Jewish Scholarship |
Jewish Scholarship
In 1882, Leon Pinsker, an Odessa Jewish doctor, published his famous book
Auto-emancipation. Although a
Russian, Pinsker wrote this book in German which, at that time, was the language
of all educated Europeans, just as English is now. The word emancipation is
derived from the Latin word manus or
hand and means “to give out of hand” or to liberate a slave. I call
attention to the Latin meaning because that was what
Pinsker sought to convey. He regarded the Russian and other European Jews
as slaves of the majority who, in Pinsker's words: “ ….are refused such
recognition as would not lightly be denied to Zulus” and went on to say,
"…….when we are turned out of the house we ourselves built we beg
humbly for mercy.” This is of course what the Arab terrorists and their
European allies still seek to do in Israel in the expectation that Jews will
once more act the role of eternal Cinderellas.
Pinsker
was an “intellectual” and in his own words, “a diploma chaser.” He
founded the Choveveh Zion or Lovers of Zion movement over which he presided
until a few years before his death.
Pinsker
recognized sixty years before the Europeans murdered one third of the Jewish
people that our degrees, books, scholarly prizes, Talmud study, professorships,
even occasional genius would do us no good and was nothing more than a delusion.
A delusion, because the European Jews kept believing that they, i.e., we,
“the people of the book”, would somehow, somewhere, in some fashion gain
recognition for all we had done for “mankind”. Albert Einstein
understood this when he said that if his theories were proved wrong the French
would call him a German and the Germans would denounce him as a Jew.
Further, that if his theories were proved right no one would call him a Jew for
then he would be a man of the world.
The
truth is that neither Einstein nor any of the Jewish “intellectuals” were
able to prevent one Nazi murder any more than writing books prevents the current
Arab Nazis from trying the same thing. The failure of scholarship as a cultural
“end in itself” has been proven over and over again. We are justified to
therefore ask: “Why does it continue?” Why is it that in America twice
as many Jews are college graduates than is true of the general American
population? A
vast number of Jews hold graduate degrees, in law, in medicine, in education and
in science. We are vastly over represented among Nobel prize winners and among
the faculties of universities and colleges. Almost all the great violinists in
this world are Jewish as are almost all American song writers. Yet, our survival
cannot come from such activities any more than this outpouring of talent helped
the Jews of Europe.
The
reason for all of this lies in our history. The Jews of Europe, once more using
the words of Pinsker “………were robbed, plundered and dishonored
and…….without the protection of law.” In view of this one thousand year
old condition, the Jews of Europe turned inward upon their own culture and their
own community. Excluded from the life of those among whom they existed, not
lived, they studied their sacred texts, the Talmud, the Mishnah, the Gemorah and
the Torah. They “learned”, if they could. If they could not, then they
observed the Shabbat and admired those who had the intellect to learn and study
and study and learn. High prestige attached to the most competent Jewish
scholars within the “shtetl” communities of Eastern Europe so that the few
“wealthy men” (in comparison to the abject poverty of everyone else) gladly
married their daughters to the scholars who earned nothing but were supported by
their in-laws.
Beginning
with the nineteenth century, these arrangements were slowly questioned. Some of
the Jewish Talmud scholars were reading non-Jewish books, including science and
philosophy, and some ran across the works of the Jewish Spinoza who doubted
everything. Others moved to America and entered the secular world with
great success, a success which could not be hidden from the shtetl.
Because America was, and is,
the exception, allowing any Jew the same opportunities that others have,
secular efforts succeeded here, for Jews more than for almost anyone else. The
reason was our erstwhile scholarship. The Talmud was no longer the focus here
but scholarship continued to have great prestige among American Jews. Now,
however, the scholarly endeavors could be directed at secular education. Jews,
beginning with the 1920’s, entered into higher education here. Here Jews
became doctors, lawyers, professors, M.B.A’s and successful business people.
We now even have some Jewish billionaires. The artistic community in this
country has been fructified by our abilities in that area and mankind in general
has benefited immensely from Jewish genius and Jewish work.
Yet,
among our enemies the same attitudes remain which Pinsker described so well so
long ago. If Jews should not live in Judea and Samaria on the grounds that
that area is somehow Arab territory, why can over 1 million Arabs live in
Israel? Yet the Arab hordes scream in the streets, “kill the Jews”
even as they are more than willing to be immunized by the anti-polio vaccine of
the Jewish doctor Salk. Crazed by religious bigotry and racial hate, these
same Arabs demand jobs in Israel whose population the seek to kill. The
president of Syria, a Moslem and not a Christian, seeks to incite the pope and
his followers against the Jews of this world by once more reciting the “Christ
killer” tale. Utterly immune to reason and obsessed by the need to
destroy, the Arabs sacrifice their own children to their compulsion to slaughter
Jews.
Today,
however, it is not 1903, the year the Russians murdered the defenseless Jews of
Kishinev. This is not 1943, the year the Germans slaughtered the Jews of Europe
and the Poles slaughtered their fellow Jewish countrymen. The Jewish world has
changed. The Arabs haven’t learned this yet. They believe they are
disadvantaged. Should not they have the same right to murder defenseless Jews as
everyone else?
They say they want all Jews to leave the so-called “West Bank” of the
Jordan river. If the Jews were to do so and abandon all Jewish towns and
homes there, then Judea and Samaria could be freely used to import all kinds of
weapons with which to destroy Israel. Of course, we Jews have learned. The
Israelis also have their scholarship. Yet, they know, and we need to remember,
that one missile fired from a helicopter makes a greater impression than a
million books. Shalom u’vracha. |