This idea was handed on as a legacy from the prophets and psalmists to the men of the Great Synod, and from the latter to the Jewish philosophers and teachers of the Middle Ages. No doubt it had vastly changed in form and in content; but in essence it was the same. Political independence was lost in course of time; and the place of the political state was taken by national unity and an unshaken belief in the Restoration of the people to its old land. In substance it was a combination of consciousness of the past and hope for the future that made Jewish life in the present worth living. The sluggard was still inert, the credulous man still trusted “in man in whom there is no help,” and had need of a live coal from the altar. But now it was not an angel that brought to man the purifying agency. The sufferings of the nation had been exalted far above the coal of the altar. National martyrdom had assumed a more intense and vivid meaning. It was more insistently set over against the thoughtlessness of a materialistic life. When we read the maxim of Hillel _the elder_ (112? _b.c.e._‒8? _c.e._) which Pinsker used as the motto of his pamphlet: ¹הוא היה אומר אם אין אני לי מי לי וכשאני לעצמי מה אני ואם לא עכשו אימתי׃ פרקי אבות א׳ יד׳ ¹ He used to say, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And being for my own self, what am I? And if not now, when?” (_Ethics of the Fathers_, _chap._ i. _v._ 14.) We cannot help thinking that this aphorism, as well as the rule:―― ¹‏”...ובמקום שאין אנשים השתדל להיות איש׃“ ב׳ו׳ ¹ “... and in a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.” (_Ibid._ ii. 6.) refers not only to individual matters, but also to national duties. Several centuries later, Bahia _ben_ Joseph Ibn Pakuda (_fl._ 1000‒1050), who devoted a whole chapter of his _Duties of the Heart_ to the exaltation of trust in God, wrote:―― “Trust in God should not prevent man from doing his utmost in the way of human effort and enterprise. Likewise it is folly to put too much trust in benefactors, however powerful.” The self-emancipation of the Jewish people is, accordingly, not simply _a_ Jewish idea, it is _the_ Jewish idea. This idea is not of the _Ghetto_, it is truly _Hebraic_; it may be opposed to some superstitious notions, but it is religious in the highest sense. Belief in predestination tended to make many Asiatic nations lethargic and indolent. Fatalism killed their energy and stopped all their progress. Relying on others was essentially fatalism. This doctrine was Babylonian; it was never Jewish. “Ethiopia and Egypt were thy strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers” (Nahum iii. 9). This was the burden concerning Nineveh, but _Israel_ trusted in God, _i.e._ in its Genius, in its own moral power, in its self-sacrifice and faithfulness to its ideals.