A. D. Gordon

Aaron David Gordon (1856 in Troianov, Russia-1922 on Kibbutz Deganiah) was a Zionist ideologue and the spiritual force behind practical Zionism. He founded the "Religion of Labor" movement that set the tone for the Zionist movement for many years to come.

Gordon was the only child of a well-to-do family of Orthodox Jews. He was self-educated in both religious and general studies, and spoke several languages. For thirty years, he managed an estate, where he proved to be a charismatic educator and community activist. Gordon married his cousin, Faige Tartakov, at a young age and had seven children with her, though only two of them survived.

Gordon only discovered Hebrew literature and Zionism later in life, and emigrated to Palestine in 1904, when he was already forty-eight years old. His wife and daughter immigrated with him, but his son refused to accompany him because of differences in their religious outlooks. Just four months after he arrived in the country, his wife took ill and died. Gordon lived in Petah Tikvah and Rishon le-Tziyyon, before finally settling in the Galilee in 1919. He supported himself as a hired agricultural hand, living simply and writing his emerging philosophy at night. Out of principle, he refused to become involved in any of the Zionist political parties, though he participated in the Zionist Congress of 1911.

Gordon believed that all of Jewish suffering could be traced to the parasitic state of Jews in the Diaspora, who were unable to participate in creative labor. To remedy this, he sought to promote physical labor and agriculture as a means of uplifting Jews spiritually. It was the experience of labor, he believed, that linked the individual to the hidden aspects of nature and being, which, in turn were the source of vision, poetry, and the spiritual life. Furthermore, he also believed that working the land was a sacred task, not only for the individual but for the entire Jewish people. Agriculture would unite the people with the land and justify its continued existence there. In his own words: "The Land of Israel is acquired through labor, not through fire and not through blood."

More than just a theoretician, he insisted on putting this philosophy into practice, and refused to take any clerical position that was offered to him. He was an elderly intellectual of no great physical strength and with no experience doing manual labor, but he took up the hoe and worked in the fields, always focusing on the aesthetics of his work. Unlike other Zionist leaders, he served as a model of the pioneering spirit, descending to the people and remaining with them no matter what the consequences were. He experienced the problems faced by the working class, suffering from malaria, poverty, and unemployment. In turn, this made him the spiritual leader of the working class, which turned to him for advice and help.

Gordon had always been a principled individual--even as a young man he refused to allow his parents to pay the customary bribe so that he would be exempted from military service, arguing that if he didn’t serve, someone else would have to serve instead of him. In the end, he spent six months in the army, but was released when it was discovered that he was not in good enough physical shape. He later refused to accept payment for his articles or the classes he taught, citing the Mishnah that states: Do not turn the Torah into a source of income." At the same time, he did not lapse into dogmatism either. When Rachel the Poet asked his opinion about whether she should go overseas to study, an idea that was anathema to most of the Zionist leadership, he encouraged her to do so.

Gordon remained an Orthodox Jew throughout most of his life. It was only in his later years that he began to abandon the commandments, finding in his "religion of labor" an alternative to the old religious beliefs. Students of his writings have found that Gordon was greatly influenced by Russian author Leo Tolstoy, as well as by the Hassidic movement and the Kabbalah. Many have also found parallels between his ideas and those of his contemporary, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.

Gordon's moods alternated between enormous frustration and great hope for the future. He believed that an idealistic new generation of creative Jews would emerge in the Land of Israel, with a high sense of morals, a deep spiritual commitment, and a commitment to their fellow human beings. Toward the end of his life, however, he prefered to isolate himself in Nature. From a letter he wrote to Rachel the Poet, it seems that he grew more and more frustrated with people's petty squabbles and selfish interests.

The Gordoniah youth movement, created to put Gordon's teachings into practice, established several kibbutzim in Israel.

Gordon died of throat cancer on Kibbutz Deganiah at the age of sixty-six.