THE SERMON
183
Zion, and the holiness of the land, and the Holy Tongue, and the
end of days, and everything altogether.... But let's leave this, now.
For what
if
they really have something to fear? What if it's true that
Judaism can manage to survive somehow in Exile, but here, in the
Land of Israel, it's ve-ery doubtful? ... What if this country is fated
to take the place of religion, if it's a grave danger to the survival of
the people, if it replaces an enduring center with a transient center,
a solid foundation with a vain and empty foundation? And what
if this Land of Israel is a stumbling block and a catastrophe, if it's
the end and finish of everything? ..."
A queer, weary and ill-defined smile flickered on his lips.
"Well? ..." He bent his eyes on them as though waiting for
an answer. "What
if
they're right? What if their instinct doesn't
deceive them? ... Just see how here, here, in Israel, they are against
us, all the old settlers, all those pious old Jews, simple Jews like those
that ever lived in any other place or time. Don't their very faces tdl
us plainly: 'We are no Zionists, we are God-fearing Jews! We don't
want a Hebrew State or a national home. What we want is to go
up peacefully to be buried on the Mount of Olives, or down to pray
at the Wailing Wall undisturbed. . . .' Now, that means something!
I won't talk about our Mizrachi people, those little naive semi-sophis–
ticates of our Zionist movement. I'm speaking about the people, the
people of the root and foundation. Well, then? ... I'll tell you! To
my mind, if I am right, then Zionism and Judaism are not at all the
same, but two
things
quite different from each other, and maybe
even two things directly opposite to each other! At any rate, far
from the same. When a man can no longer be a Jew, he becomes
a Zionist. I am not exaggerating. The Biluim were primarily very
imperfect Jews. It wasn't the pogroms that moved them-that's all
nonsense, the pogroms--they were falling apart within, they were
rootless and crumbling within. Zionism begins with the wreckage of
Judaism, from the point where the strength of the people fails. That':::
a fact! Nobody has yet begun to understand Zionism. It is far deeper,
far more pregnant with vast and fateful consequences than appears
on the surface, or than people say. Herzl said no more than the rudi–
ments of it. Ahad Ha'am said nothing at all, just another idea that
came into the head of an inquiring Jew. At most, he went around
adviBing
Jews
who had somehow determined to establish a new com-
