THE SERMON
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doom, guarding and observing their own sentence with unimaginable
pedantic strictness, not to be redeemed for ever and ever!
Vv
ell, now
then . . . now then ... the birth pangs of Messiah. . .. That's an
entire, separate chapter, a very interesting chapter.... Why must
there be, according to the folk belief, why must a time of great
troubles come before the end of days? What for? ... Why couldn't
they do without the troubles? After all, he
is
Messiah and he has un–
limited power.... Why couldn't he come amid joy, with goodness
and blessings, in the midst of peace? ... And look: It's not troubles
for Israel's enemies particularly, for the Gentiles, but especially for
Israel! Nor are these troubles such, let's say, that would make them
repent and so on, but just troubles for the sake of trouble, with no
rhyme or reason, a whole flood of troubles, plagues, and oppressions
and every kind of torment, until the eyes of Israel grow weary with
beholding the grief and agony, till they can no longer bear it, and
they despair of redemption.... What is this? A
Weltanschauung?
Historic wisdom? Or is it perhaps what one dare not hint: simply
their own fear of redemption? ... I am just lost!"
He really looked lost, standing there. He seemed for a moment
to have forgotten himself completely, and not to know where he was.
"It
seems to me," he said, with a vague, sickly smile, "I once
heard there was a sage or a pious man, I forget who, that said it
already: 'Let him come, and may I not see it,' or something like
that.... Maybe it was a joke, a cynical remark, or just chatter. Or
maybe it was a great truth, revealing a secret deep, deep buried... .
How was this myth ever invented at all? Not invented, no ... I
don't mean to say that ... because in the beginning surely there was
nothing but hope and longing for the kingdom of the House
cf
David.... But how did it become what it turned into afterwards, the
classic creation of the people, one might say the creation of its highest
genius, the eternal creation of the people of Israel? What made it,
more than any other myth sink so deep and spread so wide in the folk–
mind that it became common to everyone, rabbis and thinkers and
the mass of people, scholars and illiterates, man, woman, and child?
What was there in it to let it dye our very heart's blood, and rise to
a kind of dogma of faith and religion, the foundation of the whole
people's life for all ages, our national idea, our vision in history, our
political program, and so on? Whatever the answer-it did! That's the
