THE BREATH OF HIS LIPS
Shavuot, 1943
††Hosea II, 1.“THE number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered.”
“The number of the children of Israel”—bitterness wells up in the heart of the Jew as he meditates upon the phrase. Which number cannot be counted? That of the multitudes who have lost their number among the living because they were of the seed of Israel, or the dwindling number of the shrinking remnant of Israel? Life seems to have made mockery of the phrase “the number of the children of Israel that will be as the sand of the sea.”
1
What is the number of Israel to-day? What is its measure? What is the weight of the Jew in the world?
There are three answers to such questions. We are counted and weighed by the world at large, we have our own estimation of ourselves, and lastly there is the estimation of our enemies.
The democratic nations think that the measure of the Jew is easily taken in these days, his weight is easily established, the number soon counted. And the figure that results is not a very impressive one. Yes, the United Nations have taken our measure and they treat us accordingly.
Were there in Western Europe to-day, in France, Belgium, and Holland, ten or fifteen or twenty million Jews, who in the event of an invasion of the Continent could rise against their oppressors; were there fifty or eighty or a hundred million Jews in Poland and occupied Russia, as there might easily have been had persecution and slaughter not taken their toll in the course of nineteen centuries of Western civilisation, were there so many Jews in Europe that by the mere weight of their numbers they could become a source of danger to the enemies of the United Nations, how the free peoples would flatter them, how they would woo them, what moving speeches would not be delivered by their great statesmen on the injustice inflicted upon the Jewish nation, what solemn pledges not be given, and what encouraging plans not drawn up in advance for the just solution of the Jewish question.
As it is, our numbers are not like the sand of the sea. Our measure seems to be so negligible that the United Nations deem it policy to ignore the existence of a Jewish nation.
Then there is our own estimation of ourselves, which unfortunately is very similar to that of other nations. Jews have lost faith in their own strength. They no longer believe that with their own action they can influence their own future.
To-day, Jews should be seized by a burning desire to save what can be saved, to plan and to prepare for the future. They should understand that the crisis demands of them courage and faithfulness and vision and sacrifice. The Jewish tragedy of our times should have roused them to the highest pitch of creative exertion. But instead, Jews continue in the old ruts as if nothing had happened; steeped in apathy and given over to fatalism, they wait for a miracle to redeem them.
The reason of the apathy and of this for Jews so strange a fatalism is “the number of the Children of Israel,” their weight in the world.
Without knowing it, we have counted ourselves, we have taken our measure, and we have found ourselves wanting. We no longer believe that we are strong enough to meet the forces that are arrayed against us to-day. And yet, the first condition of Jewish survival is the restoration of our faith is the efficacy of our own exertions. We must regain our self-respect and self-confidence. We must re-establish our faith in our own cause. Strangely enough, our enemies can help us most in this respect.
Our enemies, too, are counting Jews. More than anybody else are they interested in “the number of the children of Israel”. But they do not accept the mathematically correct figure that results from actual counting. To them the number of Israel hides some incomprehensible mystery, some dark and menacing secret. If in a town there are 50,000 Jews, the anti-Semite will insist that the correct figure is 500,000. And if in a country Jews number 500,000, the anti-Semite will believe that 5,000,000 is no exaggeration. Our enemies do not believe that the measure of the Jew is so easily taken. Everywhere and behind everything they suspect Jewish influence and power.
Even to-day, after the most crushing blows ever suffered by a nation have been inflicted upon us, our barbarous enemies on the Continent still pretend that their quarrel is only with the Jew. When every sane man is fully aware that the Jewish nation has been utterly broken, they still speak of the Jewish menace, and in every stroke dealt at them by the mighty democracies, they see the hand of the Jew. “Stalingrad”, according to them, was the work of World Jewry, and so was the Allied victory in North Africa, and so is everything else that is battering at the foundations of their evil régime.
In the estimation of our enemies we seem to be the most numerous and the most powerful nation on earth. According to their diseased imagination the prophecy of Hosea has come true; the number of the children of Israel cannot be counted. The number is a great mystery, a diabolical secret, the Jewish strength in the world is overwhelming.
2
Who is right? The nations that take so little notice of us; we who have lost all faith in our own strength; or our enemies, who so immensely exaggerate the power of Israel?
I believe that though all three are wrong, our enemies have come closest to the truth.
If one wishes to estimate the strength of any nation, one usually expresses it in numbers. How strong Russia?—The answer is given in a long list of statistics. So many inhabitants in a country of so many square miles, of them so many workers and so many soldiers, so many factories producing so many implements of war, etc. How strong Britain, the U.S.A.?—Again the answer is given in numbers. But how strong Israel?—Can one find the answer to this question in a figure? Sixteen, to-day it may be only thirteen, million Jews—is that really all? Sixteen million Jews without a State, without a land, without visible power anywhere on earth—does this give the strength of Israel? With most of the other nations numbers explain the part they have played in the history of the world, but do Jewish statistics explain the part that the Jewish nation has played on the historic scene? Our enemies forge statistics and exaggerate the number because they feel instinctively that Israel is much stronger and considerably more powerful than figures would suggest. And in this one thing they are right. How strong Israel?—the answer cannot be given in numbers, Israel cannot be explained by statistics.
The Midrash suggests that this may be the idea underlying the verse “and the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered”. Quoting the words from Ezra: **Ezra VIII, 34.“… the whole by number and by weight…. ”, and rendering their meaning as: “everything has a measure, the water, the sky, even the dust of the earth”, it remarked that Israel is the exception to this rule. Israel has no measure, as is written by Hosea: “… it cannot be measured nor can it be numbered”.
Israel’s strength is not in Israel’s number. Israel represents a force in the family of the nations to which number cannot be applied.
The Bible has had a more profound influence upon the development of humanity than many a great empire. The Revelation of Sinai and the moral code emanating from it have been among the greatest civilising factors on earth. Can one express this in numbers? How much the Bible? What number Isaiah, Hosea, or Amos? What engine power “Thou shalt not kill”? What productive capacity “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” or “Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger as for the homeborn”?
The spirit is not measured by inches or yards, ideas and ideals do not go by the pound nor prophets by the dozen. One cannot say it in numbers.
3
The power of Israel cannot be expressed by the materialistic conceptions of a materialistic world. But the power is there, if only Jews would have faith in the kind of power Judaism represents, if only they would learn how to wield the weapon of the spirit. For a mighty weapon is the spirit. The whole course of history proves that ideals which take hold of people are much more powerful than guns, tanks and aeroplanes. There is good reason for saying that the potency of Judaism has been vindicated even by the present world conflagration.
People often speak to-day of the contribution which Jews all over the free world are making to the war effort of the United Nations. Jews in the Forces, the factories, in Civil Defence, and so on. This is not the aspect that should be emphasised by Jews. It is only to be expected that every Jew should serve the just cause conscientiously and to the best of his abilities. But the lion’s share of the Jewish contribution to the war effort lies in a different sphere altogether; and again this contribution cannot be evaluated by numbers and statistics because it is of a spiritual nature.
Every student of British history and civilisation knows of the influence which the Bible has had upon the development of the British national character. Some time ago, one of the foremost thinkers in this country had the courage to state publicly that without this biblical influence upon the formation of the national character the brave people of this island would hardly have possessed the endurance and moral courage needed to meet the challenge of the fateful summer of 1940 and of the dangerous winter that followed** Cf. the article by E. Barker in “The Observer,” Dec. 22nd, 1940.. Here is an essential part of the Jewish contribution to the war effort.
Or think of Russia. Soviet Russia is of course not a Jewish country as our enemies pretend; but it is the fact that she came into existence as the world’s answer to the stirring message of a Jew. The Jew was not a faithful Jew and his message not a Jewish message, but neither the man nor his message is conceivable without the impact of Judaism upon the destinies of men. The dreams of a homeless Jewish fugitive have taken shape in a great state and in powerful armies that spell death and destruction for the enemies of mankind. This is another instalment of the Jewish contribution to the war effort.
Or think of Christianity. The new German paganism hates it, because, if true to itself, Christianity must be a dangerous stumbling-block across the path to world domination. Nazi philosophy sees in Christianity just another means by which Judaism has influenced the life of man. There is no reason why Jews should not accept the accusation. It is the fact that Christianity is one of the ways in which the spirit of Judaism has exercised its power over mankind. We are glad to learn that to-day this emanation of the Jewish spirit is reckoned an obstacle of some magnitude in the calculation of the enemies of humanity. This too is a Jewish contribution to the war effort.
Our enemies know why they hate us and they have every reason for their hatred. Had it not been for the Jewish contribution in the shaping of the destinies of nations, in the moulding of the characters of men and in the development of the moral standards of humanity, the enemies of mankind would be in supreme control of the world to-day.
Isaiah says of the Messiah: **Isaiah XI, 4.“And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked”. This is the kind of power that Judaism wields in history, the power of the God-inspired word in whose breath wickedness withers away. Or as the Midrash put it: ††Bereshith Rabbah, 65, 20.“As long as the word of Jacob remains alive among men, the barbarous hands of Esau cannot triumph”.