Reviewed work(s): Source: Modern Judaism, Vol. 5, No. 1, Gershom Scholem Memorial Issue (Feb., 1985), pp. 1-2 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1396360 . Accessed: 14/06/2012 09:12 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Modern Judaism. http://www.jstor.org Gershom Scholem IN MEMORY OF HERMANN COHEN* The Jews are given great men, and just as constantly ignore them, even if they touch the inner soul of the people. Indeed, it is part of the essence of Judaism, that the constant creation of the Law, the single enduring structure in the consciousness and inner being of this people, absorbs all differentiated figures into itself, the work alone remaining the single structure evident to all. But the immortal form, the "be-ing" (Da-Sein) of those men, who represented Judaism in their existence, directly influ- enced the essence as well as the real soul of Judaism. All of these men carry with them the essence of the ancient prophets. When we today seek solace in the treasures of contemporary Judaism; when we seek out those lives, which we have ourselves understood as Jewish lives, and which we wish to narrate to our youth, we can find no more noble image than that awakened in us by Hermann Cohen. Like all men, Cohen misunderstood himself, and many of his obscuri- ties (which perhaps now dominate our view) sprang from his false inter- pretation of his own essence. And yet it is still this existence which made the life of teaching palpable in the world. Those who saw Cohen in his old age knew how a great Jew is constituted. That which we alone can give him, we who did not know him during his life, is respect. Youth should have respect before the pure greatness, which has found its place in him. The great path, which Cohen consciously trod, which made him a truly pious human being (a fact which no one could have judged stand- ing apart from him), that path is now abandoned and awaits the youth who is to trod it. It awaits us, me. If Zionism can not accept the structure of the priest within it, it is more the loss for it; the one real Zionism, however, does not need to accept it, for he is in it just as the punctuation of the Law is part of its course. Hermann Cohen completed the difficult path which leads from the Talmud, the Bible and Maimonides via Kant and Plato and back to the Talmud, the Bible and Maimonides. This difficult path is covered by a palisade of works, which while perhaps mortal, are in their own way imperishable. Cohen completed his work. Which Zionist will make it bear 1 2 Gershom Scholem fruit? The demands of such a life are that it be comprehended and completed, and he who does this, can not go astray. If we all are like Cohen then Zionism can be fulfilled, then we will be a mamlechet kohanim, a nation of Cohanim (priests) in the truest sense of the word. 5 April 1918 Translated from the German by Sander L. Gilman *The Editor would like to thank Mrs. Fania Scholem and Prof. Nathan Roten- streich for making this previously unpublished material available.