Zamenhof spoke of how the human family had long been separated into warring, hostile groups who for many thousands of years had not understood one another.
'. . . Prophets and poets dreamed of some era, very misty and remote, when human beings would once again begin to understand one another and would again be united in one family; but this was only a dream. This was spoken of as some sweet fantasy, but not taken seriously; no-one believed in it.
'And now, for the first time, the dream of thousands of years begins to come true. In a small town on the coast of France people from the most diverse lands and nations have assembled. . . understanding one another, speaking to one another as brothers, like the members of one nation . . . We all stand on a neutral base, we all have truly equal rights; we all feel like members ofone nation, like members ofone family. . .'
His audience listened in respectful silence. Among the faces of young and old, men and women, there were shining expressions. His voice grew more assured. 'We shall show the world that mutual understanding among people of different nations is perfectly possible . . . that the barrier between the peoples is not something inevitable and etemal, that understanding between creatures of the same species is no fantastic dream, but a perfectly natural phenomenon, which has only been long delayed by very sad and shameful circumstances, but which had to come sooner or later and which has now come . . .'
'Our literature is already very large', he went on, 'our magazines are very numerous, we now have Esperantist groups and clubs all over the world, and our name is now known to every educated person in the world. When I look at our present brilliant position, I remember with emotion the first pioneers, who worked for our cause in that unhappy time, when we met with nothing on every side but sneers and persecution.'
Some in the audience could see Zamenhof s hands begin to tremble as he neared the end of his speech.
'Soon the work of our Congress, dedicated to the true brotherhood of mankind, will begin,' he continued. 'In this solemn moment my heart is full ofsomething not to be defined, something mysterious, and I feel I want to ease my heart with some prayer, to turn to some greater Power and invoke its aid and blessing. But just as in this moment I am not a member of any one nation, but a simple human being, even so I also feel that at this moment I do not belong to any national or sectarian religion, but am a simple human being. And at this moment all that is before the eyes of my soul is that high moral Power which every human being feels in his heart, and to this unknown Power I direct my prayer.
To Thee, O mysterious, bodiless Force,
O Power of the WorId, all-controlling,
To Thee, source of Love and of Truth, and the source
OfLife in its endless unrolling,
Whom each may conceive in his way in his mind,
But the same in his heart, in his feelings, shall find,
To Thee, the Creator, To Thee, holding sway,
To Thee, now, we pray.
We turn to Thee now with no creed of a state, With no dogmas to keep us apart; Blind zeal now is hushed, and fanatical hate; Now our faith is the faith of the heart. With this truest faith, this unforced faith and free Which all feel alike, we are turning to Thee We stand now, the sons of the whole human race, In Thy holy place.
Thy creation was perfect and lovely, but men Are divided, and war on each other; Now peoples rend peoples like beasts in a den, Now brother makes war on his brother; Mysterious Power, whatever Thou art, O hear now our prayer, our true prayer from the heart: O grant us Thy peace, O give peace once again To the children of men!
We are sworn to strive on, we are swom to the fight Till mankind is as one; O sustain us; O let us not fall, but be with us, O Might, Let no walls of division restrain us. Mysterious Power, now bless our endeavour, Now strengthen our ardour, and let us, for ever, Whoever attacks us, however they rave, Be steadfast and brave.
We will hold our green banner on high now, unfurled,
A symbol of goodness, and, blessed
In our task by the Mystery ruling the world,
We shall come to the end of our quest.
The walls that divide shall divide us no more;
They shall crack, they shall crash, they shall fall with a roar,
And love then and truth shall, all walls overthrown,
Come into their own.'
'When Zamenhof sat down,' Privat recalled, 'prolonged applause broke out again, and many eyes were wet.'
The leaders had been wrong. Zamenhof s sincerity and his message had touched the hearts of all.
THREE
The Inner Idea
Over the years, Ludwik Zamenhof had come to realize that there was another barrier that divided men even more severely than native language: religious prejudice and fanaticism. He had experienced firsthand the ugliness of anti-Semitism and the violence of pogroms. Until religious hatred was ended, Zamenhofnow believed, the human family would not become united.
In the wake of the Revolution of 1905, anti-Jewish violence in Russian Poland became so bad that a prominent French Jewish Esper- antist and noted oculist, Emilejaval, wrote Zamenhof suggesting that he take his family to Paris, where they would be safe. But Zamenhof would not leave Warsaw. Though he admitted life there was 'indeed terrible', he thanked him for the offer but refused.
Zamenhof longed to solve the problem of religious strife. Several years earlier, he had presented to the Jewish intellectuals of Warsaw a program he hoped would form the basis for a religious-moral movement among Jews. Zamenhof felt Judaism needed to be reformed, not to become assimilated to its Gentile surroundings, but to pare it down to its core: belief in one God and the law to love one's neighbor. All else in Judaism, he believed, was 'not laws, but customs and traditions*. 'The essence of the Hebrew people', he wrote, was the concept of'one unknowable God for all mankind'. It was for this idea that the Jewish people had been created, and for which they had suffered in the course of millennia. 'The perfecting of this idea', he believed, 'is consequently the entirely natural mission of the Jewish people and their raison d'etre.'
Zamenhof called his program Hillelism, after the first-century bc Hebrew sage Hillel, known as a tolerant man who interpreted the scriptures according to the spirit of the law. 'What is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow man', Hillel had said. 'This is the Torah: all the rest is commentary.' Zamenhof hoped that the principles of Hillelism would lead to breaking down the barriers of prejudice and would help the Jews to become accepted as equal citizens wherever they lived.
Although he found little support for his program - no Jew would support it openly - Zamenhof refused to give up the idea. He soon came to believe that such a movement should not be only for the Jews but for aU mankind. He decided to offer his idea to peoples ofall races and religions, and changed the name to Homaranismo to make it more universal. Homarano in Esperanto meant 'a member of the human family'.
The essence of Homaranismo was to be absolute equality, justice and mutual respect among peoples of all races and religions. Each Homaranist would be free to follow his own religion, but in dealing with members of other groups would be expected to act on the basis of neutral human religious principles. Each individual would be free to speak whatever language he wished at home, but when meeting people whose home language was different, should speak a neutral tongue. This language, for the present at least, was to be Esperanto. Modestly Zamenhof added that if, at some future time, the Homaranists wished to choose another language, they could do so.
The religious principles that would guide all Homaranists included recognition of God as the highest Power, unknowable to man, and the fundamental rule to 'act toward others as you would wish others to act toward you, and always listen to the voice of your conscience'.