The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) | Page 5

is happy....
"The maiden who charms his eyes, and attracts his desire, in whom his heart has pleasure, returns his affection with responsive gladness. They know naught but delight--neither separation nor obstacle affrights them. They sport together, they enjoy their happiness, with none to disturb. When weariness steals over him, he forgets his toil on her bosom; the light of her countenance swiftly banishes all thought of his travail. Poor though he is, yet he is happy!" (Act III, scene I.)
Alas, this call to a more natural life, after centuries of physical degeneration and suppression of all feeling for nature, could not be understood, nor even taken seriously, in surroundings in which air, sunlight, the very right to live, had been refused or measured out penuriously. The drama remained in manuscript, and did not become known to the public at large.
It was Luzzatto's chief work that exercised decisive influence on the development of Hebrew literature. _La-Yesharim Tehillah_ ("Glory to the Righteous"), another allegorical drama, which appeared in 1743, is considered a model of its kind until this day. It introduced a new epoch, the modern epoch, in the history of Hebrew literature. The master stands revealed by every touch. Everything betrays his skill--the style, at once elegant, significant, and precise, recalling the pure style of the Bible, the fresh and glowing figures of speech, the original poetic inspiration, and the thought, which bears the imprint of a profound philosophy and a high moral sense, and is free from all trace of mystical exaggeration.
From the point of view of dramatic art, the piece is not of the highest interest. The subject, purely moral and didactic, gives no opportunity for a serious study of character, and, as in all allegorical pieces, the dramatic action is weak.
The theme was not new. Even in Hebrew and before Luzzatto, it had been treated several times. It is the struggle between Justice and Injustice, between Truth and Falsehood. The allegorical personages who take part in the action are, arrayed on one side, Yosher (Righteousness) aided by Sekel (Reason) and Mishpat (Justice), and, on the other side, Sheker (Falsehood) and her auxiliaries, Tarmit (Deceit), Dimyon (Imagination), and Ta?wah (Passion). The two hostile camps strive together for the favor of the beautiful maiden Tehillah (Glory), the daughter of Hamon (the Crowd). The struggle is unequal. Imagination and Passion carry the day in the face of Truth and Righteousness. Then the inevitable _deus ex machina_, in this case God Himself, intervenes, and Justice is again enthroned.
This simple and not strikingly original frame encloses beautiful descriptions of nature and, above all, sublime thoughts, which make the piece one of the gems of Hebrew poetry. The predominant idea of the book is to glorify God and admire the "innumerable wonders of the Creator."
"All who seek will find them, in every living being, in every plant, in every lifeless object, in all things on earth and in the sea, in whatsoever the human eye rests upon. Happy he who hath found knowledge and wisdom, happy he if their speech hath fallen upon an attentive ear!" (Act II, scene I.)
But the Creator is not capricious. Reason and Truth are His attributes, and they appear in all His acts. Humanity is a mob, and two opposing forces contend for the mastery over it: Truth with Righteousness on one side, Falsehood and her ilk on the other. Each of these two forces seeks to rule the crowd and prevail in triumph.
The Reason personified by the poet has nothing in common with the positive Reason of the rationalists, which takes the world to be directed by mechanical and immutable laws. It is supreme Reason, obeying moral laws too sublimated for our powers of appreciation. How could it be otherwise? Are we not the continual plaything of our senses, which are incapable of grasping absolute truths, and deceive us even about the appearance of things?
"Truly, our eyes are deluded, for eyes of flesh they are. Therefore they change truth into falsehood, darkness they make light, and light darkness. Lo, a small chance, a mere accident, suffices to distort our view of tangible things; how much more do we stray from the truth with things beyond the reach of our senses? See the oars in the water. They seem crooked and twisted. Yet we know them to be straight....
"Verily, man's heart is like the ocean ceaselessly agitated by the battling winds. As the waves roll forward and backward in perpetual motion, so our hearts are stirred by never-ending pain and trouble, and as our emotions sway our will, so our senses suffer change within us. We see only what we desire to see, hear only what we long to hear, what our imagination conjures up." (Act II, scene i.)
This philosophy of externalism and of the impotence of the human