As an eyewitness, AZR describes the decline of Hovevei Zion under the Russian regime before Herzl, and the tidings of the Congress — auto-emancipation, the people's dedication of itself:
"The principle of all principles is that the people of Israel themselves dedicate — not mere pennies — but all their strength and energy to the building of their national home." AZR, "From the First Congress to This Day," Sefer HaKongres (The Congress Book), 5683 (1923).
He recounts the Herzl–Birnbaum dispute (Birnbaum demanded appointment as secretary of the Congress, and Herzl stood his ground) to teach that the principle of national unity requires subordinating the individual will to the leadership, "and there is no room for separatism, not even religious separatism." And yet, unity is not merely intellectual:
"The necessity of national unity cannot content itself with intellectual recognition alone, but requires a deep feeling of the soul, one that can lead, in the hour of need, to actual self-sacrifice… It uproots mountains and settles deserts." Ibid.
An anecdote about the Jewish National Fund: at the Congress Dr. Tsvi (Hermann) Schapira spoke on the JNF, and one of the finest of Hovevei Zion scoffed that at most six thousand rubles a year would be collected. AZR replied, "From the ridiculous to the sublime is but one step" — and it was the people who prevailed:
"It was precisely the simple, popular innocence of feeling, which has deep roots in the heart, that triumphed. And the Jewish National Fund became the most important instrument in all our national work." Ibid.
And his conclusion, a vision of unity between leader and people: "Where there are no coarse ulterior motives, the natural will toward union prevails… Herzl, Trumpeldor, A. D. Gordon at the head — and after them the whole camp, the whole camp."
In the essay "Acquiring the Homeland" ("Kinyan HaMoledet"), AZR asks a fundamental question about establishing a national home, and rules that a homeland is not acquired with money but with self-sacrifice:
"With what is a homeland acquired? With money? With money a person will not bind himself to a homeland… What is acquired only with money may also be sold for money. The acquisition of a homeland demands that its possession be an everlasting possession… The acquisition of a homeland demands a love that reaches to the point of self-sacrifice." AZR, "Kinyan HaMoledet" (Acquiring the Homeland), Davar, Tishrei 5693 (1932).
He admits the doubt that gnawed at him — whether a people that has wandered for two thousand years is capable of such a bond — and answers it from deed, from the watchmen and the defense:
"When I remembered the 'Organization of Watchmen' — that organization which willingly took upon itself the duty to guard the homeland with actual self-sacrifice… and does not recoil before the rifles of murderers and their daggers — then the doubt passed and vanished. There is in the heart of Israel a love for the homeland, and it is acquired by self-sacrifice as an everlasting possession." Ibid. (He recalls the "Yizkor" book commemorating the fallen watchmen and Hebrew laborers.)
And his faith: not in a select few alone but in the heart of the whole people, "for their spirit surely flows from the wellspring of the nation's soul."
In the essay "Emunat HaTechiyah" (The Faith of the Revival), AZR diagnoses the inner danger to the settlement enterprise: precisely the former idealists, once they had realized their ideal and come to the Land, "were emptied of all content" and sank into careerism and moral decline. Only the working young man keeps the spark:
"There remains to us above all the working young man. With him the ideal stands in the first rank. He looks at the Land and behold, it is still desolate. It must be built — and to build it, how hard that is!… There [in the Diaspora] the ideal lay ahead, and here it lies behind." AZR, "Emunat HaTechiyah" (The Faith of the Revival), from Collected Writings (Ktavim Mekubatzim); Project Ben-Yehuda.
His remedy for skepticism and despair: faith, drawn from the books of the Prophets and the Sages and from Jewish history — "we shall see how they loved the Land of Israel, how they gave their lives for it." And when the mockery comes about an "age-old remedy," he replies:
"— Yes, old, age-old! But the sun too is old, age-old, and it alone gives light, warmth, and fruitfulness." Ibid.
In the essay "Eretz-Israel" (The Land of Israel), AZR dwells on the eternal spiritual bond to the Land and to its name, preserved through all the exiles and decrees:
"Eretz-Israel — this is its name and this is its memorial for all generations… An eternal spiritual bond has always existed between Israel and the Land of Israel, even when they were far from it. And this bond none of our enemies, from then until this day, have succeeded in severing." AZR, "Eretz-Israel," from Collected Writings (Ktavim Mekubatzim); Project Ben-Yehuda.
He contrasts the seekers of assimilation (Spain, the Haskalah), who found no rest, with "the chosen of the people" who went up "at the risk of their lives." Of the new era he writes with wonder: "The Land has been renewed, as though it had returned to the days of its youth, and the people too is being renewed." The calamity (the riots of 1929) he frames as the work of "Satan":
"He succeeded in inciting robbers to fall upon the people of Israel and to kill one hundred and twenty of them. All of them upright and quiet people, who sought to live and to bring life to their land. And in the wake of Satan's success some of our own people also took fright… and there are those who come to give up the name 'Eretz-Israel.'" Ibid. (The number of the dead indicates writing in the wake of the riots of 5689/1929 — an inference from the text.)
In answer to those who sought to give up the name, AZR rules decisively that the name "Eretz-Israel" will prevail, just as Jerusalem survived the Roman "Aelia Capitolina":
"The name Palestine will be erased, and the name Eretz-Israel was, is, and will endure forever… Our banner — the banner of 'Eretz-Israel' — we shall not let slip from our hands; we shall guard it with patience and with hope, for we are a stiff-necked people." Ibid.