o d s t h a t a r e c o m p a n i o n a b l e a n d c o m p r e h e n -

s i b l e .

H e s e t s b e f o r e y o u a p r e t t y , i n t r i g u i n g l i t -

t l e m o d e l ( " a c i t y n o t t o o b i g t o l o s e t h e c h a r =

a c t e r i s t i c s o f a c i t y " ) w h i c h , s u n d e r e d f r o m

u n i v e r s a l h u m a n i t y , u n t o u c h e d b y t h e u n i v e r -

s a l h u n g e r , r e s t r i c t s S u p r e m e G o o d t o t h e

p o s s e s s i o n o f a c o m f o r t a b l y s e c l u d e d g r o u p .

It is a city for the prosecution of the

h a p p y a n d a r t i s t i c l i f e ; the harmonies and

s y m m e t r i e s s h a l l b e c a r e f u l l y g u a r d e d , t h e

s a t i s f a c t i o n o f b o d y a n d o f m i n d w i s e l y a n d

c l e v e r l y p u r s u e d . N a y , i n t h a t s u p r e m e h u -

m a n p r o d u c t t h e r e s h a l l e v e n b e - a s t o u n d i n g

t r i v i a l i t y - a c e n s o r !

There is a wealth of ingenuity devoted

t o t h e s e q u e s t i o n s : How shall children be

i n i t i a t e d i n t o t h e a r t o f w a r ? How shall

cowards and heroes be treated? What about

8 1




t h e p l u n d e r i n g o f t h e s l a i n , a n d t h e p e r p e t u a -

t i o n o f d e e d s o f b a t t l e i n m o n u m e n t s ? "Now,

i s i t n o t o f t h e g r e a t e s t m o m e n t t h a t t h e w o r k

o f w a r s h a l l b e w e l l d o n e ? O r i s i t s o e a s y

t h a t a n y o n e c a n s u c c e e d i n i t a n d b e a t t h e

s a m e t i m e a h u s b a n d m a n o r a s h o e m a k e r o r a

l a b o r e r o r a n y o t h e r t r a d e w h a t e ve r , a l t h o u g h

t h e r e i s n o o n e i n t h e w o r l d w h o c o u l d b e -

c o m e a g o o d d r a u g h t p l a y e r o r d i c e p l a y e r b y

m e r e l y t a k i n g u p t h e g a m e a t u n o c c u p i e d m o -

m e n t s , i n s t e a d o f p u r s u i n g i t a s h i s s p e c i a l

s t u d y f r o m c h i l d h o o d ? A n d w i l l i t b e e n o u g h

f o r a m a n m e r e l y t o h a n d l e a s h i e l d o r a n y

o t h e r o f t h e a r m s a n d i m p l e m e n t s o f w a r , t o

b e s t r a i g h t w a y c o m p e t e n t t o p l a y h i s p a r t

w e l l t h a t v e r y d a y i n a n e n g a g e m e n t o f h e a v y

t r o o p s o r i n a n y o t h e r m i l i t a r y s e r v i c e ? . . . "

" I s i t n o t o f t h e g r e a t e s t m o m e n t t h a t t h e

work of war should be well done? . . . "

T h i s i n a v i s i o n o f h u m a n p e r f e c t i o n - f o r i t

n e v e r o c c u r s t o P l a t o t h a t p e r f e c t i o n i n h u -

m a n i t y p r e c l u d e s t h e p o s s i b i l i t y o f w a r .

A n d t r e a t i n g o f G o d , h e s a y s : " S u r e l y G o d

i s good i n r e a l i t y , a n d i s t o b e s o r e p r e s e n t e d , "

8 2



- U t o p i a

b u t w h a t c a n w e m a k e o f h i s u l t i m a t e g o o d ?

Is not hi s good merely "a good thing" -as

r i g h t i s f o r y o u " t h e r i g h t t h i n g " ? A n d w h a t

c a n w e m a k e o f h i s G o d w h e n , a f t e r t a l k i n g

o f t h e g o o d n e s s a n d d i g n i t y o f G o d , h e g o e s

o n t o t a l k o f t h e g o d s , a n d o f h o w t h e p o e t s

a r e t o b e a r r a i g n e d f o r n o t t r e a t i n g t h e m r e -

s p e c t f u l l y i n t h a t t h e y m a k e t h e m l a u g h o r

p o r t r a y t h e m i n u n d i g n i f i e d o c c u p a t i o n s a n d

p o s t u r e s !

W e l l d o e s h e s a y : " T h e i n q u i r y w e a r e u n -

d e r t a k i n g i s n o t r i v i a l o n e , b u t d e m a n d s a

k e e n s i g h t . " He does not say that it de-

m a n d s t h e a i d o f G o d , o r a l o v i n g h e a r t , o r

h u n g e r a f t e r r i g h t e o u s n e s s . But the very

q u e s t i o n o f G o d i s a t r i v i a l o n e , f o r , a s o n e

s a y s i n t h i s b o o k : " I t i s u r g e d n e i t h e r e v a s i o n

nor viol ence can succeed with the go ds .

W e l l , b u t i f t h e y e i t h e r d o n o t e x i s t , o r d o n o t

c o n c e r n t h e m s e l v e s w i t h t h e a f f a i r s o f m e n ,

why nee d we c o n c e r n o u r s e l v e s t o e v a d e t h e i r

o b s e r v a t i o n ? "

T h i s g r a c e f u l s k e p t i c i s m , w h i c h s t r i k e s t h e

o p e n i n g n o t e o f t h e b o o k , s e t s t h e t o n e f o r th e

83




e n t i r e t h e m e . "What is justice?" What in-

d e e d ? D o e s a n y m a n t h a t l o v e s t r u e j u s t i c e

( n o t t h e g a m e .~ , e v e r a s k t h i s q u e s t i o n ? C a n

a n y o n e t r u l y ° b e l i e v e t h a t t h e s u b t l e s t a n d

s k i l f u l e s t a n a l y s i s o f j u s t i c e w i l l h e l p o n e j o t

i n c r e a t i n g l o v e o f j u s t i c e , d e s i r e f o r j u s t i c e ?

A v i s i o n o f t h e p e r f e c t i o n o f m a n k i n d a n d

c h i l d r e n b e i n g t r a i n e d f o r w a r ! C o n t r a s t i t

w i t h t h i s : " I n t h a t d a y th e r e s h a l l b e a h i g h -

w a y o u t o f E g y p t t o A s s y r i a , a n d t h e A s s y r -

i a n s h a l l c o m e i n t o E g y p t , a n d t h e E g y p t i a n

i n t o A s s y r i a , a n d t h e E g y p t i a n s s h a l l s e r v e

w i t h t h e A s s y r i a n s . I n t h a t d a y s h a l l I s r a e l

b e t h e t h i r d w i t h E g y p t a n d w i t h A s s y r i a ,

even a blessing in the midst of the land .

W h o m t h e L o r d o f h o s t s s h a l l b l e s s , s a y i n g :

B l e s s e d b e E g y p t m y p e o p l e a n d A s s y r i a t h e

w o r k o f m y h a n d s a n d I s r a e l m i n e i n h e r i t -

a n c e ." Or with the better known passage :

" A n d i t s h a l l c o m e t o p a s s i n t h e l a s t d a y s

t h a t t h e m o u n t a i n o f t h e L o r d ' s h o u s e s h a l l

b e e s t a b l i s h e d o n t h e t o p o f t h e m o u n t a i n s ,

a n d s h a l l b e e x a l t e d a b o v e t h e h i l l s , a n d a l l

84



U t o p i a

n a t i o n s s h a l l f l o w i n t o i t . And many people s

s h a l l c o m e a n d s a y : C o m e , l e t u s g o u p t o

t h e m o u n t a i n s o f t h e L o r d , t o t h e h o u s e o f t h e

G o d o f J a c o b , a n d h e w i l l t e a c h u s o f h i s

w a y s a n d w e w i l l w a l k i n h i s p a t h s . . . . An d

h e s h a l l j u d g e t h e n a t i o n s a n d s h a l l r e b u k e

many peoples, and they shall b eat thei r

s w o r d s i n t o p l o u g h s h a r e s , a n d t h e i r s p e a r s i n t o

p r u n i n g h o o k s : n a t i o n s h a l l n o t l i f t u p s w o r d

a g a i n s t n a t i o n , n e i t h e r s h a l l t h e y l e a r n a n y

more war . "

A v i s i o n o f t h e p e r f e c t i o n o f m a n k i n d , w i t h

censors and with carefully groomed gods!-

t h e l i m i t o f h i s i m a g i n a t i o n . But this!-

" A n d t h e e a r t h s h a l l b e f i l l e d w i t h t h e k n o w l -

edge of God as the waters cover the sea . "

A n d t h i s ! - - - " A n d i t s h a l l c o m e t o p a s s a f t e r -

w a r d t h a t I w i l l p o u r o u t m y s p i r i t u p o n a l l

f l e s h , a n d y o u r s o n s a n d y o u r d a u g h t e r s s h a l l

prophesy : y o u r o l d m e n s h a l l d r e a m d r e a m s .

Y o u r y o u n g m e n s h a l l s e e v i s i o n s . And also

upon the servants and upon the handmaids

i n t h o s e d a y s w i l l I p o u r o u t m y s p i r i t . "

85




A n d b e c a u s e h i s w o r l d i s n o t G o d ' s w o r l d ,

b u t t h e w o r l d o f h i s s e l f - c r e a t e d g o d s , h e

m u s t s i t d o w n a n d a r g u e a n x i o u s l y , " W h a t i s

j u s t i c e ? " B u t h e t h a t r e a l l y l o v e s j u s t i c e

a s k s n o q u e s t i o n s : h e c r i e s i n s t e a d : "Seek

g o o d a n d n o t e v i l , t h a t y e m a y l i v e : a n d s o

t h e L o r d , t h e G o d o f H o s t s , s h a l l b e w i t h

y o u , a s y e h a v e s p o k e n . H a t e e v i l a n d l o v e

the goo d, and establi sh ju dgment in the

g a t e ." And : " L e t j u d g m e n t r u n d o w n a s w a -

t e r s a n d r i g h t e o u s n e s s a s a m i g h t y s t r e a m . "

A n d w h e n , b a f f l e d b y t h e i n a d e q u a c y o f h i s

human standards, your philosopher refers

j u s t i c e t o t h e " c a t e g o r i c i m p e r a t i v e , " h e b e -

t r a y s t h e t r i v i a l i t y o f y o u r w o r l d . What i s

t h a t " c a t e g o r i c i m p e r a t i v e , " t h a t h e l p l e s s

compromise and confession ? What man rec-

o g n i z e s i t , w i l l b o w t o i t ? That phrase

i t s e l f i s i t s o w n d e n i a l , f o r h e t h a t r e f e r s m a n -

k i n d t o a " c a t e g o r i c i m p e r a t i v e " i s h i m s e l f

n e i t h e r c a t e g o r i c n o r i m p e r a t i v e . But even

t h e d e a f w i l l . he ar and tremble when t he

Prophet thunders : "Thus saith the Lord . "

There i s t h e c a t e g o r i c i m p e r a t i v e !

8 6



U t o p i a

F o r m e , c o n s c i o u s o f b e i n g J e w i s h a n d o f

t h e m e a n i n g o f b e i n g J e w i s h , it i s i m p o s s i b l e

t o w r i t e o f t h i s c o n t r a s t w i t h o u t b i a s , a s i f

t h i s b o o k w e r e m e r e l y a n i n t e l l e c t u a l e x e r -

c i s e . B e c a u s e I a m J e w i s h I l o o k w i t h u l t i -

m a t e a v e r s i o n o n t h e w o r l d w h i c h f i n d s s u

p r e m e a n d i d e a l e x p r e s s i o n i n P l a t o ' s R e p u b -

l i c . A n d t h o u g h I m a y r e p e a t t h a t t h i s i s n o ,

q u e s t i o n o f r i g h t a n d w r o n g i n t h e s e t w o ,

w o r l d s , y o u r s an d o u r s , I c a n n o t b u t f e e l p r o -

f o u n d l y a n d v e h e m e n t l y t h a t o u r s i s t h e w a y

a n d t h e l i f e .

Y e t I w o u l d p a y w h a t t r i b u t e I c a n t o t h e

d r e a m s o f o n e l i k e P l a t o . I have at least

t o u c h e d y o u r w o r l d c l o s e l y e n o u g h t o h a v e

c a u g h t s o m e o f t h e b e a u t y o f i t s f r e e d o m .

T h e r e i s a J e w i s h l e g e n d w h i c h t e l l s t h a t

when God brought the Law, his Law, to the

c h i l d r e n o f I s r a e l a s s e m b l e d a t t h e f o o t o f

S i n a i , a f t e r h e h a d o f f e r e d i t t o a l l t h e o t h e r

p e o p l e s , o n l y t o h a v e i t r e j e c t e d , h e l e f t t h e m

n o c h o i c e , b u t s a i d : E i t h e r y o u t a k e m y L a w

o r I w i l l l i f t u p t h i s m o u n t a i n a n d c r u s h y o u

b e n e a t h i t . I a t t a c h n o p s y c h ol o g i c a l s i g n i f i -

87




c a n c e t o t h e f a b l e ( t h e p r a c t i c e o f i n t e r p r e t -

i n g f a b l e s p s y c h o l o g i c a l l y i s , a s a r u l e , a d i s -

h o n e s t o n e ) , b u t q u o t e i t a s a h a n d y i l l u s t r a -

t i o n . W e a r e n o t f r e e t o c h o o s e a n d t o r e -

j e c t , t o p l a y , t o c o n s t r u c t , t o r e fi n e . We are

a d e d i c a t e d a n d e n s l a v e d p e o p l e , p r e d e s t i n e d

t o a n u n c h a n g e a b l e r e l a t i o n s h i p . Freedom

a t l a r g e w a s n o t a n d i s n o t a J e w i s h i d e a l .

S e r v i c e , l o v e , c o n s e c r a t i o n , t h e s e a r e i d e a l s

with us . Freedom means nothing to us :

f r e e d o m t o d o w h a t ?

Yet in glimpses I understand the charm

o f y o u r l i f e a n d s o m e t i m e s l o s e m y s e l f i n t h e

f a s c i n a t i o n o f y o u r P l a t o ' s d r e a m . Such a

w o r l d a s h e f o r e s h a d o w s , a wo r l d o f s u n l i g h t ,

e x e r c i s e , s i n g i n g , f a n t a s y : a w o r l d o f g r a c e f u l

a n d e l a s t i c b o d i e s , o f k e e n , f l a s h i n g m i n d s , o f

c l a s h a n d e f f o r t , w a r s a n d h e r o e s a n d m o n u -

m e n t s , a l i f e w h e el i n g a n d d a s h i n g i n s p l e n d i d

f o r m a t i o n s , r e j o i c i n g u n d e r f r e e a n d l o v e l y

s k i e s : a life without brooding and gloom,

w i t h o u t t h e i n t o l e r a b l e b u r d e n o f t h i s u n r e -

laxing immanence . Man and man's ef fort,

man's love and agonies are ends in them-

88



Utopia

s e l v e s , t o b e e x p l o i t e d f o r t h e m s e l v e s : t h e

coming and goin g of men and nation s and

g o d s a r e w i th o u t u l t i m a t e s i g n i f i c a n c e , a d a n c e

o f a t o m s , a p a s s i n g e c s t a s y w i t h o u t t h o u g h t

o f t h e s i n i s t e r b e y o n d . Beautifu l-but not

f o r u s ! W h i l e t h i s d a n c e g o e s o n , w h i l e n a -

t i o n s a n d g o d s e n t e r t h e g a m e a n d l e a v e i t ,

w e c o n t i n u e t h r o u g h a l l t i m e , a n a p p a r i t i o n

a l m o s t , a d r e a d r e m i n d e r o f i n f i n i t y .

Y o u r d r e a m s o f p e r f e c t i o n a r e o n l y o f a

p i e c e w i t h y o u r p r e s e n t l i f e - t h e t r a n s i e n t b e -

come permanen t : t h e s k i e s w i l l b e b l u e f o r -

e v e r , y o u r d a n c e w i l l n e v e r e n d . Y o u r b o d i e s

w i l l a l w a y s b e s t r o n g , y o u r w i t s k e e n , y o u r

b a t t l e s g l o r i o u s : t h e g a m e w i l l r e a c h i t s l i m i t

o f e n j o y m e n t !

B u t f o r u s t h i s i s n o t a n a p o t h e o s i s : t h i s i s

n o t a v i s i o n . F o r u s t h e e n d i s e c s t a t ic u n i t y ,

t h e i d e n t i f i c a t i o n o f m a n w i t h G o d . Y o u r

i d e a l i s e t e r n a l y o u t h , o u r s l i f t s t o w a r d a n

u n c h a n g i n g c l i m a x o f a d u l t p e r f e c t i o n . Y o u

w o u l d l i k e t o p l a y w i t h y o u r g o d s f o r e v e r :

w e w i l l r e t u r n t o G o d , t o t h e u n i v e r s e . Yours

i s a s u n l i t a f t e r n o o n , w i t h t h e c o m b a t a n t s

89




s w a y i n g f o r e v e r i n a j o y o u s s t r u g g l e . Ours

is a whole world, with the spirit of God

p o u r e d t h r o u g h a l l t h i n g s .

Y o u r i d e a l i s P l a t o ' s R e p u b l i c : o u r s i s

God's kingdom .

90



Loyalty

that criminality is so closely allied to anti-

Semitism.

In the attitude of the public toward liter-

ary and stage censorship I find the clearest

illustration of this distinction between the

breaking of law and the denial of law. Aplay which is "indecent" may be so for one

of two reasons . Either it deals with sex within

the frame of morality or it denies the validity

of this morality . In the first case (which

covers most successful plays) we have no at-

tack on current notions of what is right and

wrong in the sexual relationship . We have,

indeed, complete acceptances of the current

principles of sex morality. But with this ac-

ceptance en principe goes a generous denial

in practice ; plays of this kind cover countless

breaches of morality with a knowing wink, a

tolerant appeal to human weakness . It is lu-

dicrous to deny that the desire to tickle and

provoke the sexual appetite, and covertly to

encourage its promiscuous satisfaction, gov-

erns these plays ; but it is not made a principle

at all. It is the breaking of the law, not the

93



You Gentiles

denial of it . Hence such plays (except when

they become too obvious in their purpose and

thus become an overt attack en masse) are

tolerated by the censorship and encouraged

by the public .

But the play which has little sex appeal

yet seriously denies the validity of accepted

sex morality is dealt with promptly and se-

verely, and among those who condemn it

most vigorously will be found those who fre-

quent assiduously the first type of play . I

see nothing incongruous in this-nothing

illogical even . For the first type of play is

perhaps the safety valve to human nature :

it remits us our unavoidable allowance of

licence, without which morality would be-

come an insufferable imposition. But thesecond type of play breaks up morality com-

pletely. To the system of law the amoralist

is more dangerous than the criminal . The

naked chorus-girl is less dangerous than the

naked truth . Such a danger-a danger not

merely of malpractice, but of essential denial

-is the Jew in your morality . And against

94



Loyalty

the Jew there is a Union Sacree of all classes

and conditions of men, the prince, the la-

borer, the professor, the saint, the thief, the

prostitute, the soldier, the merchant. There

does not seem to be a single country with a

history which has not been anti-Semitic at

one time or another . There is no country to-

day of which the Jew can say, "In this coun-

try anti-Semitism will never become trium-

phant." Your dislike of us finds uneven and

unequal expression, is lulled into rest for a

time, at times is overborne by generous im-

pulses, but it is a quality inherent in the na-

ture of things, nor is it conceivable to me

that, as long as there are Jews and gentiles, it

should ever disappear .

For your system of morality is no less a

need to you than ours to us . And the incom-

patibility of the two systems is not passive .

You might say: "Well, let us exist side by

side and tolerate each other . We will not at-

tack your morality, nor you ours ." But the

misfortune is that the two are not merely

different. They are opposed in mortal,

95



You Gentiles

though tacit, enmity. No man can accept

both, or, accepting either, do otherwise than

despise the other .

No single attribute or virtue shows our mu-

tual enmity more clearly than that of loyalty,

which, among all the attributes contributing

to your morality, is perhaps the most dearly

cherished, the most vehemently advocated .

It is impossible for me, in writing of it, to

take up a purely analytic attitude ; but I be-

lieve that the preferences and aversions which

I here express will at least serve to make clear

the irreconcilable difference between Jewish

and gentile morality .

The abstraction, loyalty, is not related to

good and bad. Loyalty is preached naked,

as a virtue for itself . It is proper and right

to be loyal. To do a thing out of loyalty--

loyalty to a man, to a group, to an idea-is in

itself a sort of justification . To develop a

loyalty is in itself commendable .

To the Jew, naked loyalty is an incompre-

hensible, a bewildering thing . That men

should be called upon to keep a quantity of

96



Loyalty

this virtue on constant tap, to be applied on

instruction to this or that relationship, is not

merely irrational to us : it is beyond the ap-

prehension of our intelligence .

We can understand love born of a natural

relationship . But the quality of love differs

essentially from the quality of loyalty. Loy-

alty is demanded as an independent quality,

as a thing in itself ; it is cultivated (love

cannot be "cultivated") ; it is stimulated and

forced . It is not demanded, essentially, that

you love : it is demanded that you be loyal .

Very often, indeed, loyalty is demanded

where a demand for love would be too obvi-

ously ludicrous . For the application of loy-

alty is to you as seemly in the case of an

association of shoe salesmen as in the case of

country itself .

It is expected, in your world, that a man

should be loyal to his country, to his province,

to his city, to his section of the, city, to his

college, to his club, to his business associa-

tions, to his fraternity, to every chance group

into which events may bring him . In the first

97



You Gentiles

instance, country, the distinction between

love and loyalty is startlingly clear . Love of

country is a profound spiritual quality : it may

go hand in hand with a dangerous and exalted

morality . But loyalty merely says: "Mycountry must triumph in all her undertak-

ings, whether they be right or wrong"-or,

rather, "There is no such thing as `my coun-

try wrong . ' " And in loyalty to king, class,

or church, the same distinction or substitution

is observed . Loyalty is a rigid code of be-

havior-not an emotion .

But the real nature of loyalty is only seen

in its application to those relationships which

are much more fortuitous than those of coun-

try, church, class . In these loyalty is clearly

revealed as a fictitious and artificial regula-

tion, with no roots in moral conviction. Let

us take the case of a young man who is faced

with a choice of college . He may have pref-

erences, but there is no compelling associa-

tion which identifies him with any one insti-

tution . The choice is decided finally by some

quite irrelevant influence : he goes to any one

98



Loyalty

college as he might have gone to any other .

But once he is there loyalty demands that he

regard this college as the best in the country

-perhaps in no particular, for particulars are

occasionally too tangible-but at large ; the

best, the finest, the noblest . Of this college-

he must think, and above all speak, with en-

thusiasm, passion and devotion ; he must de-

fend its name against all aspersions, without

investigating their foundations : if he even

stops to consider the plausibility of these as-

persions before denouncing them, the quality

of his loyalty is already second-rate . Thescholastic reputation of his college may be

less than mediocre ; its staff may not number

a single scholar of note ; its alumni may be ,

an indistinguishable mob of obscure failures :

worst of all, its football and baseball teams

may be the laughing-stock of the locality .

But his college is the best and noblest in the

country and the world : the astonishing fea-

ture of all this being that not only his school-

mates expect him to say and seem to believe '

so, but that everybody outside the college ; -

99



You Gentiles

convinced of its worthlessness, also expects

this of him and considers him rather a cad

if he acquiesces in what to them may be ob-

viously true .

This obligation of loyalty must pursue the

man to the end of his life . Forty years after

he has left his college he will be regarded with

suspicion as something less than a gentleman

if he should have discovered that his Alma

Mater was and is an extremely inferior and

uninteresting institution : "It may be all that,

you know, but a man's got to be loyal to his

college . "

What is true of college loyalty is true of

other loyalties. A man who joins the army

and is assigned to any regiment must have

loyalty for his regimentwhich means that

he must seem to lose the faculty of discrim-

ination and criticism as soon as the regiment

he was accidentally assigned to is under con-

sideration. Should he in later life become a

member of a fraternity, of a business associa-

tion, of a poker-club, he must be loyal. He

must be loyal even at large, without an organ- .

100



Loyalty

ization to be loyal to. He must be loyal to

the paper-manufacturing trade, to the clean-

ers and dyers, to the transport business . And

if he goes down into a factory to earn, by the

sweat of his brow and under bitter duress, a

bare livelihood, he must at once be loyal to

his employers .

But the application of loyalty is sometimes

pushed to extremes which are nothing short

of grotesque . One finds in surface cars no-

tices like these : "Be loyal to the Bronx, to

Bensonhurst, to Wapping, to Pendleton, to

Charlottenburg, to the Ring, to the Marshal-

kowska, to Montmartre . . . . " Sometimes I

have wondered: "If you live in the Bronx and

are loyal to your neighborhood grocer, how

long are you supposed to yearn for him after

you have moved to Brooklyn: and how soon

may you with seemliness develop a loyalty

for your neighborhood grocer in Brooklyn?

Or are you supposed to leap into your loyal-

ties at once as into a bath-tub and be im-

mersed in them without a moment's loss?

And similarly, how if you attend two or three

101



You Gentiles

colleges in succession, or are attached to a

number of regiments in succession? Orchange your business, or your fraternity or

your poker-club?"

It is clear to me that the very quality of

loyalty and its place in your life again be-

speaks the sport origin of your morality. The.success of a football team depends not only

,on the physical aptitude and fitness of its

members, but also on their spirit, their esprit

de corps. There must be atmosphere for.sporting effect : it is as important as physique

and must be cultivated as assiduously, as

carefully, as skilfully, as artificially. Which-ever team you join, your loyalty is essential to

its success and your loyalty must be in-

stantaneous and unconditional, neither cur-

tailed by delay nor mitigated by reflection .

Your loyalty has nothing to do with ultimate

moral values. It is part of the game-and

life is to you a game, on the football field, in

the college, in the factory, on the battlefield.

"The Game" alone can make loyalty a trans-

portable quality of this kind. "The Game"102



Loyalty

alone can give birth to the concept of loyalty .

In our life, the Jewish life, loyalty is un

known. There is no equivalent for it among

our attributes . We understand love, which is

serious, profound : which must be treated,

therefore, with due dignity . But we do not

understand loyalty, which is trivial, gallant,

gamesome, conventionalized .

As students, we Jews are accused of lacking

the right attitude toward the college . It is .

perfectly true that we have not the "loyal"

attitude-as you have it, or, despite occa-

sional efforts, to the degree in which you

have it. We are apt to see the college as an

institute of learning : we go there to study

under competent teachers . What has loyalty

to do with this organization? We may de-

velop love for the place : it may, in later

years, become a beloved memory, or it may

not But we cannot attach an immediate

combative value to our connection with the

college-an instantaneous regimental pride

we cannot attach a moral value to the pre-

scribed set of sporting emotions and thrills

103



You Gentiles

which are supposed to be a proper part of

college life . We are unquestionably an alien

spirit in your colleges . For your colleges are

the most coherent mouthpieces of your moral-

ity : and that morality is not ours . Your col-

lege is a miniature world in which you first

develop the sporting instincts which must ac-

company you through the real world. We(with our proper exceptions) see the college

only as a center of study, and, incidentally,

occasionally of valued friendships . The idea

of a rivalry with other colleges, in which each

student must defend his own college, seems

to us childlike . It i s not to the purpose at

all. It is not serious .

But I have touched on the college only as

a - single illustration of the predominance of

the virtue of loyalty in your concept of the

proper human relationship . All your society

is divided into "teams"-with a fictitious

morality to correspond . It has little to do

with direct utilitarianism . One might object,

saying : "This morality, like any other, is

merely the adjunct of the economic or biologic

104



Loyalty

struggle . What we call `morality' is merely

the assistant illusion in the struggle for exist-

ence. And in this regard gentile and Jew are

alike . " But this is an irrelevant truth .

There was a time when, among you gentiles,

one man would courteously challenge another

to mortal combat : without real motive, with-

out enmity, without passion . So it was : when

no excuse for combat was available you

dropped even the pretense of an excuse. Donot answer that this was a passing phase : for

I say that when men actually kill each other

for mere sport it betokens a profound, an al-

most eternal instinct . That instinct to-day

finds expression in equally moralless rela-

tions, equally passionless associations and en-

mities . You arrange your life in such wise as

to get the maximum of sport out of it. And,

for the purpose of sport, it does not matter to

which team you belong : England or America,

Harvard or Yale, the Black Watch or the

Old Guard, the Neighborhood Association of

Wigan or the Rotarians of Los Angeles, the

Goodrich Rubber Factory or the Sunlight

105



You Gentiles

Soap Garden City, the Alpha Sigma Mu or

the '95 Club, the Progressive Republicans or

the Decorators' Association, the United Cigar-

makers or the Fascisti . There's good fun in

all this ; it is exciting, jolly, sporty. It puts

rush and gaiety into life . But we Jews are

no good at it . Just as we are inaccessible to

the meaningless exhilaration of college loy-

alty, so we are bewildered by the fast and

furious games of your general life . We Jews

cannot play the game

Perhaps you will answer that it is you who,

taking the chance relationships of life as the

all-in-all of existence, are really serious : that

it argues seriousness in a man if he gives to

every passing association all faculties, all his

emotion. Such an argument would be a quib-

ble . A woman may take an absorbing interest

in dress-to the exclusion of everything

else : one could hardly call her serious . Seri-

ous absorption in trivialties is not seriousness .

Then you may answer me : "But all life is a

triviality"-which would reveal clearly the

difference between your outlook and ours .

106



VI

Discipline

ONE of the best illustrations wherewith to

contrast your adaptability to discipline and

our lack of it is to be found in the difference

between your behavior in church and our be-

havior i n our own unmodernized synagogue-

the orthodox synagogue .

. In church all is order and decorum, rhythm

and regime . In the synagogue all is chaos .

In the church leaders and responses are care-

fully prepared, carefully followed and ob-

served . It is clean and neat, charming and

exact . You behave well. You do as you

are told-in mass . You create esprit de

corps in the church : there is a suggestive,

hypnotizing decency in the trained correct-

ness of your service . In the synagogue all

is disorder ; we talk during service ; we an-

swer out of turn ; and when we answer in

mass one begins earlier, another ends later ;

107



You Gentiles

it is Babel itself; people walk in and out ;

some take longer than others to get through

a certain prayer-and the ones who read

more rapidly chat in the interval ; part of

the congregation is standing, part sitting

some wear prayer shawls, others do not : and

the prayer shawls are not all alike ; some-

times there is so much babbling that the voice

of the cantor or leader cannot be heard . One

of you at our services would be amazed : our

own young generation, which has picked up

your ways, is disgusted : and the last couple

of generations has seen Reform synagogues

conducted on your models .

Taking this illustration (as one fairly may)

of model discipline and lack of it, we may

say, as is often said : "You gentiles are dis-

ciplined ; we Jews are not ." And it is not in

church and synagogue alone that we find this

contrast . It persists, equally clear cut, in all

branches of organized life . Compare any

gentile institution with an uncorrupted corre-

sponding institution in Jewish life and you

will observe it . . At your secular public as-

108



Discipline

semblies the same decency and unified re-

straint ; at ours, the same scrambling irregu-

larity. Jewish meetings never begin on time,

never end on time . In your clubs and socie-

ties--order and harmony ; in ours, noise, dis-

order and wastage . Your programs are ob-

served with fair strictness ; our programs are

merely points de depart. Inyour homes calm

and even systematization ; in ours boisterous

affections, formlessness .

And despite much effort we cannot intro-

duce your rhythmic exercise of discipline into

our life-and retain our individuality . Wecan imitate you-excellently : produce a sub-

stitute as good as the original . But the insti-

tution then no longer has Jewish spirit : i t i s

a gentile institution artificially maintained by

Jews-like our Reform Temples-and in

these the Jew gradually learns to present a

gentile exterior . But wherever we are un-

restrainedly Jewish we shock you by our un-

couthness. We lack social grace-the dis-

ciplined and distinguished social grace of

high society, as well as the mean and spirit-

109



You Gentiles

less punctiliousness of your middle classes . ,

In the colleges, in the street, in the surface

cars, in the clubs, in the army, we betray our-

selves. Indeed, your very breaches of disci-

pline differ from ours by a certain conscious

rebelliousness which is partly homage : our

breaches of discipline are off-hand, uncon-

scious, insolent .

And carrying this still further, we Jews, the

most clannish of peoples, are helplessly dis-

organized-we have never achieved compara-

tive unity, not even in a single territory-

much less throughout the world . All our or-

ganizations are small, but never too small to

be unwieldy because of dissension and, worse

than dissension, because of unamenability to

regular discipline . To those who have

known the comparative evenness of your or-

ganizations, political, religious, social, com-

mercial, we are an unsightly people : and

every effort to impose this sense of form on

us only accentuates our formlessness .

This distinction between us again points to

the root difference between us-your trivial-

110



Discipline

ity and our seriousness . The fact is , of

course, that in true discipline, in effectiveness,

we are by no means your inferiors . No one

would dream of asserting that our religion is

not more effective than yours in compelling

obedience, or in perpetuating itself . The

mere fact that we have persisted for eighty

generations in maintaining a racial and spirit-

ual identity in the face of so much persecu-

tion (and, more significant, of so much in-

filtration of blood) bespeaks essential disci-

pline of amazing rigor and power . Disorgan-

ized as we are, we have outlived the most

ably organized nations . We have failed to

imitate the Roman legion or the Order of

Jesus : we have survived the first and shall no

doubt outlive the second . We have not your

skill, your German, or English, o r American

skill in wheeling perfectly vast masses of

perfectly subordinated men . Yet I have no

doubt that when Germany and England and

America will long have lost their present iden-

tity or name or purpose, we shall still be

strong in ours .

111



You Gentiles

For true discipline should always be seen

in relation to a purpose . Your discipline is

goose-step discipline : it is the hypnotic dis-

cipline of imposing rhythms, possible only in

the absence of the individual discipline .

There is hypnotic charm in your discipline-

but it is not effective ; as soon as the organiza-

tion crumbles, the individuals are . l o s t. Wehave never been the victims of organiza-

tion .

Your organization-discipline, moreover, is

a necessary part of your sport life . Games

cannot be conducted without discipline : dis-

cipline is the essence of a game : when two

perfectly disciplined beings are opposed, the

game is at its best. And the same feeling

runs through all your manifestations of life :

the game of nationalisms, the game of society,

the game of commercial success .

The most startling and compelling monu-

ments of your gentile genius are not individ-

ual productions-but the productions of mass .

Most of the wonders of the ancient world

were wonders springing out of great organ

112



Discipline

ized rhythmic effort and your chief wonders

to-day, those which dominate your general

life, are like these . Great buildings ; great

countries ; great ships ; great wars ; the pyra-

mids, the Olympic, the Colossus of Rhodes,

the Hanging Gardens, the Eiffel Tower and

the Woolworth building, the Red Cross, the

Catholic church, Babylon, New York, the

Daily Mail-these are the distinctive tri-

umphs of your civilizations, the final appeal .

And individual ingenuity is subordinated to

the production .of your mass effects, your dis-

cipline-monsters . What single individuals

can alone effect plays a very minor role in

your way of life . Mass and rhythm and team

work-the game: this is your ideal .

It is not ours : and we are impressed only

superficially and transiently by these produc-

tions . The individual is our climax, as the

mass is yours . A hundred thousand men la-

bored for twenty years to build the great

pyramid: one man wrote the book of Isaiah .

You will answer : `One man also wrote 'Ham-

let' and the `Critique of Pure Reason' and the

113



You Gentiles

"Republic ."' But I ask : Are Plato and Shake-

speare and Kant in your life what the Bible,

the Talmud, the rabbis are in ours? To our

very masses, the Jewish masses, the wonders

of the world are Moses, Elijah, the Rambam,

the Vilna Gaon, the Dubna Maggid, the chas-

sid in the neighboring village . These actually

dominate our life, as governments, mass radio

exploits, armies and Woolworths dominate

yours . We are the people of the Book. But

we were the people of the Book before a mil-

lion copies could be printed in a single day .

This intractability of ours to your disci-

plines is one of our chief and (to you) most

unpleasant characteristics . It is best notice-

able in our new arrivals in Western countries,

those who, in Eastern ghettos, have lived a

more nearly Jewish life : it is much less notice-

able in our modernized types-though here

still noticeable ; for, despite our clever imita-

tiveness, we do retain our natural character

and cannot hide it consistently, but betray

ourselves at intervals . In the colleges, in the

army (least here, except during the great war,

114



Discipline

for in peace-time only the Westernized Jews

join the army), in business associations, we

irritate and disgust you by our obdurate

seeming singularity . We don't fit in prop-

erly. We don't keep a straight line on the

social or public parade ; we don't cheer in

unison ; we don't bow with the waving of the

wand. We don't play the game .

This is comprehensibly irritating in the

highest degree, and in your irritation you

have ascribed these infractions to our savag-

ery. You have said we are not fit for civiliza-

tion . We have not the ability to subordinate

the individual to the community : or, if we

have the ability, we have not the desire, not

having the ethical impulse . With us, you

have said, it is every man for himself. Weare too impudent, individually ; we cannot be-

have as gentlemen should-unobtrusively,

submissive to the code, tacit, unassertive,

regular .

This is what you mean, saying we are un-

disciplined .

But the fact is that we consciously despise

115



You Gentiles

the code itself . It is not that we recognize its

validity and refuse to submit to it out of in-

dividual and selfish reasons : it is rather that

the whole game disgusts us-and your seri-

ousness in it, most of all . It is to us a ludi-

crous, and not an impressive thing, to see ten

thousand grown-up men, a large proportion

of them actually fathers, marching in step up

and down a street or across a field . This blar-

ing of the trumpets, this beating of the drums,

this Left-Right-Left-Right, this rhythmic,

snappy form-fours, this intoxication of united

mass movement, which sends you gentiles

frantic with excitement is a laughable exhibi-

tion to us . "Foolish gentiles l" we say con-

temptuously. To us ten thousand fools are

not more impressive than a single fool.

Where you see the flash of swinging ranks,

a mighty lifting and falling, power, magnifi-

cence, we see only ten thousand serious-faced

men engaged in astonishing antics, with as-

tonishing skill .

The drill of your regiments, the drill of

your colleges, of your social usages, your

116



Discipline

clubs, all impress us alike with their triviality .

We do not understand it .

Perhaps you will reply that this contempt

is merely rationalization . We despise disci-

pline because we lack it and secretly we aspire

to acquire it . But in fact it is the most se-

verely disciplined Jew who most heartily de-

spises your disciplines . It is the modernized

Jew, who has thrown off the discipline of or-

thodox Judaism, who comes nearest your

spirit . It is the orthodox Jew, the most Jew-

ish Jew, who least understands you .

And it is this orthodox Jew, this ghetto

Jew, whose apparent individualism deprives

his mass l i f e of all form and discipline, it is

this orthodox Jew who seems, of all Jews, to

be least accessible to your orderliness, it is

this orthodox Jew who nevertheless submits

to an amazing discipline unknown to most of

you. I have said that the obstinate mainte-

nance of our identity and our religion through

eighty generations of oppression bespeaks a

rigorous and effective discipline . But what

that discipline is in practice you do not real-

117



You Gentiles

Ize. The orthodox Jew submits to an unre-

laxing regime which you gentiles would find

intolerable . It governs him in all his actions,

from birth to death ; it controls and directs,

with an iron hand, his daily occupations : it

pervades, with obsessive immanence, every

moment of his time, every movement, every

function . The orthodox Jew begins the day,

with long prayer, closes it with long prayer : '

he cannot take a glass of water without a

prayer, he cannot satisfy his physical needs

without a prayer . He stops for long inter-

vals, afternoon and evening, to pray . The

discipline extends to his relations with his

wife ; it imposes on him the obligation of

study ; it binds him to daily and hourly use

of a language-Hebrew-artificially main-

tained ; it intersperses his years with numer-

ous fasts and feasts, each with its enormous

burden of ritual and tradition . All this over

and above the fierce discipline of the world's

enmity and contempt, the discipline of mere

existence in an alien and unfriendly atmos-

phere .

118



Discipline

Much of this religious ritual covers even-

tualities which you would regard as secular ;

dietetic laws, sanitary laws, sex laws, social

laws : for a l l life is religion to the Jew, and

all life, proceeding from God, must be gov-

erned by him. But when the ritual is re-

duced to what even you would call the re-

ligious, it still presents a bulk of tyranny to

which you would never submit, a discipline

which you are incapable of suffering : a dis-

cipline which demands incessant vigilance,

lest a prayer be omitted, a discipline the de-

tails of which it takes years to acquire and

into which one must be trained from child-

hood.

And what is most relevant in this connec-

tion is that this discipline is a corporate dis-

cipline-it is directed to a common purpose

outside of the individual, to the perpetuation

of a people through its religion . In our re-

ligious ideology the selfish salvation of the

individual soul is a very minor theme . It is, I

believe, an acquired- dogma, and its irrele-

vance is proved by its unimportance . Our

119



You Gentiles

prayers,are largely common prayers ; we pay

little attention to the after life-and even

our dreams of an after-life are associated with

the Jewish people as a whole . As individuals

we sometimes pray for personal benefits-but

so infrequently that we could omit these

prayers without changing the bulk of our rit-

ual ; most of our prayers are prayers of glori-

fication : they link the people as a whole to

God. They re-dedicate the people as a whole

to God's service ; they praise God for the bur-

dens he has placed upon us-and, with pas-

sionate iteration, they thank him for having

made us different from you .

It does not need a Jewish scholar-it needs

only an intelligent Jew who has lived in an

orthodox or semi-orthodox environment-to

appreciate that all this tyranny of discipline

was bent to one end-to our preservation as

a distinct and separate people . We feel that

we are not merely different from you at

points : it is a totality of difference and of

separation . We have carried out with us into

120



Discipline

exile the complete atmosphere of our national

l i f e : our holy festivals are largely national,

and even in those which are predominantly

religious there is the continuous, minor theme

of our separate nationalism . One holiday

celebrates the liberation of the Jewish people

from Egypt, another the deliverance of the

people from the Asiatic-Greek oppressor, an-

other the confusion of a national enemy, still

others celebrate the time of the Palestinian

harvest (the irony and tragedy of itl) with

appropriate prayers and ceremonies : and even

in our "pure" religious festivals the memory

of our national institutions, our Temple, our

hereditary priesthood, maintains an unbroken

background of suggestion .

And with these recurrent climaxes in our

religious life dominated by the national con-

sciousness, the general tenor of all our re-

ligion repeats this theme from day to day .

The discipline of our religion, of our Jewish-

ness, is a corporate discipline, the subjection

of the individual to the mass . I repeat this

121



You Gentiles

to remind you that, contrary to your accusa-

tion, the intractability of the Jew to your

forms of discipline does not spring from in-

dividualism or from lack of a social con-

science . We are disciplined more bitterly

than you, and we bear the discipline without

the assistance of narcotic rhythms : we bear

our burden like civilized adults .

Nor do I see any contradiction between this

fierce insistence on separate national exist-

ence and our dedication to a universal ideal .

We believe and feel that for such an ideal we

alone, as a people, possess the especial apti-

tude. The orthodox Jew bases it on divine

will and choice : others, like myself, know not

on what to base it (a special racial psychol-

ogy, the result of inbreeding, the result of

accident)-but believe it none the less. Weshall not further that ideal by losing our iden-

t i t y ; to mingle with you and be lost in you

would mean to destroy the aptitude, for ever .

Thus universal ideal and national identity are

inextricably bound up. To the maintenance

of this high union we have given, consciously,

122



Discipline

seriously, without kings and courts, without

medals and reviews and Orders, without

cheering and without drills, a bitter and ob-

stinate devotion more exacting than anything

you have known and, in its deliberate effects,

more successful .

123



VII

The Reckoning

I HAVE spoken of Jews and gentiles-in

mass. Certain of you will assuredly object :

"You cannot deal with masses as with men .

`,You cannot indict a nation."'

The objection is futile-not only has it

been the universal practice to indict and to

punish masses as if they had personality and

to treat nations as such : but you are doing it

to-day, everywhere . And I believe that fun-

damentally, the practice is just, despite the

objections of the few whom I shall answer

here . Particularly consonant is the practice

with your gentile philosophy . Here is your

nation : X. It is composed of militarists and

pacifists and mobs . The government is mili-

taristic-whether it represent a minority or

a majority . And the militaristic government

124



The Reckoning

engages the whole country in its acts : is re-

sponsible for a war, for oppression . Howshall we treat that nation? Single out the

militarists and pacifists? Go into the work-

ings of it, separate out the constituent ele-

ments? You cannot. Every member of that

country is a member of the team, must take

the good with the bad, must pay the debts

contracted by the government . It cannot be

a nation otherwise .

This from your point of view . And from

the point of view of the workings of justice

it happens to be no less defensible . Whenthe whole of a nation reaps reward or pun-

ishment, a rough general justice is executed,.

If it is only the will of a minority which has

brought on catastrophe, and the majority

must pay, then it pays for having suffered

the will of the minority . Had the German

masses foreseen defeat and its consequences,

Germany would never have gone to war, mil-

itarist minority or none. The masses which

obeyed their masters, readily or sullenly, must

pay for the obedience which gave their mas-

125



You Gentiles

ters strength . . . . And the same is true of

every other nation which is guilty .

All extenuation is irrelevant . How shall the

majority learn that it must not acquiesce in-

dolently in the will of the minority? Shall it

not suffer the consequences of its indolence?,

A slow, almost impossible process . But as-

suredly a just one . For the impotent or cor-

rupt acquiescence of the majority made the

minority effective .

But if, on the other hand, a nation suffers

for the will of its majority, and the minority

suffers with the majority, then very clearly

effective justice is being wrought, and just as

clearly is the payment supposed to alter the

will of the nation .

As long as there are nations and groups

these laws must hold . And as soon as these

laws collapse nations and groups will cease

to be .

It is not meaningless to say, "This nation

is parsimonious, this nation is treacherous, this

nation is cruel ." It is irrelevant to answer,

"You must judge by the individual, not by

126



The Reckoning

the nation." When we say, "Scotchmen are

parsimonious," we simply mean that out of a

thousand Scotchmen a larger number are par-

simonious than out of a thousand Englishmen .

A Scotchman whom I do not know has there-

fore more probability of being parsimonious

than an Englishman whom I do not know If

therefore I have to choose for generosity be-

tween two men, an Englishman and a Scotch-

man, both of whom I do not know, I would

choose the Englishman . I stand a better

chance of being in the right . Naturally the

entire assumption may be wrong, and that is

another matter, but it is ludicrous to deny that

tendencies or characteristics in nations exist .

Only the shallow demagogue insists that a

thousand Englishmen, a thousand Frenchmen,

a thousand Germans, a thousand Jews, picked

up at random (or ten thousand or a hundred

thousand) would react similarly to the same

stimulus. Assuredly if I have the opportunity

to check up on the individual I will do it . But

if I must take him on trust I shall sensibly

assume him to possess his race characteristics .

127



You Gentiles

As for you gentiles and us Jews, we have

both acted on the assumption that the mass

must be treated by a general law . The in-

stinct of the gentile is to distrust the Jew, of

the Jew to distrust the gentile. We only make

exceptions . There is nothing inconsistent in

the anti-Semite who says : "Some of my best

friends are Jews . "

I say, therefore, that in the conflict between

us you have fought us physically, while our

attack on your world has been in the spiritual

f i e l d . It is the nature of the gentile to fight

for his honor, in the nature of the Jew to

suffer for his . Whether because we are so

inclined by first nature, or whether because

we have so become through lack of land and

government and army-this is true : you revel

in force, we despise it, even where we can and

do exert it .

And so, since we have lived among you, you

have instinctively appealed to brute force in

combating our influence . When the reckoning

is drawn up your guilt cries to heaven : what-

ever have been your relations to each other,

128



The Reckoning

we Jews have at least been the common de-

nominator of your brutality. Compared with

each other, you are gentlemen, warriors, de-

mocracies : set side by side with us, you are

bullies and cowards and mobs. In vain do

your quiescent majorities wash their hands ;

their quiescence is their effective guilt-I care

not that your minorities struck the blow : I

should not acquit the majority if I could give

judgment and impose punishment.

That you are unable to meet us on the

spiritual level is made evident by the follow-

ing : We are a disturbing influence in your

life not through our own fault . First: we

are not in your midst by our own will, but

through your action ; and second (which is

more to the point) : we do not attack you

deliberately. We are unwelcome to you be-

cause we are what we are . It is our own

positive way of life which clashes with yours .

Our attack on you is only incidental to the

expression of our way of life . You too have

this field open to you . As surely as we are

a spiritual discomfort to you, you are a spirit-

129



You Gentiles

ual discomfort to us : as surely as we attack

you peacefully, so you waste us peacefully

and weaken our numbers. But you do more

than this : you bring the attack down to the

physical plane, where we are defenseless .

You do with us as your animal whims dictate ;

you rob us, you slay us, you drive us from

land to land, and while one of you drives us

forth the other shuts the gate in our faces .

From the first day of our contact, since the

first of our communities in exile, you have

made us the sport of your brutality . There

is at least one clear note in gentile world-

history, one consistent theme : the note of our

agony-the theme of your cruelty .

Even from your point of view you have

been guilty . On our side at least the fighting

has been clean ; we have not misrepresented

you. On your side the fighting has been dirty .

From the dawn of civilization you have lied

about us; you have accused us of murder-

ing children that we might use their blood

for ritual purposes ; you have accused us of

130



The Reckoning

poisoning wells ; you have accused us of pre-

cipitating wars (you l and war is the breath

of your nostrils 1) and you accuse us to-day

of fomenting a world-wide conspiracy to seize

the government of the world. Do not answer

us that a minority does this. Does it matter

to us that a minority of America preaches in

the Klan virtual disfranchisement of the Jew,

that a minority in Germany preaches death

to the Jew, that a minority in Poland slew

hundreds of us? I ask an accounting of you

as you ask it of one another : as the allies ask

it from Germany, as Germany asked it from

France-from you as a whole. For thisminority which spreads these lies there is a

complacent majority which tolerates or ac-

cepts them. And it is because, in your oppo-

sition to our way of life, you stoop to such

lies that your masses respond with physical

force. I care not how ignorant a Jew is : you

will not get him to believe of one of you such

foul untruths as millions of you believe of

us; yet we have more cogent reason for hat-

131



You Gentiles

ing you. And as I hold you all responsible

for these lies, so I hold you all responsible for

the cruelties in which they issue .

And I know that soon enough these crimson

sluices will be opened again, and we shall

bleed from a thousand wounds as we have

bled before . In the Ukraine, or in Russia,

in Poland or in Germany-and who knows

when the same will not come to pass in Eng-

land, in America, in France? What guaran-

tee have we beyond the guarantee of public

opinion? And from a public opinion which

tolerates the slaughter of hundreds of negroes,

how far to the public opinion which will con-

done the slaughter of Jews? Let a spark but

carry far enough, down into the recesses of

your animal natures . How you gloated

among the Allies over stories of Germans

blown to pieces, cut to pieces ; and in the

Central Powers over stories of Englishmen,

Frenchmen done to death . Your comic jour-

nals made merry over them . (A good joke

from Life : An Englishman, shaking his head,

says, "Molly, I don't think this 'ere bayonet'll

132



The Reckoning

go through more'n two Germans at a time . " ) '

Your women applauded them, your children

screamed for blood: democracy vied in bes-

tiality with aristocracy and royalty. Howshall we trust you?

If we are willing to forget the past, is not

your past your present? Is not the blood

libel alive to-day? And its companion viper,

"the Elders of Zion"? Will poison work

forever in the blood and never break out?

Did not hundreds of thousands of English-

men, Frenchmen, Germans, Americans, read

these legends without protesting, without

seeking to punish the libelers? Do we not

know how easily your morality fits your

mood? "Kill the Jews, the Christ-killers,"

does indeed ring strange these days. Butdoes "a damn good dose of lead for the Jew-

ish Bolsheviks" sound very remote?

And if, arguing from the individual to the

mass, your Klans and your Awakening Mag-

yars, your Chestertons and your Daudets

shall call us Jews sharks and swindlers, shall

we not answer with better warrant, by the

133



You Gentiles

millions of our murdered, by the Inquisition

and the Crusades, by the smoking ruins of

the Ukraine and the swinging body of Leo

Frank : Dastards, murderers, and thievesl

134



VIII

But as Moderns

"LET us have done with recollections and

recriminations," you say. "You have spoken

hitherto of conditions which are vanishing :

of orthodox Jews mostly, of old customs and

emotions which are dying out . You yourself

are not an orthodox Jew ; nor are we medieval

Christians. We see the Jew gradually mod-

ernizing. He becomes more like us-more

difficult to recognize as a Jew . Granting

there are occasional relapses, we are still mov-

ing toward real tolerance . The present age

is not like any age before it, and the modern

Jew is not like any Jew before him. You

have lasted two thousand years in exile

you will not last for ever . All those cere-

monials of yours are breaking down: your

discipline, your defensive mechanisms . At

least in America,_ England, France, Germany,

135



You Gentiles

Russia you are changing, becoming like us,

taking your share in all our activities, sports,

civic duties, achievements, arts . You have

spoken hitherto in the terms of a world which

is fitfully dissolving . You have ignored the

liberal Jews, the radical Jews, the modernized

Jews, the agnostic Jews, now becoming the

dominant element in Jewry, and approaching

us, mingling with us, solving the problem

without deliberate effort .

"Do not your own radicals renounce their

Jewish connections? Will not your modern-

ized Jews be the first to denounce the thesis

of this book?"

I have already said, anticipating this ob-

jection, that there is the same difference be-

tween the Jewish atheist and the gentile athe-

ist as between the orthodox Jew and the be-

lieving gentile : I have said or implied that the

religion itself is but practical expression of

the difference between us, not the cause of

i t . It is true that the expression of a view

serves to strengthen it, as the exercise of a

faculty serves to develop it . But expression

136



But as Moderns

does not create a view nor exercise a fac-

ulty. Even conscious adherence to the Jew-

ish people is but partial expression of our

Jewishness : it was not the conscious desire

to remain a people which gave us the will to

endure : it was our unavoidable commonalty

of feeling which made us and continued us a

people .

Repudiation of the Jewish religion or even

of Jewish racial affiliation does not alter the

Jew. Some of us Jews may delude ourselves

as some of you gentiles do. But in effect

modernization seems to have done nothing to

decrease the friction between us . The dislike

continues : and though your masses may not

know, why they dislike us, there must be a

sufficient reason : it is Germany, the mother

of the modernized Jew, that gave birth, with

him, to modern anti-Semitism . Where the

old ostensible reasons for disliking the Jew

collapsed, new ones, more self-conscious, were

substituted . When modernization removed

the old, superstitious form of expression, the

professor replaced the priest, science religion .

137



You Gentiles

We are disliked on "scientific" grounds, as

we were disliked on "religious . " But both

the "scientific" and the "religious" reasons

were rationalizations . The true reasons un-

derlay these analyses .

Nor can the revulsion of the war, with its

release of primitive instincts, be blamed for

this. German anti-Semitism antedates the

war. The Higher Anti-Semitism has nothing

to do with either conscious religion or locali-

zations, like patriotism . It is true modern

anti-Semitism . It is the old dislike of the

Jew transvaluated into modern terminology,

and it has been evoked by the appearance

of that new phenomenon, the Westernized

Jew .

For many Jews were fooled by appear-

ances. They took the word of the gentile lit-

erally . The gentile said : "We dislike you

because you are different from us in religion

and in usages ; you are separate ; you are old-

fashioned . " And the Jew, believing these

charges to mean what they say, abandonedhis customs and his usages : took to baptism ;

.138



But as Moderns

became, externally, similar to the gentile,

thinking thus to evade the issue . It failed .

For no sooner had he made this change in

himself than the gentile shifted ground, went

from the religious to the ethnic .

What happened in Germany is happening

elsewhere . As fast as the Jew modernizes,

so fast does dislike of him adapt itself to the

new situation and find a new excuse. Where

the Jew is disliked it is the modern Jew who

is disliked equally with the old-fashioned .

The Klan, the Consul, the Dearborn Inde-

pendent, the Dwa Grosse, the Action Fran-

caise no longer preach the modernization of

the Jew as a solution of the Jew problem .

No Jew, however modern, or radical, is ac-

ceptable to the anti-Semite. It is now a

racial question .

But you still have an answer . You say :

"These new forms of anti-Semitism are hang-

overs : we have had anti-Semitism with us

for a long time. It is hard to get rid of. The

effects linger long after the cause disappears .

But in time . . . "

139



You Gentiles

This I deny, for I am convinced that the

modernized Jew, as long as he retains the

quality of the Jewish people, that is, as long

as he inherits predominantly Jewish charac-

teristics, is as objectionable to you as the or-

thodox Jew was to your fathers-and for the

same basic reasons . The effort of the Jews

to enter your modern life, to become part of

it, has been essentially ineffective : by which

I mean that though hundreds of thousands

of us have taken on your garb, speak like

you, look like you, share your countries, in-

stitutions, games, do all we can to avoid fric-

tion, yet we fail to offer in cross section the

same significance as any cross section of hun-

dreds of thousands of you . Our ability to im-

itate extends only to inessentials, appearances,

surface desires and ambitions . We fail to be

gentiles .

The modernized Jew still stands apart from

the modern gentile world, and his effective

contribution to its life is as disastrously dif-

ferent as if he still put on the phylacteries

every morning. The old racial seriousness,

140



But as Moderns

somberness, still persists . In a hundred years

of modernity we, an able race, have given

little more than mediocrity to your way of

l i f e . Our best work has been the o l d , true

work of our people-fundamental and serious

examination of the problems of man's rela-

tion to God and humanity . In the arts we

have been second-rate, third-rate . While in

moral effort we have exceeded any living race

and have produced an overwhelming number

of revolutionaries and socialists and icono-

clasts of the true prophetic type, we have,

in science, belles-lettres and the plastic arts

been a thoroughly minor people . And even

if in these last fields we have done compara-

tively well for our numbers (which I doubt),

our preponderant contribution of fundamental

moral effort still makes modern Jewry a sec-

ularized replica of old religious Jewry .

The astonishing thing is that this took place

despite desperate conscious efforts on our part

to become like you . We joined your armies

and fought in them beyond our numbers : yet

Jewish pacifism and Jewish pacifists gave the

141



You Gentiles

tone to the world's pacifism . We have joined

your capitalistic world in deliberate emula-

tion and rivalry : yet Jewish socialism and

Jewish socialists are the banner bearers of

the world's "armies of liberation ." Three or

four million modernized Jews, a ludicrously

small number, have given to the world's icon-

oclastic force its chief impetus and by far

its largest individual contribution. America

and England put together, with their almost

two hundred millions, have not played that

role in world iconoclasm which a handful of

Jews have played . Had we produced as vig-

orously in art and science we should have

flooded the art galleries and the libraries .

But in these we have shown no special apti-

tude : we may have done as well for our num-

bers as England, as France or Germany--

though even this I doubt. But it cannot com-

pare with our role as moralists and prophets .

We modern Jews of the Western world are

in this fundamentally different from you .

The occasional in you (revolution against the

142

i



Butas Moderns

Game) is the dominant in us . Your instinct

is truer than you know . The dislike of your

modern world for the modern Jew is as rel-

evant as the dislike of your old world for the

orthodox Jew,

1 43



Ix

We, the Destroyers

IF anything, you must learn (and are learn-

ing) to dislike and fear the modern and "as-

similated" Jew more than you did the old

Jew, for he is more dangerous to you . At

least the old Jew kept apart from you, was

easily recognizable as an individual, as the

bearer of the dreaded Jewish world-idea : you

were afraid of him and loathed him . But

to a large extent he was insulated . But as

the Jew assimilates, acquires your languages,

cultivates a certain intimacy, penetrates into

your life, begins to handle your instruments,

you are aware that his nature, once confined

safely to his own life, now threatens yours .

You are aware of a new and more than dis-

concerting character at work in the world

you have built and are building up, a char-

144



We, the Destroyers

acter which crosses your intentions and

thwarts your personality .

The Jew, whose lack of contact with your

world had made him ineffective, becomes ef-

fective . The vial is uncorked, the genius is

out . His enmity to your way of life was tacit

before . To-day it is manifest and active .

He cannot help himself : he cannot be differ-

ent from himself : no more can you . It is

futile to tell him : "Hands off!" He is not

his own master, but the servant of his life-

w i l l .

For when he brings into your world his

passionately earnest, sinisterly earnest right-

eousness, absolute righteousness, and, speak-

ing in your languages and through your in-

stitutions, scatters distrust of yourselves

through the most sensitive of you, he is work-

ing against your spirit . You gentiles do not

seek or need or understand social justice as

an ultimate ideal . This is not your nature .

Your world must so be fashioned as to give

you the maximum of play, adventure, laugh-

ter, animal-lyricism . Your institutions frame

1 45



You Gentiles

themselves to this end : your countries and

ideals flourish most gloriously when they serve

this end most freely. All ideas of social jus-

tice must be subservient to this consideration :

the Game first-then ultimate justice only

as it can serve the Game .

I do not believe that we Jews are powerful

enough to threaten your way of life seriously.

We are only powerful enough to irritate, to

disturb your conscience, and to break here

and there the rhythmic rush of your ideas .

We irritate you as a sardonic and humorless

adult irritates young people by laughing at

their play. For the real irritation lies in the

fact that to our queries regarding your life

there is no answer on our level : as to yours

regarding our life there is no answer on yours .

We Jews are accused of being destroyers :

whatever you put up, we tear down. It is

true only in a relative sense . We are not

iconoclasts deliberately : we are not enemies

of your institutions simply because of the dis-

like between us . We are a homeless mass

seeking satisfaction for our constructive in-

146



We, the Destroyers

stincts . And in your institutions we cannot

find satisfaction ; they are the play institutions

of the splendid children of man-and not of

man himself. We try to adapt your institu-

tions to our needs, because while we live we

must have expression ; and trying to rebuild

them for our needs, we unbuild them for

yours .

Because your chief institution is the social

structure itself, it is in this that we are most

manifestly destroyers. We take part in the

economic struggle for existence : this necessity

we share with you . But our free spiritual

energies point away from this struggle, for,

unlike you, we have no pleasure in it. You

gentiles fight because you like to fight ; we

fight because we have to-and in order towin . It is not in a spirit of hypocrisy that

you have turned your business world into a

sporting arena, with joyous flourishes, slo-

gans, pretenses . It is not in a spirit of hypoc-

risy that you talk of playing the Game while

you cut each other's throats in the markets .

You mean it. Your advertising-propaganda

147



You Gentiles

books, with their sentimental appeals, are not

l i e s ; they are the true evidence of your spirit .

It is only when we Jews, too, use these meth-

ods that there is hypocrisy . For we see

s t a r k l y t h r o u g h y o u r l i f e - i l l u s i o n s : yet we are

forced to use them in self-defense . But our

inmost longings turn from this fierce and

clamorously happy struggle : while your in-

most longings are part of it . You give your

best to it, yourselves, your souls . We give

only our cleverness to it . This is why, in

spite of the popular delusion to the contrary,

there are hardly any Jews among the world's

wealthiest men . The greatest financial insti-

tutions, as well as the world's greatest busi-

nesses, are almost exclusively non-Jewish .

Dislike of the Jew in business springs from

the feeling that we regard all your play-con-

ventions with amusement-or even contempt .

Our abominable seriousness breaks jarringly

into your life-mood . But you feel our dis-

ruptive difference most keenly, most resent-

fully, in our deliberate efforts to change your

social system. We dream of a world of utter

148



We, the Destroyers

justice and God-spirit, a world which would

be barren for you, devoid of all nourishment,

bleak, unfriendly, unsympathetic . You do

not want such a world : you are unapt for it .

Seen in the dazzling lights of your desires

and needs our ideal is repellently morose .

We do wrong to thrust these ideals upon

you, who are not for justice or peace, but for

play-living . But we cannot help ourselves :

any more than you can help resenting our

interference . While we live we must give ut-

terance to our spirit. The most insistent ef-

fort on our part will fail to change our nature .

Not that you are untouched by poverty,

by human degradation : not that you do not

wish at times that these unhappy things could

be destroyed . But this is not in the direct

line of march of your life . If social injustice

were removed together with the Game, you

would unquestionably recall both . Life be-

fore everything, freedom, joy, adventure .

I talk here of the modern, and not of the

orthodox Jew I talk of the Jew as alien

as you to the forms of our orthodox and con-

149



You Gentiles

sciously Jewish life : this is the Jew who

forms the backbone both of audience and

contributor to your radical and revolutionary

organs, the Jew who is the precipitating cen-

ter of your spasmodic and inconsistent efforts

for justice . This man, in your midst, is not

to be recognized, on the surface, as a Jew .

He himself repudiates-and in all sincerity-

his Jewish affiliations . He is a citizen of the

world ; he is a son of humanity ; the progress

of all humankind, and not of any single group

of it, is in his particular care .

It is to this Jew that liberals among you

will point to refute my thesis . And it is pre-

cisely this Jew who best illustrates its truth .

The unbelieving and radical Jew is as differ-

ent from the radical gentile as the orthodox

Jew from the reactionary gentile. The cos-

mopolitanism of the radical Jew springs from

his feeling (shared by the orthodox Jew) that

there is no difference between gentile and

gentile . You are all pretty much alike : then

why this fussing and fretting and fighting?

The Jew is not a cosmopolitan in your sense .

ISO



We, the Destroyers

He is not one who feels keenly the difference

between national and nation, and overrides

i t . For him, as for the orthodox Jew, a sin-

gle temper runs through all of you, whatever

your national divisions . The radical Jew

(like the orthodox Jew) is a cosmopolitan in

a sense which must 'be irritating to you : for

he does not even understand why you make

such a fuss about that most obvious of facts

-that you are all alike. The Jew is alto-

gether too much of a cosmopolitan-even for

your internationalists .

Nor, in the handful of you who, against the

desires and instincts,of the mass of you, pro-

claim social justice as the life aim, is the Jew

any more truly at home, at one with his

milieu, than the old-time Jew in his world .

Our very radicalism is of a different temper .

Our spur is a natural instinct . We do not

have to uproot something in ourselves to be-

come "radicals," dreamers of social justice .

We are this by instinct : we do not see it as

something revolutionary at all . It is tacit

with us . But with you it is an effort and

151



You Gentiles

a wrench. Your very ancestry cries out

against it in your blood . . . . And you be-

come silly and enthusiastic about it, with

flag-waving, and shouting, and battle-hymns,

and all the regular game-psychology proper

to your world and way of life . Even of this

you make a play .

But such as these radical and international

movements are, the modern Jew (the best and

most thoughtful modern Jew, that is) is

nearer to them than to anything else in your

world . He is the only true socialist and cos-

mopolitan-but in such a true and tacit sense

that he is completely distinguished from all

of you . It is one of many vital paradoxes-

a thing illogical and yet true to life . It is

our very cosmopolitanism that gives us our

national character . Because we are the only

ones who are cosmopolitan by instinct rather

than by argument we remain forever our-

selves .

In everything we are destroyers-even in

the instruments of destruction to which we

turn for relief . The very socialism and inter-

152



We, the Destroyers

nationalism through which our choked spirit

seeks utterance, which seem to threaten your

way of life, are alien to our spirit's demands

and needs. Your socialists and international-

ists are not serious . The charm of these

movements, the attraction, such as it is, which

they exercise, is only in their struggle : i t i s

the fight which draws your gentile radicals .

And indeed, it is only as long as there is an

element of adventure in being a radical that

the radical movement retains any individual-

ity . And it is only in the fierce period of

early combat that you welcome us Jews-as

a l l i e s . You are deluded in this-so are we .

You go into the movement boldly, adventur-

ously ; we, darkly, tacitly . You make it a

game ; we do it because we cannot help our-

selves . And sure enough, in the end, the

split comes again . The liberal and the radi-

cal are as apt to dislike the Jew as the re-

actionaries are . The liberal and the radical

do not use the weapons of the reactionaries :

but the dislike is there, finds expression in

anti-Semitic socialist and workers' move-

153



You Gentiles

ments and in the almost involuntary con-

tempt which springs to the lips of countless

intellectuals .

Philosophies do not remold natures . What

your radicals want is another form of the

Game, with other rules . Their discontent

joins hands with Jewish discontent . But it

is not the same kind of discontent . A little

distance down the road the ways part for

ever . The Jewish radical will turn from your

social movement : he will discover his mis-

take . He will discover that nothing can

bridge the gulf between you and us . He will

discover that the spiritual satisfaction which

he thought he would find in social revolution

is not to be purchased from you . I believe

the movement has already started, the grad-

ual secession of the Jewish radicals, their re-

alization that your radicalism is of the same

essential stuff as your conservatism . The dis-

illusionment has set in .

A century of partial tolerance gave us Jews

access to your world . In that period the great

attempt was made, by advance guards of rec-

154



We, the Destroyers

onciliation, to bring our two worlds together .

It was a century of failure . Our Jewish rad-

icals are beginning to understand it dimly.

We Jews, we, the destroyers, will remain

the destroyers for ever . Nothing that you

will do will meet our needs and demands. Wewill for ever destroy because we need a world

of our own, a God-world, which it is not in

your nature to build. Beyond all temporary

alliances with this or that faction lies the

ultimate split in nature and destiny, the en-

mity between the Game and God. But those

of us who fail to understand that truth will

always be found in alliance with your rebel-

lious factions, until disillusionment comes .

The wretched fate which scattered us through

your midst has thrust this unwelcome role

upon us .

155



XThe Games of Science

ILLUSIONS change the instruments of their

expression-but they remain the same illu-

sions . Religions change their gods, but re-

main the same religions . The atheist gentile

has made Science his god, but it has not

changed his religion .

"In the scientific field," the atheist gentile

tells me, "we will find world unity . In sci-

ence there is no room for the subconscious,

and it is the subconscious which dictates the

eternal enmities . Place your relations on a

conscious basis, and you may have differences

to be adjusted-but not enmities .

"The solution of the Jewish-gentile prob-

lem, as of every instinct problem, lies in the

pursuit of Truth through science . All other

problems are not really problems, but purely

technical matters, to be settled by the appli-

156



The Games of Science

cation of mathematics . And as we learn to

make this distinction between instinct-prob-

lem and technical task, the greater is the dis-

credit into which the former falls, the clearer

is the attention which we bring to the latter .

The greatest contribution of science to human

advance has been the opening of paths to our

free intelligence, so that the unconscious and

subconscious mind, with its inheritance of the

beast, might fall into desuetude . The truth

alone will save us-and in science is truth . "

I do not wish to go into an examination

of the nature of truth ; I do not wish to ques-

tion the validity of scientific truths . I am

ready to admit that scientific truths are

truths in the accepted sense of this word . Or,

if there are mistakes, if this, or that scientific

theory is wrong, I will not argue that there-

fore the scientific method is wrong, or that

science itself does not go nearest to the truth .

My contention is that science, the examina-

tion of facts in literal terms, is quite irrelevant

to the spiritual problems of man . Science is

accurate, but its accuracy is pointless for

157



You Gentiles

spiritual purposes . The truths which are un-

veiled by the scientific method, and which it

is the special aptness of this method to un-

veil, do not matter'to anybody .

Science teaches us that the earth goes

around the sun, rather than the sun round

the earth. Does it really matter which is the

case? Science teaches us that the occasional

retrogression effect in the observed motion of

the planets is not due to "cycle in epicycle,

orb in orb," but to changes of perspective

produced along the plane of the ecliptic dur-

ing the revolutions of the planets round the

sun . Well, what of it? It has revealed the

fact that certain diseases are due to the ac-

tion of minute parasites ; that there is a mar-

velous structural parallel between man and

the beasts ; that forms of energy are inter-

changeable ; that the earth is extremely old ; '

that there were other forms of life on the

planet before us ; that we are merely a point

in space . All this is accurate : but is it of any,

importance?

I ignore, of course, the obvious advantages

158




which are supposed to accrue from the appli-

cation of these facts-"the conquest of na-

ture" as it is bombastically called : though

even these advantages are vitiated by our in-

ability to exploit them decently . It is not,

to these advantages that the scientist alludes',

when he talks of the spiritual value of science .

He means pure science: the perception of

these truths for their own sake or, more accu-

rately, for the sake of the change which they

produce in our attitude toward life, the uni-

verse, each other .

But science and revelation of scientific

truths have no effect on our attitude toward

life, the universe and each other. The mood

of the mind of man, the temper of his out-

look, his essential nature-this totality of

spiritual reaction-has nothing to do with the

additional number of facts which science re-

veals . It would not alter the effective mood

of civilized man if it happened that light were

revealed as the radiation of corpuscles rather

than as waves in the ether, whatever that may

mean. There may be eighty-eight elements,

159



You Gentiles

or eight hundred and eighty : the atom may

be a kind of solar system, or it may be a fig-

ure of speech : life may be the function of a

complicated molecular structure or it may be

an illusion : whichever should turn out to be

"true," we should remain the same : our only

concern is with the exploitation of these

things for physical advantages, and as far as

that is concerned it does not matter whether

we have the truth or have hit on a method

by conventional hypothesis . The Ptolemaic

system of astronomy could permit the calcu-

lation of eclipses as accurately as the Coper-

nican. "Cycle in epicycle, orb in orb" works

as effectively, if the figures are closely enough

watched, as ellipses with the sun at one of

the foci .

For science is a game, a particular system-

atization, which might well be any other

systematization . Indeed, despite the prodig-

ious number of facts which science has un-

veiled, no new type of spiritual outlook has

been evolved . Is the general consciousness

or self-consciousness of the modern material-

160




ist different in effect from that of the civilized

Stoic of more than two thousand years ago?

If you substitute "stress in the ether" for the

Pneuma, if you substitute the laws of gravi-

tation, or some electro-magnetic formula for

each other or for "tension," will that alter

your response to the universe?

Science is so far a game, indeed, that, self-

confessedly, it deals with symbols only .

These are pure abstractions-the ion, Xn, the

theory of relativity . We juggle with figures,

with symbols, with arrangements ; the t h i n g s

or t r u t h s or facts which are supposedly rep-

resented are utterly beyond our apprehension .

To take the simplest illustration : the sun is

ninety-two million miles from the earth, the

moon a quarter of a million miles . Neither

of these distances means anything to any hu-

man being: a million, or ten million, or a

thousand billion-we have no spiritual reac-

tion to any of these figures. They are sym-

bols or counters in the game ; in themselves

intelligible to no one .

Or to take the most significant of new sci-

161



You Gentiles

entific truths-the theory of relativity . Its

application is only to the game or system .

No man himself reacts to its implications .

He uses in it the laboratory, in the observa-

tory . He cannot bring it out . He cannot

,even lift it off the paper . Indeed, such a

revolution was wrought in our "conception of

the universe" by the exposition of the theory

of relativity that, if scientific truths had any

spiritual significance, there should have been

a religious revolution in its wake . Since the

dawn of science we have been blind to a tre-

mendous and fundamental truth, an all-indu-

,live and inescapable truth-namely, that the

motion of light rules all our measurements

of time and space and mass-that the length

of a line or of a period of time is nothing but

a function of varying values . A terrific and

sublime discovery, one might say . Yet not

only does it fail to make a particle of differ-

ence to the spiritual attitude of scientists to-

ward the universe: they cannot even the-

,oretically integrate it with a spiritual system .

All the effective "spiritual" value of the

162




theory of relativity is : "Things are not what

they seem." To this suspicion-which is a

basic spiritual reaction of man to the uni-

verse-the theory of relativity adds noth-

ing. At most the theory of relativity is an

additional but superfluous illustration .

But I shall be told by the scientist : " I t i s ,

not any individual scientific revelation which .

matters . What matters is the scientific out-

look, as such, the conception of the universe

as an ordered and harmonious process : the-

elimination of the providential and accidental :

the final and decisive removal of the thauma-

turgical . Science means neither the theory'

of evolution, nor the discovery of the bacillus, .

nor the theory of relativity . Science meanss

the cancellation of the inherited instinct er-,

rors. In brief, science is the substitution of

reason for superstition . "

But even at that variation I contend that .

"scientific" pursuit of truth has given nothing,

to our knowledge of the ultimate secret of

things . What the scientist would call the

"scientific outlook"--in accordance with the-

163



You Gentiles

above definition-has nothing to do with

"scientific study of phenomena . " Men are

by nature unthaumaturgical or thaumaturgi-

tal in their reaction to the universe . Science

(in its modern sense) does not make them

unthaumaturgical . It is one of the basic

qualities of human thought-this particular

variety of outlook on the universe . I say

it existed before the advent of what we de-

note under the restricted term of science . I

:say it would exist just as strongly in these

types of men though not a single discovery

had been added to human knowledge of phe-

nomena since the time of Aristotle . I say

that though science should add a million

startling new revelations to its old ones, it

would not increase or decrease the number

of men who have the "unthaumaturgical"

outlook .

I referred to the Stoics and said that Stoi-

cism contained as unthaumaturgical an out-

look as any that "modern science" c l a i m s to

_have inspired . But even if this were not true

.I should not chapge my opinion, for life at

164




first hand taught me this view, and what I

know of history I used only as an illustra-

tion . Life at first hand has taught me that

knowledge of science has nothing to do with

the superstitious or unsuperstitious, with

the thamaturgical or unthaumaturgical, with

idealism or materialism . I have known thor-

oughly "ignorant" men who see life quite

rationally, apparently untroubled by uncon-

scious impulses : men who have "the scientific

outlook" without knowing or needing science .

I have known thoroughly scientific men who,

are profoundly thaumaturgical, who are sat-

urated with the spirit of superstition . -

It is not the knowledge of facts which

changes the man . A man may believe in

ghosts and yet not be superstitious-he may

merely be mistaken . Another man may be-

lieve neither in ghosts nor in an anthropo-

morphic God and yet be essentially of the su

perstitious type .

It is not even a question of sophistication .

I have known simple and primitive peasants,,,

quite illiterate, who were as clearly rationalist

165



You Gentiles

and scientific in outlook as any professor in-

spired by a complete knowledge of the re-

vealed mechanics of the world. I have

known cultured city dwellers, rotten with so-

phistication, whose surface cynicism could

not hide their subjection to the terror of in-

visible, unrevealable possibilities .

Scientific genius is only the genius of the

ingenious . Men who by their nature are

materialists spend their energies in building

intensely ingenious schemata wherein the

known facts of life constitute the sole ma-

terial. But these ingenious schemata do not

alter their nature with their shape or with

the quantity of their material. The mechan-

ics of the universe might be thus or thus ;

things might work in this way or in that way ;

it might be one formula or another formula .

But the spirit of the thing is the same. For

hundreds of years capable minds have

searched, constructed, reconciled . Their

knowledge of the mechanism is infinitely

greater that any man's knowledge a thousand

years ago. Yet men who know as little of

166




these mechanics as was known a thousand

years ago have come to the same conclusion

regarding the nature of the universe .

There is in science a certain na%vete : the

belief that facts differ in their nature ; the

belief that a fact which it is more difficult

to unearth is therefore profounder than a

fact which is obvious ; the belief that a mi-

crobe, because it needs a microscope to reveal

it, touches truth more deeply than the flea,

which can be seen with the naked eye : yet

a fact is not more valuable for being difficult

of access, any more than a thought is more

profound by having been made obscure .

In the end it comes to this : science, which

is the accumulation of literal fact, hopes that

the accumulation of facts will reveal the na-

ture of fact. Science seems to believe (if I

may use these rather clumsy locutions) that

some facts are of a different order from other

facts, going nearer to the sources of the na-

ture of things . This is untrue . All facts

are on the same plane . Facts are not ex-

planatory, but expository, and what they ex

167



You Gentiles

pose is of the same nature or material as

that which we know without science . To ex-

pect facts to reveal the nature of facts is to

expect the microscope to reveal the nature of

the microscope . You can examine one mi-

croscope by means of another : but its nature,

or secret, is not accessible to this mode of

examination. It is of a different order . The

chain of facts is everywhere uniform. When

you know one inch of this chain, you have

learned as much as you can learn from a mile .

If the chain of causes and effects, fact re-

lated to fact, is infinitely long, any length of

it is equally insignificant . A thousand years

is not nearer to eternity than a moment of

time .

There is, indeed, a certain vulgarity in the

appeal to quantity ; it is the democratic vul-

garity, the belief that one million mediocre

people have more spiritual significance than

one mediocrity ; that size affects quality ; that

one thousand new facts mean more than a

hundred old facts-there is in all this even

the vulgarity of provincialism and cockney

168




fashionableness, the belief that the latest is

the best .

But vulgarity is most patent in the common

assertion, that science is of spiritual value

because it reveals the wonders of the uni-

verse . So marvelous a structure, they say,

rouses our astonishment and our reverence-

"the glory of God's house" and "the infinite

wisdom of his ways," "science leads to re-

ligion because it teaches us both our own in-

significance and the amazing cleverness of

creation . "

I hold this view to be patently vulgar be-

cause it is an appeal to headlines : recourse

to the stimuli of the advertiser for the benefit

of a stupid and jaded public . The thinking

man needs no scientist to teach him the won-

der of creation : he needs neither a telescope

nor a microscope in order to see God ; nor

do formulae teach him the nature of God .

Life itself, being, the staggering wonder of

mere existence, fills completely, crams beyond .

OR possibility of addition, the faculty of as-

tonishment and bewilderment in the sensitive

169

I



You Gentiles

man. Those to whom existence has become

commonplace by familiarity-or who have

never been smitten prostrate by the riddle of

existence-need a crescendo succession of

"shockers" to touch their brutish minds .

They didn't know the marvel of the universe

until they learned of electricity ; but now that

electricity is as commonplace as sunlight, they

need a theory of relativity ; and when that is

played out as an advertising stunt for the

ingenuity of the Almighty, they will need

something else .

Such vulgarity in scientists is not a whit

different from the vulgarity of city mobs,

which crow with astonishment when first they

see an electric light, but afterwards smile

pityingly at those who manifest astonish-

ment. The man of the mass mistakes impu-

dent familiarity for understanding . Because

he uses the electric car, the telephone and the

telegraph every day he imagines that he is

wiser than the barbarian who has never known

of them. If at all, he is less wise, being too

impudent to know his own ignorance. The

170




fool that saith in his heart there is no God

is the city fool to whom nothing is wonderful

any more: and those who do not know won-

der do not know God .

Is it not significant that the greatest hu-

man cry of wonder-the Bible-was the ut-

terance of men who knew nothing concerning

the pleiseiosaurus, the amoeba, the nebula of

Orion, Mendeleyeff's tables, Bode's law, the

theory of quanta? In them the marvel of

existence shocked like a clash of cymbals :

the echoes of that first, fresh amazement still

put to shame the sophisticated stammering of

this wise age . Have all the revelations of

science brought just a single utterance like

that of job? Though a man should master

all the ingenuities of science, though he

should double and treble them, though he

should know all the workings of his own body

and of the stellar systems, though earth's

past and future, the past and future of all

life, should lie open before him, can he say,

or feel more than this?

Can science even add anything to skepti-

171



You Gentiles

cism and doubt? Shall he who suspects that

all life is a phantasm, perception itself the

shadow of a shadow, and our very whispers

to ourselves the ten-times-tampered-with in-

struments of things which are not ourselves : '

shall he that suspects that between himself

and himself, himself-speaking and himself-

listening, himself-thinking and himself-

thought-of, there looms, world without end,

system within system, aberration within ab-

erration : shall such a one be rendered more

doubtful because the sky is not an inverted

bowl above our heads, because disease is car-

ried not by demons but by invisible fleas?

If the whole is insecure, does the double in-

security of a part make any difference? If

all is illusory, does it matter that there were

particular little illusions within the general

illusion? If we suspect the very instrument

of our perception, if we doubt our senses and

our thoughts, if we doubt our very doubts,

and in the end, from a frantic hunting of pro-

tean shadows, relapse into utter silence and

impotence-what additional impotence is to

172




be derived from the correction of unscientific

errors?

The world's wonder, the world's doubt, the

terror and illusion of life-these things lie

patent to the naked eye . Life at first hand

teaches everything . The blind cannot see

even through a microscope .

What, then, is science, and wherein lies its

lure? Why are men drawn to its service,

why do the best and ablest give up their lives

to its pursuit?

Science, which can be of no ultimate value

in bringing us nearer to the roots of life, to

Godhead and its secrecies ; science is a Game,

a convention . The charm of science is the

charm of gentile life . The ultimate does not

matter: within the system there is the lyric

grace of rhythm and harmony

The scientific development of your Western

world is an inevitable consequence of your

nature . It is inevitable that you should wor-

ship science, because your very skepticism is

the substitution of one set of illusions for

another, the adoption of one set of conven-

173



You Gentiles

tions in place of another . You are bound to

find "spiritual value" in science because you

do not want ultimate spiritual value-only

the spiritual value of immediate lyric enjoy-

ment. You who worship gods instead of God

must naturally worship science . Science is

merely idol-worship : for eikons instruments,

for incantations formulae : the palpable, the

material, the enjoyable . Science is not a seri-

ous pursuit : your grave professors of chem-

istry, astronomy, physics, your Nobel prize-

winners are ' but bald or bearded schoolboys

playing mental football for their own delight

and the delight of spectators .

Science, then, is an art, though its technique

is of so peculiar a nature as to divide it from

all the other arts : but we most easily recog-

nize it as an art because the true scientist

takes an artistic delight in science .

And because your science is not serious, we

Jews have never achieved in it any peculiar

preeminence. We have our few exceptions :

we can master as well as you the system and

the scheme, but we lack the spiritual urge,

174




,the driving joy, the illusion that this is the

a l l i n a l l .

We know nothing of science for science's

sake-as we know nothing of art for art's

sake. We only know of art for God's sake .

If there is art or beauty in our supreme

production, the Bible, it is not because we

sought either . The type of the artist is alien

to us, and just as alien is the delight of the

artist . The artist is one who seeks beauty,

goes out of his way to find her . But the He-

brew prophet, who wrought so beautifully, did

not go out of his way to find God . God pur-

sued him and caught him; hunted him out

and tortured him so that he cried out . Un-

til this day we have no artists in your sense :

such art as we have created has been the by-

product of a fierce moral purpose .

Art and science-this is your gentile world,

a lovely and ingenious world . Kaleidoscopic,

graceful, bewilderingly seductive, a world, at

its best, of lovely apparitions, banners, strug-

gles, triumphs, gallantries, noble gestures and

conventions . But not our world, not for us

175



You Gentiles

Jews. For such Field-of-the-Cloth-of-Gold

delights we lack imagination and inventive-

ness . We are not touched with this vigor of

productive playfulness . Under duress we

take part in the ringing melee, and give an

indifferently good account of ourselves . But

we have not the heart for this world of yours .

176



XI

The Masses

IT would be absurd to pretend that the Jew-

ish masses are distinguished from your masses

by a conscious appreciation of the difference

I have described . Indeed, very few even of

the thinking Jews understand the nature of

the problem . It is certain that the Western-

ized masses of Jews are doing their best to

minimize, or to ignore, the difference between

Jew and gentile : they and their .leaders as-

sert, frequently and vehemently, that there

is no difference . Jew and gentile are alike

except in their opinions regarding certain

very simple "matters of faith . "

You, too, will assert : "Even if we grant this

distinction between gentile and Jewish genius,

are we to understand that it permeates the

masses, that the strain of seriousness is to

be found in your hundreds of thousands of

177



You Gentiles

Westernized workers, lawyers, salesmen, mer-

chants, manufacturers, contrasting with a

corresponding levity or lack of seriousness in

the same classes among us? It is incredible .

The same language, the same occupations, the

:same sports, the same pursuits are common to

both of us . Let any intelligent man live first

for ten years among middle-class gentile fam-

ilies and then change his milieu completely

and pass into the environment of middle-

class, assimilated Jewish families . What will

there be to give him the impression of an-

other world? Will he not find the same

amusements, the same ambitions, the same

morality, the same taboos, the same abilities

and the same stupidities? Do not the Jew-

ish and gentile middle-class families admire

the same heroes, vote for the same politicians,

read the same newspapers and magazines,

frequent the same theaters, weep over the

same movies, laugh at the same comic strips?"

But the question cannot be put so simply .

This world is yours, and you are the ones

who set the standards. You are the ones

178



The Masses

who supply the material for the reactions .

And when we Jews want to become part of

your world, enjoy its privileges and pleasures,

we must accept your standards, speak, as it

were, the same language . But just as a word

can never mean quite the same thing to two

persons, so a common expression does not

mean the same emotion .

The fact is that as long as Jews retain

their identity there is the same tension be-

tween your middle classes and ours as between

your genius and ours . Our middle classes,

even when thoroughly modernized, retain a

certain individuality which is repugnant to

you. And though, if forced to a yes-or-no

answer to the question above enunciated, I

should have to answer : "Yes, there is a differ-

ence, difficult to describe, but felt and re-

sented none the less . "

Our modernized Jews have done their best

to take up your life and become part of it,

but despite outward appearances they have

failed . There is, first of all, too eager and

intense a desire to be gentile . What you do

179



You Gentiles

tacitly, and by the grace of God, we do de-

liberately and in the gracelessness of ambi-

tion . You grew into this new life of yours .

We contort ourselves into it . In one or two

generations we would achieve what it took

you a hundred generations to reach . We take

up your life with an anxiousness, a ferocity,

which is its own undoing . Whatever in you

can be imitated, we do imitate admirably, but

though you cannot quite define it, you are

aware of a deception . Our patriotisms are

hysterical ; our sport pursuits are unnaturally

eager ; our business ambitions a r t i f i c i a l l y

passionate . We seek the same apparent ends

as you, but not in the same spirit . Would

you have us fight and die for country? We'll

do it as well as you. Would you have us run

fast, box skilfully? We'll do it. Would you

have us build up enterprises? We'll do that

too. But one thing we cannot do . Do it for

the same reason and in the same spirit .

Since you insist, we will measure values

with your standards and register the results .

But you know, you feel, that the standards

180



The Masses

are not ours . We betray ourselves, singly

and in mass . We haven't the manner . And

we haven't the manners-for manners are but

a manner with you .

We Jews are lacking in manners because

manners, as you have evolved them, are a

s p i r i t , a reflex of your play world . Manners

cannot be copied : one must have the aptitude

for this charming triviality . A single note of

insistence spoils it all . And we Jews insist

too much

And just as Jews are without manners, so

they are without vulgarity . I have observed

that between the vulgar gentile and the so-

called vulgar Jew there is a singular and

dreadful difference . The vulgar type of gen-

tile is not repellent : there is in him an ani-

mal grossness which shocks and braces, but

does not horrify : he carries it off by virtue

of a natural brutality and brutishness which

provide a mitigating consistency to his char-

acter . But the lowest type of Jew is ex-

traordinarily revolting . There is in him a

suggestion of deliquescent putrefaction . The

181



You Gentiles

gentile can be naturally, healthily vulgar .

The Jew corrupts into vulgarity-he has not

the gift for it. What is vulgarity in the gen-

tile is obscenity in the Jew . I am able to

watch, either with amusement or indifference,

a vulgar performance on the gentile stage .

On the Jewish stage I find it intolerably loath-

some. In the company of low and brutish

gentiles "let loose" I may not feel at home,

but I can be an unmoved spectator . But

when Jews try to imitate this behavior I feel

my innermost decency outraged. Well-man-nered gentile society rejects us . So does vul-

gar gentile society .

An individual genius cannot be taken as

the higher type of the people which produced

him : but in the mass there is an inevitable

correspondence between the product of the

geniuses of a people and the people itself .

Studied actuarially, the people finds utterance

in the geniuses . There is an undoubted con-

sistency in all the products of the greatest

,Jewish minds . Whether we take these statis-

tics laterally, through an age, or vertically,

182



The Masses

through history, we will obtain a similar re-

sult. Whether we begin with the Bible and

take the sum total of our work down to Karl

Marx, or confine ourselves to a single country

and generation (America to-day, for instance

-with Untermeyer, Lewisohn, Frank, Hecht)

we will find the same appeal to fundamentals,

the same passionate rejection of your sport

world and its sport morality, the same ulti-

mate seriousness, the same inability to be

merely playful, merely romantic, merely lyri-

cal .

It is unthinkable that the masses of a peo-

ple can mean one thing, its geniuses another .

Were this so the utterances of great minds

would lose all relevance, would become point-

less and impotent . If we symbolize a people

as a single organism, its geniuses may be lik-

ened to an organ of self-consciousness ; and

the self-consciousness of a man is not an in-

dependent function, but the instrument of all

of him: all his body and being thinks-

through the brain .

That which genius illuminates is the life

183



You Gentiles

from which it springs . The amorphous is

crystallized in it : the confused diffusion is

brought to a focus, so that the pattern is

made clear . Our geniuses, in the midst of

your world, are an alien and destructive ele-

ment, more clearly revealed as such because

they are articulate . They are our spokes-

men ; or, better said, ourselves in utterance .

They, like us, being us, cannot join your

game. You say, "Because they lack imagina-

tion ." In a sense it is true . We are unimagi-

native, as old people are unimaginative in the

presence of young people. We neither play

with emotions nor with things ; we lack ro-

manticists as we lack inventors-because we

lack inventiveness .

Even among the masses, where diffusion

confuses, an apt instance points to the truth .

.Among our simple people you do not find the

delight in constructive trifles which is one of

your characteristics . Your simple people like

to build things, fix this and that in the house,

play the handy man ; they take pleasure in

putting up shelves, looking to the plumbing,

184



The Masses

adding and altering . We are devoid of this

kind of craftsman's pleasure ; we do what is

necessary, only because it is necessary . Andas a man, engaged happily i n such pleasant,

childlike pursuits, resents the chilling indif-

ference of an unsympathetic onlooker, so

your world resents our uncalled-for analysis

of your acts and occupations . This is your

life and you enjoy it . Why do we disturb

you with questions concerning ultimate

values?

We lack inventiveness . You w i l l say that

this springs from our lack of vitality . Menare lyrical because life sings in them ; they

are inventive because life is restless in them

and drives their . fingers to activity . I will

not argue the cause of the difference, but,

lacking inventiveness, we also lack sympathy

for it . In your delight you call inventiveness

the conquest of nature . But the boast is,

to us, a foolish and a childlike boast . The

problem with which man is faced cannot be

answered by scientific inventions . The con-

quest of nature does not lie in evolving keener

185



I

You Gentiles

sight, swifter motion, larger strength . This

is but magnification, which leaves the element

of the problem untouched . Can you conquer,

not nature, but the nature of things?

For it is in the nature of things that the

bitter problem resides . If science should

double the span of human life, will the nature

of life and death be altered? Will we not

feel as mortal, as insignificant? Will we even

be aware of living longer? If science should

bridge the planets and the stars, will the new

playground be larger' than the old to those

that live in it? You have found a whole

world since the days of the Greeks : they lived

on a tiny plot of earth, an ant-hill ; and you

have a gigantic globe to build on . What dif-

ference has it made? What significant con-

quest have you achieved? Not things but

the nature of things baffle us, the dreadful

circle, the eternal balance, for every gain a

compensating loss, for every new revelation a

new deception, for every new extension a loss

of intensity .

The nature of things cannot be solved be-

186



The Masses

cause we partake of that nature . We can

never get round ourselves : we can only turn

round. Your world spins in a joyous illusion

of progress ; we, untouched by that illusion,

destructive of your mood, stand aside, static,

serious . We will be satisfied with nothing but

the absolute .

That aloofness speaks clearly or obscurely

in our masses as well as in our geniuses .

Dealing with objects, instead of with laws,

they betray the same unenthusiastic objec-

tivity in their attitude to your world .

And as long as they retain their Jewish

identity, they will, despite denial and effort

to the contrary, remain the same .

187



XII

Solution and Dissolution

DOES the situation which I have described

constitute a problem? Or is it merely one

of the insoluble difficulties of life which, be-

ing insoluble, should be understood as such

and suffered tacitly? Death is not a prob-

lem, being inevitable . Is this struggle be-

tween our two worlds as inevitable? Shall

we resign ourselves to the struggle and do

what we can to mitigate its worst effects, or

shall we continue the search for a complete

solution?

The one solution which is generally offered

as complete and satisfactory is, quite apart

from its feasibility, not a solution at all : only

a dissolution. The disappearance of the Jew-

ish people by complete submergence in the

surrounding world would not, in reality, solve

the problem; any more than one solves a

188




chess problem by burning chess-board andfigures . But it would seem to do the next

best thing : it would apparently destroy the

situation which creates the problem . The

problem, without having been solved, would

at any rate cease to exist .

And by the dissolution of the Jewish people

can be meant only one thing-the disappear-

ance of Jewish identity in individuals or

masses, the complete obliteration of Jewish

self-consciousness, down to the very name and

recollection . When it will be impossible for

any man to say of himself, "I am a Jew," or

"My father, or grandfather was a Jew" this

consummation will have been achieved .

There is only one instrument to this end :

free and unrestrained intermarriage . This

act or fact alone will count. The mere chang-

ing of names, the substitution of religious

forms, the so-called "liberalization" and

"modernization" of Judaism is ineffective : i t

is a matter of common observation that there

is no inverse ratio between the Westernization

of the Jew and anti-Semitism . And this very

189



You Gentiles

fact will have to be considered again in i t s

relation to the feasibility of this proposal. If

we talk of the submergence of the Jew we

must not play with words : words alone can-

not submerge the Jew. If there is anything

in what I have said you cannot make a gentile

of a Jew by arguing with him any more than

by lynching him . You can make his children

half gentile, his grandchildren only a quarter

Jewish,and so on till the balance is perfect .

And this truth seems to have worked in

the minds of some Westernizing Jews . Re-

form Judaism, or modernized Judaism, is the

halfway house to baptism : or at least to in-

termarriage . Its very purpose is such, de-

spite the protestations of Reform Jews . It

cannot be anything else, for if the desire is

to become "like the world around us," then

all barriers must go down, and the real bar-

rier, the conservator of all distinctions, is our

practice of endogamy .

One thing is quite certain : a Jew is never

baptized for the purpose of becoming a Chris-

tian ; his purpose is to become a gentile. Yet

190




obviously you do not make a gentile of a Jew

by baptizing him any more than you would

make an Aryan of a negro by painting him

with ocher . The sole (and sufficient) value

in this direction of baptism is the removal of

all conscious prohibition against intermar-

riage .

Of course even baptism is not a necessary

preparation . Jews marry gentiles without

this preliminary formality . The case is some-

what different here . This is a natural wastage

or attrition : individual passion, not policy,

is the cause, though the effect is the same-

the disappearance of the Jew . And it cer-

tainly connotes, even if indirectly, the renun-

ciation first of Judaism and then of Jewish

a f f i l i a t i o n. A Jew married to a gentile may

remain a Jew ostensibly, as he is in fact . His

children seldom, if ever, profess Judaism or

associate themselves with the Jewish people .

In this case the evasion is even more dis-

honest than in the first. A man . who professes

to belong to the Jewish faith and the Jewish

people and who nevertheless gives his chil-

191



You Gentiles

dren to the gentiles is making the best of

both worlds. He evades the odious name of

renegade which attaches to the baptized Jew

(also salving his conscience) and at the same

time contributes effectively to the dissolution

of the Jewish people . It is well to note that

the Westernized or "Reform" Jew may de-

plore the practice, but will not exclude such a

man from the Temple. The orthodox Jew,

considers such a man lost to Judaism : the

view, whatever its ethics, is dearer and

healthier .

But I want to consider not the accidental,

but the deliberate, or politic . Accidental in-

termarriage, being accidental and therefore

uncontrollable, is not a policy . Baptism is a

policy : the weakening of Judaism by the re-

moval of its "nationalist" implications, and

by its "modernization," is also a policy-the

same policy, in fact, but more circumspect

and less self-confessed . This policy has as

its objective the solution of the Jewish prob-

lem by the dissolution of the Jewish people .

192




I will consider later whether this policy

can obtain this objective . The question here

concerns the objective . Will the "dissolution

of Jewish identity" by free and prolonged in-

termarriage resolve the struggle of the two

types? Or will the struggle continue in an-

other form, less obvious but equally uncom-

fortable? Will the struggle center round iso-

lated individuals, recurrent types? Or will

the final product be homogeneous and, in re-

lation to this particular struggle, static?

Both the negative and affirmative answers

to this question are unsatisfactory . Suppose,

on the one hand, the struggle continues? Sup-

pose the Jewish character persists in strains,

breaks out in individual atavisms, long after

the Jewish name has perished? The problem

will be the same: your world will be con-

fronted with recurrent instances of alien and

destructive types, all the more dangerous be-

cause they are not isolated in a recognized,

repudiated group. Their power of destruc-

tion will be the greater because they will

193



You Gentiles

work from within . The "Jewish" problem

will have disappeared, but the gentile prob-

lem would remain as bitter as ever .

Let us examine the negative answer . Sup-

pose there are no "reversions to type ." Sup-

pose the Jew is so completely absorbed as to

be lost beyond possibility of detection in the

surrounding world . Such a consummation, if

possible, calls for one inevitable condition ;

that is, the proportionate Judaization of your

world . It is unthinkable that so vivid an ele-

ment as the Jewish people should be absorbed

into your world without producing an appre-

ciable alteration in its constitution. A world

that has absorbed the Jews will to that extent

be a Jewish world .

And this is precisely the condition which

you refuse to admit. You want no tamper-

ing with your identity ; you want to remain

what you are . You have no intention of

meeting us at the point of balance . You do

not want a world tinged with Jewish blood .

You want us' to be absorbed in you without

leaving a trace . And with the best intentions

194




in the world we cannot oblige. We can, in

that sense, no more destroy ourselves than

we can destroy a single particle of matter .

But I shall show in the following pages

that all this talk of dissolution is academic .

Even if you should tolerate in prospect both

of these alternatives, there are insuperable

obstacles which make it highly improbable

that you will ever be faced with either .

195



XIII

The Mechanism of Dissolution

THIS would be an ideal condition, presum-

ably-the merging together of Jew and gen-

tile, for the production of a world neither

wholly gentile nor yet dual with Jew and gen-

tile-but composed of both in certain propor-

tions fixed by our numbers and the laws of

heredity. That is, at least, the best solution

within view, and if we are to be reasonable-

on paper at least-it would be the only one

to be considered .

But we must remember that this ideal can-

not be realized in one generation or in two,

or in five . If we were to assume (the as-

sumption is an absurd one) that within this

generation the Jewish world could be won

over to this point of view, it would still need

four or five generations (probably more) to

obliterate our identity. At that it would call

1 96




f o r forcible inter-marriage, for even when we

cease to believe in endogamy, we will prac-

tise it because our affections so incline us .

It would have to become a sort of principle-

that in the name of the great ideal of a solu-

tion of the Jewish problem, the Jew shall be

forbidden (morally, at least) to marry among

his own . But it is clear that even if inten-

sive propaganda were to break down (it could

not, for reasons I shall return to) our pro-

hibitions against inter-marriage, "it would have

to work progressively . It would take manygenerations to tarry the change successively

through all the strongholds of Jewish life .

And when we add to the time thus needed

the time needed for actual absorption by in-

termarriage, we are faced with a task for

centuries .

But I will deal with ideal conditions . I will

deal with a single large group of Jews deter-

mined to abandon their identity and to lose

themselves and their children in the surround-

ing gentile world . We know well that their

children will not yet be assimilated in the full

197



You Gentiles

sense of the word : children of mixed Jewish-

gentile percentage still carry the Jewish

stigma . The child of a half-Jew and com-

plete gentile is in better plight : and a Jewish

great-grandfather is hardly any handicap at

a l l . The third generation, as the saying is,

produces the gentleman .

It needs at least these three generations of

intermediary stage-probably more . It

would be absurd to expect absorption in a

single generation : it never happens . There

is needed a transition period and it is this

transition period which you gentiles will not

tolerate . Even if you believe (as most of

you do) that the best thing that could happen

to the Jew would be his complete absorption

by inter-marriage, you oppose, tacitly, but

not the less obstinately, his steps in that di-

rection . You want us to inter-marry-but

you don't want to inter-marry . You want us

to produce gentile offspring without having

taken your sons and daughters as mates .

In other words, you want an end without

permitting the means . The prospect of a

198




Jew-less world is charming indeed, but who

will enjoy the actuality? Your grandchildren

and great-grandchildren . And who will have

to pay the price of the first embarrassing con-

tact, the first difficult intimacy, Jewish sons-

and daughters-in-law, Jewish fathers and

mothers-in-law? You yourselves . The pros-

pect is too distant, too hypothetical, to exert

any influence . It is much too much like the

promise of heaven and the threat of hell .

I have alluded more than once to the fact

that Westernization of the Jew is nowhere

a guarantee against anti-Semitism . Indeed,

conscious modern anti-Semitism, the formu -

lated fear of the Jew as the racial bearer of

alien and dangerous ideas, is the result of

Westernization. Far from encouraging or

tolerating our inter-marriage with you, you do

not even relish the results of our Westerniza-

tion or gentilization. It is an amazing and

terrifying paradox : you would like us to be

absorbed, but you shrink from the process .

The inoculation is painful, even revolting .

You are uneasy and unhappy when we swarm

199



You Gentiles

into your universities, your professions : the

nearer we come to you, the more you dislike

us . You dislike us because we are different,

and when we make efforts to overcome the

difference we are forced into a proximity

which rouses your inmost resentment . The

Ku Klux Klan, the Awakening Magyars, the

Consul, no longer warn you against the re-

ligious and secluded Jew, the Ghetto and the

Talmud. They warn you against the baptiz-

ing Jew, against the assimilating Jew, against

the inter-marrying Jew . They warn you, in-

deed, against that part of the Jewish people

which is apparently in the process of realiza-

tion of that ultimate ideal-the disappear-

ance of the Jewish people .

Another aspect of the mechanics of dis-

solution makes clear a difficulty somewhat

more subtle but even more effective . The

death of a people or of a type can be natural

only. Race suicide as an ideal is a contradic-

tion, for an ideal is a manifestation of life .

Deliberately to set before ourselves the ob-

jective of self-elimination would be as absurd

200




as a man insisting on watching himself fall

asleep. It can be done tacitly only . It can

happen, but it cannot be propagated . Wemight drift out of consciousness, but every

effort to accelerate the pace would retard the

process . To appeal to Jews to cease to be

Jews because they are Jews is to accentuate

their Jewishness .

Of course the effort has been made, but

with those grotesque and unnatural results

which are in part responsible for your aver-

sion to the process . There is nothing more

ludicrous and pitiful than the Jew who has

made his gentilization a deliberate ideal . His

anxious self-repression, his self-disclaimers,

his demand to be considered a gentile, his un-

easy sense of inferiority, his impotent resent-

ment of all that reminds him of his origin,

make him an object of scorn alike to you and

to us . There are "assimilated" Jews who

hate with an ignoble and consuming hatred

the "unassimilated" part of the Jewish peo-

ple ; Jews, who, rousing your secret contempt

as renegades and your resentment as intrud-

201



You Gentiles

o r s , attribute their discomfort, falsely, to

those Jews who are most obviously Jewish.

For the gentilizing Jew is reluctant to admit

that his very gentilization accentuates his

Jewishness to you . His only recourse to save

the last remnant of his self-respect is to blame

the unassimilating Jew : in eager self-vindica-

tion he points at the object-lesson of the suf-

ferings of orthodox and national Jewries and

associates his own severer sufferings with the

same cause . He deliberately ignores the fact

that the cradle of the newer anti-Semitism is

the country which witnessed the first efforts

of the Jew to make a high ideal of assimila-

tion . Germany, which in the nineteenth cen-

tury offered the classic example of Jewish as-

similation, both internal (in adaptation of

our own life) and external (in baptism and

inter-marriage) also became the country of

classic anti-Semitism . Terrified at the infil-

tration of Jewish blood, the German gentile

recast his formulae of Jew-hatred in such

wise as to arrest the process .

When we examine the mechanism of disso-

202 ,




lution in detail and come down to an exam-

ination of its working on the individual, we

understand better the revolting character of

a t l e a s t i t s f i r s t e f f e c t s . It is one thing to say

that a people in the first stages of dissolution

is as horrible a spectacle as a body in the first

stages of putrefaction : but this sounds some-

what academic-perhaps even metaphysical .

Even so there is little conveyed in the state-

ment that a country is starving : we realize

the import of the statement only when we

speak of hungry men and women . When weexamine the personal reactions of the deliber-

ately assimilating Jew we see more clearly

why he is not a pleasant spectacle either to

Jew or to gentile .

A Jew who has made the repression of his

Jewishness an ideal must be prepared to suf-

fer and to seem to ignore every slight, every

rebuff which he encounters . He must not

permit an open sneer to sting him into Jew-

ish self-consciousness : such a "weakness"

would undo his purpose . He must seem to

be unaware of the occasional coolness which

203



You Gentiles

follows the accidental revelation of his ori-

gin . He must, bear silently with those count-

less unspoken snubs, half-snubs, unuttered

queries, faint Ah-yes astonishments, which

will be his lot until the day of his death . He

must not feel himself implicated in a general

slander of the Jews : he may only protest i n a

generous, disinterested sort of way, a s a fair-

minded "gentile ." An angry retort or repudi-

ation might be the ruin of him-he would

suddenly realize the intolerable nature of his

position . . . . It is not an easy thing to kill

one's self by degrees,

Such a Jew has the whole way to go . He

is not entering a world already made easier

for him by an admixture of Jewish blood . He

does not move forward to a partly prepared

position . All is alien around him . His

claims have no precedent . There is some-

thing pitifully impotent in his demand : "But

I am an Englishman, like you ; an American,

like you . I have no affiliations outside of this

country except those general human affilia-

tions which I share with you . I feel for my

204




co-religionists abroad nothing more nor less

than you feel for your fellow-Christians

among the Turks. Between me and my fel-

low-Jews in this country there is nothing more

than between Protestant and Protestant,

Catholic and Catholic ." (Or, if he is baptized,

this incriminating confession may presumably

be omitted .) "I am part and parcel of your

country . Our forefathers came later, but our

posterity will stay as long . There is no dif-

ference between you and me except a very

slight difference of faith-nothing really worth

mentioning . In all else we are utterly alike .

Do not let yourself be misled by the apparent

contrast between me and my unassimilated

co-religionists . It is merely a matter of ex-

ternals . In a little while, in a generation or

two, they will be like me--indistinguishable

from you. They will be Americans (or Eng-

lishmen or Frenchmen) in every respect .

Your destiny and ours, your outlook and ours,

your hopes and ours, are identical . "

But his plea falls on skeptical ears . There

is that in the very name of Jew which invali

205



You Gentiles

dates his protestations . And the more vehe-

mently he urges his case, the more suspicious

and uneasy you become . For he is urging as

an accomplished fact that which is nothing

but a hopeless personal aspiration . Your de-

mand is not connected with behavior or with

views : neither of these makes the American

or the Englishman . It is a question of iden-

tity . You want u s to be Anglo-Saxons, or

Teutons, if you are to call us Englishmen or

Germans . And we cannot be that-at best

our great-grandchildren can be as nearly that

as matters . But we cannot remarry our

great-grandparents .

We cannot but exasperate you by such

importunate assumptions. That strangers,

aliens to your blood, should come to dwell in

your midst, is one thing . That they should

claim, after a sojourn of a generation or two,

complete identity with you, is as absurd as it

is insolent. And even if they should dwell in

your midst a thousand years, yet should keep

apart, neither giving nor taking in marriage,

they are not identical with you. In those

206




words, "our ancestry," "our forefathers,"

there are implied the dearest and tenderest of

human associations . The love of his forbears

and of his posterity is all that man has of

earthly immortality; the pride and affection

which are the natural counterparts of these

concepts are as narrow and as broad, as po-

tent for good and evil, as sexual love, as life

i t s e l f . Shall we come to you and share your

ancestry? Shall we intrude on these exalted

recollections, with a "we too"?

You cannot help resenting these claims .

They savor at once of ingratiating humility

and arrogant blasphemy Try as you will

you cannot make the concession . You are

trapped by a vital paradox .

You may ask : What difference is there be-

tween a Jew claiming to be an American and

an Italian claiming to be one? Is it more hu-

miliating for one than for the other? Is the

Italian of our ancestry more than you?

There is some similarity in the plight of all

foreigners : and we Jews suffer all that for-

eigners suffer. But our case is unique because

207



You Gentiles

we are unique . If there is anything in what

I have said, the cleft between you, Americans

and Italians, Frenchmen and Germans, is but

a wide jump as compared with the chasm be-

tween us and any one of you . What is true

of the gentile foreigner in this regard is ten

times true of us .

For our very record testifies against us .

The older the past from which we attempt to

flee, the closer it pursues us . To you, who

share with us the human attribute of pride of

ancestry, it seems incredible that, having re-

tained our identity for a hundred generations,

we should abandon it in one . It is suspicious

-and odious. For you suspect (rightly) that

in this tenacity of identity, which has outlived

so many nations and civilizations, there is im-

plied a kernel of individuality which is as sin-

gular in its nature as in its history .

Among yourselves assimilation is problem

enough The birth and death of nations is

attended by wars, pains, humiliations . But

what you have done a dozen times over in

208




the last four thousand years we have not

done once .

We cannot assimilate : it is so humiliating

to us that we become contemptible in submit-

ting to the process : it is so exasperating to

you that, even if we were willing to submit,

it would avail us nothing .

209



XIV

Is There Any Hope?

THERE is little more to be said . I would

only like to set down, before concluding, a

few considerations which might help to clarify

the issue between us . For I cannot believe

that the contest between our two ways of

life will come to an end within measurable

time, and I cannot believe that while the con-

test continues it will ever be lifted to purely

spiritual levels . I will not confound eschatol-

ogy with daily experience : if ever the dream

of the prophet should come true, if ever men

should live at peace with each other, express-

ing their antagonisms without enmity-why,

they will no longer be men, but another spe-

cies, and talk of Jew and gentile will be as

irrelevant then as it might have been twenty

thousand years ago . The world is getting

better, no doubt, but the improvement is not

210



Is There Any Hope?

to be measured in generations or centuries,

and what will come to pass ten thousand years

from now does not concern me in connection

with this problem . Certainly I have no pa-

tience with those who bid us wait dumbly for

the apotheosis of mankind, as though the

millennium were round the corner, as though

every year registered a perceptible and even

considerable improvement If ever, within

the span of one generation, mankind could

suffer visible improvement, it should have

been now, within the generation which wit-

nessed the war . But only the fool and the

professional optimist will assert that our way

of life to-day, our utterances, our emotions,

our ambitions, are at all cleaner than they

were ten years ago, when the war started .

The same handful of sensitive men and

women struggle hopelessly against the pas-

sions of humanity: the same ugliness and

meanness, the same selfishness and lying, the

same lust for bloody adventure, the same de-

light in physical triumph, the same wilful self-

deception and abuse of lovely phrases have us

211



You Gentiles

in thrall . The race is still to the swift and

the battle to the strong, and the goal and the

prize are what they were ten years ago. What

I say, then, is not prompted by the hope that

words of mine-or of any one else--can give

a new complexion to the general struggle be-

tween Jew and gentile : but only by the desire

to clarify, f o r the encouragement of a few,

the nature of this struggle, convincing them,

perhaps, that behind the sordid stupidity

which seems to govern our Jew-gentile rela-

tionship there may be found a compensating

grain of eternal principle . And my conclud-

ing words are addressed less to practical ex-

pectations than to the desire for complete-

ness .

What are we Jews prepared to give you

which, in my opinion, you should consider suf-

ficient? Obedience to the laws of the State

and readiness to defend it (even if against

our inmost belief) in time of danger. This

constitutes a full payment for the privilege of

citizenship and the protection of the laws .

But this offer on the part of the Jew be-

212



Is There Any Hope?

comes inadequate when the State begins to

assume functions which seem to me totally

beyond its capacity. What was intended only

for the regulation of the external actions of

a given group is becoming a growing tyranny

against the inmost values of man, an at-

tempted violation of our most inaccessible

privileges . And this,despite the professions

of your statesmen and political thinkers .

It is acknowledged, in principle, that a

man's religion is beyond the reach of law, and

his God need neither pay taxes nor take out

citizenship papers. But the acknowledgment

of this principle is gradually becoming mean-

ingless (perhaps it never had any meaning)

in the light of the growing spiritual tyranny

of the State . Perhaps nothing that you have

ever feared from the economic tyranny of

Socialism approaches the oppressive spiritual

tyranny of your great democracies . These

seek to control not only the acts, but the emo-

tions of the individual . They would compel

us to love and hate, to admire and despise,

as part of our civic duty and, not content with

213



You Gentiles

that part of us which alone affects the well-

being of government, would also conquer and

control that part of us which belongs to no

one but to each man and God .

They would control our culture, as though

culture were controllable-except for the

purpose of destruction-tell us in which lan-

guage to create, as though they could fructify

us, and direct our ecstasies, as though these

were run along wires and commanded by

switches . Our obedience, our tribute, our

bodies, will not do : they would have the very

secrets of the heart torn out of us and deliv-

ered to Washington or Berlin or London . In

the terror of Socialism they depict the intoler-

able misery of the man who can claim nothing

for himself, but must yield up the fruit of his

labor, down to the last husk, to the disposi-

tion of the State . But they have instituted a

spiritual Socialism infinitely more hideous,

and for economic equality they have substi-

tuted a spiritual homogeneity which the com-

munist can never hope to parallel in the phys-

ical field . And woe to him who dares to

214



Is There Any Hope 2

practise private initiative in the spiritual-

Socialistic State I His punishment is not only,

spiritual, but physical too . And we Jews, the

most obstinate and most enduring sinners in

this respect, are the best measure of the vin-

dictive fury with which this tyranny is armed .

If, then, the struggle between us is ever to

be lifted beyond the physical, your democra-

cies will have to alter their demands for racial,

spiritual and cultural homogeneity within the

State . But it would be foolish to regard this

as a possibility, for the tendency of this civili-

zation is in the opposite direction . There is

a steady approach toward the identification

of government with race, instead of with the

political State : and since this is largely be-

yond your conscious control, it is perhaps as

foolish as it is futile to expect a change . The

best fighting unit is a nation which is homo-

geneous in blood and emotions no less than

in political allegiance, and since the chief

function of the State is to fight (witness the

proportion of your taxes spent in payment

and in preparation for wars) you will inevi-

215



You Gentiles

tably demand the subordination of all human

functions to that end .

The demand for racial homogeneity within

the State has led, in America-still the

most unexploited country in the whole world

-to the exclusion of the immigrant, and par-

ticularly of the immigrant who will not lend

himself to the type of assimilation-or self-

destruction-which you demand . Without

for a moment admitting that any kind of ex-

clusion is justifiable in a world which God

created before the nations appeared to dis-

figure it, I submit the case of the Jew as an

exception . The Jew has no homeland of his

own. When the Jew migrates from one coun-

try to another, it is almost invariably under

the pressure of persecution . To close the

gate against the Jew is not the same, then,

as closing it against the Italian or the Pole .

In the latter cases you insist that certain

races stay in their own homes-whether or

not the land will support them . But the Jew

i s not being forced to stay at home : while

one part of the gentile world persecutes him,

216



Is There Any Hope?

the other part refuses him a chance to escape .

For very shame-if you were capable of it-

you should give the Jew free immigration

everywhere The irony of it is, of course,

that it is chiefly against the Jew that anti-

immigration laws are passed here in America

as in England and Germany. And the liberal

countries which could make room for the

hunted Jew, cooperate, despite a few gallant

and unsustained gestures, with the most illib-

eral in the persecution of their common vic-

tim . He that refuses asylum to a victim

fleeing from a murderer is, before God, a free

and willing accomplice in the crime .

And to me it is infinitely strange that, even

from your point of view, the sporting point of

view, you should be able to reconcile your

morality with your acts . If there is anything

at all in your professions, you should be filled

with admiration and astonishment at the in-

credible pluckiness of a small people which,

in the face of infinite discouragement, has

clung with such tenacity to its identity and

cult . Without understanding us at all, you

217



You Gentiles

might have paid the homage of warriors to

the courage of an unconquerable enemy .

That you watch us with vicious irritation

rather than with respect, that you load us

with contumely when so much in your own

instinct should have given us a peculiar place

in your regard, makes me feel that nothing

which can be urged upon your conscience will

avail to lighten the burden of our destiny .

We have just witnessed, in America, the repe-

tition, in the peculiar form adapted to this

country, of the evil farce to which the experi-

ence of many centuries has not yet quite ac-

customed us . If America had any meaning at

all, it lay in the peculiar attempt to rise above

the trend of our present civilization-the

identification of race with State . In the -old

world the evil had taken root in the course of

centuries : its hideous fruit was therefore in-

evitable . But America seemed to offer the

hope of a change : whatever other evils

America had inherited, at least this one she

had avoided . America was therefore the New,

World in this vital respect-that the State

218



Is There Any Hope?

was,purely an ideal, and nationality was

identical only with acceptance of the, ideal .

But it seems now that the entire point of view

was a mistaken one, that America was incapa-

ble of rising above her origins, and the sem-

blance of an ideal-nationalism was only a

stage in the proper development of the uni-

versal gentile spirit. The ideal which for a

time constituted American nationality disap-

pears now, and in its place emerges again,

with atavistic certainty, the race .

It is true that even while the ideal flour-

ished, triumphant over race, the seeds of our

enmity lay securely imbedded in our natures .

But the passing generosity kept the seeds in

slumber. It is not the first time that gentile

nations, forgetting themselves for a brief per-

iod, have offered us friendship and even affec-

tion . But the strange and unnatural exalta-

tion passed, and bitter sobriety succeeded .

To-day, with race triumphant over ideal, anti-

Semitism uncovers its fangs, and to the heart-

less refusal of the most elementary human

right, the right of asylum, is added cowardly

219



You Gentiles

insult. We are not only excluded, but we are

told, in the unmistakable language of the im-

migration laws, that we are an "inferior" peo-

p l e . Without the moral courage to stand up

squarely to its evil instincts, the country pre-

pared itself, through its journalists, by a long

draught of vilification of the Jew, and, when

sufficiently inspired by the popular and "scien-

tific" potions, committed the act .

How, then, shall I delude myself into the

belief that the considerations covered in this

chapter will produce any effect? Have we

Jews not known this evil long enough?

Should we not have known better, by this

time, than to repose hope in any of the na-

tions? Perhaps we were foolish in our over-

confidence, but our credulousness does us less

dishonor than your cruelty does you. And if

it savors again of foolish simplicity to make

this plea to you, I am willing to take the risk .

220



ALAST WORD

It would have been a happier task for me if

I had been able to write this book, with sin-

cerity, in another tone ; if I had been able to

Date post:	14-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	opentosuggestions
View:	248 times
Download:	13 times

You Gentiles Maurice Samuel 1924 217pgs REL

Documents