What Paths Should Our Movement Take?

The Jewish question may be resolved through a new philosophical synthesis and a true reform of moral and religious life for Jews and Christians alike. Just as we must admit that we need reforms across the board, so Jews themselves must admit and feel the need to reform themselves. We read similar words, taken from the framework program of the Czech People’s Party, in The Social Question as well, and so we will not be mistaken if we ascribe authorship of the above-mentioned essay to Prof. Masaryk.¹ It has now been a good few years since these words were uttered, but as yet there has been no attempt on any side to make them the subject of reflection, to confirm them, refute them, or at the very least, expound them. No one on the side of the patriotic chauvinists is taking the trouble to consider the question, but also no one in our camp is racking their brains with it. Against the patriotic antisemitism calling for our absolute exclusion from national society stands the watchword of assimilation; we will be like you, we will be what you are, then you may exclude us. Neither exclusion nor assimilation is going forward. Nor has there yet been found any tribunal authorized to accept one person into the nation while excluding others, and, on the other hand, no one has been found at whose command Jews would deny their individuality. Nothing remains but again to seek instruction and the truth from Masaryk, and return to his formulation of the Czech Jewish question. Who is to begin the reform of moral and religious life? Most decidedly us! We are in the minority. We are more exposed to public criticism; and they take revenge on us for each moral error on the part of quite obscure individuals. We have felt instinctively, for a long time now, that there must be a moral improvement within the whole in order for the individual to sin less. The better the whole, the more elevated the idée morale that rules the whole, the more perfect will be each person and the rarer the lapses of individual persons. [ . . . ]

It is the fatal error of Jews, especially us Czech Jews, that we expect help from those of different faiths, and think that a liberator will come from elsewhere to our aid. No. Salvation lies within ourselves. We ourselves must work on our own intellectual revival, we ourselves must attend also to the defense of our moral principles, regardless of whether those attacking them be great or small.

If the whole is morally feeble, not even parts can be ideal; if the whole world has shaky principles, Jews cannot be the exception; thus it is not enough for Jews to reform, but essential, as Prof. Masaryk states, for Christians, too, to reform themselves morally. No dominant confession in our country suffices for the improvement of humankind. No one has said it better than Schopenhauer: “Christian morality is higher than any other that has ever reigned in Europe, but anyone who thinks that European morality has improved to the same degree may soon be convinced that among Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus there is at least as much honesty, fidelity, tolerance, beneficence, nobleness, nobility, and self-denial as among the Christian nations. Indeed, the cruelty of Christian nations, the religious wars, the plundering of the population of part of America, the murder of more than eighteen thousand inhabitants of the Netherlands, and the enslavement of Negroes bear very sad testimony to our moral maturity. If we compare the morality professed by Christianity, as well as those of other religions, with the practice of their followers and imagine where it would lead if the world’s long arm of justice failed to prevent crimes, or worse, what we would have to fear if our laws were suspended, even if only for one day, we must confess that the influence of our religion on our morals is in fact quite small.”² Where then are we to find a source of improvement when religion has such a sad balance sheet? It is no mere phrase that we need a new philosophical synthesis that can renew humanity, that we need new, redemptive thoughts to unite all humankind in a single camp and revitalize it. But is this not Messianism? What this synthesis will be like is hard to imagine. Prof. Masaryk himself has yet to indicate anything definite, but if it is to serve as the salvation of all, then it must contain elements that are Christian and Buddhist, as well as Jewish. Only then will it be, as the psalmist sings, a temple of all nations. The philosophical synthesis that is to replace, or, as the case may be, paralyze, religion, will be useful then to the extent that it combines the pantheistic views of Buddhism with the clear worldview of Judaism. It is not the Buddhist-Christian pessimism but the realistic optimism of Jews and Protestants that is capable of giving order to the world and bringing prosperity and peace to humankind.