AZR arrives by boat across the Sea of Galilee at Degania, "this quiet and proud place. There a new land was revealed before my eyes." While Europe is a killing field, the kvutza builds:
"Amid the sea of blood all around, Degania stands like a solitary, quiet island, on which a group of young men and women do the work of peace with hoe and plow, with one heart and toward one goal… And how should they [the Germans] not be ashamed, busy as they are with destruction, while these are busy with building?" AZR, "One Sabbath in Degania," Ben-Yehuda read/44004. (Written against the background of the Jaffa expulsion; see "The Jaffa Exile.")
At the third Sabbath meal, amid the kvutza's singing, AZR felt "my soul rising with this song… an expression of longing for the days of the Essenes in the past and the days of the Messiah in the future," and concluded in the language of the Sages:
"Had all the children of Israel tasted the taste of two Sabbaths such as these, redemption would have come of itself… but… they must first be preceded by the six weekdays of honest, creative labor on the soil of the fathers." Ibid. (The account is dated 14 Tishrei 5679, upon the British army's arrival in the Galilee.)
In his eulogy for Bussel (who drowned in the Sea of Galilee, 1919), AZR opens with a biting parable: a crowd shoves to climb a slippery pole to snatch a banknote fluttering at its top, biting and kicking one another. The "select few" despise the race:
"We do not want competition, we do not want to fight one another — we want to help one another. And they went and founded the commune, a fellowship of working brothers. One of those select few was Yosef Bussel." AZR, "In Memory of Yosef Bussel," Ben-Yehuda read/28078.
Bussel knew that "homo homini lupus" (man is a wolf to man), yet chose a different war: "It is finer to fight against the evil impulse in man, against the 'wolf' within him, and to plant in him love, kindness, and mercy." His call to his comrades, and his life's creed:
"Come, brothers, let us withdraw to a corner there in the Jordan Valley… we shall work together at honest labor and help one another… and we shall be an example to the new immigrants. / 'We shall wear simple clothes, garments of cloth; we shall live simple lives — we shall live by our labor.'" Ibid. (and the opening, from Bussel's own words). AZR's closing: "May your spirit, dear pioneer, dwell among us for ever and ever."
Degania is, in AZR's eyes, the embodiment of his entire teaching: labor instead of the race, brotherhood instead of competition, and spirit instead of matter — "over all of it hovered the spirit of R. Aharon David Gordon, the prophet of labor" (see "Gordon and the Joy of Labor"). It was a return to "the way of the Essenes, the way of creative labor."