In it he sang of the sun shedding its rays over the "Land of Eden," where the neck of the enslaved was freed from the yoke and where the modern Jew was welcomed with a brotherly embrace.

The poet calls upon his people to join the ranks of their fellow-countrymen, the hosts of cultured Russian citizens who speak the language of the land, and offers his Jewish contemporaries the brief formula: "Be a man on the street and a Jew in the house," [2] i.e., be a Russian in public and a Jew in private life.
[Footnote 1: See on the Crown schools pp.

74 and 77.] [Footnote 2: _Heye adam be-tzeteka, wihudi be-oholeka._] Gordon himself defined his function in the work of Jewish regeneration to be that of exposing the inner ills of the people, of fighting rabbinical orthodoxy and the tyranny of ceremonialism.

This carping tendency, which implies a condemnation of the whole historic structure of Judaism, manifested itself as early as 1868 in his "Songs of Judah" (_Shire Yehudah_), in strophes radiant with the beauty of their Hebrew diction: To live by soulless rites hast thou been taught, To swim against life, and the lifeless letter to keep; To be dead upon earth, and in heaven alive, To dream while awake, and to speak while asleep.
During the seventies, Gordon joined the ranks of the official agents of enlightenment.

He removed to St.Petersburg, and became secretary of the Society for the Diffusion of Enlightenment.