Vasilevsky was born and educated in Poltava in a family of maskilim (his brother was a physician and a poet in Russian; his sister an assistant editor at a Russian journal). He knew nothing of Judaism until the seventh grade of gymnasium, where, under a friend's influence, he was drawn to the circle of the nationalists and of Hovevei Zion. He learned Hebrew quickly, gave free lessons to poor pupils, and even returned to religious observance.
"He began to learn Hebrew, and within a short time he made the Hebrew language his own and took part in all the work of the nationalists with enthusiasm. Nor did he stop at that: he came to seek the God of Israel, and in the days of Elul he came to recite the Selichot prayers." AZR, "Natan Vasilevsky," the "Congress Book," 5683 (1923).
This is the new historical detail the portrait adds to our Congress story (see "Eyewitness to the First Congress" and "Delegate to the First Zionist Congress"): AZR and Vasilevsky were elected together as Poltava's delegates to Basel. On his return, Vasilevsky held his townspeople spellbound with his report on the Congress.
"To the First Congress the two of us were elected, he and I, as delegates of the Zionists of Poltava... I remember the speech he delivered before the public in Poltava when he came to give an account of the First Congress. He enchanted the audience then with words that flowed from the innermost depths of his soul." Ibid.
A short time later came the news that Vasilevsky had taken his own life in Odessa. AZR does not hide his grief, and he does not judge the young man; he mourns him and the members of his generation who were lost, and out of the pain sounds precisely the stance that would accompany all his thought: a lament for the loss of a soul, and a silent call to life.
"Even today, when I remember that warm-hearted young man, my heart weeps within me. And he was not alone; there were many young people like him, and precisely among those of great soul... It is impossible not to honor his memory... And yet a bitter feeling seizes us: my children have gone out from me and are no more. Themselves they set free — and their people they left the poorer…" Ibid.
This lament does not stand alone. AZR devoted several explicit essays to the question of suicide (among them "On Suicide" and "Again on Those Who Take Their Own Lives"), always out of compassion rather than judgment, and always with the opposite call that sums up his teaching: "And thou shalt choose life!" (see "Heirs of Prophecy"). His grief for Vasilevsky is one of the personal faces of that stance.