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Precisely this is hinted — 35

Precisely this is hinted — to be comforted by way of a "beginning." Start small, recall your sins, ascend a level to the wonderful comfort in the concept of "power," the only concept that bears comfort within it; since there is no other comfort, besides your own power. This is the main thing. To base the comfort on power. All other things are of no importance; whether easy or a crown, whether the Rabbi is a rabbi, or a nobody, or even a bandit, and even the content of the "alphabet" is not important, for each generation has its own alphabet.

In the ears of the generation that grew up before our eyes, and upon whose shoulder was placed, it seems, the responsibility for the great turning point in our history — the alphabet rings with its sand-and-spirit: Learn for yourself, and you have nothing. All the arguments that can be made against this seaman's alphabet and its rote knowledge, I do not wish to say that these arguments are foolish or ill-considered. On the contrary, most of them yield benefit. If they tell me, for example, that in order to live and bring benefit to the public, a man must know a trade and also learn "culture," if he wants to be a man, and if he wants to be a Jew he must learn the history of his people and its national language — if they tell me all these things, I would agree; he must learn. And if they tell me that one cannot build states by shooting, for a state is built with squadrons and cavalry, with commerce, with toil, with intellect, then I will sign on to that with both hands as well. And should one say to me, that pardoning the shooting is baser than "Relos'um," and our world still hates more than "Dolitom'um," and it is weak to forgive, I will not object to it. (Although I am not sure about "Shilom'o." if he truly has peace aspirations of this kind) But I would agree to this, that the thing itself and a situation like this are for our redemption. We were careful to learn the craft of the hands, but we were forced, and there is nothing [to be done]; in this, there is a certain benefit to defending against the necessity of historical reality.

And this necessity tells us: If you are capable (of learning) to plow the land and build houses, and all of you as one will speak Hebrew and know all our national literature from the Song of Deborah to Avigdor Hameiri and Shlonsky. And with all that you do not know how to shoot — there is no hope for you; however, if you do know how to shoot, perhaps there is hope. This is the language of the historical reality of our days and of the days of our descendants — the experience of the last fifteen years and the prospects for the fifteen or tens of years that are to come upon us. This is understandable to all: to every Zionist, and to every opponent,