Part Five
Do Not Destroy
The frivolous have already grasped that it is possible to be built, but only on the ruin of one’s friend. This method is what fries humanity on fire to this day, since before one finds a vulnerable place in one’s friend, one cannot even conceive building anything. But the minute one has found a weakness in one’s friend’s way, he will clasp there with his claws and venom until he destroys him entirely, and there he builds his palace of wisdom.
Thus, all the palaces of science are built in a place of ruin. And for this reason, every researcher is interested only in destroying, and the more one destroys, the more one is famous and praised. Indeed, this is the way that science develops, and it cannot be denied.
However, what is this like? It is similar to the struggle that ruled with its terrible destructions for eons before the land had formed over the sea. This, too, was certainly a kind of development. And yet, there is no reason to envy those people who witnessed those upheavals. Rather, we should be more envious of those who came to the world after the making of the peace, after the materials that struggled made peace, and each found its resting place on Earth as it is today.
And although the struggle persists today, it is nonetheless a minor struggle, and not upheavals where each one destroys its predecessor, who has become entirely exhausted. Rather, they have already understood that it is forbidden to destroy, since “for drowning others, you are drowned, and the end of those who drown you will be that they, too, will drown” ( Masechet Avot, 2, 6). Rather, the struggle is more about weakening and restricting, while keeping the life of the weak and avoiding destroying it, for he knows full well that the tide will later turn “And they who drown you will drown.” It is similar to a war that the fighters will keep fighting, which is also for the same reason.
Now, if we really do learn from practical history, we must not overlook the abovementioned principle, and we must take reality into consideration, as in a status quo, and punish one who murders a view just as we punish one who murders a person. It is so because a mind without a view is not in the type of emotion of pity, for they are more numerous than all the dunghills and the lakes, and all the air, and because of it they are given to Providence, and we have no tactics by which to assist them.
For this reason, we should presume that the land before us is vast, and there is room for all the views to dwell in it, the good as well as the bad. Indeed, one who kills and destroys a bad view is as one who destroys a corrected view, as there is no such thing as an “evil view” in the world. Rather, an unripe view is bad.
Therefore, we should judge it as one who kills a bad person, where “the voice of the blood of his descendants, and his descendants’ descendants, we are redeemed from the evildoer. Likewise, a bad view is a seed that is still unripe for eating, but that will eventually grow and develop.
We should search for a new place for the palace of wisdom that we want to build, a place vacant of others’ buildings, meaning without hurting any existing method. The mind is deep and broad, and the words of the wise are heard with pleasure, and the method of abusers and abused is agreed by everyone to be regarded as bad. Hence, this alone should be uprooted because it is obsolete and loathsome, according to everyone.
At the same time, we should keep all the manners of life in status quo, and maintain the freedom of the individual, since they are not required for our new building because in the end, it is merely an economic structure. It is similar to a merchant who wanted to open his own grocery store but feared the competition, so he burned all the stores in town along with the gold, jewels, gemstones, and clothes. He is too foolish because he will not grow any richer by burning the jewelry stores. Rather, grocery stores only would have been enough for his ruin, and let the keepers keep, and they who vacation, let them vacation. At most, one should establish a law that all who keep must add work so as to satiate the examiners.
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I know what Mark wrote, that once the wounds and troubles of the body have been bandaged we will begin, and we will have a suitable place for studying ideals. Besides, arguing that this is fundamentally untrue, since we know from experience that a tortured and afflicted body finds knowledge and truth better than a satiated body that knows no lack.
But even if we let his words be, we should still say, “Do not destroy.” In the very least, it is similar to a person chopping off fruit trees because he wants to examine them so they will grow more fruitful. It is foolishness, for if he chops them off they will die and there will be no one picking fruits.
It is likewise in views, which have come to us by inheritance from our fathers over hundreds of generations of development. He chops them off, dries them up, and ruins them, promising us that later, when he is at rest, he will examine them and will improve them, if possible. It is complete folly.
He assumes that religion harms the commune (But how can he be certain of this assumption? After all, it is a view that is spreading among people of positivity and negativity, and many are the supporters.) He can only dispute the form of understanding that the abusers use to their own benefit. Therefore, we should fight for the understanding, so it does not harm, but sentence it a death sentence.
And yet, his whole theory is built only on religious hatred, similar to structures of contemporary scholars concerning hatred of religion, without any motive of economic damage. For this reason, we have permission to demand of the real sages, whose intention is only the economic side, to remove this item from their books. Only then will they have hope of winning a lasting victory that does not slide on its own vomit.
In a word, there is no joy without calamity, no good without bad. Even the wisest person cannot be saved from a medley of errors, and this is the weaker side in him, which leaves room for those who come to dispute him and finish him off. This is the weak side of Marxism, and it is why the occupation is difficult for them, and hundred fold so the right to exist.
Therefore, if you are true to your method and desire its persistence, hurry up and erase the abovementioned item from your laws, and then your road will be safely paved.
Has Marx’s Prophecy Come True?
On the one hand, his prophecy can be regarded as having been fully realized. The powerful people having been sitting for a while on the fear of certain ruin, on wondrous arms that have been accumulated, and of which there is not a shred of hope to be rid, or to balance. Also, economists see their ruin in their eyes, and any chance for salvation has been quenched from reality. The hungry multitudes are accumulating in terrible masses each day; the working class has almost completed its ripeness, etc., etc.
Why Were They Cast to the Right?
On the other hand, we find the opposite. Fascism is growing daily, first Italy, now Germany, tomorrow Poland, and America is also on the verge, and so forth. It must be that that prophet had missed a point, which caused his grave error.
Buried in His Own Theory
But he is buried in his own theory, for he has added redundancies in the theory of participation, and these are the hard seeds that history cannot process whatsoever (religiousness and nationalism), and they were rejected to the right.
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Faulty Policy
The guard does not need to sit and guard the surpluses that do not concern his conservativeness, nor the freedom searcher need pursue freedom for the luxuries of the body, nor the collaborator needs to destroy the views that do not contradict his socialism.
All of these three methods are real and are equally respected by their proponents. If the forces let one sect destroy another for a time, it is an incarnation, and in the end, there must be laws that limit the types of arms, so one will not destroy the other to a greater extent. It is circle, and one does not know what one’s tomorrow will bring.
Therefore, before the day of struggle comes, there is time for the mind to protect from a complete ruin of one of the sides. The current power is not to be relied upon, but rather the certain future.
Considering the truth between the methods, I define this word according to the law of evolution, since each view and each method prepares and makes way for a better method. And as long as it is not made, it must be kept and persisted, since by destroying it you destroy the view and the method whose role is to yield its fruition.
Marx himself had pointed it out ... because he says that from the great bourgeoisie emerges the working class. Therefore, you will evidently see that if there had been a savior for the working class at the time, to destroy the great bourgeoisie, he would certainly obliterate the foundations of the commune from its root, for this strong law, “do not destroy,” is telling you, until the time comes by itself. In that regard, I dispute him because he says that we must force the issue at all cost, and I say, except for the ruin of views, which do not need it whatsoever.
To everything, there is a time, and the time of socialism has arrived. Woe to the fools who miss out on the hour and place before them completely redundant obstacles and boundaries, which are as smoke in their eyes. For this reason, before they turn one way or the other, the world will have already overturned and they will find “relief and deliverance from another place,” and they and their method will be lost for a long time.
The war over the definition of nationality is completely redundant and is nothing like private property. There is no private property in the spiritual, only in corporeal properties. One who does not desire the development of the wisdom, and who does not know that authors’ envy increases wisdom? Therefore, no one disputes it even among the extreme leftist Marxists. Rather, the war concerns only the corporeal properties, for which envy yields nothing but fright and unnecessary agony. Hence, why should you fight spiritual properties and nationality?
Let us assume that all the nations have reached economic parity, and have annulled private property to such an extent that the existence of abusers is unthinkable. Instead of the nations competing with one another for corporeal assets, henceforth the competition will be over spiritual assets. That competition is bound to emerge in individuals, just as in the public. But here, no one speaks of it, even the most extreme, but would it be so.
Therefore, our debate revolves solely around spiritual assets from the past. You say that we permit the acquisition of such assets in the future with all the desirable and fitting freedom, but the past you take out of your houses. Is this not sick and twisted? After all, what will be permitted in the future, why should we destroy the great bulk that has been ready from the past? It is like that famous Egyptian king who inherited a library of precious books the size of three streets, and he commanded they be burned because they are not necessary for the existence of religion or for fear of harm.
And besides, no nation will obey your order to destroy all the assets of its past. They will fight over it with devotion (but you are absolutely permitted because you have no need for it at all). Indeed, even if a spirit of madness takes over the land to obey them to do this, they must spare this giant structure of several generations being lost for no reason at all.
Thus, you must leave the “You have chosen us” of each nation in tact, to the extent that they want it. Only the corporeal basis of each nation should be abolished, since that basis has now reached its term, and it is in crisis by itself. For this reason, it might take correction from whichever hand reaches out to it. However, along with it we must give full and complete confidence to each and every nation that their spiritual assets will be kept in full.
We cannot argue about statements that oppose socialism as we do with religion, since both legislators and religious authorities admit that “renunciation of a court is renunciation, and the law of the land is the binding law.” For this reason, all those laws that fundamentally oppose the socialism will remain as obsolete history, for now, too, there is already a large majority concealed and unused.
Before us are three forces in reality, fighting one another. And although it contradicts the view of Marxists, who take into account only two forces into consideration—abusers and abused—it is an abstract theory that has no more merit than all its preceding theories. However, according to the basis of Marxism itself, we should take into account only what is practical, not endless theories. This is why I have chosen to detect three forces as though they were set before our eyes in reality.
New Class Division: Quick and Idle
Let us assume that one nation is idle, and another nation is naturally more nimble. And what one does in two hours, the other does in an hour. Naturally, there will be complaints: One will say that all the nations should work the same number of hours, and the other will say that what counts is the amount they produce. And as it is with those who argue, each will insist. What is the foundation by which the court will decide? If it is according to the principle, “give as much as you can and receive as much as you need,” it still does not necessitate an equal amount of time. And if we judge the nations according to the amount of work, then individuals, too, have a similar argument, and the diligent will work half as much as the weak. Thus, you have prepared for yourself a new class of quick, and a class of idle.
You could say that there is power in the idle majority to force the quick minority in the nation, but there is certainly no such power between the nations. Thus, you will create classes among the nations, and abusers and abused among individuals.
The Arrival of the Redeemer
This is not new, for the founders themselves knew it, as he says. ...that in the beginning they will see how this is possible through compromise, and will finally come to true ideals, to the highest degree of socialism, where each gives as much as he can, then takes only as much as he needs, meaning the same as the idle. This can be done only by the arrival of the redeemer, when the earth is full of knowledge. Then the giver will understand that he is exerting for his God, giving contentment to his maker.
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The idealistic instincts have already struck numerous roots in the human race. They have also come and become antiquated and have gained a foothold in a place where no one can reach, namely the subconscious in the elongated brain, which moves man’s nerves by itself, without the person’s awareness. This is why they have experimented in Russia, as it is known that they did not do a thing in all their wars. These warriors should know that the human heart will give them anything if they only leave it with its own ideals, which have come to it by inheritance from past generations in one’s subconscious. If they insist on destroying this legacy, too, they themselves will suffer the consequences, for the heat and the sulfur is accumulating bit by bit until it is filled to the brim and begins to explode.
And besides all that, a new generation is growing, “which did not know Joseph.” They do not understand at all the need and necessity to revoke private property from their flesh and blood, but only according to a dry theory. For this reason, the passion for private property that is buried deep in their subconscious from past generations, after all the learning, one fine day they will establish camps of young people from all sides, and they themselves will put the elderly to death with all their property and wisdom. It is so because an ideology does not come to a person from the intellect, but only from life’s experiences, out of affection and a combination of good and bad, as with automatic machines. The mind has no control over the body, as it is completely foreign to us. Hence, those young socialists who have acquired knowledge through their own wit cannot be trusted whatsoever, and they will pop like a bubble of soap.
One Last Word of Policy
At that time, three forces will sit on the throne in the councils—right, left, and middle. They will argue and strife with one another: the right opposing the liberty in the left, and the left opposing the reactionism of the right, and the neutral will give room to both, and the majority will solve and determine.
Indeed, in one, they have already come to a solution, namely sharing all necessary and positive needs of life, meaning equal sharing of all the needs of the economy: one land to all who are living on it, and one division in its corporeal pleasures. All the trials and arguments they will load on the suffering of spiritual predicates, along with the three degrees—envy, lust, and honor—they will turn and restrict themselves only to the spiritual boundaries.
This version will indeed be the final word of policy because it will forever remain an inexorable law. It is so because according to the development of the human species, so will views separate and intensify, and each one will be far more obstinate than one is currently so about one’s fortune. There is no hope to come out of this strait unless people begin to regress into the form of fools, meaning be emptied from all of their reason.
For this reason, there will be almost as many parties as there are people, and there is no solution to it other than the fixed law, “follow the majority.” At that time people will make among them various compromises until they gather into groups. And in the groups, there will be competition with the oppositions until the opposition itself will separate.
Thus, the big groups will split into small ones, and the small ones into tiny ones, as well as trade among themselves, as is customary nowadays. However, this negotiation must acquire a more acrid form each time, precisely according to the measure of development of views without compromise forever, for so it should be forever.
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However, in one—in private property—they have already arrived at an agreed upon solution: Each will give as much as a successful one can give, and receive as much as an unsuccessful one, without adding even as much as a hairsbreadth. And the work hours will be equal to all, by order. And besides the obligation, there will be additional time to the veterans, who will give compared to the weak, to completely exempt them and not afflict them. This is similar to today’s charity.
Also, in each city and community, the weak will be distributed equally. And if there are many volunteers in the community, then all the weak will be exempted. If there are few, then only some of them, the weakest, will be exempted.
One who breaks these rules will be punished either by giving his portion, or by criminal punishment.
The Anterior of an Idea
The truthfulness of the spirit of pleasure of one who expresses it is evident. I have become a c ... although ... [indecipherable words in the manuscript] many years prior, while I did not pay attention until I saw them speaking and arguing. Then I recognized the truth as it is. It is a law that one who is completely untroubled will not be satisfied by corporeal possessions. Even when engaged in an ideal, one must feel pleasure during the engagement. The measure of spirit and delight that one feels depends on the truthfulness of the ideal with which he is engaged.
Thus, we have found for truth an anterior face by which to know it, meaning by merely looking at the person who expresses it, whether he is enjoying or not. And the amount of pleasure is the amount of truth. This is what has brought me to believe in this idea, for until then I have never seen anyone to express any idea with such contentment and delight as they.
The Absolute Truth
If there are no absolute truths, but temporary ones, then I say that each truth in itself is the absolute truth for its time. It is just as it cannot be said about some reality that is about to die that it is regarded as dead, since while it is alive, it is an absolute reality.
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Everything is operated either voluntarily or by coercion, and the mind does not force. Therefore, we have a question: Who will move the socialist when he acts? What source will spur his desire to move, or by what force will coercion come upon him?
It is so because at that time, movement will become to him a kind of private property, and every person is meticulous about his energy, to not disperse it uselessly even more than for his fortune. And if the socialism is not because he is deficient, due to saving of energy, then he will certainly not squander the energy in vain. Thus, from where will justice or compassion come?
Rushing Its Ripening: through Religion
The socialistic ideal requires ripening in one’s heart for at least three whole generations, and peace and general agreement. Therefore, many more attempts and cycles will the world endure before it comes to fruition, but there is no easier way to ripen the idea than through religion.