Thinking of Herzl and Horowitz on this Rosh Chodesh/Rosh HaShanah

Theodor Herzl, the visionary Austro-Hungarian Jew is often seen as the "founder" of the secular Jewish State of Israel. This Op-Ed by my friend Natan Natan demonstrates clearly that his life and motivation were far from secular, though he was not conventionally religious. I wanted to pass it on as it contains much of interest in terms of setting the historical record straight. As David Horowitz, a pioneering Zionist of the next generation, said so often, HaShem moves in mysterious ways.

A Blessed Rosh Chodesh and Rosh HaShanah to all!

James

Op-ed : by Natan Natan

“ARBEIT MACHT FREI” & THEODOR HERZL’S “ULTIMATE DREAM”

Theodor Herzl wrote in his diary (September 1, 1897) :

"Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in one word, it would be this : at Basel I have founded the Jewish State. If I were to say it publicly today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years and certainly in fifty, everyone will recognize it."

Theodor Herzl’s grandfather, Simon Loeb Herzl, was a fervent disciple of Rabbi Judah Alkalai (1798-1878) who, for most of his life, had been a preacher in Semlin, near Belgrade. This Rabbi astounded his congregants when, among other pronouncements, he published a textbook declaring that establishing Jewish colonies and a Jewish State in the Holy Land was the necessary prelude to the Redemption of Israel and to the Restoration of the Temple of Jerusalem for the coming of Messiah. Thus, this Sephardic Rabbi Judah Alkalai, along with, for instance, the Ashkenazi Rabbi Zvi Kalischer of Prussia were representatives of a very tiny minority of European and American Rabbis who supported the religious concept of the Jewish people returning progressively to Palestine in order to recreate Israel and to restore the Temple.

However the vast majority of Rabbis (and religious Jews) opposed violently this view and were divided (to simplify matters with modern vocabulary) between “Reform Jews” and “Orthodox Jews” :

- The “Reform Jews” insisted that the Jews must integrate as loyally as possible any Nation where they found themselves, and that they do not need their own Land because they are, exclusively, a religious community.

- The “Orthodox Jews” and “Hasedim” (=”ultra Orthodox”) insisted (to summarize) that the Jews could not have a State of their own and rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem, until Messiah comes (although the Jews did not wait Messiah to rebuild the second Temple (Joshua and Zerubbabel) after their return from exile in Babylon (520 BCE), and although, also, the Jews did not wait Messiah to restore (20 BCE) the third Temple, rebuilt by Herod after he had completely destroyed the second Temple (including its foundations).

The Orthodox Jews’ belief of the necessary waiting of Messiah before recreating Israel and restoring the Temple of Jerusalem was mainly based on a Midrash Aggadah “The three Oaths” which is found in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ketubot 111a ( a tractate dealing mainly with the laws relating to marriage and married life). “The three Oaths” are a mystical Aggadic interpretation of a refrain in the Biblical carnal love Poem Song of Songs (2/7 , 3/5 , 8/4) :

I adjure you, O Daughters of Jerusalem,

By the deers and by the gazelles of the field

Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

The Rabbis in Tractate Ketubot 111a gave the following mystical interpretation of this refrain :

(R. Jose son of R. Hanina said :) 'What was the purpose of those three adjurations (oaths) ?

- One, that Israel shall not go up [to restore Jerusalem all together as if surrounded] by a wall, the second, that whereby the Holy One, blessed be He, adjured Israel that they shall not rebel against the nations of the world ; and the third is that whereby the Holy One, blessed be He, adjured the idolaters that they shall not oppress Israel too much.

This Aggadic interpretation of Ketubot 111a became progressively the steadfast cornerstone of the mystical leitmotiv of the diasporas Rabbis and their communities :

For instance, the Maharal of Prague (Rabbi Betzalel Lowy who lived in the 17th century) declared :

“Even if the nations wanted to kill the Jews with terrible torture, the Jews are forbidden to change the applicability of the “three Oaths’. This is relevant to every one of these ‘three Oaths’ and must be understood. Therefore, not only is it forbidden to leave the Exile even with the permission of the nations, but even if they force the Jewish People to do so under pain of death, it is forbidden to violate these ‘three Oaths’ in the same way it is required to give up one’s life rather than accept another religion.”

And one of the most renowned German Jewish leader of the nineteenth century, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch wrote :

"During the reign of Hadrian when the uprising led by Bar Kochba proved a disastrous error, it became essential that the Jewish people be reminded for all timesof an important, essential fact, namely that the people of Israel must never again attempt to restore its national independence by its own power : Israel has to entrust its future as a nation solely to Divine Providence (to the Messiah)." Incidentally, the Rabbis had also to resort rather laboriously to a similar Aggadic interpretation of the same Biblical love Song of Songs, in order to explain why the Jews stand in the wrong axis (west to east) when mourning and praying at the “Wailing Wall” in Jerusalem…)

In August 1897 , at almost the same time as the First Zionist Congress organized by Theodor Herzl took place, the Central Conference of American Rabbis adopted a resolution totally disapproving of any attempts for the establishment of a Jewish State. And in the same spirit this Conference of American Rabbis, which met at Richmond, Va., on Dec. 31 1898, declared itself as opposed to the whole Zionist movement on the ground (as one of the members stated) "that America was the Jews' Jerusalem and Washington their Zion…" The "Reform Advocate" in Chicago even suggested editorially that the real object of Theodor Herzl was to possess himself of the savings of their poorer brethren.

Isaac M. Wise, president of the Hebrew Union College, thought that the Zionists were "traitors, hypocrites, or fantastic fools whose thoughts, sentiments, and actions are in constant contradiction to one another" (Hebrew Union College Journal Dec., 1899) ; while Rabbi Samfield wrote in the "Jewish Spectator" that "Zionism is an abnormal eruption of perverted sentiment." Prof. Louis Grossman held that the "Zionistic agitation contradicts everything that is typical of Jews and Judaism," and that the "Zionistic movement is a mark of ingenuity, and does not come out of the heart of Judaism, either ancient or contemporary" (Hebrew Union College Journal, Dec., 1899). In fact, the Rabbinical authorities had led the Jewish communities of the World for nearly 2,000 years.

The rise of Zionism was (as they wrongly thought) a distinct threat to their authority, power, revenues and their teachings. Besides, the prominence of secular Jews in the movement and the emphasis on settlement in Palestine made them (wrongly) fear that the center of Judaism would move away from their local Yeshiva and Synagogue. Moreover, the entire world’s incredulity at Theodor Herzl’s dream was such that an anecdote cited by Theodor Herzl in his Diary gives the full scope of the uphill battle he had engaged. In the Neue Frei Press (The Viennese newspaper where Theodor Herzl worked as journalist) they had a feuilleton by Flammarion: "Is Mars Inhabited ?" At the office they were discussing Mars. Bacher said to me in a superior tone : "Maybe you can set up your Jewish State on Mars." Laughter among the smart boys.

(Hertz Diary, 28 January 1897)

For all these reasons (Jewish and non Jewish), one can understand that, despite all the superhuman organization efforts and the phenomenal diplomatic activity of Theodor Herzl -aimed at recreating politically a State of Israel which would have been recognized by the main international Powers- it took (after ceaseless pogroms and other similar anti-Semitic persecutions) the immense revulsion of the civilized world caused by the Shoah-Holocaust to convince a core of the secular Jewish community that, in order to survive, the Jews definitively needed their Jewish State, whatever the price would have to be paid for it.

Meanwhile, in this crucial History of Judaism, and although Theodor Herzl had lived as a secular, largely assimilated Jew and had been fluent in neither Hebrew nor Yiddish, his main mystical motivation and inspiration have been singularly and scandalously eclipsed. According to the account which he gave to the Hebrew writer, Reuben Brainin, less than a year before his death (which makes his confidence most significant), Theodor Herzl was attracted to the Messiah legends of the Jews from early adolescence. At the age of twelve, he had a “wonderful dream,” which he recounted as follows :

The King-Messiah came, a glorious and majestic old man, took me in his arms and swept off with me on the wings of the wind. On one of the shining clouds we encountered the figure of Moses. The features were familiar to me out of my childhood in the statue by Michelangelo. The Messiah called to Moses: “It is for this child that I have prayed !” And to me he said: “Go and declare to the Jews that I shall come soon and perform great wonders and great deeds for my people and for the whole world !”

"The Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness.
I have surely built Thee a house of habitation,
A place for Thee to dwell in forever."