Rav Kook

In recent decades, the impact of postmodern approaches to history teaching has triggered an extensive worldwide debate that accommodates diverse and contrasting voices. This article examines how the education system of Religious Zionism, one of the most important ideological movements in Israel, copes with this issue. This inquiry, which is based on Peter Seixas’s conceptualization, analyzes the system’s history curriculum, its latest textbooks, and an array of lesson plans. The analysis reveals a complex method of coping with postmodernism, including the adoption of clearly postmodern attitudes at the declarative level and the neutralization of their influence in practice.

בעבודה זו אבחן לעומק את הפרק "חידוש הקדושה", חיבורו של בובר על הרב קוק. ראשית, אשרטט את תפיסתו הציונית של בובר כפי שהיא מצטיירת מן הספר "בין עם לארצו", העוסק בתולדותיו של רעיון ציון. לצורך כך אשתמש בעיקר בפרק המבוא של הספר בראי מקורות נוספים מאת בובר, כגון נאומיו הראשונים על היהודים שבספר "תעודה וייעוד" ובספרות משנית. על בסיס תפיסה זו אשאף להתחקות אחר המקורות שבובר מביא מהגותו של הרב קוק ואברר את הדומה והשונה בתפיסותיהם על מנת להבין טוב יותר כיצד תפס את הרב קוק, האם פירש בובר נכון את הגותו של הרב קוק? האם היא אכן מתיישבת עם תפיסתו של בובר כפי שהוא מציג זאת? לבסוף, אעמוד על נקודות הדמיון והשוני בתפיסותיהם של שני ההוגים כלפי הציונות ואסביר כיצד ומדוע הן באות לידי ביטוי.

Mesih inancı ya da başka bir deyişle gelecek kurtarıcı Mesih'i beklemek Ortodoks Yahudiliğin karakteristik özelliğidir. XVIII. yüzyılda Ortodoks Yahudiliğin içinden doğan Hasidim ve Mitnagedim hareketlerinin Mesih inancına getirdiği yeni yorumla Yahudi toplumu için yeni bir dönem başlamıştır. Mitnagedim disiplininden gelen Mesihçi rabbiler sonraki yüzyılda hem Siyonist hareketin öncüsü hem de destekçisi olmuşlar, dini Siyonist olarak adlandırılarak Mizrahi grubunun çatısı altında toplanmışlardır. Siyonizm'e destek olmayan diğer Mesihçiler ise Holokost'a kadar anti-Siyonist Mesihçiler olarak Agudat Israel grubu olarak kendi politikalarını oluşturmuşlardır. Bu gün İsrail'in resmi mezhebi Ortodoks Yahudiliktir. Ülkede %22'lik kesim de kendisini Ortodoks ve Ultra Ortodoks olarak tanımlamaktadır. Seçim sistemi nedeniyle Knesset de sandalye sayıları az olmasına rağmen koalisyon hükümetlerinde yer alarak kendi düşünceleri doğrultusunda mevcut politikalarını uygulama alanı bulabilmekte, İsrail devletini dini kurallara uygun yönetilmesi için çaba göstermektedirler. Bugünü iyi anlamak geçmiş tarihi iyi analiz etmekle mümkündür. Dolayısıyla tarihsel sürece bağlı kalarak hazırladığımız çalışmamızda amacımız; Mesih inancı, dini önderlerin görüşleri ve politikaları, Siyonist hareketin ve İsrail devletinin sadece laik temelli olmadığı, Yahudilerin Filistin'e göç etmesinde Mesihçilerin doğrudan ya da dolaylı desteklerinin bulunduğu, devlet kurulduktan sonra da nasıl din devleti haline dönüştüğünü Mesihçi anlayış açısından ortaya koymaktır. The Messianic belief or in other words, waiting for the coming of messiah is characteristic of Orthodox Judaism. In XVIII century Hasidim and Mitnagedim movements, came from Orthodox Judaism, brought to a new understanding about Messianic belief. The Messianic rabbis of Mitnagdim's discipline have been the pioneers and supporters of Zionist movement in the next century. They were grouped under the roof of Mizrahi group. The other Messianists who did not support Zionism formed their own policies as Agudat Israel group as anti-Zionist until holocost. Today,Israel's official religion sect is Ortohodox Judaism. In the State, 22% of the people define themselves as Orthodox and Ultra Orthodox. Despite the small number of seats in the knesset, they are able to realize their idea in the current policies in line with their own thoughts by taking part in the coalition governments and striving to manage the state of Israel according to religious rules. A better understanding of this day is possible by analyzing past history well. Therefore, we prepared this study with adhering to the historical process. Our aim show Messiah belief, the social and political effects of the new understanding of Messianic belief, the views and policies of the religious leaders, Zionist movement and the state of Israel are not only secularly based, the direct or indirect supports anf effects of Messianism. Thus, we targetted to reveal how the state of Israel became a religious state by evaluating it from the point of view of Messiah belief.

תיאולוגיה של המלחמה : היחס למלחמה ולמלחמתיות בחוגי הרצי"ה


This article traces the development of a new kind of theological writing in religious Zionist thought which I refer to as the Theology of War. This writing emerged following the thinking of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook and under the spiritual and political leadership of his son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook. Based on the essay “War” which he compiled from the writings of his father, Zvi Yehuda structured a theological-historical worldview that assigns a religious interpretation to the wars of the twentieth century, including the wars of the state of Israel. This religious interpretation instigated the emergence of an ideological circle that produced, enhanced, and enriched the conception of the Theology of War through a dialectical discourse and the assignment of redemptive messianic meaning to wars and the variety of ethical problems and acts of violence and atrocity that are part and parcel of wartime violence.
The emergence of this ideological circle resulted in an interesting and unusual kind of writing that provides a poetic dimension to the discourse of war and the halakhic and religious handling of the wars of the state of Israel and the difficulties and failures they have presented. On the other hand, we have also witnessed the development of a unique tempering influence, leading away from the theological meaning which this circle has created, in the image and writings of Rabbi Zvi Tau. In a certain sense, Rabbi Tau’s thinking can be viewed as an independent and unique position seeking to moderate the Theology of War from which it emerged, not by negating the theological significance of militarism and wars, but rather through a far-reaching process of sublimation.

This thesis seeks to address the nature of dichotomy in its relationship to truth; whether that truth is binary or pluralistic and the epistemological and ontological implications that stem from it. These issues present themselves in the discipline of Halakha as well as Science and provide fertile ground for an interdisciplinary analysis of the two.
In Halakha, as illustrated in the Talmudic exegesis of elu v’elu – “These and those are the words of the Living God”, truth is simultaneously prescribed to two mutually exclusive schools of thought. In Science, the search for the nature of light has opened the Pandora’s Box of the wave-particle paradox in the field of quantum mechanics and has revolutionized not only our understanding of the atomic world but questioned the very basis which scientific endeavor is founded upon. By drawing parallels between the approaches of interpretation established in these respective disciplines we will be afforded conceptual tools of analysis and understanding for the purpose of cross-pollination between the two. With this, we will glean a deeper understanding of the philosophical implications and bases of these approaches.
It will be shown that the traditional approach, both rabbinic and scientific, subscribes to an epistemological realism which translates into binary truth values. This approach will be expanded to other areas and be carried through as an overriding general world view.
The second school of thought will be shown to have developed much more recently, relatively speaking, with a lean towards neo-Kantian epistemology. In the realm of Halakha, it only surfaces with Kabbalistic origins, no earlier than the 16th century. It will be demonstrated how this approach expands in its application beyond Halakha, and represents not only a philosophy of law, but of Torah and reality itself. In the realm of science, this view is championed and revolutionized in Bohr’s complementarity principle. Here too it will be shown how this principle extends beyond a local set of experiments as an overarching approach to science and the epistemology of the atomic world.

ההשוואה בין משנתם ההגותית וההלכתית של הראי"ה קוק  והרב אליעזר
ברקוביץ בנוגע לחזון תורת ארץ ישראל, מתבקשת. מדובר בשני אישים
ששמו באופן מובהק את "תורת ארץ ישראל" בראש מעיניהם. בעבור שניהם היו ארץ
ישראל וכינונה של מדינה יהודית ריבונית מרכיבים הכרחיים בחילוצה של תורת ישראל
מגלותה אם כי שניהם הבינו את טיבה של מהפכה זו באופן שונה, כפי שנראה להלן
המאמר עוקב ומשווה בין משנותיהם

This paper represents a detailed analysis of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook's evolutionary understanding of taamei hamitzvot ("reasons for the commandments"), which he invokes to bridge modernity and tradition, philosophy and Jewish mysticism, halakha and aggadah. I explore R. Kooks reliance on medieval thinkers like Maimonides and Ibn Paquda as well as the classical kabbalah and explore his writing in the context of other contemporary Jewish thinkers.

היחס לעצמיות האדם במשנתם של הרב קוק והרב חרל"פ - בעבודה זו נערך עיון משווה במשנתם של הרב קוק והרב חרל"פ ביחסם לעצמיות האדם. הרב קוק מצדד באותנטיות ואילו הרב חרל"פ מצדד בהתבטלות עצמית. הניגוד בעמדתם מתבטא בשורה של נושאים וניתן להבין אותו על הרקע הביוגרפי של שני תלמידי חכמים אלו - האחד חניך יהדות ליטא והשני חניך הישוב הישן בירושלים. הבנת עמדתם המנוגדת של הרב קוק והרב חרל"פ בנושא כה מרכזי פותח אפשרויות חדשות בהבנת מהותו וטיבו של הקשר האישי המיוחד שהתקיים בין שני אישים אלו.

This paper presents an analysis of the conflictual relationship between Shagar’s [Shimon
Gershon Rosenberg] use of kabbalistic and Hasidic traditions and his search for mysticism via
psychoanalysis and Continental philosophy. The study will shed light upon the tension between how
Shagar defined and understood mysticism and how he defined kabbalistic language and the gap
between his explicit and his implicit attitudes towards Kabbalah. I propose that mysticism was the
central religious space that Shagar sought to create from his conflicting stance. Nonetheless, despite
Shagar’s attempt to present himself as a direct theological descendant of the kabbalistic tradition,
by way of his use of terms such as “the shattering of the vessels”, “Nothingness”, and “silence”,
I will attempt to expose the dissonance between his yearning for this language and his rejection of it.
My main analysis, at the heart of the article, will be based on the not-yet-released recording of his
introductory lecture on Da’at Tevunot. It will be accompanied by a variety of sources from his books
(edited by his pupils) to complete the picture.

The article examines the work of Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Halevy, arguably the most significant Orthodox response to the Wissenschaft des Judentums school of historiogra-phy. Halevy himself exemplified the Orthodox struggle against Wissenschaft, yet his work expressed a commitment to modern historiographical discipline that suggested an internalization of some of the very same premises adopted by Wissenschaft. While criticizing the representatives of Wissenschaft, Halevy was, at the same time, fighting for the internalization of its innovative characteristics into Orthodox society. He saw himself as a leader of a movement working towards the development of Orthodox Jew-ish studies and his application of modern historiographic principles from an Orthodox worldview as creating critical Orthodox historiography. Halevy's approach promotes an understanding of Orthodoxy as a complex phenomenon, of which the struggle against modern secularization is just one of many characteristics.

The intersection between the Eastern European rabbinate and Russian religious thought has yet to be addressed adequately in academic scholarship. A key example of this intersection was Rabbi Shmuel Alexandrov (1865-1941), a maverick rabbi and intellectual whose fascinating writings are all but neglected. This article focuses on the influence of the Russian "God-Seekers" on Alexandrov’s thought and on the common ground that underlies that influence. The article also examines how Alexandrov used the God-Seekers’ idea of the neo-religious Übermensch to advance his own individualistic and anarchistic ideas, and how those ideas took shape in Alexandrov’s later writings.

In this Hebrew blog I explore the relationship between Gershom Scholem and Rav Kook, based upon one of Rav Kook's books which is found in the Gershom Scholem Collection at the National Library of Israel.It can also be read at: https://blog.nli.org.il/sodot-sholem/?_ga=2.77863636.1939378759.1566710307-1060940641.1562132612

The first part of Hillel Zeitlin’s (1871-1942) mystical diary appeared in print in Warsaw 1919. Zeitlin continued to write the diary till the holocaust, and the manuscript is presumed lost. In this paper, I shell reconstruct the content of the lost part of the diary on the basis of the manuscript correspondence between Zeitlin and other Authors. I shell also discus the unsuccessful attempts of Zeitlin to have his diary published. In this discussion, mystical aspect of Zeitlin’s work will come forth.

המאמר עוקב אחר גלגוליהם הרוחניים של שני אישים: הרב יהודא ליאון אשכנזי (מניטו) (1996-1922) והרב אברהם חזן (2003-1920) - שחוו ביוגרפיות מקבילות ומשיקות בצפון אפריקה; וחלקו חינוך חברה ואירועים היסטוריים משותפים. ואף על פי כן, התפתחותם הייתה שונה וההבדלים ביניהם יכולים ללמדנו על סיפורה של תקופה. ההשוואה אפוא לא תלמד רק על האישים הנדונים. יש בה ללמדנו משהו על ההתפתחויות הרוחניות שהתרחשו על יהדות צפון אפריקה וצרפת בבואם לישראל.

תורת הראי״ה נוגעת, למעשה, בעצב החשוף של המחלוקת בעולם היהודי בדבר משמעותה ומיקומה של התופעה הציונית בפסיפס ההיסטוריה היהודית. אכן, תורתו ניתנת לפרשנויות רבות, הן משום שהנושא המשיחי בישראל טעון כל כך והן לנוכח גישת והדיאלקטית של הרב קוק כלפי הציונות החילונית — מאמצת ודו־ערכית כאחת. אי לכך התהיות הרבות על ייחודה המשיחי של תורתו, על מיקומה בעולם האמונות והדעו ת
היהודי, על יחסה לתופעת החילון ועל מכלול יחסה להיסטוריה הלאומית המודרנית. מורכבת לא פחות היא תפיסתו המשיחית של הרב צבי יהודה קוק, הבן (הרצי״ה): החל באימוץ הבלתי־מסויג של המדינה ובקידושה — על כוחנותה ולמרות חילוניותה - אל תחום מצוות המלכות שבתחום הדת, וכלה באקטיביזם הפוליטי ובהפיכתה של ישיבת מרכז הרב קוק לחוד החנית של האידיאולוגיה המשיחית הפעילה. הרב צבי יהודה הצהיר עם קום המדינה: ״אח אחי אנכי מבקש״,  כקריאה לאחדות דתית־חילונית בנאמנות למדינה
החדשה ; ואילו לאחר מלחמת יום־הכיפורים הוא עודד אקטיביזם פוליטי־חלוצי אנטי־ממסדי, ובכך ייסד בעצם את הבסיס האידיאולוגי והמנוף הרוחני לתנועת ״גוש אמונים״, ושינה למעשה את תמונת־עולמה של הציונות הדתית.

This article was part of a collection essays put out by the International Rabbinic Fellowship on Religious Zionism today. It analyzes, through the thought of Rav Kook,  the inherent dangers of Jewish nationalism while also showing how Zionism was meant to be different from all other forms of nationalism.

20 years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Religious Zionist-Chassidic event; Chassidut was seen as being too individualistic and Charedi. Today, large annual events like the Tzamah concert are symbolic of a major shift, as the Religious Zionist community has adopted many of the ideals of Chassidut. At the same time, Rav Kook has lost some of his centrality in the community, with the spiritual void of many now being filled by Rav Nachman. How did this shift happen, and what are its consequences?

Published in: Robert W. Jensen and Eugene Korn editors, Swords into Plowshares:  Reflections on Religion and Violence (Essays from the Institute for Theological Inquiry).  Center for Jewish and Christian Understanding and Cooperation (Kindle Edition 2014).


ABSTRACT


 
Don Seeman, the author of the chapter

“Violence, Divine Honor and the State,” has published a number

of studies touching on the relationship between the idea of divine honor and religious violence in different Jewish intellectual settings and he has also written as an anthropologist on the relationship between honor and political violence in modern Israel. Here, for the first time, he offers a synthetic reading that attempts to account for the close relationship between the anthropological and theological registers and to account in a systematic way for differences in approach between Jewish thinkers as diverse as Maimonides, R. Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto, Rav Kook, Moses Mendelssohn and Emmanuel Levinas. He begins with a phenomenological critique of the way honor and shame have been treated in recent

social science literature. He argues that honor and shame are “bridge concepts” that are applied in

classical conceptions to human beings as well as to God and that they therefore help to condition theological as well as political or anthropological conceptions of ethics and violence. After brief analyses of key biblical and rabbinic texts, Seeman argues that Jewish approaches to divine honor and violence can be divided into three dominant paradigms: vernacular, mystical and philosophical. The vernacular paradigm treats divine honor in anthropomorphic terms that are indistinguishable from those used to explain human social relations and recourse to violence. The mystical or kabbalistic paradigm builds, in a sense, on this robust vernacular sensibility, but adds a distinctive and subtle metaphysics of divine presence. This is the context in which the utter rejection of the vernacular sensibility by philosophical Judaism

—

exemplified by Maimonides and by modern thinkers such as Moses Mendelssohn

—

takes on such importance. Seeman argues that the very shape of Jewish modernity has been conditioned by arguments over the nature of divine honor and by the political ramifications of those differences. The rejection of vernacular divine honor is a central theme of

Mendelssohn’s



Jerusalem

to which contemporary Jews are still implicitly or explicitly responding. We cannot understand the complex relationships between religion, violence and the state without a much better understanding of these dynamics.


"