A Discourse, at Temple Keneseth Israel
by
Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D. D.

Philadelphia, December 11th, 1910.

My visit to Russia and its purpose.

In the summer of 1894 I visited Russia for the purpose of proposing to the Czar a plan that might end or lessen the terrible persecution of the Jews in his realm. The plan intended was a removal of the persecuted Jews to unoccupied lands in the interior, there to be colonized on farms, and to be maintained, until self-supporting, by their correligionists of other parts of the world.

Refused admission by Russian government.

Learning that, because a Jew, I would not be admitted into Russia, I conferred with President Cleveland and Secretary Gresham, both of whom heartily endorsed my plan and resolved to intervene. The Russian Minister at Washington declaring his powerlessness to visÉ my passport, our Secretary of State cabled to the American Minister at St. Petersburg to obtain the desired permission from the foreign office, only to receive as reply the words "Russian government deeply regrets its inability to accede to request in behalf of Reverend Jewish divine."

Determined to test my citizenship right.

The injustice of the reply determined me more than ever to enter Russia, if only to make a test case of my citizenship rights. The treaty between the United States and Russia guarantees to every American citizen the right of entry on Russian soil, and as an American citizen that right was mine; my religion being my private affair and no concern of Russia's. The determination to test the supremacy of international law over national prejudice aroused a large part of the American press to a vigorous endorsement of my position. A bill was introduced in Congress to the effect that the treaty between the two countries be declared abrogated if an American citizen be turned back from the gates of Russia by reason of his religion.

Was admitted.

In the height of the agitation I departed for Russia, knocked at the gates of St. Petersburg—and was admitted. Russia had evidently come to the conclusion that it was better policy to admit me and to keep her eyes on me than to allow the agitation and the indignation to continue in our country.

Met distinguished Russians.

While within the Russian borders, I was privileged to come in contact with many prominent Russians, one of them M. Witte, who at that time was Minister of Finance and practically at the head of the empire, the Czar, Alexander III, being critically ill in the Crimea, where he shortly after died.

Tolstoy most distinguished of all.

But of all the men I met none made the impression that was left upon me by my visit to Count Leo Tolstoy. It was made possible by Mr. Andrew D. White, the distinguished scholar and statesman, who at that time represented our country at St. Petersburg. He had written and asked the count to meet me and to learn of the mission that brought me to Russia. The count's daughter, Tatiana, replied that her father would be pleased to have me visit him, adding that he was just then engaged in hay-making, and, therefore, had not much leisure. To take as little of his time as possible I arranged to arrive in the court-yard of his manor-house at Yasnaya Polyana, late in the afternoon. Approaching a group of peasants that stood at a well drinking water and mopping their brows, my travelling-companion, a young Russian lawyer, asked them where we might find the count. One of them stepped out of the group, and, lifting his cap, said most courteously that he was Tolstoy, and, learning my name, he bade me a hearty welcome.

Held me captive from first meeting.

From the moment I first gazed upon him he held me captive, and, by a strange psychic power, he has held me enthralled ever since. No wish of mine has been more fondly cherished in the sixteen years that have since passed by than that of some day visiting Russia again, and only for the purpose of seeing once more that strangely fascinating personality, of listening again to his marvelous flow of wisdom.

His personality.

I had often wondered how a Moses, an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, a Socrates, looked and talked, denounced and dreamed, the moment I saw and heard Tolstoy I knew. One hour's talk with him seemed equal to a whole university course in political and social science; one walk with him on his estate stored up in the listener more knowledge of moral philosophy than could be crowded into a year's seminary instruction. Great as was the power of his pen, immeasurably greater was the power of his living word. In some mysterious way the flow of his speech seemed to exercise an hypnotic spell upon the speaker as much as upon the listener. The speaker seemed at times translated into a super-human being, seemed inspired, seemed to speak words not his own, as one of the ancient prophets of Israel must have spoken when he said the words: "Thus saith the Lord," while the listener seemed scarcely capable of thought or speech, felt his being almost lose its identity and become merged with that of the speaker.

At times his voice would sound as Elijah's voice must have sounded when he said to Ahab, the king, "Thou art he who troubleth Israel," and at times it would seem as sweet as the voice of one of Russia's nightingales. At times his strong, rugged, bearded face would resemble that of the pictured Jupiter in wrath, and then it would rival in serenity one of Raphael's saints. At times he would seem to carry on his shoulders all the woe of the world, resembling one of the mediaeval pictures of the martyr of Nazareth, and then again he would seem as care-free and happy as a little babe. He had never learned the art of concealing his thoughts and emotions. His face and voice were as a mirror that revealed with microscopic exactness his innermost self. What he felt moved to speak he spoke; what he felt urged to do he did; he never stopped to consider whether it will please or displease, whether it will bring praise or censure upon him. Like a piece of living, weather-beaten New England granite he looked in his home-spun crash blouse, his jean trousers girded at the waist with a rope, his coarse woolen shirt open at the neck, his well-worn bast shoes. He seemed, indeed, a composite of the looks and traits and thoughts that characterized the Puritans in the early history of the New England states.

He lived his life according to his own light. Excepting God, he bowed to no master. His conscience was his sole rule of right. His law was his own. His creed was his own. His style of dress, his mode of living were of his own choosing. His was above all else himself, not an echo of another. He was the freest man in the most enslaved of lands. His was the brightest mind in darkest Russia, the most democratic spirit in the most autocratic of realms. His peasant garb could not hide the noble man, ennobled by exalted thought and achievement and not by the will of potentate. His peasant labor could not hide the man born to command, not by means of knout or sword or prison but by the law of love and right and truth.

As severe with the world so gentle with his own.

As fearless as he was in his denunciations of the wrong-doings of government and church and society, and as bold as he was in his reform propositions, so gentle and simple-minded was he at his family table. I had read that two kinds of meals were served at his table, a frugal one for himself and a sumptuous one for the rest of his family. The meal of which I partook was a frugal one for all. I was, however, little conscious of what I ate. I was held spell-bound by the count's conversation which dominated the table, and which was carried on in English, occasionally passing into German or French or Russian.

A table incident.

He was in an especially happy mood that evening. In the mail that had been brought to the table there were a number of papers. Opening one of these, the London Standard, I believe, he observed that an article of his had been severely censored by the Russian government. Large parts of it had been smeared over with black ink. What amused him was that the parts that were left uncensored were worse than those that had been blackened out, revealing the stupidity of the censor. Turning to me, who sat at his right, he said that had the article been a panegyric on the Czar, it would probably have received the same treatment, for no matter what he writes, it is daubed over, here and there, on the general principle that, having been written by Tolstoy, it must of necessity be revolutionary. Continuing, he told me that that particular article was one of a series on the subject of "Christianity and Patriotism," which, not being permitted to be published in Russia, appeared in translation in England. In it he endeavored to show that Christianity and patriotism were incompatible, that the latter was an artificial creation, skilfully nourished by rulers for selfish purposes. On account of it wars are waged, evils are wrought, sufferings are inflicted by Christians upon Christians, who are religiously taught to love one another, to forgive one another, to do good to each other, and who are patriotically trained to hate and overreach each other. Humanity, he said, must be put in the place of patriotism. The latter is both stupid and unmoral, stupid because it leads each nation to regard itself the superior of all others, and unmoral because it lures nations to possess themselves of advantages at the cost of others, thus violating the fundamental law of morality, that of not doing to others what they would not have others do to them. Humanity makes the whole world every man's country, and every man each man's brother.

His home over-run by visitors.

When first introduced to the family I felt that their welcome was not quite as hearty as was that of the count. I could easily understand the reason. The presence of guests was almost a daily occurrence, and quite a burden on the household. The count denied himself to none who had a genuine purpose for seeking him. But he was out of patience with mere curiosity seekers or newspaper writers, who sought to rob him of his valuable time in order to fill a column or two with sensational matter. One such writer, a lady journalist, came one day for the sole purpose of having him give her the menu of his vegetarian diet, to tell her whether his undergarments were of as coarse a fabric as were his outer clothes, and whether an equally picturesque peasant-garb might not be designed for women.

Special incident wins for me family's special welcome.

My first impression that I was classed with the other afflictions of the count's universal popularity soon wore off, however, by reason of a letter to the family which I brought with me from a distinguished professor. This gentleman had, a short time before, been dismissed from the university of St. Petersburg because he had published an essay on The Ethics of the Talmud, in which he had endeavored to show the lofty moral teachings of the Jews. I had made his acquaintance while in St. Petersburg, and before leaving that city he called on me, and asked me whether I would not take a letter from him, of an entirely uncompromising nature, to Tolstoy, inasmuch, as at that particular time, a letter mailed to the count did not, for easily accountable reasons, always reach him. I readily consented, and that little service, the professor having been a great favorite of the count, made me a welcome guest also to the family.

Approves of stand taken to gain admission.

Supper over, the count invited my companion and myself to join him on a walk and to tell him of what service he could be to me. I told him of the mission that brought me to Russia and of the difficulties that were placed in the way of my admission. He approved of the stand I had taken, but asked me to blame the governments for it, mine as well as his, and not the Russians, who are a kindly people.

If United States would take bolder stand Russia would yield.

He entered at length upon an exposition showing that if the United States would refuse to countenance discriminations between her citizens on account of religious belief, Russia would be obliged to yield. I told him of the audience which Mr. White and myself had had with M. Witte, and that the latter had said that, the Czar being sick, nothing could be done without his consent, that I should state my request in the form of a petition, written in English and Russian, and that he would present it to the Czar with his approval upon the latter's return, and that I had complied with the advice given. The count had little faith that my petition would ever reach the eyes of the Czar—and it never did, for the Czar never returned alive. And he had little faith in all official promises. The men in power at that time he believed to be either fanatics or cowards. The former sought to secure for themselves a soft berth in heaven, the latter sought it on earth. These were afraid to speak out their honest thought and to deal an honest blow for right and justice. They were afraid of losing caste or position or of being condemned to penal servitude, as if better persons than they had not suffered martyrdom before, or were not now paying in Siberia the price for exercising their right to liberty of thought and speech.

Approves of my mission but has little hope.

He warmly approved of my mission but saw no present possibility of its realization. Even if the Czar were to feel kindly disposed toward my plan, Pobiedonostzeff, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, would interpose his objections to permitting Jews rooting themselves on Russian soil.

The policy of the Procurator, he said, was to root out the Jews, to drive them either into the Greek Catholic Church or into exile or starvation, stupidly attributing the evils of Russia to her tolerance of non-orthodox-Christian faiths and seeing relief only in their extinction within the empire. And that miscreant considered himself the official head of the Russian church, and the administrator of its creed in the name of Jesus, of him who bade man to love even his enemy, to do good even to those who do evil, to forgive even those who offend, to bless even those who curse.

Asks my attitude toward Jesus, and defines his.

Stopping suddenly, and turning his face full upon me, he asked "What is your belief respecting Jesus?" I answered that I regard the Rabbi of Nazareth as one of the greatest of Israel's teachers and leaders and reformers, not as a divine being who lived and taught humanly but as a human being who lived and taught divinely. "Such is my belief," said he, and he continued "Your belief, however, is not that of the Jews in Russia. Many of them have little knowledge of Jesus, and more of them, I fear, have little love for him. And who can blame them?" he continued, "they have been made to suffer so much in his name that it would be little short of a miracle if they loved him. Mohamed was more honest, he gave to people the choice between the Koran and the sword. Christians profess love, and practice hatred." I told the count that through the mediation of Mr. White, the Procurator had consented to grant me an audience, but not till after the lapse of seven weeks, after his return from some monastery to which he had retired for prayer, penance and meditation. "Well may he meditate," said the count, "on the wrongs he has committed, and even were he to do penance seven times seven weeks or seven times seven months or seven years, he could not blot out the guilt that stains his soul, and that has darkened and cursed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent human beings."

Tells why he escaped Siberia.

Amazed at the freedom with which he exposed his condemnation of the most powerful officials of the realm, and convinced that as he spoke to me he must have spoken often to others, and that the government could not possibly be ignorant of it, I asked how it was that he had escaped seizure, exile or imprisonment, to which he replied: "I am not yet sure that I shall not end my days in Siberia. That I have escaped thus far is due to the government's sensitiveness of the world's opinion. It knows of the hold my publications have gained for me on civilized people. It fears the cry of outrage that would be raised at the banishment or imprisonment of a man as old as I."

He was at that time sixty-six years old. I have since read, that when the Czar was one day approached by one of the grand dukes with a request for the banishment of Tolstoy on the ground that he incited rebellion against the government and the church, the Czar is said to have replied, "Je ne veux pas ajouter a sa gloire une couronne d' un martyr"—I do not wish to add to his glory the martyr's crown—words used by Louis XIV of France, when a similar request was made of him.

Under the Poverty Tree.

After that statement, he walked silently, lost in deep thought, perhaps picturing to himself his declining days among fellow martyrs in far-away Siberia, perhaps thinking of the agonies and tortures and untimely deaths that had been inflicted by a cruel or misguided government on thousands of Russia's noblest sons and daughters. Silently he led the way toward a tree that stood near the house, upon a slight eminence. It was the Poverty Tree that was destined to afford him beneath its wide spreading branches his last resting place. It derived its name from the custom of poor peasants laying there their troubles before the count. Seating himself on a bench beneath the tree he beckoned to us to seat ourselves along side of him. He continued silent for some time, while the setting sun bathed his lionine face and hair in crimson and golden light, and gave him an appearance not unlike one of the old Norse gods or vikings which the artist's brush has made familiar to us. At last he resumed his speech.