Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

At an official banquet given recently by the Governor of Jerusalem at the Government House, in honour of the Zionist Commission now at work there, and to which the principal notables of the city were invited, Dr. Weizmann, the chairman of the Commission, made a remarkable, and from a worldly point of view a statesman-like, speech.

In the course of it Dr. Weizmann said:

“I speak with a grave sense of responsibility. I wish to speak of peace, harmony, and co-operation between the communities here represented. On the spot where we are now standing my ancestors stood twenty centuries ago. FROM HERE THEY SENT FORTH THEIR GREAT MESSAGE, like bread cast upon the waters, and now the waters are bringing this bread back to us, their descendants. We are united tonight under the wing of the mightiest of the World’s Powers, which is fighting for great ideals rooted in love for the old prophets of Palestine. Here the Jewish seers and poets proclaimed universal ideals of justice and peace; here we are the guests of the greatest of Bible-loving nations.

“This great nation has told us in the Declaration that our Jewish work accomplished in Palestine centuries ago has not been forgotten, and that our age-long devotion to Palestine has found recognition. In very truth this is not all accident. It is destiny. Our forefathers heroically defended our right to this sacred country, and only after having been overwhelmed by a fate more cruel and sanguinary than even the present fate of Belgium and Armenia did they lose physical hold on Palestine. But our ancestors did not relinquish their claim to it. Instead of a political Palestine, they set up a moral and intellectual Palestine, which triumphantly resisted the onslaughts of every conceivable foe.

“We do not, therefore, come to Palestine, we return to it; return to link up the glorious traditions of the past with the future, IN ORDER TO CREATE ONCE MORE A GREAT MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CENTRE, WHENCE, PERHAPS, A NEW WORD WILL COME FORTH TO A SORELY-TRIED WORLD. This is for me the innermost meaning of a national home. But such a centre must have real props, must have its roots in and derive strength from the soil of Palestine …

“We ask therefore for opportunity for free national development in Palestine, and in justice that demand cannot be refused. We want to cultivate our long-neglected land with modern methods and under a just, economic system, avoiding the social evils from which even the advanced countries of Europe are only now beginning to free themselves.

“We want also, and here I am referring to what I regard as the coping stone of our present work, to make Palestine once more a fountain of knowledge and idealism through the creation of a Hebrew University at Jerusalem, a great intellectual centre open to all mankind, in which the ancient truths of the prophets will obtain expression in modern form … The eyes of our scattered people in every corner of the globe are now fixed on Palestine, and on what the Jews are doing there. The Jewish communities of the West are not without influence in the Councils of the nations.

“The city of Jerusalem is for Jews a holy shrine. For that reason, if for that alone, Jews are able to respect the sentiments of others for whom Jerusalem is sacred. We wish to interfere in no way with the holy places to which the hearts of Moslems and Christians turn with reverence. We Zionists wish to live in Palestine at peace with all, on a basis of mutual regard and mutual respect.”

What was the great message that went forth from Jerusalem twenty centuries ago? How precious it is to us who have heard and believed it. It came from the lips of the risen Lord Jesus. He said to His disciples, “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: AND THAT REPENTANCE AND REMISSION OF SINS SHOULD BE PREACHED IN HIS NAME AMONG ALL NATIONS, BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM” (Luke 24:46-47). This message was for “the Jew first,” and if they had believed it they would not have been overwhelmed by so cruel and sanguinary a fate as that of which Dr. Weizmann spoke. But as they rejected with lofty scorn their meek and lowly Messiah, and with wicked hands crucified and slew Him when He was amongst them in person, so also did they refuse His message of repentance and a full forgiveness brought from heaven by the Holy Ghost. Hence “the times of restitution of all things of which God had spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21) have been postponed, and “the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost” (1 Thessalonians 2:16), and if the nation of the Jews have found an asylum in Great Britain, and if this land is interested above other nations in the welfare of this scattered people, it is only because this message rejected by the Jew has been more accepted here than in any other land.

Dr. Weizmann looked back to the former times when inspired seers and poets of Israel spoke of universal justice and peace, and he looked forward to the time when, perhaps, a new word will come forth to a sorely-tried world. And such a time is coming, for the most eloquent and sublime of all those ancient prophets proclaimed, “Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people. and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:3-4). But when will that be? Only when these same people believe the report of this same prophet, which hitherto they have not believed, and confess that He whom they crucified was wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for their iniquities (chapter 53:5). Will they do this? Not until they learn through still more bitter experiences than they have known hitherto that, without Christ, the Stone which was set at nought by the builders of their national life of old, and who is still set at nought by them and left out of their plans, their building must come to nothing. Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it (Psalm 127). And the Lord will only build upon and from the Headstone of the corner, even Christ, whom He raised up from the dead (Psalm 118:22; Mark 12:10; Acts 4:11). Then Jerusalem shall be all and more than Dr. Weizmann says it shall be, for all that God has said of it shall be fulfilled. “The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people, as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass.” And all the nations oft he earth shall look to Israel as the true spiritual, moral and intellectual centre, and they will say, “Come, let us go up to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths” (Micah 4:3).

If Dr. Weizmann had learnt the lesson that the ancient seers and poets of his race teach, and if he were taking his guidance from them, he would not make the University the centre from which light and help and words of blessing are to radiate and flow to a sorely-tried world, he would understand that it is the TEMPLE and not the university that is to fill that great place. The Lord’s House must be established if peace is to be within the walls of Jerusalem (Psalm 122), and spread out to the nations (Isaiah 2:2). It is from that House and not from any seat of learning that the life-giving waters will flow (Ezekiel 47). That means that God must be first and not man, that from the heart of God and not from the brain of man all good comes, and that there is no wisdom that can help men in those schemes that do not give to God that place that is His by right — the supreme place. The wisdom of the philosophers and the schools of learning is that of which the Word has said, “The world by wisdom knew not God” (1 Corinthians 1:21) it is not the wisdom of God, for had it been “the princes of this world … would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8). To revive such wisdom as that in Jerusalem will fill its cup of sorrow to the brim.

The chosen site for the University is the Mount of Olives. Have those who have had the purchase of this site in hand considered the writings of one of their ancient seers, Zechariah by name? If so, they have neither believed nor understood what he has written, for in the fourteenth chapter of his remarkable book we are told that the Lord’s “feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a great valley, and half the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.” At that glorious appearing of the Lord, and the mighty earthquake that shall accompany it, the proud university will crash to its ruin, and with it shall perish for ever in the nation of Israel that confidence in the wisdom of men that has been their undoing, and they will then learn what that word means, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”