HOMAGE TO JANUSZ KORCZAK

One hundred children are one hundred human beings.
Not "someday," not "not yet", not "tomorrow"
   - they are human beings now.

How to Love a Child

I have noticed that only fools insist
that all human beings should be alike.
The wise are glad that in the world there
are day and night, summer and winter, old
and young, and that there are butterflies
in the garden and birds in the sky and that
flowers and the eyes of people come in
different colors and that G-d who created
humans created them male and female.
Only those who do not like to think are
grieved by difference and irritated by the
variety that compels us to think, to see
and to understand.

Rules for Living

A poet is someone who is very happy and very sorrowful,
who is quick to anger and who loves intensely,
who feels strongly, is easily stirred up,
and who sympathizes with others' feelings.
Children are like that too.

A philosopher is someone who is very observant,
who ponders and wants to know how things really are.
Children are like that too.

It is hard for children to say what they are feeling
or what they are thinking about,
because speech requires words.
It is still harder for them to write.
But children truly are philosophers and poets.

Notes from Eretz-Israel

The land of the past which shall also be the land of the future. A land of plains and mountains, in which there are some mountains that are comfortable and temperate, kind and forgiving, but also some that are dark and threatening, dangerous and cruel. A land of desert and sea. A land of oranges, but also of thorn and briar and thistle; of cool and pleasant breezes, but also of burning hamsin winds. A land of skies that are clear by day and star-strewn by nights. In the land of Israel there are many stones...

There one must decipher and understand not only the heavens, the wind, the tree, the wild grass... but also the mountain - the stone and the star - the night.

from a letter to Moshe Silbertal, 30.3.37

Despite everything I believe in the future:
of humanity, of the Jews, of the Land of Israel...
It is not myself I am trying to save, but my thoughts...
I wish that tomorrow I could be sitting in my narrow
little room in Jerusalem, in front of a Bible, some
textbooks, a Hebrew dictionary, paper, pencil...
so that I could say: A new leaf - final chapter.

A man has to know a lot and think a lot about himself
and even after doing so he is often mistaken
and does not know everything

HOMAGE TO KORCZAK,
Hakibbutz Hameuchad publishing House,
Ghetto Fighters' House, 1989