The Evil One lived in a grand palace like a count, and he entertained his lord and master in high style. For whole days he walked with the Lord around his factories and workshops, where sins of all kinds were being crafted, each one sweeter than the other, each more damaging to the soul than the next.

In great books that resembled Gemaras were inscribed the names of the Evil One’s customers, and next to many of the names could be found the honorific “The Gaon, Distinguished Scholar, our Master and Teacher.”

“And how goes it with the Good One? Is he doing some good business? Do you hear anything from him?”

“To tell you the truth, Lord of the Universe, I haven’t heard from him for a long time. He hasn’t been a dangerous rival for a long time now, but he must have a little operation somewhere, because if not, he would already have written to tell you that the generation has arrived that is altogether sinful, ^{3 3} See Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin (chapter 10), where Rabbi Johanan states that the “Son of David [the Messiah] will come only in a generation that is either altogether righteous or altogether wicked.” and that you must keep your word about the Messiah.”

Reminded of the Messiah, the Lord felt a little sadness in his heart, like one who recalls an old debt that he cannot repay.

“The Messiah . . . that one I’m going to have to put off a little longer . . . unless the ‘Lovers of Zion’ ^{4 4} The “Lovers of Zion.” a predecessor of political Zionism which by 1902 had become absorbed into the Zionist movement. Zhitlowsky briefly joined the movement in 1893. See Weinberg, p. 91. seize the assets in repayment of the debt. In the meantime let’s get going to see the Good One.” ^{5 5} Many religious Jews of the time opposed Zionism and the notion that Jews should return to Israel, believing that the return to Israel should only occur when the Messiah arrives and the temple is rebuilt. The asset referred to is the Land of Israel.

After much effort they found a recent apostate who told them where the Good One lived. In a small remote Jewish shtetl, in an old fallen-in hovel, he was seated by a wobbly little table, erasing from a slim roster the names of customers who had that day gone over to his rival.

Here, at his work, the Lord of the Universe and the Evil One found him.

Seeing the Lord of the Universe, the Good One hurled himself on the Lord’s breast and burst into tears like a small child.

“Take me, take me away from here! I am not fit for the sinful Earth,” he begged God. And the Lord of the Universe, with great love and compassion, caressed the blonde head of his most beloved angel, and even the Evil One in embarrassment slid his top hat back on his forehead, pulled out a perfumed handkerchief from his top coat and with his pink gloved hands rubbed his golden pince-nez.

“No, my beloved! You cannot leave this place. One must struggle where one is . . . struggle until the end,” the Lord of the Universe told the Good One. “But how did it come to be that your business is going so badly?”

“What’s the surprise?” interrupted the Evil One. “To run a business one needs to have knowledge and science. I am educated, have studied at all the universities, therefore I know how to attract an audience! But he knows nothing more than the four corners of frumkeyt”. . .

“My trouble is not that I am uneducated,” answered the Good One. “The trouble is that you, Almighty One, left us to battle with unequal weapons. You gave the Evil One the ability to pay with cash: for every transgression that a man commits, he receives immediate payment—his pleasure. I, however, must always do business on credit: ‘Suffer now, deny yourself all pleasure, and you will, later, in some distant time, attain an illuminated paradise.’ Thus my request to you, Almighty God: If you cannot take me away from here, at least make it so I can compete with the Evil One in terms of cash. Make it so that every commandment is bound to a pleasure here in this world, a stronger pleasure than that associated with transgressions. Make it so that finishing a chapter of prayers or observing a fast should bring no less pleasure than—well I won’t say what.”

“Cash . . . cash . . . ” answered the Lord of the Universe: “Even in heaven we’ve run out of cash. But I can do something for you, to put you on equal footing: I will make it so that the Evil One also has to start doing business on credit.”

And this, then, is how the Lord of the Universe thought up socialism: for the time being, suffer, fight every step of the way, and pick a quarrel with the whole world. For the time being, you will have against you the government with its chains and prisons, the religious community with its vehement curses, and the money-man with his hunger whip; skinny, emaciated, you will languish in cold and need. So that only later . . . only then . . . in the end of days, when no trace of you shall remain . . .”

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So he told me, the old Jewish apostate, in whom the old yidishkeyt and modern thought had merged to create a humorous-pessimistic outlook on life, filled with both sadness and forgiveness.

2.

At the time that my friend told me the story of the Evil One and the Good One, the reigning idea in most of the socialist world was that until the glorious hour of the socialist revolution, there is nothing one can do—at any time, or in any way -- to improve the lot of the poor, exploited portion of humanity. “The worse, the better” was the rule, and almost no socialist doubted it.

First, the entire working class, or the greater part of it, must cease to be the boss of its own economic life; it must become a mere hireling of capitalism. From that point on its position must continue to sink day after day; it must grow ever more starved and downtrodden—and only then, when it has absolutely nothing to lose but its chains; when it has become totally disillusioned with earning its little piece of bread in today’s society—only then will it rise up, strike back and demolish the brick wall that stands between it and the Garden of Eden.

At that time I was already an apostate, and did not believe in the Marxist “What is worse is better,” as described in The Communist Manifesto and in the first volume of Das Kapital. It seemed to me—and it still seems true today—that an empty stomach cannot be the only driver, or even the main driver of the socialist revolution. One must have not only an appetite to eat, but also an appetite to elevate the human condition; a passion for freedom and education, ^{6 6} Zhitlowsky uses the Yiddish and German word “bildung” for education, which can connote both education and moral edification. For an interesting discussion of these implications, see Trachtenberg, Barry. The Revolutionary Roots of Modern Yiddish: 1903 - 1917. Syracuse: U, 2008, pp. 97-98. for beauty and justice; a passion that for the great masses can only be satisfied—when an entire society based on socialist principles is established. However, for the great masses to develop the natural desire for freedom, education, beauty, and justice in every person, first the economic situation for all must be improved in order to awaken a new desire for a good book, a beautiful picture, a free day to spend in nature. First the man within the worker must be raised up; the worker must lift up his head, demand what is coming to him, take from life in each of its moments what he can—and then demand still more. He must take more and make even greater demands, until his yearning to lead a free life becomes so strong that it cannot be satisfied by any other means—only in a socialist society.

If we look at socialism and at the forces that will bring it about in this way, not one minute of the work that goes into it is done on credit: socialism pays in cash, in every moment. The improvement of one’s economic situation is certainly “cash,”—as can be demonstrated by the increase in wages received by the workers of the entire world since the socialist movement began; by the decrease in hours they are required to labor in order to make a living; by the great amount of products and property that reach workers where there is a strong socialist movement of the working class; and by all of the improvements that the ruling classes were required to introduce into society in order to appease the ever growing hunger of the masses for a new life. This is all cash—cash that socialism began to pay as soon as it became a strong movement; as soon as its ideals were adopted by the masses at large.

Socialism is a social ideal that strives to heal once and for all the social suffering of humanity. Territorialism is a national ideal that strives to heal once and for all the national suffering of the Jewish people. Like every ideal it will only exist on credit as long as it does not enrich the work of the day, as long as it does not bring warmth nor light from its own rays.

Like socialism, territorialism has experienced an “on-credit period” that unfortunately is not yet over. Just as the old Marxists maintained that until socialism is achieved, the social condition of the workers cannot be improved in any measure and the only work one can do is to propagandize and organize social revolution; in the same way many Jewish territorialists have argued, and continue to argue, that the national situation of the Jewish people cannot and will not see improvement until the Jewish people have their own home; and that the only national work one can do in the lands of the Diaspora is that of propagandizing and organizing the exodus from Egypt. This is pure “territorialism on credit,” like the socialism on credit that predominated in the thoughts of socialist theoreticians.

And yet, as soon as the ideal of national rebirth in one’s own land began to play a role in the life of the Jewish people, as soon as it entered into the hearts of the masses, so too there has grown with it a new need for a healthy national life in the Diaspora proper—to the extent that this is possible —and territorialism has started paying cash. It revived the unconscious national energies within a section of the Jewish intelligentsia, and it returned this section to the folk. It awoke the Jew in the man and the man in the Jew, who had become so stooped and downtrodden that a great many believed that he was already “resting in peace.” Territorialism created a literature that awakened new national needs, invigorating the national creative power of the Jewish people and amassing a new, vibrant energy to build a normal national life in a home of their own. Territorialism, i.e. the logical outcome of the Jewish national idea, motivated the Jew to raise his head with more pride. It strengthened and continues to strengthen from day to day the desire of the people for an independent, free life; and creates from day to day all the more richness in their national literature and in the arts. Territorialism has already almost brought together all Jews in the entire world, and established for them a task: to constantly keep in mind the interest of their own people. Territorialism is already bringing forward the demand for national, and where possible territorial autonomy for Jews in the lands of the Diaspora. And territorialism still has so much “cash” that it can give to the Jewish people today, right away, where Jews live—not waiting until the happy hour of the kibets golyes; ^{7 7} The “ingathering of exiles” from Deuteronomy 30:1-5, in which God promises the return of exiles to the land of Israel. not waiting even until the difficult question of “when and where” is answered:. the organization of Jewish education, the economic revolution taking place in the lives of the Jewish people through work on the land; the bonding of Jewish intelligentsia with the Jewish people —all of these things will remain “cash in hand,” even if the territorialist ideal should never come to fruition.

I know very well that there are a number of people who do not understand why, beyond the concrete “cash” now in the Diaspora, do we need the final goal of territorialism; knowing that, like any end-goal, it must for the time being remain “on credit.”

They argue like the honest trade unionists about socialist work. “Why do we need the socialist end-goal?” asks the trade unionist, for whom this word “cash” means “from hand to mouth.” The trade unionist does not understand that socialism is the logical result of his own work; that no matter how much he improves his condition in the present time, he will not be able to completely resolve the social question that can only be resolved through socialist revolution, and it is by keeping this particular idea in mind that one is able to further and deepen the trade-unionist work itself.

Similarly, non-territorialist nationalists—such as, for example, the nationally-inclined elements of the Bund -- do not understand that territorialism is the logical endpoint of their own work; that no matter how greatly improved the situation of the people becomes in the Diaspora, the Jewish national question will only be fully answered at such time as we shall have our own home for the entire Jewish people. ^{8 8} As Gershom Bader, a Galician Zionist spokesman put it in 1902, “The beginning of Zionist is Jewish nationalist, but the consequence of Jewish nationalist must be Zionist.” See Shanes, p.194. Thus it is by keeping this ideal in mind that we will be able to further and deepen the national work we are doing within the Diaspora itself.

The old socialism and the old territorialism have lived, and would continue to live, on no more than “credit,” through the mere “belief” in the future. Trade unionism and national Bundism fall into the contrary mistake: Do not place your faith in the future!! What is not cash in hand is not worth a groschen.

The new socialism and the new territorialism recognize that the future ideals exist precisely to fertilize the work of the present day; and the more “cash” they pay us today, the sooner those very ideals will in fact be realized. And the more we believe in those ideals, the more we work for their realization in the future, the more “cash” they will be able to provide us in the present.