In Pursuit of Heaven: Ludovik Lazarus Zamenhof and the Story of the Ideos Name
In 2016, the New Yorker published an article titled “A Language to Unite Humankind.” Written by Joan Acocella, the article was a sort of “ode to Ludovik Zamenhof,” the creator of “Esperanto,” a language he developed amidst the European wars in the hope of achieving world peace. The article began with the following:
As the book of Genesis tells it, God had no sooner made a covenant with the survivors of the Flood, agreeing that He would never again try to drown humankind. Then they did something new to annoy Him. Settling on a Mesopotamian plain, they made bricks and mortar, and began building a tower whose top, as they planned it, would reach to Heaven—that is, to where God lived. God did not fail to notice what they were doing:
“And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.”
I find it intriguing that an article about language and war should begin with a direct quote straight out of the Bible. Instead of delving into the history of world wars, or even Lamenhof’s own story, Acocella chose to focus on a well known Biblical story that highlights man’s rebellion, and offers important lessons about unity and the sin of pride. The story also reveals why God sometimes intervenes in human affairs. For thousands of years, Christians have studied this story, attempting to discover its meaning and application to humanity today.
In the article, Acocella also references individuals like Johann Gottfried Herder, an 18th century German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic who claimed that a people’s language contained its spiritual essence, and Wilhelm von Humboldt, himself a Prussian philosopher and linguist who believed that language, mediating between the mind and the world, actually formed the basis for a people’s identity. She goes on to write that “the language called Esperanto was born of such considerations, and one more—the so-called Jewish question.” Esperanto’s creator, Ludovik Lazarus Zamenhof (1859-1917). . . was a Jew. One day he wrote to a friend, “My Jewishness has been the main reason why, from earliest childhood, I gave myself completely to one crucial idea . . . the dream of the unity of humankind.”
Zamenhof And The Pursuit of Anti-Otherness
In the town where Zamenhof grew up (then a part of the USSR), the population consisted largely of Russians, Poles, Germans, and Jews. Each spoke a different language and had little to do with the other people groups. Growing up, Zamenhof was taught that all men were brothers, and, yet, in the street, in the square, “everything at every step made me feel that men did not exist, only Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews,” he once wrote.
In response, Zamenhof began devoting himself to the exploration of language. He spent more than two years modernizing Yiddish, converting it to the Latin alphabet, revising the spelling, and constructing the first Yiddish grammar ever recorded. Much of this was done during his years in medical school. He would later lead the Esperanto movement while balancing a full-time ophthalmology practice and a family.
“My Jewishness has been the main reason why, from earliest childhood, I gave myself completely to one crucial idea . . . the dream of the unity of humankind.”
Acocella makes another important point in her article; that “the Russians, Poles, and Germans did see eye to eye on one thing: they all disliked the Jews. In 1881, this sentiment set off a great wave of pogroms in Russia, which, in turn, gave rise to Zionism, the effort to get the Jews out of harm’s way by relocating them to what was said to be their promised land, Palestine. Zamenhof was in his twenties when all this happened, and for a while, before devoting himself to the cause of Esperanto, he was an enthusiastic Zionist.”
Eventually, however, Zamenhof became disillusioned with the newly popularized Zionist movement, deciding to distance himself from anything defined by ethnic or national identity. Instead he promoted three simple principles as the foundation for human flourishing and unity: that God exists and rules the world; that He resides within us as our conscience; and that the fundamental dictate of conscience is that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. “All other instructions,” Zamenhof declared, “are only human commentaries.”
The objective of Zionism, and all forms of nationalism, he believed, was only to create separateness. While Zamenhof’s immediate goal was to open up Judaism, he ultimately developed a platform that had the potential to unite the world. Or at least that is what he believed Esperanto had the potential to do, at least linguistically. He believed this so deeply that in 1878, at his nineteenth birthday party, he surprised his guests by giving each of them a small dictionary and a grammar of this new language he had invented. He then made a speech in Esperanto, teaching his friends the following hymn in its honor:
Malamikete de las nacjes (Let the hatred of the nations)
Kadó, kadó, jam temp’está! (Fall, fall! The time is already here);
La tot’ homoze in familje (All humanity must unite)
Konunigare so debá (In one family).
While Zamenhof’s true goal was for Esperanto to become a global language, he also secretly hoped the United States would become its headquarters. This appealed to him because America was already multiethnic. He believed that the diversity of America would mean that the “Esperantists” would not have to fight tribalism in the same way they had in Europe. But, as Acocella states, “Zamenhof’s goal was never realized, largely because many Americans felt that the country was multiethnic enough. There also didn’t exist the same level of negativity about the concept of nationalism. Most Americans, in fact, were proud of their national identity. As a result, most Esperantists remained in Central Europe and the Soviet Union” (with a small percentage in Asia). Though Zamenhof failed to create his ideal “world language”, Esperanto still lives in linguistic studies and peace-building societies around the world.
Ideos and Esperanto’s Influence
When it came time to name what would become Ideos Institute, there was an instant attraction to the ideals of Esperanto, namely its unofficial slogan: “the language of peace.” In fact, “ideas” translated into Esperanto comes out as “ideos.” And because our work focuses on the pursuit of new ideas and perspectives, “ideos” seemed like a fitting name. There is also a direct connection to the very outcome Zamenhof sought in his earliest years—the ability for people of different identities, ethnicities, and backgrounds to identify something, anything in fact, that could help them bridge cavernous divides. Something that could humanize “the other.”
Though Zamenhof failed to create his ideal “world language”, Esperanto still lives in linguistic studies and peace-building societies around the world.
As an organization, Ideos is founded on the values of biblical justice through service and sacrifice out of love for our neighbor. Practically, we are an organization working to seed empathy in the world. Not only do we believe that this is the best and truest path to the reconciliation God sought to create through His son, but the unity that was destroyed following man’s attempt to make a name for himself by building a mighty tower “with its top in the heavens.” We do this through a multitude of platforms and programs, though all grounded in our work to increase levels of empathic intelligence in people and cultures around the world. The U.S. is merely a starting point.
If you are looking for ways to build your own empathic intelligence, or learn ways to seed empathy in your own community or sphere of influence, I invite you to explore our centers and programs, as well as some of the models and tools on our website, including our Community Empathy Mapping: A Guide to Creating People First Systems Change tool and The Way of Empathy, a process that can help you start your own empathy journey. We also offer consulting and coaching services for leaders and groups.
This year has already borne witness to the atrocities that occur when empathy is missing. In Ukraine, we see how a lack of empathy leads to the dehumanization of others. In the U.S. it leads to infighting between leaders tasked with solving the nation’s policy challenges. And in communities, it leads to incivility and violence between otherwise neighbors.
Empathy, and the skill of empathic intelligence, is a disruptive response to the neural connections formed throughout our lives; connections that, in large part, are behind our ability to dehumanize others. So if empathy, and empathic intelligence itself, are skills that can be learned, then there is hope that our call to love both neighbor and enemy can one day be realized.
But lest I end this President’s Perspective on a low note, let me leave you with this quote from the Spanish Esperantist, Jorge Camacho: "Esperanto continues to give me something . . . which I don’t find anywhere else. . .A language in common, a few words that we can say to one another or, even if we don’t learn the words, an awareness of the ‘interna ideo’.*
* In Esperanto, “interna ideo” is a synthesis of many languages and many people, expressed through the universal language of music]: it’s something, a hook.
