PART 2 OF 2
AN EXPERIMENT THAT DID NOT FAIL
The era of advanced capitalism has broken down the structure of society. The society which preceded it was composed of various societies; it was complex and pluralistic in structure. This is what gave it its peculiar social vitality, and enabled it to resist the totalitarian tendencies inherent in the prerevolutionary centralistic state, though many elements were very much weakened in their autonomous life. This resistance was broken by the policy of the French Revolution, which was directed against the special rights of all free associations. Thereafter, centralism in its new, capitalistic form succeeded where the old had failed, that is, in atomizing society. Exercising control both over the machine and, with its help, over the whole of society, capitalism wants to deal only with individuals, and the modern state aids and abets it by progressively dispossessing groups of their autonomy. The militant organizations which the proletariat erects against capitalism -- trades unions in the economic sphere and the [labor] party in the political -- are unable, in the nature of things, to counteract this process of dissolution, since they have no access to the life of society itself or to its foundations in production and consumption. Even the transfer of capital to the state could not modify the social structure, even were the state to establish a network of compulsory associations, since these latter, having no autonomous life, are unfitted to become the cells of a new socialist society.
From this point of view, the heart and soul of the cooperative movement is to be found in the trend in society toward structural renewal, toward the reacquisition. in new tectonic forms, of internal social relationships, toward the establishment of a new consociatio consociationum. It is, as I have shown, a fundamental error to view this trend as romantic or utopian merely because in its early stages it had romantic reminiscences and utopian fantasies. At bottom, it is thoroughly "topical" and constructive -- that is to say. it aims at changes which, in the given circumstances and with the means at its disposal, are quite feasible. And psychologically speaking, it is based on a human need that is eternal, even though it has often been forcibly suppressed or rendered insensible: the need of man to feel that his own house is a part of some greater, all-embracing structure in which he is at home, the need to feel that the others with whom he lives and works all acknowledge and confirm his individual existence. An association based on community of views and aspirations alone cannot satisfy this need; the only thing that can do so is an association which makes for communal living. But here the cooperative organization of production or consumption proves, each in its own way, inadequate, because both touch the individual only at a certain point and do not mold his actual life. On account of their merely partial or functional character, all such organizations are alike unfitted to act as cells of a new society. Both of these partial forms have undergone vigorous development, but the consumer cooperatives only in highly bureaucratic forms, and the producer cooperatives in highly specialized forms, so that they are today less able than ever to embrace the whole life of society. The consciousness of this fact is leading to a synthetic form, the full cooperative. By far the most powerful effort in this direction is the village commune, where communal living is based on the amalgamation of production and consumption-production being understood not as agriculture alone, but as the organic union of agriculture and industry, with the handicrafts as well.
The repeated attempts that have been made during the last one hundred and fifty years, both in Europe and America, to found village settlements of this kind, whether communistic or cooperative in the narrower sense, have mostly met with failure. [2] I would apply the word "failure" not merely to those settlements, or attempts at settlements, which after a more or less brief existence either disintegrated completely or took on a capitalist complexion; I would also apply it to those that maintained themselves in isolation. For the real, the truly structural task of the new village communes begins with their federation, that is, their union under the same principle that operates in their internal structure. Hardly anywhere has this come about. Even where, as with the Dukhobors in Canada, a sort of federative union exists, the federation itself continues to be isolated and exerts no attractive or educative influence on society as a whole, with the result that the task never gets beyond its beginnings, and consequently there can be no talk of success in the socialist sense. It is remarkable that Kropotkin saw in these two elements -- isolation of the settlements from one another and isolation from the rest of society -- the efficient causes of their failure even as ordinarily understood.
The socialistic task can only be accomplished to the degree that the new village commune, combining the various forms of production, and uniting production and consumption, exerts a structural influence on the amorphous urban society. This influence will only make itself felt to the full if, and to the extent that, further technological developments facilitate and actually require the decentralization of industry; but even now a pervasive force is latent in the modern communal village, and it may spread to the towns. It must be emphasized again that the tendency we are dealing with is constructive and "topical": it would be romantic and utopian to want to destroy the town, as once it was romantic and utopian to want to destroy the machine, but it is constructive and "topical" to try to transform the town organically in closest possible alliance with technological developments, and to try to turn it into an aggregate composed of smaller units. Indeed, many countries today show significant beginnings in this respect.
As 1 see history and the present, there is only one all-out effort to create a full cooperative which justifies our speaking of success in the socialistic sense, and that is the Jewish village commune in its various forms, as found in Palestine. No doubt, it, too, is up against grave problems in the sphere of internal relationships, federation, and influence on society at large, but it alone has proved its vitality in all three spheres. Nowhere else in the history of communal settlements is there this tireless groping for the form of community life best suited to this particular human group, nowhere else this continual trying and trying again, this going at it and keeping at it, this critical awareness, this sprouting of new branches from the same stem and out of the same formative impulse. And nowhere else is there this alertness to one's own problems. this constant facing up to them, this tough will to come to terms with them, and this indefatigable struggle -- albeit seldom expressed in words -- to overcome them. Here, and here alone, do we find in the emergent community organs of self-knowledge whose very sensitiveness has constantly reduced its members to despair -- but this is a despair that destroys wishful thinking only to raise up in its stead a greater hope which is no longer emotionalism but sheer work. Thus on the soberest survey and on the soberest reflection, one can say that in this one spot in a world of partial failures, we can recognize a non-failure -- and, such as it is, a signal non-failure.
What are the reasons for this? There is no better way of getting to know the peculiar character of this cooperative colonization than by following up these reasons.
One element has been repeatedly pointed out -- that the Jewish village commune in Palestine owes its existence not to a doctrine but to a situation, to the needs, the stress, the demands of the situation. In establishing the "kvutza," or village commune, the primary thing was not ideology, but work. This is certainly correct, but with one limitation. True, the point was to solve by collaborating certain problems of work and construction which Palestinian reality forced on the settlers; what a loose conglomeration of individuals could not, in the nature of things, hope to overcome, or even try to overcome, things being what they were, the collective could attempt to do and actually succeeded in doing. But what is called the "ideology" -- I personally prefer the old but untarnished word "ideal" -- was not just something to be added afterwards, that would justify the accomplished fact. In the spirit of the members of the first Palestinian communes, ideal motives joined hands with the dictates of the hour; and among the motives there was a curious mixture of memories of the Russian artel, impressions left over from reading the so-called "utopian" socialists, and the half-unconscious after-effects of the Bible's teachings about social justice. The important thing is that this ideal motive remained loose and pliable in almost every respect. There were various dreams about the future: people saw before them a new, more comprehensive form of the family; they saw themselves as the advance guard of the workers' movement, as the direct instrument for the realization of socialism, as the prototype of the new society; they had as their goal the creation of a new man and a new world. But nothing of this ever hardened into a cut-and-dried program. These men did not, as everywhere else in the history of cooperative settlements, bring a plan with them, a plan which the concrete situation could only fill out, but not modify. The ideal gave an impetus, but no dogma; it stimulated, but did not dictate.
More important, however, is that behind the Palestinian situation that set the tasks of work and reconstruction, there was the historical situation of a people visited by a great external crisis and responding to it with a great inner change. Further, this historical situation threw up an elite -- the halutzim, or pioneers -- drawn from all classes of the people, and thus beyond class. The form of life appropriate to this elite was the village commune, by which I mean not a single note, but the whole scale, ranging from the social structure of "mutual aid" to the commune itself. This form was the best fitted to fulfil the tasks of the nuclear halutzim, and at the same time the one in which the social ideal could materially influence the national idea. As the historical conditions have shown, it was impossible for this elite, and the form of life it favored, to become static or isolated; all its tasks, everything it did, its whole pioneering spirit made it the center of attraction and a central influence. The pioneer spirit (halutziut) is, in all its parts, related to the growth of a new and transformed national community; had it become self-sufficient, it would have lost its soul. The village commune, as the nucleus of the evolving society, had to exert a powerful pull on the people dedicated to this evolution, and it had not merely to educate its friends and associates for genuine communal living, but also to exercise a formative structural effect on the social periphery. The dynamics of history determined the dynamic character of the relations between village commune and society.
This suffered a considerable setback when the tempo of the crisis in the outer world became so rapid, and its symptoms so drastic, that the inner change could not keep pace with them. To the extent that Palestine was turned from the one and only land of the aliyah ("ascent") into a country of immigrants, a quasi-halutziut came into being alongside the genuine halutziut. The pull exerted by the commune did not abate, but its educative powers were not adapted to the influx of very different human material, and this material sometimes succeeded in influencing the tone of the community. At the same time, the commune's relations with society at large underwent a change. As the structure of the society altered, it withdrew more and more from the transforming influence of the focal cells; indeed, it began, in its turn, to exert an influence on them -- not always noticeable at first, but unmistakable today -- by seizing on certain essential elements in them and assimilating them to itself.
In the life of peoples, and particularly peoples who find themselves in the midst of some historical crisis, it is of crucial importance whether genuine elites (which means elites that do not usurp, but are called to their central function) arise, whether these elites remain loyal to their duty to society, establishing a relationship to it rather than to themselves, and finally. whether they have the power to replenish and renew themselves in a manner conformable with their task. The historical destiny of the Jewish settlements in Palestine brought the elite of the halutzim to birth, and it found its social nuclear form in the village commune. Another wave of this same destiny has thrown up. together with the quasi-halutzim, a problem for the real halutzim elite. It has caused a problem that was always latent to come to the surface. They have not yet succeeded in mastering it, and yet must master it before they can reach the next stage of their task. The inner tension between those who take the whole responsibility for the community on their shoulders and those who somehow evade it can be resolved only at a very deep level.
The point where the problem emerges is neither the individual's relationship to the idea, nor his relationship to the community, nor yet his relationship to work; on all these points. even the quasi-halutzim gird up their loins, and do by and large what is expected of them. The point where the problem emerges. where people are apt to slip. is in their relationship to their fellows. By this I do not mean the question. much discussed in its day. of the intimacy that exists in the small kvutza and the loss of this intimacy in the large kvutza; I mean something that has nothing whatever to do with the size of the commune. It is not a matter of intimacy at all; intimacy appears when it must. and if it is lacking. that's all there is to it. The question is rather one of openness. A real community need not consist of people who are perpetually together. but it must consist of people who. precisely because they are comrades. have mutual access to one another and are ready for one another. A real community is one which in every point of its being possesses, potentially at least, the whole character of community. The internal questions of a community are thus in reality questions relating to its own genuineness, hence to its inner strength and stability. The men who created the Jewish communes in Palestine instinctively knew this, but the instinct no longer seems to be as common or as alert as it was. Yet it is in this most important field that we find the remorselessly clear-sighted collective self-observation and self-criticism to which I have already drawn attention. But to understand and value it aright, we must see it together with the amazingly positive relationship -- amounting to a regular faith -- which these men have to the inmost being of their commune. The two things are two sides of the same spiritual world, and neither can be understood without the other.
In order to make the causes of the non-failure of these Jewish communal settlements in Palestine sufficiently vivid, I began with the non-doctrinaire character of their origins. This character also determined their development in all essentials. New forms and new intermediate forms were constantly branching off -- in complete freedom. Each grew out of the particular social and spiritual needs as these came to light -- in complete freedom; and each acquired, even in the initial stages, its own ideology -- in complete freedom; each struggled to propagate itself, and to spread and establish its proper sphere -- all in complete freedom. The champions of the various forms each had his say; the pros and cons of each individual form were frankly and fiercely debated -- always, however, on the plane which everybody accepted as obvious, the common cause and the common task, where each form recognized the relative justice of all the other forms in their special functions. All this is unique in the history of cooperative settlements. What is more, nowhere, as far as I can see, in the history of the socialist movement were men so deeply involved in the process of differentiation, and yet so intent on preserving the principle of integration.
The various forms and intermediate forms that arose in this way at different times and in different situations represented different kinds of social structure. The people who built them were generally aware of this, as also of the particular social and spiritual needs that actuated them. They were not aware to the same extent that the different forms corresponded to different human types, and that just as new forms branched off from the original kvutza, so new types branched off from the original halutz, each with its special mode of being and each demanding its particular sort of realization. More often than not, it was economic and similar external factors that led certain people to break away from one form and attach themselves to another. But in the main, each type looked for the social realization of its peculiarities in this particular form, and on the whole, found it there. And not only was each form based on a definite type; it molded, and keeps on molding, that type. It was and is intent on developing it; the constitution, organization, and educational system of each form are -- no matter how consciously or unconsciously -- dedicated to this end. Thus, something has been produced which is essentially different from all the social experiments that have ever been made -- not a laboratory where everybody works for himself, alone with his problems and plans, but an experimental station where, on common soil, different colonies or "cultures" are tested out according to different methods for a common purpose.
Yet here, too, a problem emerged, no longer within the individual group, but in the relation of the groups to one another; nor did it come from without. It came from within -- in fact, from the very heart of the principle of freedom.
Even in its first undifferentiated form, a tendency towards federation was innate in the kvutza, to merge the kvutzot into some higher social unit; and a very important tendency it was, since it showed that the kvutza implicitly understood that it was the cell of a newly structured society. With the splitting off and proliferation of the various forms -- from the semi-individualistic form which jealously guarded personal independence in its domestic economy, way of life, children's education, etc., to the pure communistic form -- the single unit was supplanted by a series of units in each of which a definite form of colony, and a more or less definite human type, constituted itself on a federal basis. The fundamental assumption was that the local groups would combine on the same principle of solidarity and mutual help as prevailed within the individual group. But the trend toward a larger unit is far from having atrophied in the process. On the contrary, at least in the kibbutz, or collectivist, movement, it asserts itself with great force and clarity. It recognizes the federative kibbutzim -- units where the local groups have pooled their various aspirations -- as a provisional structure; indeed, a thoughtful leader of the movement calls them a substitute for a commune of communes. Apart from the fact, however, that individual forms -- especially, for instance, the moshavim, or semi-individualistic labor settlements, though these do not fall short of any of the other forms in the matter of communal economic control and mutual help -- are already too far removed from the basic form to be included in a unitary plan, in the kibbutz movement itself subsidiary organizations stand in the way of the trend toward unification which strives to embrace and absorb them. Each has developed its own special character and consolidated it in the unit, and it is natural that each should incline to view unification as an extension of its own influence. But something else has been added that has led to an enormous intensification of this attitude on the part of the single units, and that is political development. Twenty years ago, a leader of one of the large units could say emphatically: "We are a community, not a party." This has radically changed in the meantime, and the conditions for unification have been aggravated accordingly. The lamentable fact has emerged that the all-important attitude of neighborly relationship has not been adequately developed, although not a few cases are on record of a rich and flourishing village giving generous help to a young and poor neighbor which belonged to another unit. In these circumstances, the great struggle that has broken out on the question of unification, particularly in the last decade, is the more remarkable. Nobody who is a socialist at heart can read the great document of this struggle, the Hebrew compilation entitled The Kibbutz and the Kvutw, edited by the late labor leader, Berl Katznelson, without losing himself in admiration of the high-minded passion with which these two camps fought with one another for genuine unity. The union will probably not be attained save as the outcome of a situation that makes it absolutely necessary. But that the men of the Jewish communes have labored so strenuously with one another, and against one another, for the emergence of a communitas communitatum, that is to say, for a structurally new society: this will not be forgotten in the history of mankind's struggle for self-renewal.
I have said that I see in this bold Jewish undertaking a "signal non-failure." I cannot say a signal success. To become that, much has still to be done. Yet it is in this way, in this kind of tempo, with such setbacks, disappointments, and new ventures, that real changes are accomplished in this our mortal world.
But can one speak of this non-failure as "signal"? I have pointed out the peculiar nature of the premises and conditions that led to it. And what one of its own representatives has said of the kvutza, that it is a typically Palestinian product, is true of all these forms.
Still, if an experiment conducted under certain conditions bas proved successful up to a point, we can set about varying it under other, less favourable conditions.
There can hardly be any doubt that we must regard the last war as the end of the prelude to a world crisis. This crisis will probably break out -- after a somber "interlude" that cannot last very long -- first among some of the nations of the West, who will be able to restore their shattered economy in appearance only. They will see themselves faced with the immediate need for radical socialization, above all, the expropriation of the land. It will then be of absolutely decisive importance who is the real subject of an economy so transformed, and who is the owner of the social means of production. Is it to be the central authority in a highly centralized state, or the social units of urban and rural workers, living and producing on a communal basis, and their representative bodies? In the latter case, the remodelled organs of the state will discharge the functions of adjustment and administration only. On these issues will largely depend the growth of a new society and a new civilization. The essential point is to decide on the fundamentals: a restructuring of society as a league of leagues, and a reduction of the state to its proper function, which is to maintain unity, or a devouring of an amorphous society by the omnipotent state -- socialist pluralism or so-called socialist unitarianism -- the right proportion, tested anew every day according to changing conditions, between group freedom and collective order, or absolute order imposed indefinitely for the sake of an era of freedom alleged to follow "of its own accord." So long as Russia has not undergone an essential inner change -- and today we have no means of knowing when and how that will come to pass -- we must designate one of the two poles of socialism between which our choice lies by the formidable name of "Moscow." The other, I would make bold to call "Jerusalem."
"AND IF NOT NOW, WHEN?"
We are living in an age of the depreciation of words. The intellect with its gift for language has been all too willing to put itself at the disposal of whatever trends prevail at the time. Instead of letting the word grow out of the thought in responsible silence. the intellect has manufactured words for every demand with almost mechanical skill. It is not only the intellectuals who are now finding a suspicious reception for their disquisitions, who must suffer for this "treason." [3] What is worse is that their audience. above all the entire younger generation of our time, is deprived of the noblest happiness of youth, the happiness of believing in the spirit. It is easily understood that many of them now see nothing but "ideologies" in intellectual patterns, nothing but pompous robes for very obvious group interests, that they are no longer willing to believe there is a truth over and above parties, over and above those who wield power and are greedy for it. They tell us, tell one another. and tell themselves, that they are tired of being fed on lofty illusions, that they want to go back to a "natural" foundation, to unconcealed instincts, that the life of the individual, as well as that of every people, must be built up on simple self-assertion.
No matter what others may do, we. my friends, should not choose this way. If we really are Jews, meaning the bearers of a tradition and a task, we know what has been transmitted to us. We know that there is a truth which is the seal of God, and we know that the task we have been entrusted with is to let this one truth set its stamp on all the various facets of our life. We are not the owners of this truth, for it belongs to God. We ourselves cannot use the seal, but we can be the wax that takes the seal. Every individual is wax of a different form and color, but all are potentially receptive to the stamp of truth, for all of us, created "in the image of God," are potentially able to become images of the divine. We are not the owners of the truth, but this does not mean that we must depend either on vain ideologies or on mere instincts, for every one of us has the possibility of entering into a real relationship to truth. Such a relationship, however, cannot grow out of thinking alone, for the ability to think is only one part of us; but neither is feeling enough. We can attain to such a relationship only through the undivided whole of our life as we live it. The intellect can be redeemed from its last lapse into sin, from the desecration of the word, only if the word is backed and vouched for with the whole of one's life. The betrayal of the intellectuals cannot be atoned for by the intellect retreating into itself, but only by its proffering to reality true service in place of false. It must not serve the powers of the moment and what they call reality -- not the short-lived semblance of truth. The intellect should serve the true great reality, whose function it is to embody the truth of God; it must serve. No matter how brilliant it may be, the human intellect which wishes to keep to a plane above the events of the day is not really alive. It can become fruitful, beget life and live, only when it enters into the events of the day without denying, but rather proving, its superior origin. Be true to the spirit, my friends, but be true to it on the plane of reality. Our first question must be: what is the truth? what has God commanded us to do? But our next must be: how can we accomplish it from where we are?
We shall accomplish nothing at all if we divide our world and our life into, two domains: one in which God's command is paramount, the other governed exclusively by the laws of economics, politics, and the "simple self-assertion" of the group. Such dualism is far more ominous than the naturalism I spoke of before. Stopping one's ears so as not to hear the voice from above is breaking the connection between existence and the meaning of existence. But he who hears the voice and sets a limit to the area beyond which its rule shall not extend is not merely moving away from God, like the person who refuses to listen: he is standing up directly against him. The atheist does not know God, but the adherent of a form of ethics which ends where politics begin has the temerity to prescribe to God, whom he professes to know, how far his power may extend. The polytheists distribute life and the world among many powers. As far as they are concerned, Germany has one god and France another; there is a god of business, and a god of the state. Each of these domains has its own particular code of laws, and is subject to no superior court. Western civilization professes one God and lives in polytheism. We Jews are connected to this civilization with thousands of strands, but if we share in its dualism of life and profession of faith, we shall forfeit our justification for living. If we were only one nation among others, we should long ago have perished from the earth. Paradoxically, we exist only because we dared to be serious about the unity of God and his undivided, absolute sovereignty. If we give up God, he will give us up. And we do give him up when we profess him in synagogue and deny him when we come together for discussion, when we do his commands in our personal life, and set up other norms for the life of the group we belong to. What is wrong for the individual cannot be right for the community, for if it were, then God, the God of Sinai, would no longer be the Lord of peoples, but only of individuals. If we really are Jews, we believe that God gives his commands to men to observe throughout their whole life, and that whether or not life has a meaning depends on the fulfilment of those commands. And if we consult our deep inner knowledge about God's command to mankind, we shall not hesitate an instant to say that it is peace. There are many among us who think this command is intended for some more propitious future; for the present, we must participate in the universal war, in order to escape destruction. But it is only if we do participate in this war that we shall be destroyed; for as far as we are concerned, there is only one possible kind of destruction: God letting us slip out of his hand.
I frequently hear some among us saying: "We too want the spirit of Judaism to be fulfilled; we too want the Torah to issue forth from Zion, and we know that to realize this purpose the Torah must not be mere words, but actual life; we want God's word on Zion to become a reality. But this cannot happen until the world again has a Zion, and so first of all we want to build up Zion, and to build it -- with every possible means." It may, however, be characteristic of Zion that it cannot be built with "every possible means," but only bemishpat (Is. 1:27), only "with justice." It may be that God will refuse to receive his sanctuary from the hands of the devil. Suppose a man decided to steal and rob for six years, and in the seventh. to build a temple with the fortune thus amassed; suppose he succeeded -- would he really be rearing temple walls? Would he not rather be setting up a den of robbers (Jer. 7:11). or a robber's palace. on whose portals he dares to engrave the name of God? It is true that God does not build his own house. He wants us to build it with our human hands and our human strength. for "house" in this connection can mean only that at long last we may begin to live God's word on earth! But after we have laid the foundations of this house by his means, bemishpat, do you really imagine that God is not strong enough to let it be finished by those same means? If you do imagine that, stop talking about Judaism, Jewish spirit, and Jewish teachings! For Judaism is the teaching that there is really only One Power which, while at times it may permit the sham powers of the world to accomplish something in opposition to it, never permits such accomplishment to stand. But whatever is done in the service of that power, and done in such a way that not only the goal but the means to that goal are in accord with the spirit of justice, will survive, even though it may have to struggle for a time, and may seem in great peril, and weak compared to the effective sham powers.
I should like to bring a concept of the utmost importance home even to those who cannot or will not understand the language of religion, and therefore believe that I am discussing theology. I am speaking of the reality of history. In historical reality, we do not set ourselves a righteous goal, choose whatever way to it an auspicious hour offers, and, following that way, reach the set goal. If the goal to be reached is like the goal which was set, then the nature of the way must be like the goal. A wrong way, that is, a way in contradiction to the goal, must lead to a wrong goal. What is accomplished through lies can assume the mask of truth; what is accomplished through violence, can go in the guise of justice, and for a while the hoax may be successful. But soon people will realize that lies are lies at bottom, that in the final analysis, violence is violence, and both lies and violence will suffer the destiny history has in store for all that is false. I sometimes hear it said that a generation must sacrifice itself, "take the sin upon itself," so that coming generations may be free to live righteously. But it is self-delusion and folly to think that one can lead a dissolute life and raise one's children to be good and happy; they will usually turn out to be hypocrites or tormented.
History has much to teach us, but we must know how to receive her teaching. These temporary triumphs which are apt to catch our attention are nothing but the stage setting for universal history. If we keep our eyes fixed on the foreground, the true victories, won in secret, sometimes look like defeats. True victories happen slowly and imperceptibly, but they have far-reaching effects. In the limelight, our faith that God is the Lord of history may sometimes appear ludicrous; but there is something secret in history which confirms our faith.
He who makes peace, our sages taught, is God's fellow worker. But addressing conciliatory words to others and occupying oneself with humane projects is not the way to make peace. We make peace, we help bring about world peace, if we make peace wherever we are destined and summoned to do so: in the active life of our own community and in that aspect of it which can actively help determine its relationship to another community. The prophecy of peace addressed to Israel is not valid only for the days of the coming of the Messiah. It holds for the day when the people will again be summoned to take part in shaping the destiny of its earliest home; it holds for today. "And if not now, when?" (Mishnah, Sayings of the Fathers, 1:14). Fulfilment in a Then is inextricably bound up with fulfilment in the Now.