Rachel and Max Nordau

Our father Yaakov foresaw that the exiles would pass through Bet-Lechem, therefore he buried Rachel there, in order that she should ask compassion for her children. (BEREISHIT RABBAH)

Thus said HaShem: A voice is heard on high, wailing, bitter weeping, Rachel weeps for her children; she refuses to be consoled for her children, for they are gone. Thus said HaShem: Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for there is reward for your accomplishments – the word of HaShem – and they will return from the enemy’s land. There is hope for your future – the word of HaShem – and your children will return to their borders. (YIRMIYAHU 31:14-16)

Max Sudfeld was born in Pest, Hungary in 5609 (1849). The son of Rabbi Gavriel Sudfeld, Max was given a religious education. At an early age, however, he drifted from the Jewish community, initially working as a journalist and later resolving to study medicine. In 5640 (1880), his studies took him to Paris where he opened a medical practice and made a name for himself in literature. A staunch advocate of assimilation into the gentile world, Max discarded all Jewish peculiarities and changed his family name to Nordau.

Nordau was widely considered a controversial writer due to his attacks on contemporary social behavior and European art. His Conventional Lies of Society, written in 5643 (1883) was an assault on the irrational egotism and nihilism he perceived as the prevalent feature of his generation. By 5658 (1898), his contentious works were translated into nearly twenty languages.

Accomplished as a doctor and accepted in enlightened circles as a prolific writer, Nordau had turned his back on the traditions of his people. He had left the ghetto and successfully assimilated into European society. Not oblivious to the growing anti-Semitism around him, Nordau advocated assimilation for Jews everywhere as its ultimate solution.
One fateful day in 5656 (1896), a young religious boy came to Nordau’s office for medical treatment. Seeing the boy’s traditional clothing and side-curls, the doctor mocked the child, asking “Where do you attend school?” Not aware he was being ridiculed, the child answered “I learn in the heider (religious school).” Satisfied with the expected reply, Nordau smugly challenged “So what did you learn today in your Jewish school?” The boy then enthusiastically related the story he had heard from his teacher that day – the story of Rachel crying for her children.
“You see, Doctor, our mother Rachel’s voice is heard in the heavens. Her voice is choked with bitter tears because she is crying for her children. She refuses to be comforted for we have been exiled from our land. HaShem finally speaks to her, saying ‘restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for there is reward for your tears. They will return from the enemy’s land. There is hope for your future and your children will return to their borders.’”

Doctor Nordau listened to the boy’s story and his eyes began to moisten. A sudden change took place within the doctor’s heart and he was instantly returned to the innocence of his youth. He had asked a question to deride the Orthodox child but now could not help himself from openly weeping. He hugged the confused boy for opening his heart to the secret of Rachel’s tears.

The Maharal of Prague writes in Netzach Yisrael that the Hebrew nation was dispersed to the five corners of the earth and not the four. Israel was scattered to the four directions and the center. The reason for being dispersed not only to the four corners but also in the middle is to show that the power to unify remains during the exile. That power, however, is potential and not active. The power can be activated only through the tears of Rachel – the trait of compassion which has the ability to unify Israel on its soil.

Rachel’s tears are the source of the Zionist Movement. The nation of Israel’s rebirth in fact emerges from Rachel’s womb. The word womb – rechem – is the source of the word rachamim – compassion. For nearly two thousand years the Jewish people were scattered throughout the world, each one separate from the other. In all practicality, the suffering of one community had little significance to Jewish populations elsewhere. But the potential to reunite as a nation always remained in Rachel’s womb. The Maharal ascertains that this is the reason Yaakov buried his wife on the road to Efrat. He foresaw that the nation would be sent into exile on that route and wanted Rachel to beseech mercy from HaShem. Rachel had already proven herself qualified for this role through the consideration she displayed to her sister Leah on her wedding night. Rachel’s tears reflect the heart and the potential to reunite Israel in its borders. The center – Zion – serves as a magnet that can draw Israel home from the four corners of dispersion. But this magnet can only attract a sensitive heart. During most of the exile, the Jewish heart was numb. Scripture refers to this as a “heart of stone” (YEHEZKEL 36). But when one feels genuine compassion for the suffering of another Jew, his heart awakens and becomes receptive to the magnet of Zion. He instantly becomes a “Zionist” and is automatically pulled home to Eretz Yisrael.

Shortly after his encounter with the young child, Nordau was visited by Binyamin Ze’ev Herzl. It took little persuasion for Herzl to convince him of his dream for Jewish statehood in the Land of Israel. Nordau soon became Herzl’s partner in the Zionist Movement, playing a central role in defining the Basel program. At the initial World Zionist Congress in 5657 (1897), Max Nordau gave the opening speech on the situation of the Jewish people living in the exile. His lengthy and emotional address closed with the words “Jewish distress cries for relief. To find that relief will be the great work of this congress.”

“Your speech was the congress!” exclaimed Herzl after Nordau’s address. Until 5671 (1911), Nordau spoke at every congress on themes dramatically influenced by the tears of Rachel. At the sixth World Zionist Congress, Nordau defended Herzl’s Uganda plan, arguing that it offered a temporary solution to Jewish suffering in Europe. It was he who coined the term nachtasyl (night shelter) to describe the proposal, emphasizing that it was not meant to replace the true goal of bringing the nation home to Zion. In any event, the Uganda plan was defeated due to tremendous opposition from Russian delegates at the congress. Following Herzl’s death in 5664 (1904), Nordau was offered the position of World Zionist Organization president but declined, preferring instead to serve as an advisor to David Wolffsohn. As time progressed, however, Nordau saw that the emotional power behind Herzlian Zionism was being eroded by hardhearted pragmatists. Remaining faithful to Herzl’s revolutionary political program, Nordau opposed the growing minimalist trend within the movement. Self-styled intellectuals began to assert control over Zionist politics and Nordau’s views became increasingly marginalized. Ahad Ha’am, for example, did not view Zionism’s role as providing a solution for the entire Jewish nation. Rather, he sought to erect an elitist cultural center in Palestine that would serve as a focal point of “Judaism” for the Diaspora. Alarmed by the new leadership’s lack of concern for the suffering masses, Nordau lashed out at Ha’am, saying “what you propose is a Judaism without Jews!”

Nordau deemed saving the Jewish nation to be the mission of the Zionist Movement. But under the evolutionary leadership that followed Herzl’s death, Zionism was transformed from an emotionally charged revolutionary movement to a pragmatic philanthropic endeavor. Seeing the Zionist Movement as a mere shadow of what Herzl had intended it to be, Nordau distanced himself from it but never from the idea of a return to Eretz Yisrael. Although there was decelerated progress in gradual developments under the new Zionist leadership, the movement no longer saw its aim as the emergency rescue of the scattered Jewish people. Instead it worked to establish one community at a time that would absorb a number of immigrants and build a solid infrastructure. Like Rachel, Max Nordau refused to be comforted by these nominal achievements. Sensitive to the suffering of his people in the exile, he perceived a tremendous hatred brewing throughout Europe. Well read in contemporary anti-Semitic literature, Nordau saw an urgent need for Jews to evacuate the Diaspora.

Although no longer active in the Zionist Movement, Nordau continued to give an address at each congress. Because the subject of his speech was always the growing danger of anti-Semitism and the imperative need to evacuate the exile, Nordau became cynically known as the “Catastrophic Zionist”. By describing the tragic fate awaiting the Jewish people in Europe, Nordau hoped in vain to return Herzl’s lost sense of urgency to the Zionist leadership. At the last congress he attended, in 5671, Max Nordau declared that:
“The arrogant lie of today’s culture has been caught at the time of its demise. How can those political leaders, who articulate fancy slogans, glorify progress, development, humane values and justice? It all sounds very beautiful. But those very righteous governments who are working in a noble effort to bring about an eternal peace are, according to their own admission, preparing the extermination of six million Jews! And when this occurs we will beseech the civilized nations of the world to come to our aide in the name of humanity. And they will answer us without reservations, saying ‘humane action? How will that benefit us?’”
Twenty two years before Hitler’s rise to power, Max Nordau’s statements were widely considered outlandish. His adversaries in the movement used them to undermine whatever credibility he still retained in Zionist politics. At a time when Adolph Hitler was a young child, Mein Kampf had not yet been written and the Nazi party did not yet exist, Nordau vainly cried out that the only reason for a Zionist Movement is to save six million Jews from annihilation.

Nordau was called a “Catastrophic Zionist” for two reasons. One, he foresaw a catastrophe approaching the Jewish people and two, because he encouraged a mass aliya of Jews to Palestine. According to the claims of the pragmatic Jewish leadership, Nordau’s plan would bring an economic catastrophe on the community in Palestine, which was materially unprepared to absorb so many immigrants. Unlike the rational leaders of the World Zionist Organization, Nordau was moved by a profound compassion for his people, enabling him to detect the potential hate force developing beneath the surface. Like Rachel, he refused to be comforted – for he now understood exile to connote the land of one’s enemies. In 5680 (1920), Nordau advocated the idea of a mass transfer of over half a million Jews to Eretz Yisrael. Years before the British had restricted Hebrew immigration, he argued that the Zionist Movement must organize an emergency aliya of European Jewry to the Land of Israel as a central place of refuge before time runs out. World Zionist Organization president Chaim Weitzman argued that Nordau’s proposal was impossible due to financial restrictions. Nordau, a scientist and rational scholar, responded that “even if 60,000 would starve, it would still be worthwhile.”

A healthy womb allows for a successful birth. But when compassion is lacking from the nation of Israel, the womb is unhealthy and a miscarriage takes place. Instead of Am Yisrael being born in full splendor, six million were needlessly torn away from the nation – six million that could have contributed to the building of a society that would come only a few years too late for them.

Max Nordau foresaw this tremendous catastrophe three decades before it occurred. By exposing himself to anti-Semitic literature, he internalized its message through the sensitivity of his heart. Unlike the cynics who discarded its importance, Nordau recognized the hate growing throughout Europe and his compassion barred him from finding comfort in gradual Zionism.

Compassion in its purest form is a prophetic power that allows one to identify danger on the horizon. A caring mother, for example, whose child comes home crying because he was called a derogatory name, understands that today it might be words but tomorrow it can be fists. The next day could be a stone, then a knife or a gun and eventually it could lead to death in the crematoria. Like a loving mother, Nordau cared about his people to the extent that he could recognize the danger before it was mature enough to strike.

Because Herzl died young and Nordau’s influence became minimal in Jewish politics, the cry of Rachel was choked and Zionism lost its emotional sense of urgency. Under Chaim Weitzman, pragmatism replaced responsibility and Zionism experienced several decades of slow motion, resulting in the tragic failure to save six million Jews.

At the commencement of the Oslo War, when the Tomb of Yosef had fallen to the Arabs, Feisal Husseini declared that the next stop on the way to Jerusalem would be the Tomb of Rachel. By making this statement, Husseini asserted the Arab subconscious aim to steal the Zionist legacy born from Rachel’s womb. By conquering Rachel’s Tomb, the Arabs seek to appropriate the Zionist dream and Israel’s national aspirations. This clarifies the fundamental nature of the Palestinian movement. After decades of trying to destroy Zionism through conventional warfare, the Arabs now attempt to conquer Israel’s emotional force and national struggle for independence. At its essence, Zionism is a revolutionary movement of liberation and national renaissance. While expedient pragmatists assumed Israel’s leadership and Zionism’s essence was critically diluted, the Arabs of Eretz Yisrael began aiming to fill the void. Speaking in the language of a third world national liberation movement fighting for independence, they portray themselves as the true Zionists in an attempt to usurp Israel’s homeland and national rebirth.

But the essence of revolutionary Zionism is compassion while the Palestinian movement is built and fueled by hate. Still, the Maharal teaches in Netzach Yisrael that the knowledge of the opposites is one. The Palestinian movement is the reflection of Zionism, meant to awaken our hearts and drive forward our revolution. There is still much to accomplish before Zionism is victorious – the liberation of our full borders, the complete ingathering of the exiles to Zion and the cultural upheaval meant to establish Israel as a genuine light unto nations.
The Zionist revolution strikes a powerful nerve in the Arabs, who once aroused becomes wild with a sensation of carnage. The Muslims instinctively realize that in order to conquer Zion, the Tomb of Rachel – the source of Israel’s compassion – must fall into their hands.

Unbeknownst to many, Islam’s greatest success in its war against Israel is that it silenced Rachel’s cry and prevented six million Jews from coming home. This was achieved through political dealings with both sides of World War II. Through threats and riots, the Arabs pressured the British government into prohibiting Jewish immigration to Palestine. Simultaneously, the Jerusalem Grand Mufti Haj Amin al Husseini (uncle to Feisal Husseini) had committed Arab support to Nazi Germany’s war effort and encouraged the SS to speed along the final solution (the Grand Mufti even helped organize a Muslim SS division in Bosnia). Rather than cause Britain to reject the Arabs of Palestine, this sinister alliance forced them to placate the Muslims in an attempt to win them over.

The Jewish community, on the other hand, automatically pledged its support to the British war effort, thus signaling that no one need take seriously their demands for immigration or independence. The Jewish establishment’s short sighted leadership officially placed Zionist aspiration on hold for the duration of the war. There was no pressure on the Allied Forces to save Jews, but rather unwavering support for the war effort against Hitler. As a result, the shores of Palestine remained closed to six million Jews who could have otherwise been saved. The true lesson of what took place in the Holocaust is that only through compassion can Israel survive. To secure Israel’s future as a sovereign nation free from terror and imperialism, the revolutionary character of Zionism must be restored through a sense of responsibility and commitment to Hebrew destiny. A new voice is heard in the heart: v'shavu banim l'gvulam –“and the children shall return to their borders”. The bitter cry of Rachel will become a cry of joy.