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Rabbinical Leaders

Rav Yehiel Michael Pines

1824-1912

Yehiel Michael Pines was born in Grodno, in the Russian-held part of Poland, in 1842. His education was unusual in that day for the scion of a notabale, pious family, for he was taught not only Bible and Talmud, but also the German language and its literature.

In 1874 a fund was created in honor of the ninetieth birthday of the Anglo-Jewish leader, Sir Moses Montefiore. Sir Moses had displayed a lifelong interest in the Jews of Palestine and the fund was therefore intended for work there. This new organization ended a long search for an agent to direct its labors on the spot by appointing Pines. He moved to Jerusalem in 1878 and henceforth his life was identified with its Jewish community.

Pines’ early months in Palestine were marked by an unpleasant squabble with some leaders of the ultra-orthodox group within its Jewish community. He rebuffed a request from these circles to share in the control of the fund he had come to direct, and they replied to this affront by excommunicating him as a heretic. It is not surprising that a violent debate ensued, in which much ink was spilled both to attack and defend his reputation for piety. When this storm had abated, Pines settled down to his work to become a recognized expert in land and colonization, as well as a productive writer on Zionist affairs. He was the first to collaborate with Eliezer Ben-Yehudah, after his arrival several years later, in the work of reviving Hebrew as the spoken tongue. In the 1890s he belonged briefly to the Palestinian lodge of the secret order, B’nai Moshe, which Ahad Ha-Am led. Nonetheless, Pines remained severely critical of the nationalist theories of both. At the end of his life (he died in 1912), Pines was an instructor in Talmud at the Hebrew Teachers’ Seminary in Jerusalem. Pines insisted just as strongly that the Jewish national identity was unique, but he saw this uniqueness not in the national ethic, but in religion. For him, Jewish religion and nationhood were indivisible, so that a secular Jewish national was completely inconceivable. His Zionism therefore envisaged a Jewish national community in Palestine whose life would be organized according to all the norms of traditional religion.

Religion as the Source of Jewish Nationalism

In regard to Hibbat Zion and the new formation that has occurred within it ranks, or better yet, the new ideas which (Ahad Ha’Am) and those that follow you adhere to – I find not one point upon which the two camps (religious and non-religious) can find a common meeting ground. There have assuredly been better times for Hibbat Zion, when it was open to all and everyone was equal within its ranks. Those days were days of action for Hibbat Zion when wisdom prevailed and the only objective of the organization was to buy land and settle people upon it, or to suggest various means of self-support to the community in Israel. In those days, the words of Rabbi Mordechai Eliyashburg z"l rang true, in that he desired to unite the religious and non-religious for the good of the whole. Yet those days have indeed passed and from the moment that the Truth from Eretz Israel appeared, many ceased to act and the zealous members of Hovevei Zion were content to dream dreams and concentrate on the spiritual perfection for our people.

I myself am in no way against such perfection, that is in ethics and moral actions of our people. And I admit freely and publicly that in this area a wide open field has been left to work and protect. But such a field no longer belongs to the majority, as only those of one specific outlook are allowed to hold onto it to work and protect it and only as they see fit. Yet, any sharing relationship, partnership or compromise in such work will of necessity bring with it argument and divisiveness. I have always sorrowed over the fact, and more so after I witnessed such a division, while the non-religious, enlightened community emerged victorious with the whole field in their care. This came about because such people know how to define their goals and realize what they must sacrifice in order to achieve them; whereas the religious are satisfied and sweetened in sleep and are lazy to the point that even thought is impossible let alone action. In truth, it must be said that without the non-religious, many religious Jews in the Diaspora would never have been awakened and made to help Hibbat Zion.

Nor have you, the secularists, any monopoly on the Zionist sentiment. I am as much a Lover of Zion as you are, not a whit less. But mine is not the Love of Zion which you have abstracted from the whole Jewish tradition to set it up in a separate existence. Any other people can perhaps have a national aspiration divorced from its religion, but we, Jews cannot. Such nationalism is an abomination to Jews. Moreover, it cannot succeed, since it has no roots in our reality. What is Jewish nationality divorced from Jewish religion? It is an empty formula, nothing but pretty phrases. After all, what is nationality if not a concept, or, in other words, a thought-image. But a thought-image which has no basis in reality is an illusion. What other basis in reality can there be for the thought-image of Jewish nationality except the unity of the Jewish people with its Torah and its faith?

I know the answer you will give me: Our history and our language also form part of our national heritage. True enough, a common past is a national heritage, but it is not the begetter of nationality. It is unheard of for an effect to turn around and become the cause of its own cause! Can a man sate his hunger by eating his own flesh? And as for the Hebrew language you mention – perhaps, if we still spoke it, it might offer some slight basis for our nationality, but in view of the state of the Hebrew language today, one can hardly see why you are ready to dedicate yourself to it. Who or what forces you to bring it back to life? Is it national sentiment? Again we see the effect becoming a cause! All of the vitality of national sentiment is in the national language, but the language itself has no vitality except in so far as it is nourished by national sentiment! But this is a circular argument which can go on ad infinitum!

The nationalism I represent is the nationalism of Rabbi Yehudah Halevi and of Rabbi Moshe Ben-Nahman, of blessed memory, a national sentiment organically integrated in faith, nationalism whose soul is the Torah and whose life is in its precepts and commandments.