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JEWISH BOOK ANNUAL
knowledgeable reader detects, without footnoting, Yehudah Ha
levi’s famous metaphor comparing the Jew among the nations
to a seed planted in the earth. Although inert to the eye of the
observer, this living-dead organism secretly nourishes itself in
preparation for a miraculous rebirth.
Underlying Ahad Ha'am’s various metaphors is his one mon
umental analogue, depicting Judaism as that psychobiological
national organism which has evolved into the most ethically su
perior and historically resilient folk genius the world has known.
This analogue spoke to a generation intrigued by Darwinism
and nascent studies of individual and folk psychology, and it
still engages a wide readership. It produced in answer to Jewish
self-effacement before Nietzscheanism, a gallery of Jewish ’’super
men,” Moses, the rabbis of Yavneh, Maimonides; in answer to
historical materialism, a reaffirmation of the power of the spirit
to overcome the perishability of time; in answer to the Jews’
frequent lapses into self-denigration, a reflex of ethnic pride and
“the will to survive,” which deftly steered a course between the
Scylla of parochialism and the Charybdis of cosmopolitanism.
(“Transvaluation of Values” and other essays)
In Ahad Ha'am’s campaign for modern Jewish self-conscious
ness, other literary images stand out clearly. The exemplary struc
ture of his “Sacred and Profane” impresses itself on the mind
as a rationale for adhering to religious practices for reasons of
national identity and national discipline. His “Spiritual Revival”
is a manifesto, presenting the use of Hebrew language and He
brew artistic subjects as symbolic vehicles for rehabilitating at
rophied facets of the Hebraic national character. The need for
this rehabilitation is urgent. Ahad Ha'am describes the over
whelming weight of assimilatory pressures as “a thousand hyp
notists” at work inside of us, forcing us to believe untruths about
ourselves. (“Two Domains”) Only iron self-discipline in study
and deeds can overcome the erosive pressures towards conformity
and self-negation.
In this pivotal area of recharging Jewish self-consciousness, no
less a figure than Hayyim Nahman Bialik echoed Ahad Ha'am’s
message, writing as a disciple quoting his master. Bialik cites
Ahad Ha'am’s interpretation of the vexed rabbinic statement,
“If a man studies as he walks and breaks off his study to say:
‘How lovely is this tree! How lovely is this field!’—Scripture re