A. D. Gordon of blessed memory 24 Shevat — 17th yahrzeit
On 24 Shevat 5699 it became seventeen years since the death of A. D. Gordon — the teacher and guide from whom an entire generation drew its Jewish nourishment. The whole essence, the whole being of A. D. Gordon was directed toward one thing — to make an eternal covenant with the cult of labour, and with extraordinary stubbornness he realised this idea during the 18 years that he lived in the Land. In the depths of his soul roared the awareness that labour is the true purpose not only of the Jew in the Land of Israel, but of every person — wherever he may be. Labour as such — A. D. Gordon said — is necessary for the soul no less than for the body, and the difficulties lie only in the habits of generations, in a lack of understanding of and insight into its meaning, in a lack of will to adapt oneself to a working life. All this can be changed only through the necessary will to do so, and with the power of awareness, faith and will A. D. Gordon set out to prove the possibility of realising his aims. And he proved it with the greatest stubbornness through self-realisation; through this A. D. Gordon became the example for the great camp of Jewish workers in the Land of Israel. He himself suffered very greatly from the fact that others held him up as an example of a person who sacrifices himself for an idea. He saw in this a desecration of the idea of the cult of labour, which was his life's goal, and this caused him much grief. Only after many years, after he had become convinced that with his influence on the workers in the Land of Israel and on the youth in the Diaspora he could draw the masses to his ideals, only then did he agree to use his power and influence in order to appear in public as a guide. With the greatest enthusiasm A. D. G. wrote about the youth who come to the Land of Israel in order to work together with this youth. "Labour does indeed exhaust the body — he used to say — but it gives very much, a great deal, to the soul." In this lay the quintessence of A. D. Gordon's teaching, and it was for him the highest ideal, his chief goal. A. D. Gordon left us a great inheritance — his teaching, his ideal of loving labour, and the will to self-realisation. Death took from us the body of A. D. Gordon, but his teaching, the teaching of his own life, works constantly like a gushing spring, from which the great camp of pioneers and realisers draws and will draw.