Tracing the “Footsteps of the Messiah”: From Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor to Maamrei ha-Rayah

Tracing the “Footsteps of the Messiah”: From Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor to Maamrei ha-Rayah

Aryeh Sklar

Longtime readers of Seforim Blog probably remember the leak in 2010 of Rav Kook’s Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor (“For the Perplexed of the Generation”) onto the internet,[1] and the publication of a censored version by Makhon ha-Rav Zvi Yehuda shortly thereafter.[2] This was a previously unseen work of Rav Kook, written during his time as a communal rabbi in Boisk, Latvia, around 1903-1904. It contains a fairly clear and thorough philosophical presentation of a pre-aliyah Rav Kook attempting to respond to the major issues of his day. Professor Marc Shapiro has spent considerable time in various posts on Seforim Blog examining the innovative and sometimes radical nature of this text, subsequently expanding upon these posts in his recently published book, Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook (2025).[3]

Now that my own English translation and annotation of Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor has been published,[4] I have started to research some of the issues and oddities that I discovered in the course of translating the work. In this essay, I wish to present the facts as I know them – with perhaps more questions than answers – regarding a strange bibliographical question about Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor:

Somehow, despite the fact that very few people had seen the contents of this work,[5] portions of it appeared in publication, both during Rav Kook’s life and after his death. None of these publications inform us that the origin is the notebook we know today as Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor.[6] So how did this come to be?

Many experts in Rav Kook have offered their opinion as to why neither Rav Kook nor his son Rav Zvi Yehuda ever published Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor. One position, that seems to be favored by certain “mainstream” students of Rav Zvi Yehuda, is that Rav Kook didn’t publish the book because he actually rejected some or many ideas therein, whether in terms of presentation or in terms of content, and thus, he had decided to put it in geniza, so to speak. But if it turns out that Rav Kook himself was preparing essays based on chapters of the book, that might change some perspectives.

The Bibliographical Problem

The earliest known appearance of material from Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor (from parts of chapters 45 and 46, to be exact) can be found in Rabbi Aryeh Leib Frumkin’s 1912 commentary on the Siddur, Ma’arkhei Lev, vol. 1, p. 156.[7] Frumkin quotes from Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor with minor modifications, introducing the material with “as written by our friend, the crown of our time, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, in his writings.” In his edition of Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor, Rabbi Shachar Rachmani suggests that Rav Kook must have shared at least portions of the manuscript with Rabbi Frumkin at some point in 1911, when Frumkin returned to the Land of Israel after being away for several decades.[8]

As an aside, Rachmani traces evidence of their close relationship in his edition but doesn’t mention that Rav Kook also provided an approbation to the book. Interestingly, this approbation was seemingly removed from the edition on Hebrewbooks.org (along with an acknowledgment of supporters and a beautiful blessing to his parents that appear on the same page).[9] The approbation appears like this:[10]

 

This is the only known publication of parts of Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor in Rav Kook’s lifetime. However, about half a century later, in 1960, an essay purported to be written by Rav Kook, entitled “Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha” (“In the Footsteps of the Messiah”), appeared in the Hebrew journal Gevilin (nos. 12-13), on the twenty-fifth anniversary of Rav Kook’s passing, with a note that the material was “given by Rabbi Moshe Zvi Neriah.”

The essay contains various paragraphs from three different notebooks. The first half combines excerpts from two notebooks that would later be called “Rishon le-Yafo,” and “Acharon be-Boisk,” now published in Kevatzim mi-Ketav Yad Kodsho, vol. 1.[11] The second half derives from the notebook of Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor, specifically material from chapter 35 and 21 combined together (in that order). Eventually, this material was published in Maamrei ha-Rayah (to be discussed below).

Fascinatingly, we can now see that there are many discrepancies between what was originally written in Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor and what was published from those chapters in this essay called “Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha.” (Even more interesting is how the material from the other notebooks has almost no changes.) How did Rabbi Neriah come to obtain and publish this material? And who made the many changes to the essay?

Many of these edits seem to tone out more controversial statements, but others seem to add clarity and even new details. Below is representative of the discrepancies to be found between both sources. In my translation of Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor, I added to the footnotes an extensive comparison between the two sources, naming the contrasting source “the Maamrei ha-Rayah version”:

Returning to the topic at hand, the question is, would Rabbi Neriah have been the one to take these notebooks and create a new essay, not only combining disparate topics together, but also changing the text itself in this manner?

Rabbi Shachar Rachmani suggests that Rabbi Neriah never had access to the notebook of Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor.[12] Professor Dov Schwartz had written that Rabbi Neriah told him that the essay Daat Elohim, published in Ikvei ha-Tzon in 1907, was originally included in Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor.[13] Rachmani contends that “this proposition demonstrates Rabbi Neriah never actually saw the work.” Since the notebook is extremely organized (a rarity for Rav Kook’s writings), with chapter numbers for each section and a clear ending chapter, there is no way for Rabbi Neriah to have erroneously believed that a separate essay was also included in the notebook unless he was speculating about a work he had not actually seen.[14]

Second, Rabbi Rachmani asserts (in a personal correspondence with me) that Rav Zvi Yehuda was careful regarding publishing his father’s writings at this time. Indeed, Rabbi Rachmani would know – he was one of the people who worked on Maamrei ha-Rayah. To Rachmani, Rabbi Neriah would never have been allowed by Rav Zvi Yehuda to create essays from various notebooks of Rav Kook and edit them according to his own sensitivities.

However, questions abound. When this material was eventually incorporated into Maamrei ha-Rayah, the editors divided Rabbi Neriah’s single essay into two separate pieces. The first one, the only part that actually contains references to “the footsteps of the Messiah,” and which comes from the notebook Rishon le-Yafo and Acharon be-Boisk, was seemingly re-titled Gargarim Hegyoniyim (“Kernels of Thoughts”). The second part – the material from Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor which lacks any reference to “the footsteps of the Messiah” – kept the title Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha. At the end of this second essay, the editors cite the source as “Gevilin, 1960,” without further information. Someone split these essays, and someone renamed them. Who could have done this?

The first question, of the split, is more easily answered. It appears that even when it was published in 1960, the editors of Gevilin as well as Rabbi Neriah understood that the two parts of the essay were really two separate essays, because after a few months, they published a standalone booklet of “Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha” with the subtitle: “Two essays”:[15]

In 1975, a collection of essays from Rav Kook was published without notation of authorship.[16] It includes the two essays of “Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha” as well:

In 1980, Rabbi Neriah published it as an appendix to his Mishnat ha-Rav, which was also a collection of articles by and about Rav Kook. It looks like this in the Table of Contents.

Later editions of Mishnat ha-Rav do not feature these essays, presumably because they had already been incorporated into Maamrei ha-Rayah.

The 1942 HaYesod Publication

It seems likely that either Rav Kook or his son created and divided these essays. But where? Otzar HaChochma has archives of the weekly newspaper HaYesod, which, as it turns out, features an essay from Rav Kook called “Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha”![17] Indeed, it contained one half of the essay, only the material from “Rishon le-Yafo” and “Acharon be-Boisk.” The newspaper had added the following informative note before the essay: “In honor of the seventh anniversary of the passing of the great genius of Israel and his holiness, the genius Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook, may the memory of the righteous be for a blessing, we are printing here sections from his essay that was published in the year 5666 (1906), and ‘their words are their remembrance.’”

Where did Rav Kook publish this essay in 1906? Rav Kook published very few essays that year (and Maamrei ha-Rayah misdates certain essays to 1906 when they were printed later).[18] Could they have meant that Rav Kook wrote it in 1906, not that he published it then? How would the editors have received the essay, then? And what does it mean that they were printing “sections” (keta’im) from his essay? Was there a fuller essay out there? Further searching found a very strange essay, published in HaBazeleth in March 1, 1906 (Adar 4, 5666):

The article, titled, “Diary of a Young Jerusalemite,” describes the anonymous author’s discovery of Rav Kook’s essay “Teudat Yisrael u-le-Umiyuto” (“The Mission of Israel and its Nationalism”), published in HaPeles in 1901, and his subsequent fascination (perhaps obsession is the right word) with all things Rav Kook. As part of his survey of Rav Kook’s philosophical writings until this point of 1906, he writes:

I have read his open letters, the first and the second, as well as his “Gargarim Hegyoniyim,” which was printed in the calendar for the Shaarei Torah religious school in Jaffa. These small gargarim (kernels) I am sure most readers did not notice, for to them they are small, yet the truth is that these thoughts are so great, vast, all encompassing, containing within these kernels ideas with material for many great books, yet his excellent style is so brief, understood by those who are used to an academic style. At the end of these gargarim is such a wonderful announcement – soon, his book Eder ha-Yekar would be forthcoming. This made me so happy. I said, “How do I have such great merit to see it, given that I have only read his essays, and I have never merited to see a full book of his.” Now I have received the book Eder ha-Yekar, which contains his glory both inside and out, and I have started to read it carefully (as such books ought to be read), and it has breathed in me a spirit of life and love…

Putting aside the interesting overly flattering article (and the question of who might have written it), the important information here is that Rav Kook had apparently published an essay called “Gargarim Hegyoniyim” around 1906 in a calendar published through “Shaarei Torah of Jaffa.” What is this calendar?

The Luach Eretz ha-Tzvi

Rav Kook arrived in May of 1904 already set to become the Chief Rabbi of Jaffa and the surrounding agricultural settlements. One of his major responsibilities was to head the “Shaarei Torah” of Jaffa, a fairly large religious school for children of the area. For years, as part of the school’s fundraising, the school had been sending out a yearly calendar called “Luach Eretz ha-Tzvi” which included a calendar (obviously), a picture of the teachers and the students of the school, information about the state of the institute, and letters of encouragement to donors to give toward the school in various languages and from various important individuals.

The name Luach Eretz ha-Tzvi may ring a bell for some knowledgeable readers of Rav Kook. When Rav Zvi Yehuda published what would become his father’s most famous work, Orot, in 1920, he appended an essay entitled, “The Great Call,” that first appeared, we are told there, in “Luach Eretz ha-Tzvi” in 1908:

(The original 1920 printing of Orot, https://www.nli.org.il/he/books/NNL_ALEPH990012593690205171/NLI?)

Secondly, some people know of this calendar from the famous poems for each Jewish month that Rav Kook created for these calendars, from 1911 until 1914, titled Meged Yerachim (these were reprinted in Maamrei ha-Rayah, 499-501).

Lastly, those who have read Maamrei ha-Rayah might have seen that reprinted in Maamrei ha-Rayah (pages 295-301) are several essays of Rav Kook’s, and which we are informed (p. 272) were originally printed in the Luach Eretz ha-Tzvi of 1911-1914. Interestingly, these essays also have the title “Gargarim Hegyoniyim.” These essays, we have since found out with the printing of Kevatzim mi-Ketav Yad Kadsho, vol. 2, derive from a notebook called “Pinkas ha-Dappim 1,” written some time between 1904-1910. Thus, it turns out that Rav Kook had been publishing essays in these calendars from his notebooks, generally titling them “Gargarim Hegyoniyim.”

But what about the 1905-1906 calendar? It was not available in any library I could find. A Google search found, coincidentally, that the 1905-1906 Luach Eretz ha-Tzvi was available in an auction starting in a few short weeks from then, in October 2025. I reached out to the National Library of Israel in case they were interested in purchasing it. Through the helpful research of Shimon Kummer at the National Library, the library not only already had a copy of the 1905-1906 calendar, but also the 1904-1905 calendar. Unfortunately, they had no others for that decade. I had also reached out to the archivists at the Beit ha-Rav Kook, and with the help of Nechama Freedman at Beit ha-Rav Kook, I was able to locate another facsimile of the 1906 calendar, as well as the 1909-1910 calendar. Lastly, the auction ended in late October of this year, and my friend and cousin, Binny Lewis, purchased the calendar.[19] So I had a wealth of sources for the 1905-1906 calendar.

Let’s begin with the 1904-1905 calendar, the first to be printed after the arrival of Rav Kook to Jaffa. In this calendar, Rav Kook’s role is relegated to a short poem wishing readers a good new year, and merely being listed as the addressee for letters and donations regarding the school:[20]

Interestingly, Rav Kook is described in this calendar (as well as the 1905-1906 calendar) as “agreeing to become” the rabbi of Jaffa and the surrounding settlements:

(This particular image is from the 1905-1906 calendar)

Evidently, this had not yet been properly updated to Rav Kook’s present position. That said, in the 1905-1906 calendar, Rav Kook asserted more influence on the calendar, and published an essay called “Gargarim Hegyoniyim,” featuring the first half of what would be printed in Gevilin fifty-five years later under the title “Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha,” and eventually its own essay in Maamrei ha-Rayah a few decades after that, under its original title, “Gargarim Hegyoniyim.”

Someone must have known what the right title should have been for Maamrei ha-Rayah (presumably Rabbi Zvi Yehuda). But who named it “Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha” for HaYesod in 1942? And what happened to the second half, the part that comes from Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor? How did Rabbi Moshe Zvi Neriah come to publish it together with this other, separate essay, in 1960, under the one title of “Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha”?

I suspect that the calendars for 1906-1907 and 1908-1909 might hold more clues. If anyone is able to provide access to these calendars, we may be able to get to the bottom of this mystery. Nevertheless, we might speculate at this point how Rabbi Neriah obtained the material without ever seeing the original notebook. Perhaps, he received a copy of an already published or prepared essay from Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook, as Rabbi Rachmani suggested to me. Rabbi Neriah himself probably gave the full essay the name “Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha,” perhaps based on the printing in HaYesod in 1942, even though only the first half was printed there. It may be that he was unaware of the printing in the Luach Eretz ha-Tzvi of 1905-1906. Eventually, when it came to being printed in Maamrei ha-Rayah, Rav Zvi Yehuda or others with the knowledge of the true origin of these essays split them in two, with “Gargarim Hegyoniyim” returning to the essay as printed in Luach Eretz ha-Tzvi, while the essay with no name from the notebook of Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor took on the name from Rabbi Neriah’s printing in Gevilin.

Conclusions

Several significant points were made in the course of this article.

First, the many textual differences between Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha as published and the corresponding passages in Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor – sometimes involving entire added or removed sentences – seem to represent Rav Kook’s own revisions rather than editorial interventions by later hands. Rav Kook clearly saw the need to modify and clarify Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor after it had already been written, at least for a different, more Israel-oriented audience, than he had originally written for.

Second, this evidence should give pause to those who have assumed that any deviation from the Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor text in later publications necessarily represents censorship or editorial tampering. While such concerns are not unfounded given the documented history of editorial intervention in Rav Kook’s published works, the case of Be-Ikveta de-Meshicha demonstrates that Rav Kook himself may have been responsible for some of these changes.

Lastly, and most importantly, this discussion opens new questions about Rav Kook’s relationship to Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor. It is possible that Rav Kook himself was actively drawing upon and reworking material from Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor during his lifetime, even after apparently setting aside the complete work. This suggests that while he may have had reservations about publishing the book as a whole, whether because of financial reasons or due to concerns about its more controversial ideas, he saw value in extracting and adapting individual sections for other purposes. If so, there may be additional essays awaiting discovery that similarly derive from this work. The location of the other years of Luach Eretz ha-Tzvi remains a desideratum for future research, as it may contain the key to fully reconstructing this textual history.