The
Zionist Congress meets for the first time without him who had created
it. The Seventh Congress - the Sabbath Congress - its creator has
not survived to behold. This rostrum no longer presents to you the
familiar aspect. We miss the tall central figure with the black-bearded
Assyrian head that drew all eyes.
What I personally felt, when he was lost to us, need not be told before
all. I will endeavour to speak of him, as he would like to have been
spoken of, without bombast or exaggeration, which would have greatly
gone against his grain as a fine stylist, a refined and sober intellect,
an artist in subdued semi-tints. I will try to see him and to show
him as he may one day appear to the historian, who will judge him
coolly on his deeds, uninfluenced by the radiant warmth of his personality.
On
July 3rd last year Theodor Herzl closed his eyes forever. On the day
of his death he had exceeded his 44th year by only two months. The
loud outburst of dismay, the long paroxysm of grief, which were the
thousand-fold echoes of the news of his demise, were the measures
of what he was to his people. At thirty-five years of age quite unknown
to the Jewish people, nine years later he had become its pride and
its hope. That he was able to attain this place in Jewish thought
and feeling is one of the wonders of his wonderful life. He had waded
far in the waters of assimilation, even through the deep parts that
almost completely immersed him. In the sunniest years of his life
he was completely taken up with interests that showed not a spark
of Judaism. He devoted himself wholly to artistic labors. He untiringly
dedicated all his energies to literary work. He had no other ambition
than that of conquering the stage and establishing himself in the
conquered sphere. Nothing drew him in the direction of his real life-work.
Nothing attracted his mind to deal with Jewish questions till the
day came when the situation of the Jewish people made him powerfully
conscious of his own Judaism.
For
Herzl was a proud man - not conceited or vain, but proud. That is
to say, he had assured consciousness of his moral worth, and that
self-respect of noble natures which implies that they think lovingly
of their fathers. He looked upon his blood as a valued heritage, his
descent as a distinction.
No
one, not even himself, had an inkling of the qualities that he brought
to his new task. Herzl really grew with his greater purposes; he grew
so mightily that his acquaintances and colleagues could no longer
gauge him by the accustomed standard, because he had outgrown their
limited measure. The vivacious conversationalist, the genial raconteur,
the witty and playful comedy-writer, was changed in a night into a
statesman of wide vision who boldly and resolutely strode along an
almost impassable route towards a lofty goal.
Herzl
set himself deliberately to the task of forging a people out of scattered,
weak-willed, aimless, human units of winning a land for that people,
without an army, without a navy, without financial resources, from
Governments who only reckon with these factors for gaining concessions.
That was an undertaking from which the boldest would have shrunk.
The opponents of Zionism said it was a completely hopeless undertaking.
Herzl was, however, convinced of his feasibility.
Herzl
was a model and an educator. He straightened the back of a broken
people. He gave them hope, he showed them means. The seed will sprout,
and his people will garner the harvest.