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2 Friday, May 4, 1919
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
.
Purely Commentary
Hayyim Bialik's 'al Ha-Shehita' as a Sense of Outrage
Over Murder of Children and Repudiation of Murderers
Bialik's Lamentation Putting Murderers to Shame
Let it be shared with President Sadat and with the
How memorable that on the eve of Holocaust Remem-
Arab world, in the hope that the influence of people with a
brance Day, which was highlighted by declarations of faith
in the U.S. Congress, attended by President Jimmy Carter, sense of human obligations will help prevent the repetition
the words of Hayyim Nahman Bialik should have been of outrages.
The pogroms recur, but people with a sense of decency
recalled when he called to judgment poetically the Russian
murderers who engineered a pogrom!
do not condone!
The words of Bialik keep putting the murderers to
In his challenge to the murderers who attacked an
innocent people and murdered children in Nahariya, Is- shame!
rael's chief of state Menahem Begin drew upon the poetic
words of Bialik.
What's on Your Mind, Reporter?
Hebrew scholars, like Begin, have had these words
What's on Your Mind, Judge?
engraved in their memories. When Dr. Jay Stern, the
superintendent of the United Hebrew Schools, whose im-
Future Supreme Court rulings involving the press
pending departure will be a great loss to this community,
may have serious complications.
was called for the text, he recited it as an indication that
Now the High Court's majority wishes to delve into the
people in the class of Begin have had the Bialik words
minds of reporters. Unless they keep complete records of all
engraved in their minds.
their activities, with voluminous notes, they may be in
In the Encyclopedia Judaica there is this explanation trouble. And if they set down their thinking they may have
of how the Bialik poem came to be:
to become self-analytical, their own psychiatric testers.
The Kishinev pogroms in 1903 deeply shocked
The latest U.S. Supreme Court decision on press and
the whole civilized world. Bialik on behalf of the
libel helps recall a story about a judge and a man on the
Jewish Historical Commission in Odessa went to
witness stand.
Kishinev to interview survivors and to prepare a
The judge had become irritable, and so had the witness.
report on the atrocity. Before leaving he wrote Al
The following dialogue ensued:
Ha-Shehita ("On the Slaughter," 1903) in which
Judge: You annoy me. You act like a bum.
he calls on heaven either to exercise immediate
Witness: You're calling me names.
justice and, if not, to destroy the world, spurning
Judge: You earn it.
mere vengeance with the famous lines "Cursed is
Witness: Do I have recourse to it in your courtroom?
he who says (Revenge'/Vengeance for the blood of
Judge: For example?
a small child/Satan has not yet created."
Witness: What would you do if I called you a bastard
The famous poem, with the English translation by the
and an SOB?
eminent Hebraist and poet, Israel Efros, is reproduced on
Judge:I'd hold you for contempt of court and would
this page.
fine you.
This poem was the expression of the sense of outrage
Witness: And what if I was just thinking it about
over what had happened in 1903. The repetition of the
you?
inhumane act of murdering children called for reiteration
Judge: I can't do anything to you for thinking.
of the sense of horror.
Witness: Oh, judge, oh, oh, Judge, am I thinking!
Bialik uttered it, Begin remembered it.
Now there is a new deal. What one thinks becomes a
Egypt's President Anwar Sadat could not have known
about Bialik when he joined in expressing regret over the .cause for court decisions.
For even thinking about the just recorded court inci-
brutalities in Nahariya. He had no knowledge of a past that
dent would this reporter, under the new ruling, be subject
called for condemnation like Begin's and Bialik's poetic
to judicial contempt?
lamentation.
ON THE SLAUGHTER • AL HASHITA •
H EAVENLY spheres, beg mercy for me !
If truly God dwells in your orbit and round,
And in your space is His pathway that I have not found, —
Then you pray for me!
For my own heart is dead; no prayer on my tongue;
And strength has failed, and hope has passed:
0 until when? For how much more? How long?
Ho, headsman, bared the neck — come, cleave it through!
Nape me this cur's nape ! Yours is the axe unbaffled!
The whole wide world — my scaffold!
And rest you easy: we are weak and few.
My blood is outlaw. Strike, then; the skull dissever!
Let blood of babe and graybeard stain your garb —
Stain to endure forever!
If Right there be, — why, Jet it shine forth now!
For if when I have perished from the earth'
The Right shine forth,
Then let its Throne be shattered, and laid low!
Then let the heavens, wrong-racked, be no more!
— While you, 0 murderers, on your murder thrive,
Live on your- blood, regurgitate this gore!
Who cries Revenge! Revenge! — accursed be he!
Fit vengeance for the spilt blood of a child .
The devil has not yet compiled . .
No, let that blood pierce world's profundity,
Through the great deep pursue its mordications,
There eat its way in darkness, there undo,
Undo the rotted earth's foundations!
rarritp '.217
By Philip
Slomovitz
Sam Levenson 'the Humorist'
Applies His Art Pragmatically
Among the many appeals for good causes with the
human message, the one by Sam Levenson in behalf of the
Jewish Braille Institute of America is among the most
impressive.
Levenson is the acknowledged, eminent American
humorist who deals philosophically with peoples' interests.
He utilized it in his Braille message in which he asserte
I ask you, on behalf of the Jewish Braille Insti-
tutg, to visualize a child without books in his life.
Can you visualize our ancient tradition of reli-
gious education blurred, even completely blotted
out of a child's life because he cannot see the
sacred word?
Can you visualize a Bar Mitzva or Bat Mitzva
by-passed for those who cannot see the holy
words which publicly proclaim their crossing
over into adulthood?
Can you visualize the agony of parents of visu-
ally handicapped children who must grope their
own way through their problem without profes-
sional help?
In his new book, already
reviewed in these columns,
Levenson demonstrates his
realistic philosophy on life
and his knowledge of
people, their attitudes, the
world's conflicts and the
confusions which need
clarification.
It is his "You Don't Have
to Be in Who's Who to Know
What's What" (Simon and
Schuster) that he makes the
comment that when a
youngster is given an inch
he begins to believe he is a
ruler. It is here that he de-
votes a chapter to religious
aspects which commend at-
SAM LEVENSON
tention, as in these brief
selections:
The agony of the atheist comes from the fact
that he can never be sure whether God knows he
doesn't believe in Him. He has to accept it on faith.
* * *
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Pity the atheist mother. She can never yell at
her kid: "What on earth are you doing for
Heaven's sake?" * * *
An atheist can't find God for the same reason
that a hookey player can't find a truant officer.
* * *
A temporary atheist is a woman who hasn't won
at bingo in three weeks.
*
*
"In' my lifetime," proclaims the atheist, "God
will become obsolete," and God replies with a
knowing: "In your lifetime, maybe, but not in
Mine." (Like they say: "Man thinks and God
winks.") * -* *
On his deathbed the atheist panicked, looked
up to Heaven, and pleaded: "Oh, God, if there is a
God, save my soul, if I have one."
Or take his acclaim for the reverence of work and the
respect for creative labor:
One of the key values that has suffered serious
deterioration in our recent civilization is the work
ethic.
It started out as a punitive act of God ("By the
sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread"), but
hard work became a virtue with its own reward:
". . but when thou eatest the labor of thy hands,
happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with
thee."
Honest labor was honorable, even pious:
"Laborare est orare" (To work is to pray). It kept a
man morally and physically fit. _
The reverence for work even worked its way
into humorous propaganda on behalf of the work
ethic:
In your work as in your food — no leftovers.
* * *
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He who chops the wood warms himself twice.
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Don't watch the clock; do what it does.
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Keep going.
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It is in this spirit that Levenson offers sound advice
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adding realism to life. For it he deserves the acclaim he has
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