On November 15, 1898, the Viennese Jewish writer, Richard Beer-Hofmann published a poem, Schlaflied für Mirjam (“Lullaby for Mirjam”), dedicated to the birth of his daughter in 1897. The poem first appeared in the German periodical Pan, and it was reprinted over the next few years in several Cultural Zionist journals, such as Jüdischer Almanach and Junge Harfen.
In the Schlaflied, Beer-Hofmann represents the biological forces of evolution by evoking the metaphor of blood as a harbinger of a transpersonal, collective identity. One typical strophe, in which a father is speaking to his child, announces: “Ufer sind wir nur/ und tief in uns rennt/ Blut von Gewesenen/ zu Kommenden rollts/ Blut unsrer Väter/ voll Unruh und Stolz” [We are but riverbanks and deep in us flows/ Blood of those who were, rolling to those coming/ The blood of our fathers/ full of struggle and pride]. The child’s father concludes in his lullaby that, since each human is composed of all others (through blood/inheritance), one should never feel alone, and he thereby attempts to coax his child to sleep.
In the last years of the 19th century, when Beer-Hofmann’s poem was written, there was an understanding of the processes of inheritance (Darwin’s Origin was published in 1859) but there was little concept of what sort of material harbinger might carry inheritance. Before the “rediscovery” of Mendel that took place in the early 20th century, blood was the obvious human biological attribute with which poets and novelists could represent complex, intergenerational and evolutionary processes: blood was the “proto-gene.”
And in Beer-Hofmann’s poem, the father tells the child that her blood gives her a particular, instinctive knowledge: that she is never “alone” in the evolutionary sense because there are others who inhabit her blood. These others are the ancestors, the forefathers and mothers, who are the “spectral interlocutors” in an intergenerational narrative.
But what is the nature of that “community of blood” Beer-Hofmann speaks about and what risks does it contain, especially in the moment of transition between generations (father to daughter)? Does the community of blood extend beyond the family to include her ethnicity and/or her nation? Cultural Zionist readers such as Martin Buber thought so. He found in Beer-Hofmann’s Schlaflied a rallying cry for Jewish collectivity that transcends ritual practice, language, the land where one lives, and political orientation.
Blood explains the transmission of “Jewishness” as well as “Judaism” and acts as a parallel Jewish inheritance to the Torah. One in which women in particular play a central role. This cannot be said about the inheritance of the Torah. For just a few seconds at the end of the 19th century, Jewish blood was the working metaphor for Jewish cultural revival, and how it flowed!
¨ Schlaf mein Kind, schlaf, es ist spät –
Sieh wie die Sonne zur Ruhe dort geht.
Hinter den Bergen stirbt sie in Rot.
Du, weißt nicht von Sonne und Tod.
Wendest die Augen zum Licht und zum Schein.
Schlaf, es sind so viel Sonnen noch dein.
Schlaf mein Kind, mein Kind schlaf ein.
¨ Schlaf mein Kind, der Abendwind weht.
Weiß man woher er kommt, wohin er geht?
Dunkel verborgen die Wege hier sind
Dir und auch mir und uns allen mein Kind.
Blinde so gehn wir und gehen allein.
Keiner kann keinem Gefährte hier sein.
Schlaf mein Kind, mein Kind schlaf ein.
¨ Schlaf mein Kind, und horch nicht auf mich.
Sinn hats für mich nur und Schall ists für dich.
Schall nur wie Windes wehn, Wassergerinn,
Worte vielleicht eines Lebens Gewinn!
Was ich gewonnen gräbt man mit mir ein.
Keiner kann Keinem ein Erbe hier sein.
Schlaf mein Kind, mein Kind schlaf ein.
¨ Schläfst du Mirjam, Mirjam mein Kind?
Ufer sind wir nur und tief in uns rinnt
Blut von Gewesenen, zu Kommenden rollts.
Blut unsrer Väter voll Unruh und Stolz.
In uns sind alle, wer fühlt sich allein?
Du bist ihr Leben, ihr Leben ist dein.
Mirjam mein Leben, mein Kind, schlaf ein!