Die Welt

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No. 26 — Vienna, 24 June 1904 — II. Thamuz 5664. — 8th Year.

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By the Way.

I.

Jewish life stagnates. An apparent calm upon the surface. Only here and there a bubble bursts; only from time to time the wave ripples, in token that somewhere a stone has plunged down. A certain slackness, a slight weariness has set in — perhaps only on account of the summer heat — and a refreshing rain is longingly awaited. And meanwhile the outward life of the Jews offers no particular interest. Again the old stories, again fresh reports of the English precautions against immigration, of the echo of the anti-Jewish riots in the lands of divers masters. And misery and tedium everywhere. . . .

And when one is bored without, one turns so gladly inward, withdraws into oneself, sinks into one's own "I", and one analyses oneself, one tortures oneself with questions and doubts. And it is then a delight for one, a cruel delight, to laugh at oneself, to laugh scornfully. He who cannot do so has no respect for himself! And we too would practise a little self-analysis, make a little "reckoning of the soul", as our elders were wont to call it; we would doubt, question and laugh, if only it will be possible. And I believe that it will be possible. . . Question and doubt! A healthy man with a healthy, normal psyche seldom doubts and questions. And to what end should he? His questioning, his doubting are always directed toward a definite goal, strive after a speedy, prompt answer. The torment, the blissful torture of the insoluble question, of the unanswerable doubt, is known only to a sick, a suffering soul. And to a sick, a suffering people. We Jews are such, we Jews do so. From every quarter, on all sides, the voice of Jewish doubt rises loudly and shakes the foundations of Jewish life, lays bare the nerves of the Jewish body to every wind and weather, analyses and torments. . . . In all languages and in the various lands, in German-Jewish and in Jewish literature proper, the question is raised: to what end do we live, and if we live, why? The question is indeed not new, at least not in the last century. But it is one of those questions that are evergreen. To prove the right of any thing to exist, its capacity for life, to demonstrate it exhaustively, convincingly, is impossible. Every answer harbours a new problem; out of every newly raised edifice of proof the holes already peep forth, from which one could overturn the edifice from its foundations.

The Why of the Because can never be wholly answered.

H. Sch. Hurwitz, in the April number of "Haschiloach", has once again, with a rare candour, in the tone of honest conviction, brought up the question of the Why and the Wherefore of our national existence. A doubting, despairing soul there wrestled for light, for self-knowledge. Through his mouth spoke the Jewish intellectual, the thinking one, who has been placed in singular circumstances of life, who is the slave of his circumstances. And he could not overcome his doubt, could not bridge the chasm of his soul. It is, to be sure, not so easy. And he ends with the question as to the Why of every "Because" that has been put forward; he seeks the real, deep-inward, ultimate motive that would justify our existence as a people, that would render it rationally, scientifically necessary. None of the answers suffices him, neither the political, nor the economic, nor yet the cultural. He would penetrate still further, still deeper. But here the weakness becomes visible that the Jewish intellectual, particularly he of the East, possesses. He lacks vital force and the courage to live. At the root of all becoming