Page 8 - Core Beliefs For Intentional Community

disappointment,” a disappointment which penetrates into the very existence of man!
(From pp. 11-12)

*

A.D. Gordon (1856 – 1922)

The Here and Now Which is “Life Eternal*– Not a Sacrifice, (1911)

Insofar as I have not yet experienced a change in my purpose for living, there is no
reason for me to seek a new life, for I wll not find it. A new life is first and foremost a
new purpose for living. This idea is very simple and yet despite this it is no wonder that

many people do not understand it and consider it to be a strange idea. They say that it
is up to the individual who works to clarify for himself what it is that he wants – if he
wants to work and live by/for himself , or if he wants to work and live so that others
may live; that is to say for the general good and for the good of future generations.
These types of questions distract the mind of man from the essence of it all – from life

of the hour, which contains life eternal for insofar as life of the hour is itself real life,
it contains life eternal. **

The individual who seeks a new life for himself does not
seek it the heavens or in the air but rather in that same

life which he is trying to renew by way of the work he does
, by the conditions under which he lives and by the struggle
he undertakes to remove obstacles from his path.

There are those who think that one who seeks to live for
the sake of life eternal has no need for life of the hour. In
their opinion, one who seeks to live for the sake of life
eternal is looked upon as a “sacrificial lamb”***, the
atonement for the Jewish People. He sacrifices his life in

appears to be heroic, yet in truth it is passive. It exists
by force of a decision made in the past, but true strength A. D. Gordon (1856-1922)
is constant activism.

Few are those who actually seek out new life, more than a few are “sacrificial
offerings”, and many more seek a new life in thought only.* New life requires ongoing
activism, for passivity will not bring the renaissance of a people. One who wishes to live
a life for the sake of the eternal is neither a sacrificial lamb, nor an atonement for the
Jewish people. Neither does he sacrifice his own life of the hour, for life of the hour in
the here and now which has a purpose is, in fact, life eternal.

There are two paths before us in the Land of Israel: the path of life in Exile with Exilic
wisdom, with its Exilic feeling and rationale and with the force of Exilic actions as

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