The Ashkenazi Revolution

138masses. However, this nationalism is not one of ethics. Its ethics stand onequal footing with that of the group of moviegoers that escapes from aflaming cinema and that is willing to trample anybody who stands in itspath as long as it reaches safety. The ethics of this nationalism is specific,folded into itself and into the rescue of its people, having responsibilityonly to them. That is to say, it is not ethical in nature but is rather a groupegoism that has no connection with philosophical ethics. How, however,did Aaron David Gordon wish to combine these two, reckless Ashkenazinationalism and lofty philosophic ethics? Did he not discern thatDeganiyah was both a community of moralistic monks and, at the sametime, a front-line fortification of conquerors? There is no doubt that hediscerned this, but a shrewd calculation enticed him to ignore this fact andto agree to the unnatural “marriage” for the material-practical advantages itoffered. The First World War shattered Gordon’s doctrine to pieces. Heopposed the draft, but in the end he somehow accepted it along with hisfriends who were drafted, and therein was the burial of his doctrine. AaronDavid Gordon was active near the place where he was born, which wasalso near the first activities of Jesus, and the doctrines of both prophetsresembled each other very much. But the honest Jesus conquered the worldwhile the shrewd Aaron David Gordon lost his world and, today, he doesnot have even one disciple. If his name is mentioned, it is only in relationto discredited political mechanisms.The great Semitic faith and the basest Semitic shrewdness march together,their arms linked. Moreover: They are essential one to the other. Semiticshrewdness helps the Semite withstand the great trials that his faith placesupon him, that create friction between himself and the entire world.Semitic shrewdness is expressed in every field, even in strategy. The wartactics of Hannibal, one of the great men of the Semitic race, wascompletely based on ambushes and it was in complete contrast to the openbattles and exposed hearts of the Romans. Every Semitic religion iswoven, therefore, with two types of thread, the threads of faith and thethreads of shrewdness, and the proportion between these two types ofthread determines the nature of the religion.