Ha-Shiloaḥ: Our Goal

[ . . . ] However, the new Ha-Shiloaḥ will also be different from its predecessor in many important respects. Without a doubt, Hebrew literature has evolved and accomplished much over the past fifteen years. Progress, however, has not been substantial. Even now we lack great authors, whose artistic masterpieces can educate an entire generation with new views, filling the voids in its heart. Wissenschaft des Judentums in the Hebrew language has yet to be created. Notable publicists deserving of the title number two or three. A critic who ascends to a philosophical height, becoming an artist himself by elucidating the works of others—we do not even have one of these. In this generation, it is difficult to point to even five Hebrew writers whose works will endure for generations to come.

Why is this?

In our opinion, this must be attributed (among other equally influential factors) to the demarcation in our literature between Hebrew subjects and general, universal subjects. Why delude ourselves? It is the exile that is responsible for this. Nevertheless, the fact remains, a French writer who knows no language besides that of his people can be a writer in the fullest sense of the word: he can even be [Émile] Zola! However, today (unlike in the past) the only Hebrew writers to know no other language but Hebrew are the poor idlers [batlanim] [in the study hall]. There are many sharp minds among those who learn in our study halls. Great talent can be found among the authors of dialectical [pilpul] and homiletical works. But they lack one thing: a European education, and therefore they remain idlers and their writings have no value whatsoever.

By contrast, those Hebrew authors who have a general education tend to look at anything they read in other languages as outside of their purview; they think that such things have nothing to do with their Jewish learning or our national literature. This leads to one of two things: (1) either they completely separate between that which they read in the other languages and that which they write in Hebrew, and they remain complete idlers when they write in Hebrew (such as the Western [European] scholars who occasionally write in Hebrew, and also in Russia, “scholars” and writers of “articles” in the old style) they deem every strange wording and every antiquated expression—the likes of which they would never dare to use in their non-Hebrew writings—to be not only good but necessary when they write in Hebrew. Alternately, (2) they insert what they have read in foreign languages into Hebrew literature unchanged, failing to adapt it to the requirements of the Hebrew language and the spirit of Hebrew. They are thus nothing but apes imitating others, authors who have not only corrupted their natural essence but also have not yet adopted another foreign persona. Therefore, our literature is “bald from here and from there” [b. Bava Batra 132a] and we have no writers with perfect minds who have unified Jewish and European education [Haskalah] to serve as a foundation for their natural essence, and on the one hand, without being idlers wallowing in the dust of the Middle Ages, and on the other, without feeling any “tearing” in their souls. And when there is no perfect mind there is no room for great talents.

Furthermore:

When we force the Hebrew writer to only discuss issues related also to Judaism, we determine, at least, a part of his soul. The Jew is not always preoccupied with his Judaism; and he always remains a human. The human feelings and thoughts of the Hebrew writer—be he poet or philosopher—are spontaneously emerging from hearts and minds and do not always manifest in a conspicuously Jewish garb. Certainly Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Judah ha-Levi, and Abraham Ibn Ezra were wholeheartedly Jewish thinkers and poets. Nevertheless, their diwans included poems about wine, nature, and women whose Jewish character is not particularly salient, any more than the French character of Béranger’s poems about the [same] subjects.¹ Therefore, if we say, for example, to Hebrew poets that “artistic poetry alone, the outpouring of the soul on the splendor of nature and the pleasures of love and the like—let any of our young readers who wish, to seek it in gentile languages, where he will find it in sufficient amounts” [here, Klausner is citing and critiquing Ahad Ha-Am's first articulation of Ha-Shiloaḥ’s approach in “The Mission of Ha-Shiloaḥ”; see above], we force our writers to be unnatural: to subdue and suppress many human thoughts and emotions, those things that they sincerely think and feel, but which find no home in Hebrew literature. The Hebrew writer cannot, therefore, have a perfect mind, and when there is no perfection, great talents cannot develop.

The only strategy and counsel for such an obstacle is to completely remove the barrier that separates “Jewish” from “general.” This is what we intend to accomplish in the new Ha-Shiloaḥ. When the young Jewish reader reads in his youth—in one language and in one book—about Judaism and of humanity as a whole, they will all blend together in his soul into a unified and perfect Weltanschauung. No longer will they seem to him like two separate worlds that never intersect. Then he will incorporate into his general education the Jewish mind that is latent within him from birth, an inheritance of a thousand generations. Then all those general visions and ideas will become an integral part of his Hebrew education, because he has read them in his national language and they have become “the bones of his bones and flesh of his flesh” [see Genesis 2:23]. We are not chauvinists; we are nationalists. Our nationalism is founded upon the lofty idea that every nation must accept from others all that is true, good, and beautiful [in their cultures] and transmit to others all that is true, good and beautiful [in their own culture]—that which it has created for itself and for others. Only a broad Hebrew literature that will absorb all that is true, good, and beautiful from the literatures of all nations shall, sooner or later, influence those nations. In this respect, we do not consider ourselves inferior to the Norwegians.²

It is true that we must fear “self-effacing imitation” [ḥikuy shel ha-hitbatlut]; but we aspire to “competitive imitation” [ḥikuy shel hitḥarut].³ But what does it matter to us if a Hebrew writer imitates the general books of [Friedrich] Nietzsche and [Georg] Brandes or if he imitates the books relevant to Judaism written by [Fritz] Hommel and [Emil] Schürer?⁴ Both are equally imitations that will not serve as a basis for creating original literature; we must be very careful of them both.

We would like to make one further change to Ha-Shiloaḥ, one that is not so substantial. We wish to expand the section of belles-lettres (which includes of course poetry). We are not doing this, as some may surmise, only to attract common readers—though this would be no sin: Ha-Shiloaḥ is not aimed at specialist-scholars and we are therefore entitled to do our best to spread it among a wider reading audience. This itself, however, would not prompt us to expand the belletristic section of Ha-Shiloaḥ unless we had a more proper reason: We believe poetry has an immense spiritual power, and that its influence on the evolution of the Jewish nation must continue to grow. One of the most egregious errors committed by our scholars in Germany and our researchers and publicists in Russia was failing to realize the great value of belles-lettres, looking down upon it disparagingly. Among the nations, even the philosopher [Immanuel] Kant would not have been embarrassed to discuss belles-lettres; he had no qualms about enthusiastically discussing in a serious philosophical work the poems of [Christoph Martin] Wieland.⁵ Today as well, some of the best books of about Goethe have been written by the most prestigious philosophers of our day such as Kuno Fischer, [Wilhelm] Windelband, and [Friedrich] Paulsen.⁶ A philosopher such as [Georg] Simmel writes a long article about a contemporary poet Stefan George and no one considers this odd.⁷ But were you to ask a Jewish scholar in Germany or Russia to write an article about [Chaim Nahman] Bialik—he would look at you as if you had gone mad. The reason is buried deep down in the life and worldviews of the Jew. The Jew is perpetually engaged in two pursuits: his faith and his livelihood. With some difficulty he can fathom why someone would bother dedicating time to “contemplation” [ḥakirah]—meaning philosophy and Wissenschaft des Judentums—for studying the Talmud, is after all, contemplation, and it too is full of acute philosophical terms. However, the writing of poetry was considered nothing but petty amusement. Therefore, we have many rhymers but few poets. As for stories, novels, and theatrical plays—these are merely [children’s] playthings in the eyes of the Jew, they are jesting and frivolity; they are the distractions non-Jews use to waste their time. Is it really possible for intelligent people to occupy themselves with such vain pursuits? . . . The Jew has yet to accustom himself to the idea that all poetic compositions are significant assets of human culture and have immense national value. Without them, no nation deserves to be called nation. During the [golden] age of Spain all our great ones—Judah ha-Levi, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, and Abraham Ibn Ezra—were simultaneously philosophers and poets. Now, the Jew cannot fathom how an adult or householder (as opposed to a young bachelor or a newly married adolescent who is dependent on his father in-law) can read stories and poems. Were one to tell this Jew that Arthur Schopenhauer was well versed in all the poems and stories of Goethe, practically knowing them by heart, and that he would regularly study Shakespeare and [Pedro] Calderón plays, [the Jew] would deem this astonishing and sheer nonsense . . .

We are ready to combat this erroneous view. We wish to slowly acclimate Jewish readers to treat belles-lettres as an important part of national and human culture, so that it no longer seems to them petty amusements and playthings. The era in Spain prepared our people for philosophy; it was a new national asset. The current period must prepare our people for belles-lettres and art; these will be counted among the new national values formed in the previous century. We have therefore decided to provide the reader each month with thirty-two pages full of poems and stories. If we succeed in publishing pieces of true beauty devoid of distracting agendas, of emotional tenderness without excitability and cloying sentimentality, and deep psychological analyses that do not fumble and poke about in search of false sentiments, then we hope that slowly we shall achieve our great, important goal: to instill within the hearts of our readers a greater consciousness that beauty, like philosophy and ethics, has great inherent value; that poetical works are not merely “flowers”—they are the “fruits.”