Lazarus

by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

 

What is man, that you are mindful of him?

Psalm 8:4




Yes I have returned to God, like the prodigal son, after I went farming the pigs with Hegel’s students for a long time. Was it misery that made me turning back? Perhaps it was a less miserable reason.

A sudden fit of heavenly nostalgia drove me through forests and ravines and over the steepest mountain paths of dialectic philosophy. Along the way I met the god of the pantheists, but he was of no use to me. This poor and dream stricken being is meshed in and interwoven with the world, almost imprisoned in its fabric, and it yawns at you, helpless and without a will of its own.

To have a will you need to be a person, and in order to exercise it, you need to have your elbows free. Yet if you ask for a god who is able to help - and isn’t that all that really matters - it must be a real person, who is endowed with his holy attributes of being preternatural, all merciful, all wise, and full of justice. Immortality of the soul and afterlife then go into the bargain as a bonus, just as the butcher is shoving a shank into the basket free of charge, as a token of satisfaction with his customer.

Such a bone, in the language of French cuisine, is called “la rejouissance,” and they cook some excellent broths with it, which to the poor patient, worn down and ailing, is very nutritious and invigorating.

That I don’t reject such rejouissance and rather enjoy it with all my heart should be acceptable for every man with a bone of compassion in him.

 

by Heinrich Heine 1856,

© - 6/1/2005 - translated by michael sympson,

300 words, all rights reserved