Return to Nature — A.D. Gordon
“And when you will have returned to nature… and you will have opened your eyes that day… and that day your buildings will no longer be the destruction of the worlds glory… and you will have taken Torah from the mouth of nature, the Torah of building and creating, and you will have learned to make just as nature makes everything you’ll build and everything you will create. And so, in all of your ways and all of your life you will learn to be a partner to it, a partner in the act of creation.”
This beautiful text was written by Aaron David Gordon (1856-1922.)
Gordon was one of the most important thinkers and influencers in the Halutz movement, the first groups of Jews who immigrated from Eastern Europe to create a Jewish life in the land of Israel.
Gordon penned a beautiful philosophy which inspired everyone around him and left us with a legacy which is still very much relevant and useful.
I chose to bring Gordon and his philosophy of “Man and Nature” because of the holiday of Tu Bishvat which celebrates nature, and also because of the Torah portion of Yitro, a portion which like Gordon’s philosophy, has a lot to do with one simple concept - Partnership.
Our portion today celebrates partnership in two main aspects. The first, is the introduction of Yitro, Moses’ father-in-law. Yitro, a Midianite Priest, expressed his appreciation to the God of Israel and came in with useful advice to help Moses manage his leadership by advising him to create an administration.
Some Torah commentators explain that the naming of the portion was not coincidental. Yitro is the portion in which the Ten Commandments are given; it is the portion which lists them for the first time. It is curious that this important portion was named after a person who was not considered “of the people”. Perhaps this choice was made to remind us of the importance of adhering to these commandments in partnership with all people rather than in seclusion.
The second aspect in which partnership is enhanced in our portion is within Yitro’s advice to Moses: No one should rule alone. Yitro advised Moses to appoint “managers” under him, representatives from each tribe who would rule locally. Yitro’s system would create many leadership positions within the nation, so many in fact, that there would be a leading representative in a ratio of about one for every ten people. Yitro’s advice increases the participation of the people in their own leadership so much, that you might call it, a radical democracy. At first glance his advice may seem plainly like an increase in efficiency and a way to alleviate Moses’ heavy burden, but a deeper look suggests a profoundly participatory form of living.
A.D. Gordon viewed the world, the entirety of existence in fact, as a network of partnerships.
Gordon was born in the Pale of Settlement under the Russian Empire (today’s Ukraine.) He was born as the fifth child to parents who lost their previous four children and grew up as an only child. Due to his poor health and his family history, his parents tried their best to protect him, and shielded from the outside world. He received most of his education at home.
His family, who was related to the Ginsburg family (then the richest Jewish family in the Russian Empire), arranged for him to work as a clerk in one of the Ginsburg’s estates. This was an indoor desk job that he assumed for most of his life.
But Gordon was not just a gray clerk.. He was a phenomenal autodidact, who taught himself languages and philosophy, and in addition to him being well versed in Torah and Talmud, he was also versed in all modern thought that came his way.
He was charismatic, and an educator at heart. As an avid Zionist he would gather the youth of his town and arrange for them meetings of learning, socializing and culture. He would instill in them the love of Israel, Hebrew as well as lead evenings of song and dance.
In 1904 when Gordon was 48, he was fired from his job, and shortly after, his parents passed away. This happened in the midst of the biggest immigration wave of Jews from Eastern Europe to the United States, a path that Gordon considered as well.
It was his wife who convinced him to follow his heart and head towards the holy land, reminding him that he was a Zionist.
Gordon’s philosophy was born on that journey. Sailing through the Mediterranean Sea, Gordon felt something that he would later describe through his philosophy. He felt one with nature. A creature who came from nature and never left it, despite the years he had spent in doors.
The years in the land were difficult and miserable, filled with hunger, failure and disease. His wife and daughter who followed him contracted malaria, which his wife did not survive.
Gordon's reunification with nature came to fulfillment when he moved to the Galilee, and together with the Kineret group, established the first Kibbutz - Degania. Despite him being thirty years older than his peers and frail, he would farm during the day and write at night. His philosophy about the renewed spirit one gets from working in nature helped the other group members not to give up their hard work in times when they were about to do so.
It was a partnership. Partnership between humans and nature, that would inspire partnership between humans and humans, which would in turn inspire partnerships between nations as well.
“This is the core of the historic, human-cosmic idea of our revival… to revive our people, to renew its spirit and its form, to create it with the new creation of a higher spirit, a human-cosmic spirit. This means to build communal life over entirely new foundations: the foundation of life inside the universal nature and with the universal nature - over the foundation of justice in all of its forms and variations; of justice between man and man, between nation and nation… of justice as relating to anything which holds the spirit of life.”
