An Open Letter about Literature

To the editorial board of Ha-Nir, greetings.

For some time, I have wanted to tell our honorable writers what a simple householder [ba‘al ha-bayit] like me wants from our literature.

By using the term simple householder, I do not intend to cloak myself in a garb of exaggerated modesty, as if to claim that I am a simple Jew, like my father of blessed memory. [ . . . ]

The Gemara, Midrash, and Psalms were enough to satisfy their hunger, and if they also found some tasty morsels in [the simple moralist books] Re’shit ḥokhmah or Ḥovot ha-levavot, then they were delighted [ . . . ]

But I am not so simple. As a householder of the new generation, I already know several languages, and a little or a lot about the general sciences. I have studied [Henry Thomas] Buckle, Darwin, and Spencer, and have read Tolstoy, Nietzsche, and Ibsen, and my mind flows across all humanity, sharing in its sorrow and desiring its progress.

But nevertheless, as far as Judaism is concerned, I am a simple Jew. When it comes to faith and religion, the Torah of Moses and the words of our prophets and sages overrule all the authorities in the world. It is obvious to me that all the scholars failed to understand what the Jewish faith is and what the Jewish religion is, since with their intellect they sought to grasp matters that the mind cannot possibly grasp. I am not such a scholar—I barely reach their ankles. But I am fond of the Torah of Israel; its commandments are sacred to me; and I shall not trade in my feelings, the emotions of a Jewish soul, for all the sophistry in the world. I am the son of a “stiff-necked people,” and am proud of this.

But I also want Hebrew literature to be fruitful and multiply. I cannot confine myself solely to the old books, as my father could—I also need modern literature in Hebrew: literature that will progress and advance with time to a more elevated level parallel with non-Jewish literature. [ . . . ]

I do not demand of our literature that it give us general sciences: these I can find to my satisfaction in other literature, and in no way will our literature gratify me in these subjects. For as soon as we manage to publish some translation of one book in the general sciences, dozens or hundreds of other original works will appear in other languages. [ . . . ]

In my opinion, this is needed not merely of me, but also for the very existence of our nation.

The Jews have no heroism except in faith. Since time immemorial, our ancestors were heroes of faith. The great literature we inherited from our forefathers was created in faith, and we can also continue to flourish in faith. Faith will strengthen our nationhood; the settlement of our land will bloom and prosper through it; faith will grant soul to the people and the language. And faith will revive everything. It is eternal, and only those who wed themselves to it shall exist for eternity. [ . . . ]

If the writers only know their function, as Ezra the Scribe knew his, and as did the entire chain of our sages and writers down to the current generation, then they should ensure for the sake of the preservation of Judaism to remind us in every national action we undertake that we are children of Moses, descendants of R. Yoḥanan ben Zakkai.

I believe that I am not alone among our people; that there are many “householders” like me among us, who make the same demand of Hebrew literature as I do.

A simple householder [ . . . ]

Response of the Editorial Board

Dear Householder!

Sir, your demand that our literature be devoted solely to eternal questions is either too extreme or too lenient. It is difficult for me to imagine that such comments, divorced from life, were made by an educated householder such as yourself, familiar with the world and with life. But I have concluded that the reason for your demand lies in the “concentrated impurity”¹ of Exile that still squirms in your soul. [ . . . ]

The physical fear of every petty policeman has led us into a base submission that drives us to reconcile ourselves to necessity. “What can be done with the consolation of Babylonians, which is blasphemous?”² And so for the Jews of Exile it is also alien and strange to imagine that we might have a Jewish police force and a Jewish policeman. Maintaining a police force and ranks is the domain of the gentiles. Thus this view became established among us, to the point that many believe that the Jews could not exist without the gentile gorodovoy [patrolman], and that at any time of trouble one must turn only to him as their protector and savior.

The same principle applies to the spiritual domain. Our literature can contain everything: Creation, the Divine Chariot, halakhah and agadah, ethics, philosophy, and thought—“solutions to the eternal questions”—but not “solutions to the temporary questions.” Temporary questions and all the natural sciences are regarded as tantamount to a “Cossack guard,” and a Jewish form thereof is akin to a strange hybrid being.

But all such ideas are the product of exile, the outcome of the concentrated impurity whose venom has permeated us since we were exiled from our land and ceased to be a living nation dwelling in its land; we forgot what goodness was.³

We have forgotten that temporary questions are important and of the tremendous public needs, and public needs always stand on the same level as Torah study, which was also “created for Israel.” Public matters cannot be resolved without the participation of literature. A living nation absorbs all that is needed to improve its life from the general global culture, but it brings everything into its own domain, into its literature, after adapting it to the unique conditions of its own life. [ . . . ]

Yet the time has come for us to take real life into account and to expand our [literary] domain. We cannot and must not stagnate from here on in this regard, as before, due to the exilic compulsion. There we placed our trust in the gentile policeman, and if we required science, we turned to the gentile languages. Here in the Land of Israel it is not so. Here the life of our communities and colonies rests in our own hands, and we must supervise all our material and moral assets. We are reviving, and with us, so is our language and literature. This may be ignored in the exile, where it is also possible to deny the very reality of this revival. But not here in the Land of Israel, where the resurrection is opening our eyes even if we do not wish it so. [ . . . ]

You were indeed correct in your protest at all the filth and obscenities our literature has absorbed, particularly in recent times. Especially because these do not come under the sphere of life. A national life is impossible without science, without poetry, without beauty—but it is possible, particularly for Jews, that it be without obscenity, without the stench of evil and without physical and spiritual impurities. [ . . . ]

But we must not confine our literature solely to the sacred realm, as you suggested. Rather, we should extend the boundary of the sacred to include all daily life with all of its demands and all of the sciences they require.

In that day shall even the bells of the horses will be inscribed: “Holy unto the Lord.” (Zechariah 14:20)