If we look upon Jewish history in the Diaspora in the light of classic, or romantic, or even modern philosophy, we are bound to come to the conclusion that the Jewish people ceased to live a historic national life when it was exiled from its land. We have not lived a political life during the past two thousand years; hence we could not contribute to the civilization of mankind, for a national civilization is possible only in a national state. True, we have produced many great personalities, but the Jewish great personality in the Goluth is not a great Jewish personality--in the majority of cases it is merely an intellectual personality: a poet, an artist, a philosopher, etc. Lord Beaconsfield certainly was a great historic personality; but who would dare claim this statesman as a Jewish historic personality--the product of Jewish culture? His deeds are chronicled in the history of the English people; his historic accomplishments are the historic accomplishments of the English people. It was not the Jew Disraeli who procured the Suez Canal for the Jewish people, but the English statesman, the Lord Beaconsfield who acquired it for the English people. The Jewish great personality displayed its talent in various intellectual fields, but did nothing in the political field, for which it lacked the necessary conditions. For two thousand years, we have lived an unhistoric life--the life of Chinese, with the exception that the Chinese live on their own soil and were spared the persecutions that fell to our lot. We eked out an existence; but we did not live. Hence the entire history of the Jewish people for the past two thousand years is a history of Jewish literature. Since the deterioration of the Jewish state, Judaism has been a mere literary tendency in general history; an interesting tendency, to be sure, occasionally even original, but not more than a literary tendency. Not our historic deeds but the abstract thought alone aided us in continuing our existence--our philosophy, poetry, ethics, and religious cravings kept us alive. We the bearers of that literary aspiration have been going a-begging for thousands of years. We wandered from land to land and from sea to sea without an end in view. All our political achievements have been concentrated in our memory for the past two thousand years. We remembered that we once were a people like every other people, and by the mere force of these memories we went wherever we were directed. Thus in our long travels we have become spiritualized, we have converted a system of national culture with laws and regulations about the state and its rulers to a system of theology. The ancient Hebrew culture which is essentially a secular culture became to us a sacred thing. The Hebrew prophets, who were historic personalities in the full sense of the word, because they were men of action, statesmen and warriors of political battles, were raised by us to the category of saints in the theological sense.