A Source for Rav Kook’s Orot Hateshuva Chapters 1 – 3

A Source for Rav Kook’s Orot Hateshuva
Chapters 1 – 3

By
Chaim Katz, Montreal

Rav Kook begins the
first chapter of his Orot Hateshuva [1] as follows:

We
find three categories of repentance: 1) natural repentance 2) faithful repentance
3) intellectual repentance.

את התשובה אנו מוצאים
בשלש מערכות: א) תשובה טבעית, ב) תשובה אמונית, ג) תשובה שכלית

He defines natural repentance:

(תשובה טבעית) הגופנית סובבת את כל העבירות נגד חוקי הטבע, המוסר והתורה, המקושרים עם חוקי
הטבע. שסוף כל הנהגה רעה הוא להביא מחלות ומכאובים . . . ואחרי הבירור שמתברר אצלו הדבר, שהוא בעצמו בהנהגתו הרעה אשם הוא בכל אותו דלדול החיים שבא לו, הרי הוא שם לב לתקן את המצב

The
natural physical repentance revolves around all sins against the laws of nature
ethics and Torah that are connected to the laws of nature. All misdeeds lead to
illness and pain . . . but after the clarification, when he clearly recognizes that
he alone through his own harmful behavior is responsible for the sickness he
feels, he turns his attention toward rectifying the problem.

Rav
Kook is describing a repentance that stems from a feeling of physical weakness
or illness. He also includes repentance of sins against natural ethics and
natural aspects of the Torah. A sin of ethics might be similar to the חסיד שוטה, who takes his devoutness to foolish
extremes (Sotah 20a). A sin in Torah might be one who fasts although he is
unable to handle fasting (Taanit 11b דלא מצי לצעורי נפשיה) [2].

R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, in his
collection of sermons Likutei Torah [3], also recognizes three types of
repentance. Homiletically, he finds the three types in Ps. 34, 15.

סור מרע, ועשה
טוב, בקש שלום ורדפהו.

He also relates the
types
to three names of G-d that appear in the text of the berachos that we
say:

ברוך
אתה ד’ אלוקינו

According
to R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first level of repentance relates to the Divine
name Elokim (In Hassidic thought, repentance (teshuva or return) is
taken literally as ‘returning to G-d’, not only as repentance from sin.) The mystics
of the 16th century connected the name Elokim to nature.

אלוקים בגימטריא הטבע

The word Elokim is numerically equivalent to the word for nature (hateva).
[4]

In the sermon, Elokim
is also related to ממלא כל עלמין, the immanence of G-d, which may have
something to do with the laws of nature.

R. Kook describes the second level of repentance as
follows:

אחרי התשובה הטבעית
באה האמונית, היא החיה בעולם
ממקור המסורת והדת

After the natural repentance comes a repentance based on faith. It subsists
in the world from a source of tradition and religion.

R. Shneur Zelman
of Liadi describes the second type of repentance as a return to the Divine
name Hashem, the Tetragrammaton. This
name signifies the transcendence of G-d, the name associated with the highest
degree of revelation, the name of G-d that was revealed at Sinai and that is
associated with the giving of the Torah.

Rav Kook’s third
level of repentance:

התשובה השכלית היא . . . הכרה ברורה, הבאה מהשקפת העולם
והחיים השלמה . . . היא מלאה כבר אור אין קץ

The
intellectual repentance . . . is a clear recognition that comes from an encompassing
world and life view. . . . It is a level filled with infinite light.

R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi describes the third level of as a return through
Torah study to the level of the Or En Sof, the infinite self-revelation
of G-d. It is a return to אתה
to Thou.

In
summary, R. Shneur Zalman discusses three types of teshuva, (although the
sources only speak about two types: תשובה מיראה , תשובה מאהבהYoma 86b). These three teshuva
categories form a progression. Rav Kook also speaks of a threefold progression:
a return based on nature, a return based on faith, and a return based on
intellect. [5]

R. Kook did study Likutei Torah. This is documented in a book called Mazkir HaRav
by R. Shimon Glicenstein (published in 1973) [6]. R. Glicenstein was Rav Kook’s
personal secretary during the years of the First World War, when Rav Kook
served as a Rabbi in London.

On page 10, R. Glicenstein writes:

One time on the eve of the holiday of Shavuot, I entered
the Rav’s room and I found him running back and forth like a young man. He was
holding Likutei Torah (the section on the Song of Songs) of the Alter
Rebbe (the Rav of Liadi) in his hand. With sublime ecstasy and great emotion, he
repeated a number of times: “Look, open Divine Inspiration springs out of each
and every line of these Hassidic essays and exegeses”.

מכל שורה ושורה שבמאמרי
ודרושי חסידות אלה מבצבץ רוח הקדש גלוי’

bcb

The second chapter of Orot Hatshuva is titled Sudden
Repentance and Gradual Repentance. The chapter consists of three short
paragraphs: the first describes the sudden teshuva as a sort of spiritual flare
that spontaneously shines its light on the soul. The second paragraph explains gradual
teshuva is terms of a constant effort to plod forward and improve oneself without
the benefit of spiritual inspiration.

These ideas also find a parallel in the Likutei
Torah [7]. R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi discusses
two levels of Divine service (not two levels of repentance). In one a spontaneous
spiritual arousal comes from above (itaruta de le-eyla) initiated by G-d as a
Divine kindness, without any preparation on man’s part. In the other (itaruta
de le-tata) man serves G-d with great exertion and effort, taming and refining his
own animal nature, without the benefit of any Divine encouragement.

Rav Kook’s third paragraph is difficult to understand.
Rav Kook begins by describing again the sudden repentance:

התשובה העליונה באה מהברקה של הטוב הכללי של הטוב האלהי השורה בעולמות כולם

The sublime teshuva is a result of a flash of the general
good of the G-dly good, which permeates all worlds.

The paragraph then continues on a seemingly different
track.

והיושר והטוב שבנו
הלא הוא בא מהתאמתנו אל הכל, ואיך אפשר להיות קרוע מן הכל,
פרור משונה, מופרד כאבק דק שכלא חשב.
ומתוך הכרה זו, שהיא הכרה אלהית באמת,
באה תשובה מאהבה בחיי הפרט
ובחיי הכלל

The rightness and goodness within us, does it not come
from our symmetry with the whole. How can we be torn from the whole, like an
odd crumb, like insignificant specs of dust?

From this recognition, which is truthfully a G-dly
recognition, comes repentance from love in both the life of the individual and
the life of the society.

I have a feeling that this paragraph is also related to
something in Likutei Torah. R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi (in the sermon just mentioned)
relates that people complain to him because they feel a spirit of holiness that
arouses them to emotional prayer for a only a short duration of time (sometimes
for a few weeks). Afterwards the inspiration ceases completely and it’s as if
it never existed. He responds, that they should take advantage of those periods
of inspiration when they occur, not just to enjoy the pleasure of prayer, but
also to change their behavior and character for the better. The state of inspiration
will then return.

I
think Rav Kook, in his own way is dealing with the same issue. Obviously, the
goal is the sudden, inspired teshuvah, but how do we get there? How do we take
the exalted periods of awareness and inspiration and regulate them, so that
they are more deliberate, intentional and continuous. I can’t say I understand
the answer, but I think Rav Kook is saying that if we recognize that we are
part of the “whole” and not separate then we will get there.

bcb

In the third
chapter, Rav Kook, distinguishes between a detailed teshuva relating to
specific individual sins and a broad general teshuva related to no sin in particular.
He writes (in the second paragraph):

וישנה עוד הרגשת תשובה
סתמית כללית. אין חטא או חטאים של עבר עולים על לבו, אבל ככלל הוא מרגיש בקרבו שהוא
מדוכא מאד, שהוא מלא עון, שאין אור ד’ מאיר עליו, אין רוח נדיבה בקרבו, לבו אטום

There is another repentance emotion, which is broad and general. The person
is not conscious of any past sin or sins, but overall he feels crushed. He
feels that he’s full of sin. The G-dly light doesn’t enlighten him, he is not
awake; his heart is shut tight.

The concept of a
teshuva that is independent of sin is also found in Likutei Torah:

התשובה אינה דוקא
במי שיש בידו עבירות ח”ו אלא אפילו בכל אדם, כי תשובה הוא להשיב את נפשו שירדה מטה מטה ונתלבשה בדברים גשמיים אל מקורה ושרשה

Repentance isn’t
only for those who have sinned (may it not happen), but it’s for everyone.
Teshuva is the return of the soul to its source and root, because the soul has
descended terribly low, and focuses itself on materialistic goals. [8]

R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi also discusses
the same symptoms as Rav Kook.

בזמן הבית הי’ הקב”ה
עמנו פנים אל פנים בלי שום מסך מבדיל . . .

משא”כ עכשיו בגלות
מחיצה של ברזל מפסקת ונק’ חולת אהבה שנחלשו חושי אהבה ואומר על מר מתוק

When
the temple stood, when the Holy One blessed is He was with us face to face
without any concealment . . . However now in exile there’s an iron partition
that separates us. We are lovesick, meaning our love is weak. We don’t
distinguish bitter from sweet.

כעת בגלות מחמת כי הלב
מטומטמת אין המח שליט עלי’ כ”כ

כי
עבירה מטמטמת לבו שלאדם ונקרא לב האבן

Now
in exile because the heart is shut down, the mind hardly can arouse it. Sin has
shut down the heart and it’s called a heart of stone. [9]

bcb

The
organization of the first three chapters of Orot Hateshuva, presents another
sort of problem: How are the types of teshuva in the three chapters related? Is
the intellectual teshuva of chapter one different from the sudden teshuva of
chapter two and different from the general teshuva of chapter three?

I suggest that
the arrangement of the three chapters follows the categories
of עולם שנה ונפש,
(which are found in Sefer Yetzirah). The first chapter examines natural return,
faithful and intellectual return. These are connected to נפש – one’s personality and understanding. The
second chapter deals with repentance and its relationship to time (שנה). Repentance
is either sudden or gradual. The third chapter speaks about a
return motivated by a specific sin or motivated by a general malaise. This can
possibly be associated with space/location (עולם); the world (or the specific sin) is
located somewhere outside of the person and motivates the person to return. Explanations based on the three dimensions of עולם שנה ונפש occur in a number of places in Likutei
Torah. [10]

[1]
here, and here

[2]
I saw these two examples in Rav Kook’s Ein AY”H, (here).

In
the following paragraph, Rav Kook speaks about a natural spiritual, repentance
––pangs of remorse (if the sinner is an otherwise upright individual) that
motivate the sinner to perform teshuva.

[3] Likutei Torah Parshat Balak 73a. The sermon begins with the words מה טובו. There are
(shorter) versions of the sermon published in other collections. (here)

[4]
Quoted also in the second part of Tanya, (Shaar Hayichud Vhaemunah)
beginning of chapter 6. The statement is usually attributed to R. Moshe
Cordovero, (Pardes Rimonim)

[5] Possibly both R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi and R. Kook
relied on an earlier source that I’m unaware of. Maybe R. Kook and R. Shneur Zalman arrived at a similar
understanding independently.

[6] R. Tzvi Yehudah Kook wrote the introduction to the book. From the introduction,
it looks like R. Glicenstein had given R. Tzvi Yehudah his essays and notes so
that they could be published. (here)

[7] Parshat Vayikra
page 2b, on the words אדם
כי יקריב מכם (here).

[8] Shabbat Shuva page
66c and Balak page 75b.

[9] Parshat Re’eh page 26a, Shir ha Shirim page 36a.

[10] Parshat Hukat
page 64d. Obviously, I don’t think that Rav Kook’s use of olam, shana, nefesh, (if
he’s in fact using that breakdown) comes specifically from Likutei Torah.

Rav Kook’s Attitude towards Keren Hayesod – United Israel Appeal

Rav
Kook’s Attitude towards Keren Hayesod – United Israel Appeal

By Rav Eitam Henkin, Hy”d

(Translated into English by Rachelle Emanuel)

This
article originally appeared
in Hebrew in HaMayan 51:4 (2011), pp. 75-90.

Today is the yahrzeit of the Rav Eitam and Naama Henkin, who were cruelly murdered one year ago. May Rav Eitam’s important writings, surely with us only thanks to Naama’s support, be an aliyat neshama for both. Hy”d.

·
“It is well known that the person
who heads the above [body]” supports Keren Hayesod

·
What is the difference between Keren
Kayemet Le-Yisrael – the Jewish National Fund – and Keren Hayesod — the United
Israel Appeal?

·
The forgery in the 1926 public letter

·
The significance of supporting Keren
Hayesod

·
The halakhic letter of 1928

·
The joint declaration with Rav Isser
Zalman Meltzer

·
Conclusion

“It
is well known that the person who heads the above [body]” supports Keren
Hayesod

The
philosophy of Rav Elĥanan Bunem
Wasserman, follower of the Ĥafetz
Chaim and Rosh Yeshiva of the Baranovich Yeshiva (Lithuania), and among the
most extreme of eastern European Torah leaders between the world wars in his
anti-Zionist approach, is still considered today as having significant
influence on the ideology concerning Zionism and the State of Israel prevalent
in the Hareidi community. In this respect he constitutes almost an antithesis
to the Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook, in
whose philosophy religious Zionism found its main ideological support for its approach
and outlook.[1]

One
rare statement made by Rav Wasserman, aimed apparently at Rav Kook, has found
resonance with part of the Haredi public, and is used by them as justification
for rejecting Rav Kook and his teachings. In fact, we are not talking of a
direct reference, but of words that appear in a letter sent to Rav Yosef Tzvi
Dushinski, who took over Rav Yosef Ĥaim Zonnenfeld’s position as head of the Eidah Ĥareidit, on June
25, 1924:

A proposal has been made to combine the Ĥareidi Beit
Din with the Chief Rabbinate. It is well known that he who heads [the Chief
Rabbinate] has written and signed on a declaration calling on Jews to
contribute to Keren Hayesod. It is also known that the funds of Keren Hayesod
go towards educating intentional heretics. If that is the case, he who
encourages supporting this organization causes the public to sin on a most
terrible level. Rabbeinu Yona in Sha’arei
Teshuva explains the verse “The
refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold, and a man is tried by his
praise” (Prov. 27:21) as
meaning that in order to examine a person one must look at what he praises. If
we see that he praises the wicked, we know that he is an utterly wicked person,
and it is clear that it is forbidden to associate with such a person.[2]

As
far as Rav Wasserman was concerned, because the head of the Chief Rabbinate
publicized statements in which he called to support Keren Hayesod, which among
other activities, funded a secular-Zionist education system, he was causing the
public to sin and it was forbidden to be associated with him.[3]

However,
it seems that Rav Wasserman’s sharp assertion is based on a factual error.[4]
According to Rav Kook’s son, Rav Z.Y. Kook, his father supported Keren Kayemet
Le-Yisrael, and called on others to support them, but his attitude towards Keren
Hayesod was completely different.

… as a result of the claims and complaints about
their behavior concerning religion and Judaism, [Rav Kook] later delayed giving
words of support to Keren Hayesod, and none of the entreaties and efforts of
Keren Hayesod’s activists could move him. In contrast, even though he continued
to constantly protest concerning those claims and complaints, he never
hesitated giving words of support to Keren Kayemet. None of the entreaties and
efforts of those who opposed Keren Kayemet could change this. On the contrary, with
his sacred fire, he increased his support and encouragement for Keren Kayemet, [considering
its projects as] a mitzvah of redeeming and conquering the Land.[5]

If
these words are correct, Rav Wasserman’s protest loses ground. In light of the
above we would have to say that Rav Wasserman’s sharp statement about Rav Kook
relies on the shaky basis (“It is well known…”) of rumors that were
widespread in certain localities in East Europe.[6]
However, precise research shows that despite Rav Z. Y. Kook’s clear testimony, for
which we will bring below explicit references from Rav Kook himself, Rav
Wasserman’s words were not just based on vague rumors alone. It turns out that
even while Rav Kook was alive, propaganda attempts were made to attribute to
him support for Keren Hayesod. In one case, at least, it was intentional fraud,
upon which it seems Rav Wasserman unwittingly based himself.

What
is the difference between Keren Kayemet LeYisrael – the Jewish National Fund –
and Keren Hayesod – the United Israel Appeal?

Whatever
the case may be, the reader will ask: what is the difference between the Keren
Kayemet and the Keren Hayesod? Perhaps in Rav Wasserman’s opinion they both
were “abominations,” since both organizations were headed by “heretics”;
and even though Keren Kayemet did not deal with education, nevertheless it
enabled heretics to settle on its land. If that was the case even supporting Keren
Kayemet falls into the category of lauding the wicked, etc.! However, one
cannot ignore the fact that R. Wasserman was talking about Keren Hayesod in
particular, on the grounds that its funds were “going towards raising
intentional heretics” in the educational institutions – something not
relevant to the activity of Keren Kayemet. The Keren Kayemet was a veteran
institution, founded at the beginning of the century for very specific,
accepted goals – redeeming land from the hands of gentiles, whereas Keren
Hayesod was established at the beginning of the twenties in a very different
political reality, and its fields of activity were much broader. Rav Kook
himself, in a response from winter 1925 to the famous letter from four Hasidic
rebbes (Ger, Sokolov, Ostrovtza, and Radzhin) who had heard that “your
Honor is indignant over our opposition to giving aid to the Keren Kayemet and
Keren Hayesod,” and in which they explained their opposition, gave his
reasons in full for supporting the Keren Kayemet, and only the Keren Kayemet.[7] In an
earlier draft of his response, in his handwriting, preserved in his archive, he
explicitly notes the difference in his approach to the two organizations:

I myself, in the past gave credentials for aid to
Keren Kayemet alone […] which is busy transferring land from the hands of
gentiles to Jewish possession, […] and for that I gave Keren Kayemet’s activists
a recommendation over the course of several years. This is not the case with
Keren Hayesod, which does not deal in redeeming land, but rather in settling it
and in matters of education. I have never yet given them a recommendation [and
will not do so] until the matter will, please God, be put right, and at least a
significant part of the funds will be assigned to settling Eretz Yisrael in the
way of our holy Torah.[8]

There
is indeed a large amount of information about the extensive relations that Rav
Kook had with Keren Kayemet, most of which involved continuous support for its tremendous
project of redeeming land, together with constantly keeping his eye on, and immediately objecting to, any deviation
from the way of the Torah that was perpetrated on its grounds.[9] On
the other hand, in all the writings of Rav Kook published till now, there are
only a few mentions of Keren Hayesod, and they show reservations in principle
from the organization.[10] Whoever
is fed by rumors and presents Rav Kook as one who “lends his hand to
evil-doers” without reservations, will anyway assume, “as it is
known,” that he similarly called for support of Keren Hayesod. In
contrast, for someone who knows about Rav Kook’s life story, his work, and his
letters, the idea that he would be capable of calling for support for an
organization which directly causes ĥilul Shabbat, secular education, and
so on, is utterly baseless. Even his support for Keren Kayemet was not
complete, but with conditions, restrictions, and even warnings attached. The
following are some salient examples that are sufficient to prove that if Keren
Kayemet had been involved in projects opposed to the spirit of the Torah — as
was the case with Keren Hayesod — Rav Kook would not have agreed to support it
either:

In
a letter to the chairman of Keren Kayemet, Menahem Ussishkin, from February 4,
1927, concerning violations of Shabbat in the Borokhov neighborhood located on
Keren Kayemet land (by the residents, not by Keren Kayemet itself), Rav Kook
warned them “that if they do not take the necessary steps to correct these
wrongdoings that have gone beyond all limits, I will be forced to publicize the
matter in an open letter, loud and clearly, to the whole Jewish People.”[11]

In
a letter to Tnuva from March 2, 1932, that was sent following a report
concerning ĥilul Shabbat on Kibbutz Mizra, Rav Kook announced that so
long as the kibbutz members did not mend their ways, their milk would be
considered as ĥalav akum (milked by a non-Jew) and Tnuva would be
forbidden from using it.[12]

In
a letter to Ussishkin from April 3, 1929, Rav Kook complained about the fact
that Keren Kayemet had started to publish literary pamphlets, “which are
not its subject matter. Money dedicated to the redemption of the Land was not
for literary purposes. Moreover, the essence of this literature damages its
image in public, spreading false views in direct opposition to the sanctity of our
pure faith […] I hope that these few words will have the correct effect, and
that the obstacle will be removed without delay, so that we will all together,
as one, be able to carry out the sacred work of redeeming the Land with the
help of Keren Kayemet Le-Yisrael.”[13]

The
forgery in the 1926 public letter

However, as has been said, because of the
significant weight that Rav Kook’s position bore, over the years many attempts
were made by the supporters of Keren Hayesod to ascribe to him outright support
of the fund. The most prominent case occurred in the winter of 1926 (about a
year after the above-mentioned letter to the hasidic rebbes). Several months
previously the yishuv in Eretz Yisrael entered a severe economic crisis which
seriously hindered its development, causing unemployment of a third of the work
force, a decrease in the number of immigrants, and a steady flow of emigrants
from the country.[14] This
crisis, considered the worst experienced by the yishuv during the
British Mandate, was the first time that the impetus of the yishuv‘s
development, which had been increasing since the end of the First World War, was
brought to a standstill. Against the backdrop of this situation, the Zionist
leadership initiated a “special aid project of Keren Hayesod for the
benefit of the unemployed in Eretz Yisrael.” Because of the severity of
the situation, Rav Kook also volunteered to encourage contributions to improve
the economic situation in Eretz Yisrael, and when R. Moshe Ostrovsky (Hameiri)
left for Poland to help with the appeal, Rav Kook gave him a general letter of
encouragement for the Jews in eastern Europe.[15] At
the same time, on November 8, 1926, Rav Kook wrote a public letter calling for
support of the Zionist leadership’s initiative, in which he wrote, inter alia:

To our dear brothers, scattered throughout the
Diaspora, whose hearts and souls yearn for the building of Zion and all its
assemblies; beloved brethren! The hard times which our beloved yishuv in
the Land of our fathers is experiencing, brings me to raise my voice with the
call, “Help us, now.” Our holy edifice, the national home for which
the heart of every Jew holds great hopes, is now facing a temporary crisis
which requires the help of brothers to their fellow sufferers in order to
endure […] Therefore I am convinced that the great declaration which the
Zionist leadership is proclaiming throughout the borders of Israel, to make
every effort to come to the aid and relief of this crisis, will be heard with
great attention; and that, besides all the frequent donations for all the
general matters of holiness which our brothers wherever they live will give for
the sake of Zion and Jerusalem, all the sacred institutions will raise their
hands for the sake of God, His people, and His Land, to give willingly to the appeal
to relieve the present crisis, until the required sum will be quickly
collected.

Although
the appeal was made through the organization of Keren Hayesod, Rav Kook avoided
mentioning the name of the fund because of his principled refusal to publicize
support for it (as he explained in the letter to the hasidic rebbes). The
version quoted above is what was published in the newspapers of Eretz Yisrael,
under the title “For the Relief of the Crisis.”[16]
However, amazingly, it becomes apparent that in the version published some
weeks later in Warsaw’s newspapers, the words “the Zionist
leadership” were changed in favor of the words “the head office of
Keren Hayesod,” and accordingly, the words were presented as nothing
less than “Rav Kook’s public letter in favor of Keren Hayesod“![17]

Even
if we didn’t have any information other than the two versions of this public
letter, there is no doubt that the authentic version is the one published by
his acquaintances, the editors of Ha-Hed and Ha-Tor in Eretz
Yisrael, close to, and seen by Rav Kook. In contrast, when members of Keren
Hayesod circulated Rav Kook’s public letter among Poland’s newspapers, they were
not concerned that the author would come across the version they had published
in a remote location. They even had a clear interest to insert into Rav Kook’s
words a precedential reference to Keren Hayesod. Even if we only had before us
the east-European version of the letter, we could determine that foreign hands
had touched it. This is not only because of Rav Kook’s words in his letter to
the hasidic rebbes sent about a year earlier, but because of a letter that Rav
Kook sent to the heads of Keren Hayesod a few weeks prior to writing the public
letter. In this letter to Keren Hayesod he informs them in brief that he is
prevented from cooperating with the management of the fund or even visiting its
offices (!) until the list of demands that he presented them with, in the field
of how they conduct religious affairs, would be met. The background to this
letter is a request sent to Rav Kook on December 7, 1926, after the
inauguration of Keren Hayesod’s new building on the site of “the national
institutions” in Jerusalem. The directors of the head office of Keren
Hayesod wrote: “It would give us great joy, and would be a great honor if
our master would be so good as to visit our office – the office of the global
management of Keren Hayesod.”[18] In
reply to this request, Rav Kook wrote a letter – which is published here for
the first time – to the heads of Keren Hayesod, (Arye) Leib Yaffe and Arthur
Menaĥem Hentke:

8th Tevet 5687 [December 13, 1926]

To the honorable sirs, Dr. Yaffe and A. Hentke,

I received your invitation to visit your esteemed
office. I hereby inform you that I will be able to cooperate for the benefit of
Keren Hayesod, and I will, bli neder, also visit Keren Hayesod’s main
office, after Keren Hayesod’s management and the Zionist leadership will
fulfill my minimal demands concerning religious issues in the kibbutzim and in
education.

Yours, with all due respect …[19]

During
the course of the years there were, nevertheless, several opportunities when
Rav Kook came into contact with members of Keren Hayesod, mainly in connection
with matters of budgets for religious needs.[20]
However, as this letter illustrates, even such limited cooperation was
dependent, from Rav Kook’s point of view, on the demand to change the way the
fund conducted its matters with respect to religion.[21] What
were Rav Kook’s exact demands of Keren Hayesod, in order for it to be
considered as having “put things right” (as he wrote in his letter to
the hasidic rebbes), and to benefit from his support and cooperation? We can
clarify this from a document which is also being published here for the first
time. This document, whose heading is “Rav Kook’s answers” to Keren
Hayesod, was apparently written after the previous letter, in reply to a
question addressed to him by Keren Hayesod concerning his attitude towards
them. It was probably written against the backdrop of rumors that Rav Kook
forbade (!) support of Keren Hayesod.[22] We only
have a copy of the document in our possession, but it is written in first
person, meaning that Rav Kook wrote it himself, and the person who copied it
apparently chose to copy just the body of the letter without the opening and
end signature:

1.      I
have never expressed any prohibition, God forbid, against Keren Hayesod. On the
contrary – I am very displeased with those who do so.
2.      Concerning
my attitude towards the Zionist funds: my reply was that I willingly support
Keren Kayemet at every opportunity without any reservations. However,
concerning Keren Hayesod, at the moment I am withholding my letter in its
benefit until the Zionist management corrects major shortcomings that I demand
be put right, as follows:
a.
That nowhere in Eretz Yisrael will
education be without religious instruction, not just as literature, but as the
sacred basis of Jewish faith.
b.
That all the general religious needs be
immediately taken care of in every moshav and kibbutz. For example, shoĥet,
synagogue, ritual bath, and where a rabbi is necessary – also a rabbi.
c.
That there will be no public profanation
of that which is sacred in any of the places supported by Keren Hayesod, such
as ĥilul Shabbat and ĥag in public.
d.
That the kitchens, at least the general
ones, will be particular about kashrut.
e.       That
all the details here which concern the residents of Keren Hayesod’s locations,
will be listed in the contract as matters hindering use of the property by the
resident, and which will give him benefit of the land only on condition that he
fulfills these basic principles.
And because I strongly hope that the management will
finally obey these demands, I therefore am postponing my support of Keren
Hayesod until they are fulfilled. I hope that my endeavors for the benefit of
settling and building our Holy Land will then be complete.

It
should be noted that these conditions are similar in essence to those that Rav
Kook set with Keren Kayemet. However, the latter’s dealings were with redeeming
the Land, in contrast to Keren Hayesod where the areas referred to in Rav
Kook’s demands were at the center of its activity. Therefore, as far as the
Keren Kayemet was concerned, Rav Kook did not give the fulfillment of his
demands as a basic condition for his cooperation and call for support; but he
certainly did so with regard to Keren Hayesod.[23]

Whatever
the case may be, if R. Wasserman did indeed see the public letter of 1926,
without doubt he saw the falsified version published in the Polish newspapers,
and therefore he held on to the opinion that: “It is well known that he
who heads [the Chief Rabbinate] has written and signed on a declaration calling
on Jews to contribute to Keren Hayesod.”[24]
However, as has been clarified, these words have no basis.

The
significance of supporting Keren Hayesod

As
has been said Rav Kook was not prepared to support Keren Hayesod, which dealt
in education and such matters “until the matter will … be put right, and
at least a significant part” of the funds activities will be directed to
settling the Land according to the Torah. The words “at least a
significant part …” seem to give the impression that if a significant part
of the fund’s activity were directed to activity in the spirit of the Torah,
then Rav Kook would give his support even if another part were still directed
to secular education. However, in practice, there is no doubt that Rav Kook’s
demand was much stricter. In Keren Hayesod’s regulations it was determined that
only about 20% of its resources would be directed to education[25] (and
only a certain amount of that budget would be allocated to
“problematic” education) — and despite this fact Rav Kook refused to
call for its support. It must be emphasized that this policy in Keren Hayesod’s
regulations was strictly applied. An inclusive summary of the fund’s activity
between the years 1921-1930, indicates that 61.4% of its resources were
invested in aliya and settlement (aliya training, aid for refugees,
agricultural and urban settlement, housing, trade, and industry), 19.6% in
public and national services (security, health, administration), and only 19.0%
in education and culture – from which a certain part was allocated for
religious needs: education; salaries for rabbis, shoĥtim, and kashrut
supervisors; maintenance of ritual baths, eruvim, and religious
articles; aid for the settlements of Bnei Brak, Kfar Ĥasidim, etc.[26] In
light of this data, it seems that R. Wasserman’s claim against those who call
for support of Keren Hayesod, and his defining them as “utterly
wicked” people, is not essentially different from the parallel claim
against those who demand the paying of required taxes to the State – a claim
heard today only by extreme marginal groups within the Ĥaredi sector.

Indeed,
not surprisingly, it transpires that there were in fact some well-known rabbis
of that generation who did call to contribute to Keren Hayesod, despite the
problematic issues of some of its activity.[27] Just
several months before the publication of Rav Kook’s afore-mentioned public
letter, another declaration was published, explicitly calling for support of
Keren Hayesod, signed by more than eighty rabbis from Poland and Russia. Among
them were well-known personalities such as R. Ĥanokh Henikh Eigash, author of Marĥeshet;
R. Meshulam Rothe; R. Reuven Katz, and more.[28]
Moreover, in several locations, particularly in America, support of Keren
Hayesod was considered as consensus among the rabbis,[29] and
even Rav Kook’s colleague in the Chief Rabbinate, R. Ya’akov Meir, called for
support of Keren Hayesod.[30]
Would R. Wasserman have defined all of these scores of rabbis as evil ones
“who cause the public to sin on the most terrible level”?[31] Whatever
the case may be, it transpires that it was specifically Rav Kook who stands out
as being the most stringent among them, and he consistently agreed to publicize
support only for Keren Hakayemet. In the light of all the data detailed here,
one wonders whether R. Wasserman’s extreme words to R. Dushinski[32] were
only written in order to deter him from cooperating with the Chief Rabbinate
(which he strongly opposed), and perhaps this is the reason that he avoided
mentioning Rav Kook explicitly by name.[33]

The
halakhic letter of 1928

The
public letter of 1926 was indeed the only one in which Rav Kook’s words were
falsified in order to create support for Keren Hayesod. However, in the
following years, too, attempts were made to present what he had written as an
expression of direct support of Keren Hayesod. The element the two cases have
in common is that they were both published far from Rav Kook’s location. In 1928,
an announcement from the “Secretariat for Propaganda among the
Ĥaredim” was published in the Torah monthly journal Degel Yisrael,
published in New York and edited by R. Ya’akov Iskolsky. This secretariat
published a special letter from Rav Kook in Degel Yisrael, emphasizing
that the letter had not yet been publicized anywhere else. According to the
secretariat, the context in which the words were written was the following:

An
occurrence in a town in Europe, where the community demanded that all its
members contribute towards Keren Hayesod, and the opponents disputed
this before the government, and took the matter to court. The judges demanded
that the community leaders prove to them that the matter was done in accordance
to Jewish law, and on the basis of the above responsum (of Rav Kook) the
members of the community were acquitted.[34]

In
other words, according to those who publicized the Rav Kook’s letter, it was
written in order to help the heads of one European community to force all its
members to donate to Keren Hayesod. The problem is that examination of the
letter (see below) raises different conclusions. Similar to what appears above
(note 27) concerning the letter written by R. Meir Simĥa Ha-Kohen of Dvinsk,
here there is also no mention at all of Keren Hayesod. The explanations in the
letter are not relevant to the majority of Keren Hayesod’s projects, and the
letter only deals with clarifying the general virtue of settling Eretz Yisrael
and the obligation to support its inhabitants. Even the title prefacing the
letter only talks about “one community that agreed to impose a tax on its
members for the settlement and building of Eretz Yisrael,” without
mentioning that this was a tax specifically for Keren Hayesod. Towards the end
of the letter it is mentioned only that “the Zionist leadership in Eretz
Yisrael deals with many issues concerning settling the Land,” without any
specific reference to Keren Hayesod, even if the fund was the organization that
managed the appeal for the Zionist Organization. Thus, we again find that
whereas according to those that publicized the letter — the concerned parties —
the letter constitutes declared support for Keren Hayesod, in Rav Kook’s actual
words there is no mention of that.

The
letter, which as far as I know was never printed a second time, is brought here
in full:

When I was asked whether a Jewish community can impose
on an individual the obligation to give charity for maintaining the settlement
of Eretz Yisrael, I hereby reply that there is no doubt in the matter, considering
that the halakha is that one forces a person to give charity, and makes
him pawn his property for that purpose even before Shabbat, as explained in Bava
Batra 8b, and as Rambam wrote in Hilkhot Matnot Aniyim 7:10:
concerning someone who does not want to give charity, or who gives less than
what is fitting for him, the court forces him until he gives the amount they
estimated he should give, and one makes him pawn his property for charity even
before Shabbat. The same is written in Shulĥan
Arukh, Yore Dei’a, 248:1-2. If
this is the case in all charities, all the more so is it the case concerning
charity for strengthening Eretz Yisrael, for this is explicit in Sifrei, and quoted in Beit Yosef, Yore
Dei’a, §251, that the poor of Eretz Yisrael have priority over
the poor outside the Land. And because one forces a person to give charity for
the poor outside the Land, it is clearly even more the case concerning charity
for strengthening the Land and its poor. The obligation to settle in Eretz
Yisrael is very great, as it says in the Talmud Ketubot 110b, and is brought by Rambam as a halakhic
ruling in Hilkhot Melakhim 5:12: A person should always live in Eretz
Yisrael, and even in a town where the majority are idol worshippers, rather
than live outside the Land, even in a town where the majority are Jews. In Sefer Ha-Mitzvot (mitzvah 4) Nachmanides wrote: that we were
commanded to inhabit the Land; “and this is a positive mitzvah for all
generations, and every one of us is obligated,” and even during the period
of exile, as is known from the Talmud in many places.
A great Torah principle is that all Jews are responsible for one another.
Therefore, those who are unable themselves to keep the mitzvah of living in
Eretz Yisrael, are obligated to help and support those who live there, and it
will be considered as though they themselves are living in Eretz Yisrael so
long as they do not have the possibility of keeping this big mitzvah
themselves. It is therefore obvious that any Jewish community can require an
individual to give charity for the benefit of settling Eretz Yisrael and
supporting its inhabitants; and G-d forbid that an individual will separate
himself from the community. Someone who separates himself from the ways of the
community is considered one of the worst types of sinners, as Rambam writes in Hilkhot
Teshuva 3:11. Just as the community must guide the individuals towards all
things good and beneficial, and any general mitzvah, thus must it ensure that
no individual separates himself from the community concerning matters of
charity in general, and all the more so concerning matters of charity relating
to Eretz Yisrael and support of its inhabitants, as I have written. No one can
deny that which is revealed to all, that the Zionist leadership in Eretz
Yisrael deals with al lot of matters concerning settling Eretz Yisrael, hence
it is clear that its income is included in the principle of charity for Eretz
Yisrael.
And as a sign of truth and justice, I hereby sign … Avraham Yitzĥak HaKohen
Kook

The
joint declaration with Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer

Just
as the public letter of 1926 (in the version published in Poland) quickly came
to the notice of the zealots of Jerusalem, who rushed to claim that Rav Kook
supports “a baseless fund,” the same thing happened with the 1928
letter: following its publication under the above headline, the zealots rushed
to upgrade their accusations and to claim that Rav Kook ruled that one may
“force a person to give charity to Keren Hayesod” (see below).

This
fact brings us to yet another claim, raised only recently, that Rav Kook did
indeed sign on a declaration in support of Keren Hayesod. A few years ago,
Professor Menaĥem Friedman wrote about an event that occurred in winter 1930,
when the zealots of the Jerusalem faction of Agudath Israel, with Reb Amram
Blau at their head, came out with a particularly sharp street poster against
Rav Kook. The background to the attack was the joint declaration of Rav Kook,
R. Isser Zalman Meltzer, and R. Abba Yaakov Borokhov, that was published before
the convening of the 17th Zionist Congress in Basel, calling to the
attendants of the convention and its supporters to exert their influence to
prevent ĥilul Shabbat, etc; at the side of this request, writes Prof.
Friedman, was a “call to donate to Keren Hayesod.”[35]

However,
in fact matters are not so clear at all. Prof. Friedman brings no support at
all for his words, and the only source that he brings concerning the event is
that same street poster that the zealots published. It seems that Prof.
Friedman never actually saw the said declaration, but rather assumed its
contents from the information that appears in parallel sources, such as the opposing
street poster, in which there is the claim that Rav Kook ruled that one may
“force people to give charity to Keren Hayesod,” but of course that
does not constitute an acceptable historical source.[36]

An
addition to this affair appears in a manuscript of R. Isser Zalman Meltzer,
which was published several years ago. This is a draft of a public announcement
from 1921, which shows that indeed there were those who understood that the
signature on the declaration meant support of Keren Hayesod (and other such
organizations) — but R. Meltzer clarifies that this was not the case:

Being that I signed on a call to the donors of the
Zionist funds, demanding that they do not support with their money those who
profane the Shabbat, and those who eat non-kosher food, I therefore declare
that my opinion is like it always has been: that so long as schools in Eretz
Yisrael that instill heretical ideas are supported by these funds, it is
forbidden to support them or give them aid in any way whatsoever. Those who
support and help them are destroying our holy Torah, and are ruining the yishuv.
I added my signature only to ask those who support those funds that at least
they should make every effort to influence those funds not to feed Jewish
people in kitchens that provide non-kosher food, and not to support those that
profane the Shabbat, etc.[37]

This
clarification was apparently written after reactions of amazement among some of
the Jerusalem public were voiced in the wake of the publication of the joint
declaration of R. Meltzer, Rav Kook, and R. Borokhov. From R. Meltzer’s words
it becomes clear that the joint declaration was not a call to support Keren
Hayesod, but a call to the supporters of the fund and to the attendants of the
Zionist Congress that they should anyway insist that their money should not be
used for unfitting purposes.[38]

Conclusion

Rav
Kook’s path was falsified many times, both during his lifetime and after his
death, sometimes unintentionally and sometimes intentionally. In what we have
written here, it is proven beyond all doubt that R. Elĥanan Wasserman’s claim
that Rav Kook called for the support of Keren Hayesod — a claim through which
he explained his opposition to cooperation between the Eidah Ĥareidit and the
Chief Rabbinate — is based on a mistake. The historical truth is that Rav Kook,
in his dealings with the institutions of the yishuv, more than once took
a more aggressive and stringent stand than did other rabbis of his generation,
as is expressed in the issue at hand.

[1] In
light of this contrast, it is interesting that Rabbi Wasserman, as a youth, was
privileged to learn from Rav Kook for a while. In 1890 Rabbi Wasserman’s family
moved to Bauska (Boisk),
and five years later Rav Kook was appointed as rabbi of the town. At the time
Rabbi Wasserman was a student in the Telz Yeshiva, and when he returned home
during vacation, he would participate in the classes given by Rav Kook (See R.
Ze’ev Arye Rabbiner, “Shalosh Kehilot Kodesh,” Yahadut Latvia:
Sefer Zikaron [Tel Aviv, 1953], 268; Aharon Surasky, Ohr Elĥanan I [Jerusalem,
1978], 30).

[2] Kovetz
Ma’amarim Ve-Igrot
I (Jerusalem, 2001), 153; previously in Kuntres Be-Ein Ĥazon (Jerusalem,
1969), 92. Concerning R. Wasserman’s dealings with the issues of the Jews in
Eretz Yisrael, we bring the words of R. Ĥaim Ozer Grodzensky, R. Wasserman’s
brother-in-law, which he wrote less than two months later in a reply to R.
Reuven Katz’s complaint regarding the open letter published by R. Wasserman to
Poalei Agudath Israel in Eretz Yisrael, calling on them not to accept help from
Zionist organizations: “I, too, am surprised at what [R. Wasserman] saw
that he publicized his personal opinion without consulting us, and I did not
know of it. He also exaggerated. The matters of the yishuv in Eretz
Yisrael cannot be compared to private matters in the Diaspora for several reasons,
and certainly it is impossible to give a ruling on such a serious matter from
afar without knowing the details…” (Aĥiezer – Kovetz Igrot [Bnei Brak, 1970], 1:299; see ibid., 200-1, a letter to Histadrut
Pagi, where the words are repeated. For R. Wasserman’s open letter and more
material on this subject, see Kovetz Ma’amarim Ve-Igrot I, 133-152).

[3] This
statement is based on the words of Rabeinu Yonah Gerondi (Sha’arei Teshuva,
3:148), and R. Wasserman’s interpretation of them elsewhere (“Ikvete De-Meshiĥa,
§ 36, translated into Hebrew from the Yiddish by R. Moshe Schonfeld and
printed as a pamphlet in 1942, and in Kovetz Ma’amarim [Jerusalem 1963],
127-28). However, it seems that there is an essential difference between the
actual words of Rabeinu Yona and R. Wasserman’s interpretation (compare with a
parallel commentary of Rabeinu Yona to m. Avot 4:6, and the way his
words were interpreted by Rashbatz, “Magen Avot” 4:8, and R. Yisrael Elnekave,
Menorat Ha-Ma’or, Enlau edition, 310-11), and let this suffice. For an
example of a diametrically opposed position, see: R. Tzadok Ha-Kohen, Pri
Tzadik, Vayikra (Lublin 1922), 221.

[4] See R. Yitzchak
Dadon, Imrei Shefer (Jerusalem, 2008), 273.

[5] “Li-Shelosha
be-Elul” (Jerusalem, 1938) §24
(p.22). See also Siĥot Ha-Rav Tzvi Yehuda – Eretz Yisrael (Jerusalem,
2005), 84. On the other hand, R. Shmuel HaKohen Weingarten, who also heard from
Rav Tzvi Yehuda about his father’s refusal to call for support of Keren Hayesod,
pointed out an item in the newspaper Dos Idishe Licht (May 23, 1924),
according to which Rav Kook refused to support a proposal raised at the
American Union of Rabbis to boycott Keren Hayesod (Halikhot 33 [Tel
Aviv, Tishrei 1966], 27). Compare Rav Kook’s reasons for not waging a public
war against the Gymnasia Ha-Ivrit high school, despite his intense opposition
to the school (Igrot Ha-Re’iya II, 160-61).

[6] The existence
of false rumors concerning Rav Kook was mentioned already in 1921 by the Gerrer
Rebbe, R. Avraham Mordechai Alter, in his well-known letter written on the
boat: “Outside Eretz Yisrael what is thought and imagined is different
from the reality. For according to the information heard, the Gaon Rav Kook was
considered to be an enlightened rabbi who ran after bribes. He was attacked
with excommunication and curses. Even the newspapers Yud and Ha-Derekh
sometimes published these one-sided reports. But this is not the correct way of
behavior – to listen to one side, no matter who it is…” (Osef
Mikhtavim U-Devarim [Warsaw, 1937], 68). R. Moshe Tzvi Neriya’s description
is typical: “…these news items even made their way into sealed Russia.
They said: “He’s close to the high echelons, and he has an official
position. This opinion excluded him from the usual description of a great Rav.
And then again it was said, ‘He’s close to the Zionists,’ and he was imagined
to be an ‘enlightened’ rabbi […] however, all those description and imaginations
completely melted away on seeing him.” (Likutei Ha-Re’iya [Kefar
Haro’eh, 1991], 1:13-14). An amazingly similar description was written by R.
Yitzchak Gerstenkorn, founder of Bnei Brak: “I imagined Rav Kook, of
blessed memory, as a modern rabbi […] and how amazed I was, on my first visit
to Rav Kook, when I saw before me a sacred, pious person, few of whom live in
our generation…” (Zikhronotai al Bnei Brak I [Jerusalem, 1942],
74).

[7] See Igrot
la-Re’iya, 303-306. See also his 1923 declaration in support of Keren
Kayemet in which he emphasizes that “it is intended only for redemption of
the Land” (Raz, Malakhim ki-Venei Adam [Jerusalem, 1994], 238) —
meaning, not for educational and other such purposes as those of Keren Hayesod.
In this connection it should be noted that there was sometimes tension between
Keren Kayemet and Keren Hayesod because of the impression created that the
latter also dealt in redeeming lands (see Protokolim shel Yeshivot Ha-Keren
Kayemet Le-Yisrael, Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem, 4:109, 498/33 —
protocols from March 31 and July 7, 1922. See also the joint agreement of the
two funds, Ha-Olam 10:14 [January 27, 1921], 16). In order to illustrate
the Keren Kayemet’s well-established status among substantial sections of the
rabbinical world, we will refer to the 32nd annual convention of the
Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, 1937. In the second
section of the convention’s resolutions it states: “The Union of Rabbis
imposes a sacred debt on all Orthodox Jews who will lend generous support to
Keren Kayemet Leyisrael.” It should be noted that the majority of
America’s great rabbis of the time participated in this convention (see Ha-Yehudi
2:10 [New York, Iyar 1927], 195. A similar resolution was made in previous
conventions; see, for example, HaPardes 5:3 [Sivan 1931], p. 31, § 7; HaPardes 6:3 [Sivan 1932], p.
25, § 5-8).

[8] This draft is
quoted by R. Yaakov Filber, Kokhav Ohr (Jerusalem, 1993), 21-22 (Slight
changes in style have been made according to a photocopy in my possession).
Negatives statements about Keren Hayesod were omitted from the response that
was actually sent, and only the positive statements about Keren Kayemet were
included. R. Filber posits that, based on the letter that Rav Kook sent to his
son, Rav Z. Y. Kook, about a week later (ibid.), the reason for the omission
was Rav Kook’s concern that the negative sentences might be used as a means to
attack the Zionist funds in general. In my opinion, taking into account Rav
Kook’s style, it is unlikely that he had such a concern, but rather the omission
is probably connected to his wish not to take part in a public boycott of Keren
Hayesod (see above, note 5).

[9] See R. Neriya
Goutel, “Hilkhot Ve-Halikhot Ha-Keren Ha-Kayemet Le-Yisrael Ve-Haĥug Ha-Hityashvuti
Be-Ma’arekhet Hitkatvuyotav shel Ha-Rav Kook,” Sinai 121 (1998),
103-115; Ĥaim Peles, “Teguvotav shel Ha-Rav A. Y. Kook al Ĥilulei Ha-Shabat
al Admat Ha-Keren Ha-Kayemet Le-Yisrael,” Sinai 115 (1995),
180-186; see also Rav Kook, Ĥazon Ha-Geula (Jerusalem, 1937), 220-230;
ibid., 33-34, et seq. (I have expanded on the topic of Rav Kook’s relationship
with the Keren Kayemet elsewhere).

[10] In a letter
from winter 1924 to R. Dov Arye Leventhal of the Union of Rabbis, about his
trip to America, Rav Kook writes that one of the questions that his trip
depends upon is “whether there will not be a tendency to confuse his
support for this [the Union of Rabbis] with Keren Hayesod” (Igrot Ha-Re’iya
IV (Jerusalem 1984), 177. In a letter from winter 1925 to R. Akiva Glasner of Klausenburg,
he calls on him to make use of “the Zionist funds of Keren Hayesod”
for purposes such as sheĥita and ritual baths in a settlement of
Transylvanian immigrants in Eretz Yisrael. He comments that when all is said
and done, in most places the donors are religious Jews; but of course he should
ensure that everything is done according to the Torah (ibid., 216).

[11] Sinai
115 (1995), 181; the full letter was printed in Mikhtavim Ve-Igrot Kodesh
(ed. R. David Avraham Mandelbaum, New York, 2003), 588. Here, as in the third
example (see below), Rav Kook hints that if they do not take the necessary
steps, he will stop supporting the Keren Kayemet, and will even publicize the
matter.

[12] Sinai
115 (1995), 183

[13] R. Moshe
Zuriel, Otzarot Ha-Re’iya I (Rishon Lezion, 2002), 487.

[14] See inter al.:
Dan Giladi, Ha-Yishuv Bi-Tekufat Ha-Aliya Ha-Revi’it: Beĥina Kalkalit U-Politit
(Tel Aviv, 1973), 171-192. The cause of the crisis was twofold: on the one
hand, the especially large amount of new immigrants in the two years prior to
the crisis, for which the economy was unprepared; on the other hand, the severe
limitations that the Polish government enforced on taking money out of the
country (in an attempt to fight the hyperinflation of the value of the zloty),
which harmed both the donations to Eretz Yisrael, and the capability of the new
immigrants to bring their possessions with them to Eretz Yisrael.

[15] For details of
R. Ostrovsky’s trip see Ha-Zefira 66:30 (February 4, 1927), 8. For the
blessings for success that he received from R. Yeĥiel Moshe Segalovitz, head of
the Mława rabbinical court, see ibid. 66:34 (February 9, 1927), 3. Rav
Kook’s letter to Polish Jewry was published in Ha-Olam on March 4, 1927,
and again in Zuriel, Otzarot Ha-Re’iya II (1998 edition), 1075.

[16] See the monthly
Ha-Hed, Kislev 1926, p.12, and the weekly Ha-Tor 7:16 (November
19, 1926), front page. This version was printed later in Ĥazon Ha-Geula,
180. The version quoted here is based on minor corrections of mistakes that
appeared in one of the sources. In the description attached to the public
letter in Ha-Hed the following was written: “In honor of Keren
Hayesod’s special aid program for the benefit of the unemployed in Eretz
Yisrael, Rav Kook published a special public letter….”

[17] Ha-Zefira
65:50 (Warsaw, November 29, 1926), 3. In the description attached to the public
letter it said: “On 2 Kislev [November 8, 1926), the Chief Rabbi of Eretz
Yisrael, Rav A.Y. Ha-Kohen Kook sent the following public letter to the head
office of Keren Hayesod….” A few days later the letter was also published
in Ha-Olam 14:50 (London, December 3, 1926), 944, with the same headline
and description as in Ha-Zefira, but without the insertion of
“Keren Hayesod” in the body of the letter; see also Ha-Olam
14:48 (December 19), 906, where it was reported that “Rav Kook published a
public letter to world Jewry to aid Keren Hayesod, thereby easing the crisis in
Eretz Yisrael.”

[18] Central Zionist
Archives, KH421036. As is explained in this file, Rav Kook’s colleague, R. Y.
Meir, visited the offices of Keren Hayesod.

[19] From a copy of
the letter in the possession of R. Ze’ev Neuman, to whom I am most grateful. It
should be noted that Leib Yaffe was a relative of Rav Kook: his paternal
grandfather, R. Mordechai Gimpel Yaffe, was Rav Kook’s paternal grandmother’s
brother. Nevertheless, at the opening of the letter, Rav Kook does not show any
family sentiment, but starts with a completely neutral tone.

[20] About two years
before the above letter, in 1925, Rav Kook, together with other rabbis,
participated in a meeting with Keren Hayesod where sums allocated for religious
needs, and other allocation options, were decided upon (Yehoshua Radler-Feldman
[R. Binyamin], Otzar Ha-aretz [Jerusalem, 1926], 72-73; see also note 10
above).

[21] The reader
should note the letter of both the chief rabbis from March 27, 1927 – about two
months after the above letter – which was sent, among others, to the secretary
of Keren Hayesod, Mordechai Helfman, with the demand to prevent the profanation
of Shabbat and kashrut in settlements located on the land of Keren Kayemet, or
that are supported by Keren Hayesod. In his reply from March 30 (quoted in
Motti Ze’ira, Keru’im Anu [Jerusalem, 2002], 172), Helfman justified
himself saying: “The management of Keren Hayesod is only a mechanism for
collecting money […] We are, of course, ready to help in [attempting to] have
moral influence, and we hereby promise his honor, that we will use our
influence at every opportunity to emphasize that which is wrong.”

[22] The document
can be found in the Central Zionist Archive KH1/220/2. I am grateful to Mr.
Yitzĥak Dadon, who made me aware of the document’s existence and gave me a
photocopy. Most of the demands in this document were repeated, with different
emphases, in a declaration publicized by Rav Kook in the spring of 1931 (see
note 37 below).

[23] Even though Rav
Kook repeated in this letter that he was not prohibiting support of Keren
Hayesod, later, when in 1932 the Jewish Agency did not fulfill its promise to
transfer an allocated sum for religious matters, Rav Kook protested the matter
in a sharp letter in which he warned that if at least part of the promised sum
was not transferred, he would be forced to turn to the rabbis in America and to
members of Mizrachi in Poland, with the demand to prevent support of the Keren
Hayesod appeal (letter from April 6, 1932, Central Zionist Archive
S255894-419).

[24] Information
about Rav Kook’s supposed support of Keren Hayesod, based on the east-European
version of the public letter, quickly reached Rav Kook’s opponents in Eretz
Yisrael and even in America. In a letter from December 29, 1926, Meir
Heller-Semnitzer, one of the most extreme zealots in Jerusalem (around whom,
that same summer, a major scandal erupted, concerning a harsh declaration that
he published against the Gerrer Rebbe and Rav Kook), informed Reb Zvi Hirsch
Friedman of New York (a distinguished zealot himself who, a year previously, had
been expelled from the Union of Rabbis in America because of attacks against
Rav Kook that he had published in one of his books), that Rav Kook issued a
proclamation calling for support of “the baseless fund” [play on words:
yesod means base]. See Friedman, Zvi Ĥemed – Mishpati im
Dayanei Medinat Yisrael (Brooklyn, 1960), 67.

[25] As R. Y. Y.
Trunk pointed out already in 1921 (see note 27 below).

[26] A. Elitzur, “Keren
Hayesod Be-mivĥan Ha-zeman” in Luaĥ Yerushalayim – 5706 (Jerusalem,
1945), 259-268; see also Otzar Ha-aretz, 70-76.

[27] In this
connection it is customary to mention R. Meir Simĥa Ha-Kohen of Dvinsk, author
of Ohr Same’aĥ, who acceded to the request of an emissary of the World
Zionist Organization in preparation for the appeal of Keren Hayesod in Latvia,
and wrote his famous letter calling for support of the yishuv in Eretz
Yisrael (printed in Ha-Tor, 3, 1922, and also in R. Ze’ev Arye Rabiner, Rabeinu
Meir Same’aĥ Kohen [Tel Aviv, 1967], 163-165, et al.). However, even
though the historical context involves the Keren Hayesod, the letter itself
deals with general support of settling Eretz Yisrael, and contains no explicit
mention of Keren Hayesod or any other Zionist organization. Hence it is
difficult to see in the letter a ruling concerning the fundamental question of
whether to support Keren Hayesod despite the fact that part of its budget goes
towards secular education. The same applies to a similar letter written in the
same year and in the same connection by R. Eliezer Dan Yiĥye of Lucyn (See Otzar
Ha-aretz, 84-86). In contrast, R. Yitzĥak Yehuda Trunk of Kotnya, the
grandson of the author of Yeshu’ot Malko and one of the rabbis of the
Mizrachi movement in Poland, wrote a detailed letter in the same year,
explicitly calling for support of Keren Hayesod. He wrote at length rejecting
the arguments against contributing to the fund (See Sinai 85 [Nisan-Elul 1979],
95-96). See also in the following footnotes.

[28] See Otzar
Ha-aretz, 78-82. It should be added that the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv (later
the Rishon le-Tziyon), R. Ben-Tziyon Ĥai Uziel, participated, himself, in the
activity of Keren Hayesod (see his books, Mikhmanei Uziel IV (Jerusalem,
2007) 31-32, 283-284, and in vol. VI, 297-299, et al.), as did R. Ostrovsky (as
mentioned above), and others.

[29] In an issue of
Ha-Olam (18:46 [London, November 11, 1930], 911) in honor of Keren
Hayesod’s tenth anniversary, “the declaration of Eretz Yisrael’s rabbis
concerning Keren Hayesod” from September 1930, was published. Hundreds of
rabbis signed the declaration, the majority from America, and others from Eretz
Yisrael, Europe, and Eastern countries. The declaration included an explicit
call to strengthen Keren Hayesod, “which for the last ten years has borne
on its shoulders the elevated task of building our sacred inheritance, and
faithfully supporting all projects that bring us close to that great aim.”
It seems that there is not one well-known rabbi who was active in the Union of
Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada who did not sign this
declaration: R. Yehuda Leib Graubart, R. Elazar Preil, R. Ĥaim Fischel Epstein,
R. Yosef Kanowitz, R. Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, R. Eliezer Silver, R. Ze’ev Wolf
Leiter, R. Ĥaim Yitzĥak Bloch, R. Yehuda Leib Salzer, etc., etc. (nevertheless,
in light of the scope and rare variety of the signatories, one wonders whether
this was a declaration approved by majority vote at the conference of the Union
of Rabbis, such that the weight of the opponents was not reflected, and
therefore the names of all the Union’s members were given as signatories).

[30] See Otzar
Ha-aretz, 77, his letter from December 8, 1925 calling for support of Keren
Hayesod. See note 18, and more below.

[31] A most
interesting fact in this connection is that R. Wasserman’s relative by marriage
from 1929 (the father-in-law of his son R. Elazar Simĥa), R. Meir Abowitz, head
of the rabbinical court of Novardok and author of Pnei Meir on Talmud
Yerushalmi, not only was an avowed member of the Mizrachi movement, and in
1923 even signed a call to join the movement (see Encyclopedia of Religious
Zionism I [Jerusalem, 1958], columns 1-2), but also was one of the
signatories on the aforementioned declaration in favor of Keren Hayesod! (Otzar
Ha-aretz, 81). The fact that R. Wasserman was involved in R. Abowitz’s
younger daughter’s marriage, is testimony to the good relationship between the
families (see R. Wasserman’s daughter-in-law’s testimony in the photocopied
edition of Pnei Meir on the tractate Shabbat [USA, 1944], at the end of
the introduction. R. Abowitz’s letters to his son-in-law are published at the
end of R. Wasserman’s Kovetz Shiurim II [Tel Aviv, 1989], 117-119).

[32] It is
worthwhile comparing these words with R. Yosef Ĥaim Zonnenfeld’s moderate
language in a letter to his brother written in 1921, in which he gives the
benefit of the doubt to the donors of Keren Hayesod: “Those naïve ones,
who contribute to Keren Hayesod out of pure love in order to aid in the
establishment of the settlement in our holy Land, certainly have a mitzvah. I
do not know to what purpose they will actually put the money of Keren Hayesod,
but if it is given into faithful hands, who will use it honestly for settling
the Land, this is anyway a big mitzvah. However, as has been said, it must be
in such hands that will use it for building and not for destruction […] ‘and
because of our sins we were exiled from our Land'” (translated from
Yiddish, S.Z. Zonnenfeld, Ha-ish al Ha-ĥoma III [Jerusalem, 1975], 436).

[33] Although R.
Ya’akov Meir, who explicitly supported Keren Hayesod, was also one ” who
heads the above [i.e. the Chief Rabbinate],” nevertheless, R. Wasserman’s
words are taken to be addressed specifically to Rav Kook. On the other hand, it
is interesting that in a letter that R. Wasserman wrote to his brother on July
30, 1935, the following sentence appears: “What is Rav Kook’s malady, and
how is he feeling now?” (Kovetz Ma’amarim Ve-igrot II, 124).

[34] Degel
Yisrael 2:11 (New York, December 1928), 12-13 (the emphasis is mine). The date
of the secretariat’s letter is April 26, 1928.

[35] Friedman,
“Pashkevilim U-moda’ot kir Ba-ĥevra Ha-Ĥareidit,” in Pashkevilim
(Tel Aviv, 2005), 20. See also his book Ĥevra Va-dat (Jerusalem, 1978),
337.

[36] In the same
year, October 1930, in an issue devoted to the tenth anniversary of Keren
Hayesod, a declaration from Rav Kook was printed under the heading
“Mi-ma’amakei Ha-kodesh,” in which a process of awakening in the
country among the people and the new yishuv is described, together with
a call to base activities on sanctity and to unite (Ha-Olam 18:45
[November 2, 1930], 900). Here, too, there is no explicit mention of Keren
Hayesod or any other organization, even though explicit calls by other
personalities for support of the fund were published close to his declaration
(See also an additional article by Rav Kook, (Ha-Olam 18:47 [November
18, 1930], 926).

[37] Mikhtavim
Ve-Igrot Kodesh, 624. The date of R. Meltzer’s signature on the declaration
is February 18, 1921. He writes using the plural form: “schools … are
supported by these funds,” but in fact only Keren Hayesod referred funds
to educational institutions, such that his main opposition was actually
directed against it in particular, and not against Keren Hakayemet (see next
note). For the moment I have been unable to locate the call mentioned in his
words, which Prof. Friedman dealt with, however it is probably a very similar
declaration to the one published in Ha-Hed, April 1931 (and again in Otzarot
Ha-Re’iya II, 426), in which Rav Kook calls, in preparation for the
“coming Zionist Congress” to present a series of demands in the field
of religion, which have to come together with “material fundraising”
and aid to build up the country. It is superfluous to note that there is no
mention of Keren Hayesod in the declaration, as well as to no other official
institution.

[38] For comparison,
see a similar public letter that the three rabbis, Rav Kook, R. Meltzer, and R.
Borokhov, together with R. Yaakov Meir, published in 1929, calling to the heads
of the Zionist organizations “to immediately send a last warning to the
kibbutzim and moshavot supported by you, that if they do not stop
profaning our religion, and everything sacred, you will stop your support of
them altogether. If our words are not obeyed by you, we will unfortunately be
forced to wage a defensive war against these destroyers of our People and our
Land […] even though this will harm the funds which support the new yishuv”
(printed in Ha-Tor 9:37 [August 9, 1929], and again in Keruzei
Ha-Re’iya [Jerusalem, 2000], 90)

Screen for the Spirit, Garment for the Soul

by Josh Rosenfeld

Josh Rosenfeld is the Assistant Rabbi at
Lincoln Square Synagogue and on the Judaic Studies Faculty at SAR High School.

This is his third contribution to the Seforim blog. His first essay, on “The
Nazir in New York,” is available here, and his second essay, “The Princess and I: Academic Kabbalists/Kabbalist
Academics,“ is available here.

ב״ה

אור לנר
ג׳, חנוכה ה׳תשע״ו

Recent years have
witnessed a remarkable trend in the widespread study of Hasidic texts within
Orthodox communities that themselves do not self-identify as traditionally
Hasidic. Whether in much-discussed Modern Orthodox neo-Hasidic circles or
amongst the National-Religious in Israel, Hasidic texts canonical and obscure
merit serious teaching, engagement, and even reverence in these communities.
One of the earliest expressions of this trend was the introduction of such
texts into the curricula of Hesder Yeshivot, and arguably the man most
responsible for this was R. Shimon Gershon Rosenberg (Shagar; 1949-2007).

R. Shagar began his career in the Hesder Yeshivot first as a student
at Yeshivat Kerem b’Yavneh, eventually returning from the Yom Kippur war to
become a popular RaM at Yeshivat
Hakotel, even filling in as interim Rosh ha-Yeshiva when R. Yeshayahu Hadari
took a sabbatical. R. Shagar, known as a Talmudic prodigy, branched out to both
found and direct other institutions on the cutting edge of the National
Religious educational framework, such as Beit Midrash Ma’aleh and Beit Morasha,
and finally, Yeshivat Siach Yitzchak in Efrat, with his longtime friend and
study partner, R. Yair Dreyfuss (1949- ). After a difficult period of
suffering, R. Shagar passed away from Pancreatic cancer on June 11, 2007, a
month after the announcement of a committee to begin preparing his voluminous
writings for publication.

R. Shagar wrote and taught on a level characterized as “extremely
deep”, and despite the resurgence of interest and posthumous publications of
his writings, a close student of his once told me “it was not always such a
great honor to be counted amongst his students.” There was some opposition to
some of his ideas, especially those relating to education and Talmud
pedagogy.[1] R. Shagar’s writings exhibit a sustained engagement with, in my
opinion, three central themes: postmodernism and its challenge to traditional
religion, spirituality and faith in the Modern Orthodox and National Religious,
and the development of a viable language, a discourse
– based upon traditional texts – to think and talk about the aforementioned
themes. R. Shagar’s writings are as quick to quote R. Schnuer Zalman of Liadi
as Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian cultural critic and philosopher.

For English speakers, much of R. Shagar’s oeuvre remains a closed
book,[2] despite the rapid pace with which new material of his – developed from
the reportedly hundreds of files he left behind – is being published, and the
resurgence in his popularity in Israel. Despite that, a few articles and
introductions to his thought have appeared in English.[3]

What follows is an attempt at translation of an excerpt from one of
the most recent of R. Shagar’s works, To
Illuminate the Openings (להאיר את הפתחים).[4]
The book is primarily a collection of R. Shagar’s discourses on the holiday of
Hanukkah, part of the “For This Time” (לזמן הזה)
series of R. Shagars derashot on the
cycle of Jewish holidays and festivals.[5]

This particular essay, “Screen for the Spirit, Garment for the Soul”
is an expansion and presentation of R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi’s[6]
phenomenological discourse on the candles of Hanukkah. R. Shagar uses the
language of philosophy, Maimonides, and Lacanian psychoanalysis to explain the
two religious paths that R. Schneur Zalman sees as represented in the candles,
wicks, and flames of Hanukkah. In doing so, a rich tapestry of religious
thought is woven, with R. Shagar characteristically bringing such diverse
thinkers as the founder of Chabad Hasidism and Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz in
conversation with each other.[7]

“Screen for the Spirit, Garment for the Soul”

{A Translation and Annotation of R. Shimon Gershon Rosenberg, “To
Illuminate the Openings” (Machon Kitve ha-Rav Shagar: Efrat, 2014),
53-61}[8][9]

כִּי אַתָּה תָּאִיר
נֵרִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהַי יַגִּיהַּ חָשְׁכִּי (תהילים י״ח, כט).

כִּי נֵר מִצְוָה
וְתוֹרָה אוֹר (משלי ו׳, כג).

נֵר יְהוָה נִשְׁמַת
אָדָם (שם כ׳, כז).

The Soul and the Commandment

There is a well-known custom of many Hasidic
rabbis on Hanukah to sit by the candles after lighting and to meditate upon
them, sometimes for hours. This meditation washes over the spirit and allows
the psyche to open up to a whole host of imaginings, gleanings, thoughts, and
emotions – that afterward blossom into the ‘words of the living God’, to use
the Habad formulation. Therefore, it is instructive for us to look at the
physical entity, the elements of the candle and its light as crucial elements
in the development of these words of exegesis – the meditation upon the
candlelight. For example, in one stage of the discourse of R. Schneur Zalman of
Liadi[10] (1745-1812; henceforth, Admor ha-Zaken) that we shall discuss, Admor
ha-Zaken distinguishes between two different types of light emanating from the
candle: and the fact of the matter is
that the candle consists of both the oil and the wick – two types of light: a
darkened light directly on the wick, and the clarified white light.[11]
This differentiation acts as a springboard for a discourse upon two pathways in
religious life. To a certain extent, it is possible to posit that the discourse
is the product of the Admor ha-Zaken’s meditation upon the different colors of
light in the candle’s flame, and without that, there would be no discourse to
speak of.

The motif of the candle and the imaginings it
conjures are a frequent theme in scripture and in rabbinic writing – The Mitzvah Candle; Candle of the Soul; The
Candle of God – in its wake arise many Hasidic discourses seeking to
explain the relationship between ‘The Soul’ [נר נשמה]
and ‘The Commandment’ [נר מצוה], and between ‘The
Commandment’ and God [נר ה׳]. In our study of
the discourse of the Admor ha-Zaken, we will most importantly encounter the
tension between the godly and the commanded – the infinitude of the divine as
opposed to the borders, limits, and finitude of the system of commandments [תרי״ג מצוות]. However, prior to doing so, we will
focus our attention for a moment on the tension between the soul and the
commandment – the internal spiritual life of the believer relative to the
externalized performance of the commandment.

The emergence of Hasidism brought to the fore
the following challenge – does the fact of an increased individual emphasis
upon internal spiritual life mean that they will of necessity distance
themselves from the practical framework of Halakha? In a different formulation,
does the focus of Hasidism upon the ‘soul-candle’ mean that the light of the
‘commandment-candle’ will be dimmed? The tension between the two is clear: one’s
obligation to do specific things affixed to specific times stands in opposition
to one’s attunement with and attention to their own inner voice. Our own eyes
see, and not just in connection with Jewish religious life, but that when one
prefers their own personal truth, they do not behave according to the dictates
and accepted norms of society at large. For example, one who desires to be
‘more authentic’ may be less polite, as the rules of etiquette are seen as
external social constructions that dull one’s inner life. Similarly, for this
type of individual, when it comes to Halakha, it will be approached and
understood as a system that holds him back from his own truth, and not only
that, but it sometimes will be perceived as a lie: from a Halakhic point of view,
he must pray at specifically ordained times, but in his heart of hearts he
knows that right now his prayers will not be fully sincere – but rather just
‘going through the motions’. Must this individual now answer the external call
to prayer, or should they rather hold fast to their inner calling, thereby
relaxing the connection to the outer Halakhic reality?[12]

In truth, this question has yet another
dimension, within which we may be able to sharpen our understanding – the chasm
between objective and subjective experience. Should an individual seek out ‘The
Truth’ through their own subjective experience, or should they rather find it
in the absolutist objective realm of reality? Once a person apprehends ‘The
Truth’ as a construction of their own subjective internal experience, the
concept of truth loses its totality and becomes relativized. Truth instead
becomes dependent upon one’s specific perspective, their emotions, feelings,
and personal experiences. In this sense, Halakha is identified with the absolute
and fixed sphere of reality – within which God commanded us, and this type of
relativism is untenable in relation to it. (א)

It is possible to argue that the ideal state
is when the internal, personal truth is identified with the objective, external
truth.[13] The meaning of this situation is that on one hand, the individual’s
internal life is strong, on fire, and yet his sense of obligation to this
internality is unassailable. This leads to a perspective where the inner life
is understood as objective reality, absolute. A person in this type of
situation loses their sense of relativity and their inner directives obtain the
strength of an outside command, possessing no less force of obligation or
truth.

The problem with the situation within which we live is that our inner lives lack
strength and force; Our inner lives are prone to ups and downs, steps forward
and back. Because of the dullness of our internal lives, they are susceptible
to all kinds of outside influences, and thus there is a subsequent lack of
authenticity. This is the reason the Shulhan
Arukh – not internal spirituality – is the basis for our religious
obligations, it is the absolute cornerstone of our lives.

To be sure, divine truth is revealed on a
number of different levels and planes in our lives, and it is forbidden for an
individual to think that this truth is obtainable only in one dimension – not
in the internal or external life alone. An encompassing, total reality takes
both lives into account and unifies them – both the internal and external;
however, in an incomplete, non-ideal reality, to every dimension and
perspective there are benefits and detriments, and we ignore either at our own
peril. To this end, our rabbis taught us that we must serve God through both
‘fear’ [יראה] and ‘love’ [אהבה]:
and so Hazal said, serve out of fear,
serve out of love.'[14]

Admor ha-Zaken

Until now, we have seen the apposition between
the mitzvah candle and the neshama candle, to wit – the conflict
between the formal Halakhic system and the unmediated spirituality sought by
Hasidism. This is a spirituality that has as a central prerequisite the
authenticity of action, an authenticity that stands in opposition to the fact
that the believer stands commanded to perform certain actions at appointed,
limited times. In his discourse for Hanukkah, Admor ha-Zaken deals with yet
another tension addressed by Hasidism, especially in the system of Habad
Hasidism: What is the connection of physical actions – the performance of the
commandments – with the metaphysical, spiritual ‘payoff’ they are supposed to
engender, such as an attainment of closeness with God?

Furthermore, the commandments, as they are
sensed and experienced through action, are part of the world of tangibility [יש] – the finite and created human reality.
Therefore, what connection can these have with faith in the divine infinity? As
it appears, the progression of the Admor ha-Zaken is a dialectical approach:
one on hand, he presents the commandments in a strictly utilitarian manner without
any truly inherent value, but on the other, it is this very groundedness of the
commandments in our reality that accords to them their roots in the pure divine
will:

It is written: ‘A Mitzvah is a candle and
the Torah is Light,’ that the Mitzvot are called ‘candle.’ And it is also
written: ‘the candle of God is the soul of Man’, that the soul is called
‘candle’. And in the Zohar it is explained that the Mitzvot are called
‘garments’… and in order to be fully clothed, the soul must fulfill all 613 Mitzvot…
and to explain the matter of the soul’s garments… [that]
there are boundless illuminations… for there are countless understandings of
the light and the glow, which is an emanation of the infinite light of [God] Blessed
be He…

The delights that derive from the
infinite light, which is the source of all delights, are without end. Just as
we perceive with our senses even… physical delights are also without measure,
for there are infinite ways to experience pleasure… Because of this, the soul –
which is in the aspect of the finite – is unable to fully apprehend the
revelation of this glow, which is the very being of the divine, except through
a garment – a filter – and through that garment and filter [the soul] is able to receive the light and the glow.[15]

The soul requires ‘garments’, for without
these garments and filters, there is no comprehension. I will try to explain
what I mean here: for example, when we speak of ‘eternal memory’ [זכרון נצח], are we talking about remembering the
content of that person’s life, as if we are recording into a computer a
reporter’s notes that are now being entered into the system? Of course that is
not what we are referring to. All these moments of a person’s life are
‘garments’, a medium for the real
that occurred in them. This real is
not something specific, not a definable factor, but rather is the thing that
grants meaning to the content of those experiences, even though it itself is
undefinable.[16] Thus, ‘eternal life’ is life that retains with it the meaning
of these experiences – something which can never be quantified or simply
entered into a computer.[17]

This undefinable thing that grants meaning,
the ‘lifeforce’ to everything else, is what Admor ha-Zaken calls the ‘glow of
the infinite light’ [זיו מאור אינסוף].
It is not simply ‘meaning’, but rather the ‘meaning of all meaning’. In the
discourse before us, as well as in other discourses of his, Admor ha-Zaken
draws a line, a parallel, between this glow and the actual substance of delight
and pleasure that in our world always appears via a medium, some physical
object. Pleasure will never materialize in this world in its pure state – like delight in the earthly realm that
always devolves from something outside it, like when we take pleasure in some
delicious food or in the study of some wisdom.[18] If so, the commandments
are garments through which our world obtains its substance and standing – its
meaning. In the language of Admor ha-Zaken, the commandments act as a conduit
for the infinite light to penetrate into our world. That is to say, the
commandments as an entire system of life form a space within which a person may
experience the eros of true meaning. (ב)
Through them, an individual may feel alive, that is sensations of satisfaction,
excitement, longing, the joy of commandment, and intimacy – all these we may
incorporate metonymically into the word ‘light’ or ‘holiness’, that which Admor
ha-Zaken would call ‘delight’ or ‘pleasure’.

In order for this light to be apprehended, it
must be garbed in the outer trappings of the commandments. This is to say, that
the commandments themselves are not the essence of the light and de-light, that
they are not the meaningful point of existence, but rather only a garment, that
receives its light only by dint of the fact that the subjective experience of
holiness and pleasure are felt through it. As Admor ha-Zaken explains in the
discourse we are studying: behold, the
Mitzvah act… is not the way of the divine infinite light to be infused in them [Mitzvot] unless it is through… the Godly soul itself that performs the Mitzvah,
and draws forth through them a revelation of the divine infinite light. As it
is written [about Mitzvot]: ‘that the individual shall perform them’ –
that it is the individual that makes them into Mitzvot, in drawing forth
through them the infinite light.[19]

The Source of The Commandments

To be sure, it is possible to say that any way
of life or cultural system is but a garment for the infinite light, for it is
this system which bears the weight of the meaning of life and the essence of
reality [for its adherents]. An individual experiences life through cultural
constructs and the social systems – especially the most critical ones such as
love, longing, lower/higher fears, loyalty, etc. – all these things grant to
life meaning and purpose, something we wouldn’t trade for anything. Therefore,
in Hasidism, recognition of this truth is related to the fact that the world
was created through ‘ten utterances’ [עשרה מאמרות] – that is to say, even without a specifically
religious language, such as the ‘ten
statements’ [עשרת הדיברות] through which the divine light is
revealed. For Admor ha-Zaken’s part, there remains a difference between these
systems and the system of the commandments: while it is true that the
commandments are a ‘human system’, ideally/from their very inception they are
rooted in the infinite reality from which they devolved. At this point, Admor
ha-Zaken ceases to see the commandments as merely a garment or tool alone, but
rather that they themselves represent constitute a direct encounter with the
presence of the divine in our reality. This is to say that the commandments are
a system meant to signify and symbolize the infinite itself.[20] They don’t
simply give expression to it, but direct us to it as well. How do the
commandments symbolize? As a system, they point to the divine will itself, for
as a closed system, they lack resolution, purpose. One might even say that it
is not that we have here a symbol signifying something that we are meant to
understand, but rather that the signified is incomprehensibility itself, the ‘void within the void’ [חור שבחור]. In order to understand these things, we
must pay attention to the differentiation Admor ha-Zaken makes between ‘the
infinite light’ [אור אינסוף] and the ‘essential
will of the infinite light’ [עצם רצון אא״ס]
:

It is impossible for the essential will
of the infinite light to be revealed to any created being, unless that divine
will is embodied in some physical act, the performance of the Mitzvah… and the
root of the Mitzvot is very lofty, rooted in the uppermost realms of the
supernal crown, ‘Keter’… until it devolves into our realm through physical
actions and things, Tzitzit and Sukkah, and it is specifically in these things
that the divine will is revealed, ‘the final in deed is first in thought’ [סוף מעשה במחשבה תחילה]… In action heaven was [created] first… but
in thought physicality came first… for the light is revealed from the aspect
of divinity that encompasses all realms… Thus the performance of Mitzvot,
whose root lies in this encompassing aspect of divinity – the supernal ‘Keter’
– cannot be expressed below in the aspect of ‘inner light’ [אור פנימי],
[in finite and internal experience], but rather must find their expression in
exterior, physical actions, as it is well known that that which in its essence
is more lofty and elevated falls to the deeper depths.

Therefore, through the performance of
Mitzvot, there is created a covering, an encompassing screen, so that through
the Mitzvot the [soul] may be able to delight in the delight of the infinite
light…[21]

Admor ha-Zaken locates in the commandments a
type of dual identity based on the system he constructs: as a garment [לבוש], they are only a vessel through which the
infinite divine light finds expression – the delight of the soul, holiness, all
that is perceived as the essence of this world. The commandments themselves are
not the inner aspect of life but rather a medium for this interiority. On the
other hand, Admor ha-Zaken identifies them with the ‘encompassing’ lights [מקיפים]; a reality that cannot be truly
apprehended or experienced within ours. This is to say that the root of the
commandments are as vessels, conduits of a reality beyond ours – ‘the essential
will of the infinite light’. Manifest in this is a classic HaBaD teaching,
which Admor ha-Zaken formulates thusly: that
which in its essence is more lofty and elevated falls to the deeper depths.
We locate the root of the commandments, which in reality are purely utilitarian
and without their own essential, inherent meaning, in the very essence and core
of the divine.

The claim of Admor ha-Zaken is that the source
of the commandments is to be found in the the divine will itself. The meaning
of the commandments is not resolved through adhering to some system of rules,
some ethical or moral ideal, or some historical-progressive idea through which
they were conceived.[22] In the most simple sense, God ‘wanted’
commandments, and through this there developed a system with meaning and sense,
which we might call ‘wisdom’ [חכמה],
but that system does not fully define the will of the creator, nor is it necessary in the absolute sense. In the
aforementioned discourse, Admor ha-Zaken holds that the actual ‘end’ action
precedes the thought that somehow explains and gives it meaning, because in
truth it is the action, the physical performance of the commandment is affixed
to the divine will that warrants it to be done this particular way and no
differently – for no humanly discernable reason. This is the way of the divine
will, to ‘desire’ without dependence upon any externally motivating factor. One
might say that as they [the commandments] are affixed in the divine will, the
commandments as such signify a degree
of arbitrariness and happenstance.[23] The commandments serve as a reminder of
the ultimate unknowability of the divine will that tautologically ‘desires
because it desires’. This is also the reason why the commandments primarily
take the form of actions and not intentions. As actions, the commandments
manifest themselves as closed, sealed objects, their meanings not easily teased
out nor defined by the meanings attached to them – ultimately, there is just
the [darkness and] light and the delight that we are able to attain through it.

______

Notes:

[1] For example, see “Shnayim
Ohazin: A Conversation Between R. Aharon Lichtenstein and R. Shagar”, Shma’atin Journal vol. 136 (Nissan
1998); also appearing in Meimad, Vol.
17, August 1999; see further the synopsis and translation by Rachel Schloss for
the Lookstein teacher’s resource archive here; See also questions posed to R. Uri Sherki,
a popular National Religious lecturer and teacher on the topic of R. Shagar and
postmodernism, here.

[2] Two of R. Shagar’s monographs have been released in English: Chance and Providence (פור היא הגורל), trans. Naftali Moses (Efrat: Yeshivat
Siach Yitzchak, 2005), 108 pp. and The
Human and the Infinite: Discourses on the Meaning of Penitence (על כפות המנעול), trans. Naftali Moses (Jerusalem: Toby
Press, 2010), 88 pp.

[3] To my knowledge, the most extensive study of R. Shagar in English
to date has been conducted by Miriam Feldmann Kaye of the Van Leer Institute
and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dr. Kaye holds a PhD from the University of
Haifa, and her doctoral dissertation deals extensively with the encounter of
Judaism and postmodernism in the thought of R. Shagar and Tamar Ross. It is
forthcoming as Jewish Theology in a
Postmodern Age published by The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
[2017]. Kaye’s draft study, “Hasidic Philosophy in the Age of Postmodernism and
Relativism: The Case of Rav Shagar” was discussed at the March 2015 Orthodox
Forum, “The Contemporary Uses and Forms of Hasidut” chaired by R. Shmuel Hain
and R. Shlomo Zuckier. Hopefully Kaye’s fascinating paper will see light in the
upcoming volume of in the Orthodox Forum series.

Ilan Fuchs deals, inter alia,
with R. Shagar’s perspective on Torah learning for women and Orthodox feminism
in Women’s Torah Study: Orthodox
Education and Modernity (Routledge press: New York, 2014), 209-220

See Alan Jotkowitz, “And Now the Child Will Ask: The Post-Modern
Theology of Rav Shagar,” Tradition 45:2
(2012); R. Yair Dreyfuss, “Torah Study in Contemporary Times: Conservatism or
Revolution?”, Tradition 45:2 (2012);
Admiel Kosman, “A Letter in Search of a Destination” [review of The Remainder of Faith] in Ha’aretz, 2/27/15, available here;
R. Zvi Leshem, “Book Review: B’Torato
Yehageh: Limud Gemara Kibakashat Elokim,” available here;
Alan Brill has dedicated several fascinating posts to R. Shagar, his thought,
and its larger ramifications for Israeli society on his blog, ‘The Book of Doctrines
and Opinions’. A good starting point is his discussion of a curious film about
R. Shagar produced by the Ma’aleh film school, available here.

[4] l’Ha’ir et ha-Petahim
(Efrat: Makhon Kitve ha-Rav Shagar, 2014) 242 pp.

[5] Other volumes that have already been released include In the Shadow of Faith (בצל האמונה) on Sukkot, A Time for Freedom (זמן של חירות)
on Passover, and On That Day (ביום ההוא) on Israeli national holidays.

[6] In general, see Roman A. Foxbrunner, Habad:
The Hasidism of R. Shneur Zalman of Lyady (Jason Aronson, 1993); Immanuel Etkes, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady: The Origins of
Chabad Hasidism (Brandeis University Press, 2015); Naftali Loewenthal, Communicating the Infinite: The Emergence of the Habad
School, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1990).

[7] R. Shagar is accused of a certain naivete with regard to the
possibility and rigor of this type of thinking, see Kosman, idem. and see also
the editor’s introduction to R. Shagar, Luhot
ve-Shivrei Luhot (Yediot Ahronot, 2013); 407 pp. for a discussion of the
autodidactic nature of R. Shagar’s engagement with general philosophy,
specifically postmodern thought.

[8] לכב׳ ראש השנה לחסידות יום שיחרור אדמוה״ז
זיע״א י״ט כסלו ה׳תשע״ו.

[9] Thanks is due to R. Eli Rubin for his insight and comments.

[10] R. Hershel Schachter once quipped that perhaps the name “Schneur”
was a portmanteau of שני אור (= two lights), in
the naming after two different people with the name “Meir” – quite appropriate
for one who was able to draw such deep meaning from even the two lights within
the candle’s flame.

[11] Torah Ohr, Miketz 33a.

[12] A prime example of this would be the controversy surrounding the
practice of postponing prayer times. During the formative years of Hasidism,
many Hasidic leaders (such as the the Seer of Lublin, The Holy Jew, and The
Kotzker Rebbe) held that in order to focus the heart properly for prayer it is
permissible to delay the time for prayer, despite violating the clear Halakhic
guidelines governing it in the Shulhan
Arukh.

[13] Thus we reduce conflict between the soul-life and the
practical-life. See further torah no.
33 in Lectures on Likkutei Moharan
vol. 1, 295-310; torah no. 6, ad
loc., 68.

[14] Commentary of R. Ovadia Bartenura on the Mishnah, Avot 1:3. I
will point out, however, that it is basically impossible to impose upon someone
a completely external commandment, and so in this way even the ability to
follow an external command is a matter of personal prerogative, and therefore
related to the realm of personal freedom. This is to say that the internality
of a person itself transitions between many different phases – sometimes
appearing as the freedom to be unfree/limited and inauthentic.

[15] Torah Ohr, ad loc. 32d.

[16] We must differentiate between ‘sense’ and ‘meaning’ [english in
the original; JR]. As we shall soon see, ‘the glow of the infinite’ [that is to
say, the ‘spiritual background radiation’, the reflection of the infinite
source of light illuminating our moon-world; JR] is what gives ‘sense’ to
‘meaning’ [without it, the slip into nihilism begins; JR]. As long as ‘sense’
is completely attached to the level of content – words, actions, situations –
‘meaning’ becomes the internal, animating force behind these, granting these
things spiritual ‘weight’.

[17] There is a touch of autobiography here. R. Shagar worked
extensively on notes and files from his oeuvre, hundreds of which were saved on
his computer, from which the Institute for the Publication of the Works of R.
Shagar compiles, edits, and publishes his voluminous writings posthumously.

[18] R. Schneur Zalman of Liady, Likkutei
Torah, addenda to Parshat Vayikra,
52a.

[19] Torah Ohr, ad loc. 33c.

[20] This may be likened to the Lacanian idea of the real. [see Jacques Lacan, Symbol and Language: The Language of the
Self (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956); Dylan Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis (London: Routledge,
1996), entry: “real”. JR]

[21] Torah Ohr, ad loc. pp.
32d-33a.

[22] The position of the Admor ha-Zaken here parallels in a certain
sense the positions of Yeshayahu Leibowitz with regards to the commandments.
See further R. Shagar, “Faith and Language According to the Admor ha-Zaken of
Habad,” Nehalekh b’Regesh, pp.
175-178.

[23] See R. Shagar, Pur hu ha-Goral;
32-37 (בענ׳ את יעקב אהבתי ואת עשו שנאתי).

R. Zevin, R. Ovadia Yosef, Pras haRav Kook and a Minor Case of Censorship

R. Zevin, R. Ovadia Yosef, Pras haRav Kook and a Minor Case of
Censorship

by Jacob D.

At the
end of R. Zevin’s introduction to his Sofrim u-Sefarim [1] we read –

In R.
Zevin’s footnote we see that one of the works that he wanted to review but
didn’t yet get to was R. Ovadia Yosef’s two volumes of Yabia Omer. As someone
who enjoys R. Zevin’s pen immensely (both his style and substance, especially
the way he analyzes books and their authors) [2], and as someone that studies
from R. Ovadia Yosef’s prolific halakhic literature quite often, I was curious
to know if R. Zevin ever ended up writing a review on any of R. Ovadia
Yosef’s works. For this I turned to R. Zevin’s grandchildren.[3] In a phone
conversation with R. Nahum Zevin (of Kiryat Eliyahu,Haifa) I was told that
although he has some unpublished R. Zevin material, and also existing are
some highly critical book reviews that R. Zevin felt should remain unpublished,[4]
he doesn’t think anything was written about R. Ovadia Yosef.

In R.
Ovadia Yosef’s Yabia Omer we find among the numerous approbations this –

Not
exactly an approbation but an explanation why the work deserved the R. Kook
prize of Torah literature for the year 5715 (1955). I have no doubt that
although R. Zevin signs his name along with two other judges, the explanation
was penned by R. Zevin himself. From the three periods before these few
sentences it seemed to me that more had been written than the few lines which
were printed in the book. I wanted to find the rest of the story (although I
wasn’t expecting a full review essay because R. Zevin wrote in his Sofrim u-Sefarim published in 1959 that he
hadn’t gotten around to reviewing this work) and I spoke with the department
in the Tel Aviv municipality that handles these prizes (see here).
They said that they don’t have any additional information or documents that
pertain to this but that I should contact the Tel Aviv city archive (here) and they should be able to help. After speaking with the kind staff of that
archive I receive an email with two documents and a short message-

אנו שולחים לך סריקה של ההחלטה על הענקת הפרס לרב עובדיה יוסף וכן
סריקה של מכתבו של ראש העיר חיים לבנון לרב עובדיה המודיע לו על זכייתו ומברך אותו
עליה. אין בידינו נימוקים מפורטים יותר

בברכה,

רבקה פרשל-גרשון

הארכיון העירוני

By now I
kind of gave up, and forgot about the matter.

A short
while later I get a call from my friend Israel Mizrahi of Judaicaused.com (and the Musings of a Jewish Bookseller blog). He
tells me that I’m not going to believe it but in a recent shipment from Israel
of some old books he found a little booklet printed for one years Pras haRav
Kook. Upon opening it he sees that it was the booklet printed in the year
5715 (Summer 1955), the year that Yabia Omer was awarded the prize!

For a
small fee I purchased the booklet and although I found it quite
interesting, unfortunately nothing really more had been written about Yabia
Omer that hadn’t been printed in the book. Nothing really I say, aside for
one small surprise.

In the beginning of the
little piece written about Yabia Omer we read-

רגילים לחשוב שהתורה
הלכה ונתדלדלה מהעדה הספרדית, ירד קרנה ופנה זיוה הודה והדרה. ולא היא. על כל פנים
לא באותה מידה שחושבים

These
last seven words-

על כל פנים לא באותה מידה שחושבים

may seem
offensive to the level of Sephardic scholarship at that time and were therefore
censored out of Yabia Omer volume one. Interestingly they were printed in
Yabia Omer volume two. This is consistent in the numerous later editions of the
books as well, including the latest re-typset edition (5775-2015).

We now
learn that Artscroll’s “The Festivals in Halacha” was not the
only, nor the earliest case of R. Zevin censorship (see here).

It should
be mentioned that in R. Ovadia Yosef’s first volume of responsa Teshuvot Hazon
Ovadia, he receives a nice close to page long approbation by R. Zevin, but
still not the full review essay I was hoping for.

[1] I thank Eliezer Brodt for finding me the full three volume set. This set
doesn’t turn up in used bookstores too often. It’s an exception from most of
R. Zevin’s other books that have been reprinted many times over. I remember
the special morning I received his email informing me that he found them like
yesterday.

[2] R. Zevin’s Ishim ve-Shitot includes ten long essays on more famous Torah
personalities , and his three volumes of Sofrim u-Sefarim includes about
a hundred and seventy-five (!) short essays.

[3] I had previously spoken to one grandson Eliyahu who’s an attorney living in Tel
Aviv about having Sofrim u-Sefarim added to Hebrewbooks.org. In the course of
our conversations Eliyahu mentioned that he heard Hebrewbooks.org had already
scanned and posted some of R. Zevins’s other books, and that was
done without permission. He asked me to send them a message that the family
will take legal action if the issue isn’t straightened out. Upon Hebrewbooks
hearing that, they seemed uninterested in dealing with the family to obtain
permission to keep the books on their site, and all of R. Zevin’s
books were instantly removed. Also included in the books removed was the essay
whose true author is still in question about Yeshiva boys serving in the
Israeli Army. See my comment here and see
this post here.

[4] That
came to me a little bit as a surprise because in the three volumes worth of
essays that R. Zevin chose to publish in his Sofrim u-Sefarim, we do find some
highly critical reviews. See for example in volume one (Geonim, Rishonim,
u-Teshuvot) his review on the third volume of Teshuvot Yaskil Avdi by R.
Ovadia Hedaya (pg. 258), and in volume two (Pesakim, Pirushim, ve-Hidushim), a
highly critical review of R. Aryeh Pomoranchik’s first volume of Torat Zera’im
(pg. 221). Also in this same volume a pretty serious charge leveled
(delicately) at his friend and colleague R. Yehezkel Abramsky’s Hazon Yehezkel
Hullin (pg. 114). However, upon looking through some old issues of Ha-Tzofeh
from the 1930’s and 40’s (where most of the material in Sofrim u-Sefarim first
appeared, see here), I was able to come across some of the
extremely critical reviews that R. Zevin chose not to publish in his
books. None of the reviews that R. Zevin published in his books were nearly as
critical as these.

See Ha-Tzofeh
Fri. Aug 5th 1938

and Ha-Tzofeh
Fri. Sep. 27th 1940

The Man who Tried to Put it All Together: A Hesped for Rav Kook on His Eightieth Yahrzeit

The Man who Tried to Put it All Together:

A Hesped for Rav Kook on His Eightieth Yahrzeit

By Yehudah Mirsky

Yehudah Mirsky is an Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University, and the author of Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution (Yale University Press), available here (link).

This is his first contribution to the Seforim Blog.

Jerusalem of the 1930s was boiled in fury. The inevitability of bitter conflict with the Arabs of Palestine had become too clear to deny, while the fighting among Jews, if not quite as violent, was bitter and unmistakable. How to deal with the Arabs, how to deal with the British, how to bring new immigrants and, once they were there, sustain them, how to deal with Hitler’s shadow looming large over Europe – and how to deal with Zionism’s revolution not only against centuries of Jewish politics, but centuries more of Jewish religion and history. The arguments were as heated as the stakes were high.

All the more striking it was that on Monday, September 2, 1935, the fourth day of Elul 5695, some fifteen thousand people, amounting to one third of Jewish Jerusalem and nearly five percent of Jewish Palestine, religious and secular alike, joined by foreign diplomats, scholars, day laborers and rabbis, came out to follow the coffin of Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook, dead at age seventy. The procession wound from his yeshiva near Zion Square, in three columns through the Old City, to his freshly dug grave on the Mount of Olives, as thousands more watched from the rooftops.

The night before, just a few hours after his passing, the Nineteenth Zionist Congress, meeting in Lucerne, Switzerland, had held a memorial service of its own. Menachem Ussishkin, president of the Jewish National Fund responsible for land-purchases in Palestine and incoming President of the Zionist Executive, had long been Rav Kook’s chief interlocutor in the Zionist leadership, navigating between the movement’s relentlessly secularizing thrust, and the rabbi’s dogged insistence that the movement was bound to be the very vehicle of spiritual rebirth, for Jews and the world. Ussishkin said the rabbi had told him the building modern-day Palestine, its roads, factories and farms was nothing less than rebuilding the Temple – and that now, as then, all the ranks were meant to work together, the secular, itself charged with divine energy, being the indispensable foundation of the sacred.

Ussishkin was followed by Meir Berlin, leader of the perpetually-embattled Religious Zionist movement, the Mizrachi (whose Hebraized name would later garnish Israel’s religious university, Bar-Ilan). Rav Kook, Berlin said, “loved the Jewish people the way only a father can love his children. Nobody is left after him who will love his nation that fiercely…He understood his people, the situation of the generation, and its life conditions, and that is why he forgave them everything.” There was a lot to forgive.

Berlin and Rav Kook went back a very long way, longer than the former’s own lifetime. In the fall of 1884, then aged nineteen, Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook had become a student and disciple of Berlin’s father, Naftali Zvi Yehudah Berlin, known as “The Netziv,” dean of the great yeshiva of Volozhin. The yeshiva teemed with prodigies, future rabbis and future revolutionaries, among whom young Kook stood out, for an unfamiliar mix, appealing to some, off-putting to others, of intellectual prowess, intense piety, and lyric sensibility.

In the early years of his career, begun in a tiny Lithuanian shtetl, Kook was drawn to Maimonidean rationalism. With time, and intense grief at the death of his first wife, he turned inward, undertook deep introspection and extensive study of Kabbalah, on his own and with Rav Shalom Elyashiv (grandfather of the recently departed Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv). Alongside his command of Talmud and halakha, he mastered an extraordinary range of Jewish mystical, philosophical and other texts, read widely in the rich Hebrew and Yiddish periodical literature of the day, and became an autodidact of contemporary philosophy. In a departure from rabbinic conventions, he made serious study of the non-halakhic portions of the Talmud, the Aggadah and all its divergent voices.

“There are those who erroneously think that world peace will only come from a common character of opinions and qualities. But no – true peace will come to the world precisely by multiplication of all the opinions and perspectives… all facets of the larger truth… peace (is) the unification of all opposites. But there must be opposites, so that there be those who labor and that which will be unified… Hence peace is the name of God, who is the master of all the forces, omnipotent and gathering them all.” (Eyn Ayah to Massekhet Berakhot, vol. 2, pp. 397-398, 9:361, on BT Berakhot 64a.)

In another, marking his burgeoning conviction that God is to be found in the stormy recesses of one’s own inner life, he began to keep a spiritual diary.

In the summer of 1904 Kook moved to Palestine after accepting an offer to become the rabbi of Jaffa and the surrounding colonies, effectively becoming rabbi of the New Yishuv (Jewish collective). The year of his arrival marked the beginning of the Second Aliyah, the migration wave that brought a small but influential cadre of young intellectuals and revolutionaries who left an outsized mark on the political and cultural development of the New Yishuv. The combined effect of his encounters with their willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the Jewish people and for the ethical universalism of Socialism, with the vibrancy of the New Yishuv and sheer embodied-ness of the land was electrifying. In public, he became the leading rabbinic champion of the New Yishuv, and thus the target of traditionalist attacks. In private, as time went by he wrote more and more furiously and extensively in his diaries, lost in a torrent of thought as he began to train the dialectical worldview which he had developed to understand the complex mix of his own soul and the ideological debates of Eastern Europe onto larger historical patterns. His thinking also became explicitly Messianic.

Thus in his reading, and in a move which astonished and enraged many of his Rabbinic peers, the rebelliousness of the pioneers was neither accidental, nor evil, but in fact nothing less than part of God’s plan to restore to Judaism a vitality and universal spirit worn thin in centuries of exile. The young rebels against tradition in the name of Jewish nationalism and social justice were nothing less than the bearers of a new revelation.

In a major essay of 1912, Li-Mahalakh Ha-Ideiot be-Yisrael, (“The Progression of Ideals in Israel,”) he presented a philosophy of Jewish history structured along series of mirroring, theses and antitheses, whose collective synthesis is redemption: The vital, collective, bodily Judaism of the Bible followed by its antithesis, the subdued, individualized, spiritualized,Judaism of Exile, all to be synthesized in the fullness of redemption.

The Land of Israel was central to his reflections.

“The holiness within nature is the holiness of the Land of Israel, and the Shekhinah that went down into exile with Israel (BT Megillah 29a) is the ability to preserve holiness in opposition to nature. But the holiness that combats nature is not complete holiness, it must be absorbed in its higher essence to the higher holiness, which is the holiness in nature itself, which is the foundation of the restoration and tikun olam… And the holiness in exile will be joined to the holiness of the land, and the synagogues and batei midrash of Bavel will be reestablished in the Land of Israel.” (Ibid; and Shemonah Kevatzim 2: 326-327, Orot pp. 77-78).

Here and throughout he was reinterpreting a rich skein of Kabbalistic thought, in which the divine presence, the Shekhinah, as the Oral Torah, is Knesset Yisrael, the sacred community of Israel, and thus the Land, are all ultimately as one, constituting, as Sefirat Malkhut the very meeting point of God and the world. The “Ideals” under discussion in his 1912 essay were not only the Ideals of Western philosophy and the moral, spiritual and aesthetic ideas driving all human yearning, but also, and more deeply, the Sefirot, the nodal points of divine energy that in Kabbalistic teaching are the deep structure of all of Being, and, animated as it is with divine energy, its endless Becoming.

The outbreak of World War One caught Rav Kook in Germany, where he’d hoped to attend a rabbinic conference and mollify some of his peers’ fierce opposition to the Jewish national revival. He spent the war years in Switzerland and then England, in horrified witness to the great civilizational suicide.

The world crisis and slaughter were redeemed for him by the Balfour Declaration, which he took as electrifying confirmation of his messianic reading of world events. As always, the national was for him complemented by the universal, and in the midst of the war, in the pages of his diaries, he reached some of the farthest heights of his universalism:

“There is one who sings the song of his self, …And there is one who sings the song of the nation, who cleaves with gentle love to Knesset Yisrael as a whole, and sings her song with her, grieves for her sorrows and delights in her hopes…And there is one whose soul expands further beyond the bound of Israel, to sing the song of man…And there is one whose spirit expands and ascends even higher, to the point of unity with all creation, with all creatures and all worlds, and sings with them all…And there is one who ascends above all these songs in a single union, and all sound their voices…The song of the self, of the nation, of man, of the world – all come together within him at every time, in every hour. And this perfection in all its fullness ascends and becomes a sacred song, God’s song, Israel’s song…a simple song, doubled, tripled, fourfold, the Song of Songs of Shlomo (Cant. 1:1), (as the Midrash says) The King to Whom Peace, belongs.” (Midrash Shir Ha-Shirim Rabbah, 3:1(6), Vilna ed.) (Shemonah Kevatzim, 7:112, Orot Ha-Kodesh, vol. 2, pp. 444-445).

On his return to Palestine be became, first, chief rabbi of Jerusalem, and in 1921, the co-founder, with his Sephardi colleague Yaacov Meir, of the Chief Rabbinate. What was for the British an extension of established colonial policy of delegating religious services and some legal jurisdiction to local religious authorities was for him an opening to institutions that would gradually reshape the law into a new Torah for a redeemed Eretz Yisrael. He hoped to create institutions that would move the historical progression forward, creating the halakha and institutions to guide the great changes to come.

The reality was more complicated. That which made him the obvious choice to head the Rabbinate and indispensable to the burgeoning project of building the Jewish national home – his mix of erudition and piety, his engagements with modern thought and culture, a deeply conciliatory personality and a theology and historical perspective to make that conciliation the basis of a new philosophy – his ability to square seemingly incommensurate circles, left him out of the political mix and unable to make headway on his most prized projects, the new Rabbinate and bringing the Zionist movement into deep dialogue with Judaism.

It all came to a head in 1933 with the murder of the general secretary of Ben-Gurion’s Mapai party, Chaim Arlosoroff. Suspicion fell on Jabotinsky’s Revisionists, who had been doing rhetorical and sometimes physical battle with Mapai over its willingness to negotiate Jewish immigration with Hitler, and several were arrested. Rav Kook himself had never affiliated with a party, or even formally joined the Zionist movement as such. But once convinced of the Revisionists’ innocence, Rav Kook threw himself and all his stature into their defense. The accused were exonerated, but his ties to the Left were irrevocably broken.

The ultra-Orthodox, for their part, throughout his Jerusalem years, saw him as their gravest foe and attacked him relentlessly, even while on his deathbed, and after.

The ensuing decades saw growing interest in Rav Kook’s teachings and their significance. The thousands of pages of his diaries were edited and published, in different series, by his disciple “ha-Rav ha-Nazir,” David Cohen (see here) and by Rav Kook’s son, Zvi Yehudah.

The latter eventually assumed the deanship of his father’s yeshiva, renamed Mercaz Ha-Rav, and in the late 1960s and early ‘70s became spiritual leader of the new vanguard of Religious Zionists.

When in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 religious Zionists decided to capture the flag and lay hold, not only of the hilltops of Judea and Samaria but of the Zionist movement as a whole, they were taking the religious language that Labor Zionism had made into a functional tool for a political program and re-infuse it with its classical religious meaning. And they did so, with the conceptual tools provided them by Zvi Yehudah, in his interpretation of his father.

The central question for Zvi Yehudah, his own successors, and for his and their critics within Religious Zionism, (most notably Rav Yehudah Amital) was what his father would have said, and how his ideas ought to be interpreted. It’s hard to think of another Jewish theologian whose legacy has been as consequential as AvrahamYitzhak ha-Kohen Kook.

Those arguments continue in present-day Israel, where new volumes by and about Rav Kook, academic, sectarian and popular, continue to be published at a dizzying pace year after year. The publication in recent years of his diaries in their original form has heightened interest in him, while showing the depth of his immersion in Kabbalah, and the depths he was plumbing in his own complicated soul. He simultaneously embraced both universalism and particularism with rare vehemence. He saw genuine revelation in the spiritual life of all peoples, and in the very body of Israel, whose unique collective vocation was the salvation of mankind. He affirmed both pragmatism and utopia, or in his terms, sagacity and prophecy. The common thread to this entire way of thinking is the dialectic, a principled appreciation of complexity, and the ways in which precisely that complexity, that coincidence of opposites, is that which gives birth, slowly, to whatever it is that we can know of truth.

The last day of his life was the third day of Elul, sixteen years to the day since his arrival, after the Great War, in Jerusalem. He had been ailing with cancer for months and gone to the then-suburb of Kiryat Moshe. In his last days he’d received a number of visitors, including a disciple of the Rebbe of Munkacs, come to query Rav Kook’s support for the Zionists, and the young rabbi and theologian, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, who was visiting from America on what would be his only visit to the Land of Israel (see here). And, after asking his physician how long he had left to live, did his best to read through the Mishna, Bible and Bahya ibn Paquda’s eleventh-century classic, Duties of the Heart, one last time.

On the first day of Elul, the penitential month, Ha-Nazir had brought him the elegantly designed title page of the theological compendium he’d wrought out of the spiritual diaries, to be entitled, “Light of the Holy,” Orot Ha-Kodesh. Rav Kook wept and asked that on the title page he be referred to simply as “Rav” and nothing more. He was surrounded by treasured rabbinic colleagues – Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, Rav Yechiel Michel Tukachinsky, Rav Aryeh Levine – and Ha-Nazir stood in the courtyard downstairs, his face buried in a tree. At the very end, Rav Kook’s lips were moving. His disciple and soul-mate, Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap leaned over him, and heard him say, “Even now, my hope in God doesn’t falter.”

Rav Kook turned his face to the wall as the attending physician rinsed the blood from his body, and once his visitors re-entered the room, he faced them all once again. They began to say the Shema together, and he joined them on the final word, “Echad / one.”

More on R. Kook’s Recently Published Writings

More on R. Kook’s Recently Published Writings

by Marc B. Shapiro

In my post here here I mentioned that R. Kook argued that there is good reason to observe mitzvot even if one does not have a traditional view of the Torah’s authorship. On the one hand, there is nothing surprising in this. After all, would anyone tell a non-Orthodox Jew that it is OK if he eats on Yom Kippur?[1] R. Kook’s originality is therefore not seen in the bottom line, but in the argument he uses.[2] He notes that Maimonides and other medieval greats used arguments that they themselves did not accept in order to make religious points. For example, Maimonides used an argument that assumed the eternity of matter in order to prove the existence of God.[3] This was valuable in that those who accepted the former point would also be forced to acknowledge the latter point, i.e., God’s existence. Only then could he attempt to weaken the belief in eternity. Similarly, R. Kook is prepared to argue for the binding nature of Torah law even on the assumption that it was not given to Moses. This is valuable since, in his day at least, it was the acceptance of biblical criticism that encouraged people to give up the observance of mitzvot. If R. Kook can therefore show that even an acceptance of biblical criticism does not mean that there is no place for mitzvot, it will be a great achievement.[4]

R. Kook notes that traditional Jews observe rabbinic laws and even customs. His point is that these are regarded as valuable and help form the religious personality Yet no one believes that they were given to Moses by God. Why, then, should believers in biblical criticism not feel bound to other laws, which while traditionally seen as from Sinai, can also be regarded as rabbinic or even as customs (“folkways” in Mordecai Kaplan’s language). In other words, the mitzvot should be seen as having value regardless of their origin.

I have to say, however, that the weakness in R. Kook’s argument should be apparent. For those who accept the entire system, it makes sense that on top of the divinely revealed Torah laws, that rabbinic laws and customs are also added. But if one rejects the basis of Torah law, then the other two components simply fall away.

R. Kook picks up with his theme in a later passage.[5] Before dealing with the matter of biblical criticism, he briefly discusses the so-called dispute between science and Torah that caused so much difficulty in his day. In a passage that is very similar to one that appears in his letter to Moshe Seidel,[6] R. Kook explains that the Torah makes use of the “science” of its day, and writes about such matters in a simple and understandable fashion. The Torah makes no attempt at scientific accuracy (which would not have been understandable in earlier days). As R. Uri Sharki, a follower of R. Kook, puts it, the creation story (which contains great secrets) is presented in the language of myth בסגנון המיתי.[7] Most people today who have examined the matter accept this approach, but since the average person does not understand what myth is (seeing it as synonymous with fairy tale or legend), you don’t have a typical Orthodox rabbi using this language in his sermon on parashat Bereshit.

I have discussed this matter in detail in an earlier post here so there is no need to repeat what I have already said. Let me only add that the use of the term “science” in this context is not really accurate. What R. Kook is discussing is the early history of the universe, knowledge of which we have arrived at by means of science. R. Kook is saying that we should not treat the Torah’s descriptions as “history”, as that is not the Torah’s purpose. As I have pointed out in the post mentioned above, I believe that R. Kook’s approach was not only intended to answer problems dealing with the first chapters of Genesis but with any problems that might arise between what historians conclude and what appears to be the peshat in the Torah, e.g., the lifespans recorded in Scripture, the description of the Flood, and the huge number of people who took part in the Exodus, to mention just a few that are often discussed.[8]

Following this matter, R. Kook returns to the issue of Torah mi-Sinai. He states that even if one believes that the Torah was written after Moses or that the text has been corrupted, this does not affect his obligation to observe the mitzvot, since the acceptance of the Torah was dependent on its acceptance by the nation. Therefore, an individual cannot remove himself from this group. This is no different than a host of other matters where we say that an individual cannot choose a separate path from that which was decided by the group.[9]

Regarding the revelation of the Torah, it is important to also cite R. Kook’s words in Shemonah Kevatzim 1:633, about which an entire post could be written. I ask readers to focus carefully on the implications of what he says.

There is denial that is like an affirmation of faith, and an affirmation of faith akin to denial. A person can affirm the doctrine of the Torah coming from “heaven”, but with the meaning of “heaven” so strange that nothing of true faith remains. And a person can deny Torah coming from “heaven” where the denial is based on what the person has absorbed of the meaning of “heaven” from people full of ludicrous thoughts. Such a person believes that the Torah comes from a source higher than that! . . . Although that person may not have reached the point of truth, nonetheless this denial is to be considered akin to an affirmation of faith. . . . “Torah from Heaven” is but an example for all affirmations of faith, regarding the relationship between their expression in language and their inner essence, the latter being the main desideratum of faith.[10]

Since we are speaking about R. Kook, let me also call attention to a few more significant passages in the newly published Li-Nevokhei ha-Dor. I previously referred to this text which a few years ago was somehow illegally placed online. In 2014 R. Shahar Rahmani published the work with notes, and it is to this edition that everyone should now refer. In studying Li-Nevokhei ha-Dor, readers should remember that it was written before R. Kook came to the Land of Israel.

In chapter 13 R. Kook acknowledges that in a future era, when we will have a Sanhedrin, there will be a need for new derashot in halakhah, which will respond to the then current circumstances, something we at present cannot do. In this future era people will no longer be able to complain, as they do now, that the rabbinic obligations are not suitable for the current time. This is an acknowledgment that there are indeed aspects of rabbinic law that should, and will, be changed. But R. Kook falls back on the procedural problem of doing this prematurely, before the mechanism to do so exists (i.e., the Sanhedrin).

I have no reason to assume that R. Kook is speaking about the messianic era, since he does not mention this, instead writing about the “far off future”. Had he intended the messianic era, he would have said so. What this means is that when the Jews are once again dwelling in their land there is a possibility for the revival of a living halakhah, by means of a Sanhedrin which would create derashot. See, e.g., these two sentences, where he responds to suggestions by those living in Europe to alter halakhah. He insists that no changes in halakhah can take place at present, but it is significant that he does not mention the messianic era (and note the positive way he describes the רגש of the advocates of halakhic change). In other words, while haredim push off all such talk to the messianic era, R. Kook is not bound by such conservatism and could imagine halakhic change via a Sanhedrin in the pre-messianic era as well.

אבל הרוצה לדחוק את הקץ, ולהתנהג בדרישות שאנו חייבים ויכולים לקיימן רק בהיותינו בבית חיינו, גם לעת פזורינו ודלדולינו, ופורץ גדר של המרכז הלאומי הנשגב, התלמוד וחתימתו, בשביל קורת רוח של חיי שעה ודרישת אסתתיקא זמנית, הוא מחליף עולם קיים בעולם עובר בכלל האומה ומביא אנדרולומוסיא לעולם

ידעתי אמנם שהדעה הנשאה הזאת תוכל להיות למפגע לקלי דעת החפצים לדחוק את הקץ ורודפים את העתיד הרחוק בלא זמנו, אלה הם השועלים המחבלים, שאף שהרגשתם היא הרגשה רוממה ונעלה, אבל רוחם אינו רוח שוקט הראוי לכל איש ישר היודע את אשר לפניו

The future Sanhedrin will be able not only to overturn talmudic halakhot, but it will also be able uproot Torah laws if it finds it necessary. R. Kook further tells us that if the Sanhedrin is able to change our understanding of a biblical law by means of a derashah, it is not even to be regarded as an “uprooting.” It is by means of derashot that the Sanhedrin would be able to permanently alter the way of Torah observance. Consider for example the matter of women not being accepted as witnesses for certain matters. Rather than using apologetics to explain this to contemporary women, R. Kook’s approach allows people to say that indeed, this can be changed by a future Sanhedrin by means of a new derashah, but that today there can be no change since we do not have the mechanism to do so. The matter is thus turned into a technical problem rather than an ideological one.[11]

R. Kook also elaborates on the idea that the closing of the Talmud was a historical phenomenon brought on by the difficulties of the galut. But the Jewish people only accepted such a closure until the time that they returned to their land and the nation was once again rejuvenated.

Chapter 13 of Li-Nevokhei ha-Dor can stand alone as an essay. It is a very important statement of how R. Kook understood Jewish law, and I hope someone will translate it into English. I think what R. Kook was talking about is the same thing later advocated by R. Eliezer Berkovits, although I am not claiming that R. Kook would have supported Berkovits’ ideas as practical in our time. However, the concept that Berkovits was speaking about, of an Eretz Yisrael halakhah, is exactly what R. Kook had in mind.[12]

If this wasn’t enough, R. Kook has more to say in chapter 13. He discusses how the great stress on Talmud study in recent centuries has brought much that is positive to the Jewish people. However, he also notes the downside of this single-minded focus on Talmud study, a criticism that (for those who accept it) would be even more applicable in our day. He says that this focus on Talmud study has led to a weakness of the body for many students, a point already known from Orot. He also states that the Talmud-only curriculum has led people to be unaware of those secular studies that are indeed essential.[13]

חסרון המדעים הנחוצים לאדם באשר הוא אדם

Most interesting, however, is the additional problem R. Kook sees with the exclusive focus on Talmud study. He says that it has led to ethical problems, problems that arise when people spend their time focused only on halakhic details without seeing the broader picture, that of the heart which cannot be encompassed in halakhic details but only in a broad ethical vision.

וגם חסרונות מוסריים שבאו לרגלי התיחדות העסק השכלי רק בפרטי ודקדוקי הלכות מאין שם לב לרגשי לב והגיוני מוסר כלליים

R. Kook is quick to point out that it is not the study of Talmud per se that is responsible for the problem he mentions, but rather the single-minded focus on Talmud to the exclusion of all else, meaning that there is no room for secular studies, physical exercise, and exposure to the larger ethical teachings of the Torah.

אמנם כל המגרעות האלה לא באו לנו מצד השקידה על למוד התלמוד וקיומו, כי אם מצד ההפרזה הקיצונית על שלא הנחנו מקום לחלקי החינוך האחרים להכשרת החכמות והמדעים, לחוזק הגוף, להרחבת הדעה וההגיון המוסרי שבתורה, שעל זה כבר צוחו גם כן גדולי הדורות, ומקוצר רוח לא היה להם שומע

For good measure R. Kook adds that extremism, be it in actions or beliefs, is always bad for us.

והנטיה הקיצונית היא לעולם מכאבת בנו כל חלקה טובה, הקיצוניות בחינוך ובמעשים וכמו כן הקיצוניות בדעות

I will continue with more from Li-Nevokhei ha-Dor in future posts, but for now I would like to add one more comment about R. Kook. At least one reader is upset that I haven’t focused on R. Kook’s halakhic and talmudic writings, as he thinks that this is the main aspect of R. Kook, while his philosophical writings were only done on the side, as it were. This exact same point has been made with regard to R. Soloveitchik. That is, people have criticized certain academics for portraying the Rav as primarily a philosopher for whom his talmudic studies were a secondary element. In this case the criticism is certainly correct, as when it came to the Rav his talmudic studies were the main focus and it was his philosophical writings that were secondary.

Yet this is not the case when it comes to R. Kook. It is true that he was a great posek, however this was not where his heart was. In his inner essence he was a thinker and kabbalist, not a talmudist or halakhist. This is not just my own speculation. R. Kook himself said as much to both R. Reuven Margaliyot and R. Moshe Zvi Neriyah. Here is what he told R. Neriyah:[14]

שעה שחפץ היה הפילוסוף קנט להנפש מקצת ממחקריו הפילוסיפיים, עסק בגיאוגרפיה. וכך היה אומר: “מחמת שאני איש האבסטרקים, חש אני הרגשת-נופש וחילוף כחות כשאני מעיין בדברים מוצקים כגון: הר, נחל, עיר כפר וכדומה,” אף אני כך – ציין הרב – הרי אני מטבעי איש המחשבה והרגש, אולם בבואי להנפש, אני עוסק בהלכה ואני חש שרגלי עומדות על קרקע מוצק.

R. Kook told R. Margaliyot the same thing:[15]

מטבעי “בעל מחשבות” אנכי ושורש נשמתי היא “המחשבה”, וכשאני זקוק למנוחה והחלפת כוח הנני מתעסק בהלכה.

See also my post here where I discuss R. Kook’s belief that the nitty-gritty of halakhic study can have a negative effect on great people’s spiritual life.

All that I have just mentioned is far removed from R. Soloveitchik’s understanding of the role of halakhic study and its place in his own spiritual personality.[16]

Based on what I have cited, we can also reject what Hillel Goldberg has written in a generally very positive review of Yehudah Mirsky’s new book on R. Kook.

R. Kook’s status as a major halakhic decisor was not just something added onto an already impressive resume. It was not just one more remarkable thing he did. It was of his essence. And the elevation and illumination it entailed were of a piece with, perhaps even a spur to – certainly not in opposition to – the strivings of his soul.[17]

These are very nice words by Goldberg, but the problem is that they are contradicted by none other than R. Kook himself who denies that halakhic study is “of his essence” and confesses that halakhic study was at times indeed in opposition to “the strivings of his soul.”

In previous posts I have quoted all sorts of amazing passages from R. Kook, and here is another one. It appears in Shemonah Kevatzim 2:34.

At the beginning of the passage R. Kook refers to those special tzaddikim who do not need to learn Torah or pray on a regular basis. (When he speaks of learning Torah he is referring to traditional talmudic learning.) That there are some individuals who are so close to God that they don’t need to learn is not that surprising, as one can find the idea in certain hasidic texts that learning Talmud removes one from devekut with God. Some hasidic texts also state that the tzaddik does not need to heed the proper times of prayer, as he is above time. Yet I don’t know if there are any hasidic texts that go as far as R. Kook in assuming that that since the tzaddik is so closely connected to God that he can go for weeks without praying. I assume all this was only theoretical for R. Kook. I stress this since when one studies the totality of his writings it is obvious that R. Kook includes himself among the special tzaddikim he speaks of.

Now look at how this passage appears in Arpilei Tohar,[18] p. 16.

The words לפי מדרגתם have been added to the original. This entirely alters the passage’s meaning, turning it on its head. R. Kook is now saying that there are tzaddikim who only rarely need to learn or pray at their special level (meaning that on a daily basis they learn and pray at a lower level, like everyone else). This alteration completely removes the antinomian sense of the passage, since one reading Arpilei Tohar will have no way of knowing that in the original text R. Kook’s point was that the tzaddikim only rarely need to learn or pray at all.

There has been a great deal of discussion about the changes made in Arpilei Tohar, and how they subverted R. Kook’s original intent. In this example, however, it was R. Kook himself who made the change,[19] obviously because he regarded his initial formulation as too provocative to appear in print.

Returning to the matter of Torah mi-Sinai, I was recently asked the following question. In Genesis 46:23 it says ובני דן חושים. “And the sons of Dan: Hushim.”[20] Many commentators discuss why it says “the sons” and not “the son”, since only one son is mentioned.[21] We find the same issue in 1 Chronicles 2:7-8 where it states ובני כרמי and ובני איתן but in each case only one son is listed. The Malbim wrote a commentary on Chronicles entitled Yemei Kedem. In this commentary, ibid., he explains that Carmi and Eitan had more sons, but Ezra, the author of Chronicles, was simply copying this information from an earlier source and only gave the name of the son that was important for his purposes. However, he kept the earlier part of the sentence, which mentions “sons”, and in the original source from which he was quoting other sons’ names also appeared.

Say what you will about this explanation, there is nothing radical in it. However, following this the Malbim says that the phenomenon he just described also explains the verse in Gen. 46:23: ובני דן חושים as well as the verse in Num. 26:8: ובני פלוא אליאב. That is, there were other sons but “he” only included the names that were important for his purpose.[22]

The questioner wondered, who is the “he” that the Malbim is referring to? Is it possible that he has Ezra in mind? I find this most unlikely, as everything that I know about the Malbim argues against the notion that he could have thought that Ezra had a role in the writing of the Torah. This leads me to assume that when the Malbim writes ולא חשיב רק הצריך לו לענינו that he is referring to Moses, and saying that just like Ezra only included the information that he needed, so too Moses chose to leave off the additional names since it wasn’t important for the story he was telling. This preserves complete Mosaic authorship, which I believe the Malbim genuinely affirmed (i.e., I don’t think he is hinting to a more radical view here).

Some will still see the Malbim’s explanation as problematic in that it assumes that Moses independently made choices about what to include in the Torah. But in truth, even from a traditional perspective this is not problematic, and no different from the many other sources that speak of Moses formulating passages in the Torah on his own. As I pointed out in Limits, p. 113, the traditional view has always been that God’s imprimatur, as it were, was later given to those words originally stated by Moses on his own. So too the Malbim would say that while Moses originally chose what to include here, when the Torah was later given to the Children of Israel this was done at God’s direction, and this is what sanctified the text. So there is really nothing radical about what the Malbim is saying.[23]

Regarding the Malbim, R. Mordechai E. Feuerstein shares the following from R. Soloveitchik.[24]

He told me about the Malbim, the great Torah commentator, who in 1834 paid a visit to the Chasam Sofer in Pressburg. The Malbim was a younger person, about twenty-five years old at that time, while the Chasam Sofer was at the zenith of his career, one of the greatest rabbanim of the 19th century and of the whole period of the Acharonim. The Chasam Sofer accorded much honor to the Malbim, seating him on his right side at the Shabbos table, enabling them to speak together at greater length.

Apparently, after the Shabbos-day meal, the Malbim was so engrossed in what he had heard from the Chasam Sofer that he wandered back to the shul, lost in thought. It was quite dark inside the empty shul, and the Malbim found a place to stand near what seemed to be a wall, and remained there in profound contemplation.

Later when the congregants began returning to shul for Mincha, they were stunned to see the Malbim standing near the aron, still deep in thought, right in the makom kavua of the Chasam Sofer! An angry murmur swept through the crowd; people were about to step forward to rebuke the Malbim when the Chasam Sofer walked in. Quickly sizing up the situation, he stopped them and said: Zol ehr blaiben shtayn (“Let him remain standing there”). The Malbim awoke from his trance and, horror-struck to discover that he had inadvertently been standing in the Chasam Sofer’s place, offered the Chasam Sofer profuse apologies, which were accepted.

For the rest of his life, the Rov told me, the Malbim used to sequester himself in a room for a period of time, right after Shabbos Mincha. Afterwards, he would emerge red-eyed from weeping. With the passage of years, he gradually came to interpret the Chasam Sofer’s words, Zol ehr blaiben shtayn as a punitive decree: Let him remain standing where he is now—his qualitative advance in Torah knowledge is over. Where he is now is where he will stay. The Malbim sensed that the divine gift of creative inspiration which he had experienced before his inadvertent slight to the honor of the Chasam Sofer, had been irrevocably taken away.

R. Hershel Schachter, Nefesh ha-Rav, pp. 251-252, also tells the story, as he heard it from R. Soloveitchik, and in his version there are some differences. To begin with, he records that the Malbim came to Pressburg to request a haskamah on his halakhic work Artzot ha-Hayyim, which the Hatam Sofer provided. According to R. Schachter’s version, the mistake happened not when the Malbim returned to the synagogue before minhah, but when he returned for maariv. Furthermore, the Malbim was not standing in the Hatam Sofer’s place, but actually sat in his seat. As he explains, this was an understandable mistake as it was dark and throughout Shabbat he has been sitting in the seat next to that of the Hatam Sofer. When one of the laypeople tried to point out to the Malbim that he was in the Hatam Sofer’s seat, the latter was so involved in his learning that he did not even realize that someone was speaking to him. It was then that the Hatam Sofer said to leave him be. From that time on the Malbim’s main area of hiddush was in the study of Tanakh but not in halakhah[25]:

וכאילו לשונו של הח”ס שאמר לו “שישאר שמה” היה מוסבת על דרגת הלימוד שלו, שלא יעלה עוד הלאה בהלכה

* * * *

I was hoping to discuss the recent political developments that revolve around R. Meir Mazuz, but I see that the post is already quite long as it is. I will therefore postpone this discussion until a future post.

[1] R. Elhanan Wasserman suggests that it makes no difference if a non-believer fulfills a mitzvah since he does not believe in the concept of mitzvot. See R. Elhanan’s Kovetz Ma’amarim ve-Iggerot (Jerusalem, 2000), vol. 1, p. 96. However, this does not mean that R. Elhanan would actually tell a non-believer that he can violate the Torah, and I am certain that he would encourage him to fulfill mitzvot, as a means of kiruv.

[2] See Kevatzim mi-Ketav Yad Kodsho, pp. 125-12.6

[3] See his addition to the Fourth Principle, found in the Kafih edition of Perush ha-Mishnah, Sanhedrin, introduction to ch. 10 (p. 142), Guide 1:71.

[4] In Yehudah Mirsky’s fantastic new book (which deserves all the accolades it has received), Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution (New Haven, 2014), p. 38, he writes: “He [R. Kook] suggests that one may accept the findings of biblical criticism and still keep faith with tradition.” This sentence is poorly formulated as it implies that R. Kook thought that biblical criticism was acceptable. Yet this is not true, as all R. Kook was saying is that even if one unfortunately does accept the falsehoods of biblical criticism, this does not mean that he should then discard Torah observance.

[5] Kevatzim mi-Ketav Yad Kodsho, p. 133.

[6] See Iggerot ha-Re’iyah, vol. 2, no. 478.

[7] See here. R. Chaim Navon apparently approves of Cassutto’s contention that the Torah incorporates pagan mythological conceptions, such as the taninim referred to in Genesis 1:21. See Navon, “The Torah and Ancient Near Eastern Culture,” available here.

[8] Regarding non-historical understandings of the Torah, let me call attention to an unpublished medieval work, falsely attributed to Ramban, entitled Zekhut Adam ha-Rishon. A selection of it is published in Adolf Jellinek’s edition of Ramban’s Torat ha-Shem Temimah (Leipzig, 1853), pp. 39-40. (This text I print below is not included in the second edition of Torat ha-Shem Temimah that Jellinek published in Vienna in 1873.)

I have not seen any discussion of Zekhut Adam ha-Rishon among modern scholars. This work advocates taking the narrative sections of the Torah literally, including the Cain and Abel episode. However, when סברא האנושית הישרה tells us that the text is not to be taken literally, then it is time to offer a non-literal interpretation, for the Torah does not require us to believe things that are impossible or מהתלות which I would translate as “absurdities”:

חובה עלינו שנבין ונקבל כל תרי”ג מצות על פשוטיהם כמו שעשו אבותינו כאמרו כל אשר דבר ה’ נעשה, לכן כל הנביאים כולם היו שומרים מצות התורה ועושים אותן לפי דרך המצווה, הם עשיית הפסח בימי חזקיהו וככה בימי עזרא, ועל כולם היו מזהירים באמרו זכרו תורת משה עבדי ובזה אין חולק ואין מדחה חלילה, אבל הספורים הרומזים או הנבואיים אשר אין מצוה תלויה בהם דין אחר, וזה כי אם סברא האנושית הישרה לא תבגוד [צ”ל תנגוד] ותקביל לספור ההוא אין ראוי לנו שנתן לו ציון וחקוי דמוי או המשל אבל ראוי שנבינהו על פשוטו כמדרגת ספור עניני האבות, כמו נצחון אברהם את המלכים וספור הריגת משה רבינו ע”ה את המצרי, כי הספורים האלם [צ”ל האלה] יגידו הענינים אשר קרו בימים ההם ומה לנו לתור אחריהם חקוי ודמוי, ומזה המין הוא אצלי הפירקין והכל [צ”ל בפ’ קין והבל], אבל כאשר ימצא ספור מה בתורה אשר הסברא האנושית הישרה תחלוק עליו, ותספק בו בצדדים ודרכים עיוניים אמיתיים, ראוי שנעזב הפשט מהספור ההוא ונתן לו ציור או דוגמה מה, כי לא בא התורה להכריחנו להאמין נמנעות או מהתלות חלילה, כי תורת ה’ תמימה מחכימת פתי

[9] See also R. Kook, Eder ha-Yekar, pp. 38-39. Regarding Torah mi-Sinai, and how some segments of the Modern Orthodox world have begun to accept aspects of Higher Criticism, see my post here.

In that post I wrote: “In the next installment of this series I will present further evidence that in some parts of the Modern Orthodox world the old taboo against Higher Criticism has begun to fade.” I have decided to incorporate this further material into an academic article. Once this appears, I will summarize matters on the Seforim Blog. But in the meantime, let me offer the following interesting example relevant to the wider subject (called to my attention by a reader).

Ba’al ha-Turim to Lev. 1:1 states that because Moses was so modest, he did not want to write the word ויקרא, but instead ויקר which implies happenstance. God however told him that that he should also include the aleph at the end of the word, so Moses wrote this letter smaller than the other letters. In other words, this was done independently by Moses, without being told to do so by God. (The comment of Ba’al ha-Turim in the standard Mikraot Gedolot humashim is abridged. The entire comment can be seen in R. Yaakov Koppel Reinitz’s edition [Jerusalem, 1996]).

R. Akiva Eger, Teshuvot, Mahadura Kamma, Orah Hayyim no. 75, summarizes the Ba’al ha-Turim as follows:

שמשה רבינו ברוב ענותנותו לא רצה לכתוב אלא ויקר ואמר לו הקב”ה לכתוב בא’ זעירא

R. Akiva Eger summarizes Ba’al ha-Turim as saying that when Moses did not want to write the word ויקרא, God told him to write the word with a small aleph. Yet this is not what Ba’al ha-Turim says. According to Ba’al ha-Turim, Moses made this decision on his own. The abridged version of the commentary available to R. Eger reads:

ואמר לו הקב”ה לכתוב גם באל”ף וכתבה קטנה

The complete version printed by Reinitz reads

ואמר לו הקב”ה לכתוב גם האל”ף ושוב אמר לו משה מחמת רוב ענוה שלא יכתבנה אלא קטנה יותר משאר אלפי”ן שבתורה וכתבה

The person who alerted me to this assumes that this is a form of censorship, i.e., for dogmatic reasons R. Akiva Eger altered what Ba’al ha-Turim wrote. I think it is more likely that when he wrote his responsum he did not bother to check the actual words of Ba’al ha-Turim and simply misremembered, and thus unintentionally altered Ba’al ha-Turim’s explanation so that the provocative element was removed.

In the forthcoming article I will deal not merely with biblical criticism, but also with those who assume that the Torah is not necessarily teaching historical truths. One such example is R. Shlomo Riskin’s Oct. 14, 2014 devar Torah, available here After telling us that the Torah is “not interested in conveying literal and chronological facts in its story of creation,” R. Riskin writes:

Maimonides, in his Guide for the Perplexed, interprets all of the early biblical stories until the advent of Abraham as allegories, whose purpose is to convey moral lessons rather than historical fact.

What R. Riskin says about Maimonides is simply incorrect, as Maimonides does not say what he attributes to him. However, R. Riskin does reflect a common sentiment in the Modern Orthodox world that the first eleven chapters of Genesis (i.e., up until Abraham) are not to be understood as “history” in the way we think of it today. (Yet contrary to his point, other than the Garden of Eden story, I don’t think that there are many who would regard any of the other stories in the early Genesis chapters as allegories.)

It will be the task of Modern Orthodox theologians to explain why it not problematic to regard Gen. 1-11 as (prophetic) myth, and at the same time to insist that the events dealing with the Patriarchs are to be regarded as historical. Why the distinction?

R. Kook already stated that when it comes to determining which portions of the Torah’s narrative section should be taken literally, this is something that is left to the “clear feeling of the nation”. He also acknowledges, as I have mentioned already, that the Torah’s descriptions could be in line with how matters were understood in ancient times, which need not be historically or scientifically accurate. See Iggerot ha-Re’iyah, vol. 2, p. 119:

ואם אין כל יחיד יכול להציב גבול מדויק בין מה שהוא בדרך משל בתורה ובין מה שהוא ממשי, —בא החוש הבהיר של האומה בכללה ומוצא לו את נתיבותיו לא בראיות בודדות כי-אם בטביעות-עין כללית. ואם נמצא בתורה כמה דברים, שחושבים אחרים שהם לפי המפורסם מאז, שאינו מתאים עם החקירה של עכשו, הלא אין אנו יודעים כלל אם יש אמת מוחלטת בחקירה הזמנית, ואם יש בה אמת, ודאי יש גם מטרה חשובה וקדושה שלצרכה הוצרכו הדברים לבא בתיאור המפורסם ולא המדויק.

As with the matter of biblical criticism, R. Kook believed that there could be a source of spiritual growth and value even in the mistaken view that none of the stories recorded in the Torah are historical. See Iggerot ha-Re’iyah, vol. 1, pp. 48-49:

שמא כל החלק הספורי שבתורה, אומרים הם, איננו כ”א דברי אגדה ולא דברים שבפועל . . . ונאמר להם: אחים, אם כדבריכם, —דברי אגדה, שכ”כ הם יכולים לפעול לטובה ולברכה, לתקות עולמים ולמוסר השכל, הם כ”כ יקרים ונכבדים עד שהנם ממש דברי אלקים חיים, והם ראויים שכל מה שנעוץ בזכרונם יהי נשמר בכבוד ואהבה רבה. זה לא יספיק להחיות לגמרי בכל המילוי, אבל יספיק לפתח פתח, להסיר את הבוז והשנאה, את המאיסה והבחילה, מכל אשר ליהדות, ג”כ בלבם של הבנים הרחוקים.

Both of these sources from R. Kook have been cited by Tamar Ross in various publications, and I will deal with her position in my forthcoming article.

[10] Translation in Jerome (Yehuda) Gellman, “Judaism and Buddhism”, in Alon Goshen-Gottstein and Eugene Korn, eds. Jewish Theology and World Religions (Oxford, 2012), p. 315.

[11] See here where I discussed R. Kook’s suggestion that the future Sanhedrin could come up with new derashot to put an end to the practice of animal sacrifice.

[12] See my “Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits’s Halakic Vision for the Modern Age,” Shofar 31 (Summer 2013), pp. 16-36.

[13] R. Zvi Yehudah Kook stated that working the Land of Israel was the equivalent kiddush ha-shem as studying in yeshiva. See Hilah Wolberstein, Mashmia Yeshuvah (Merkaz Shapira, 2010), p. 248.

[14] Neriyah, Likutei ha-Re’iyah, vol. 1, p. 427.

[15] Quoted in R. Ze’ev Aryeh Rabiner, Or Mufla (Tel Aviv, 1972), p. 80.

[16] In my post here I wrote: “There are, of course, many other differences between R. Soloveitchik and R. Kook. From the excerpt printed in The Rav Thinking Aloud, pp. 155-156, we see that the Rav regarded R. Kook as a saintly figure, but not as an intellectual great. Yet this impression was derived from one short conversation. All the gedolim who knew R. Kook had the exact opposite impression. They correctly saw that R. Kook was a master of the entire Torah, in all of its facets. I think you have to go back to Maharal, or perhaps even Nahmanides, to find such a wide-ranging Torah scholar as R. Kook.”

In addition to what I wrote, readers should be aware that R. Kook was quite ill when R. Soloveitchik spoke to him.

Here are the pages from R. David Holzer, The Rav Thinking Aloud.

When The Rav Thinking Aloud was reprinted, what I refer to was deleted. Here is how it looks in the currently available edition.

Regarding how R. Soloveitchik viewed R. Kook, R. Ezra Bick called my attention to his important comments from 1959 available here beginning at minute 10.

While R. Soloveitchik might not have been intellectually impressed by R. Kook after his one meeting with him, R. Kook saw in R. Soloveitchik the continuation of his grandfather, R. Hayyim. Because of this, R. Zvi Yehudah Kook made a point of attending all of the shiurim delivered by R. Soloveitchik when he was in Eretz Yisrael. Here is the recollection of R. Avraham Shapira, from Siah Ish (published with his Hag ha-Sukot [Jerusalem, 2012), p. 123.

In my previously mentioned post I wrote, “I think you have to go back to Maharal, or perhaps even Nahmanides, to find such a wide-ranging Torah scholar as R. Kook.” Subsequent to writing this I saw that R. Simhah Assaf, in his eulogy at R. Kook’s funeral, stated as follows (Zohar Elyon [Jerusalem, 2011], pp. 25-26):

ממהר”ל מפראג לא קם כמוך, איש המוח והלב הגדול והרגיש. איש הרגש והמחשבה, יושב אוהל ושקוע בתורה ויחד עם זה איש המעשה, שידע ללכת לפני העם.

Since I mentioned R. Ezra Bick, let me also note the following. In an earlier post from March 11, 2013, available here, the following appears:

In my post of January 13, 2013, I wrote: “R. Meir Schiff (Maharam Schiff) is unique in believing that one without arms should put the tefillin shel yad on the head, together with the tefillin shel rosh. This is the upshot of his comment to Gittin 58a.” I saw this comment of Maharam Schiff many years ago, and unfortunately did not examine it carefully before adding this note. As R. Ezra Bick has correctly pointed out, Maharam Schiff is not speaking about wearing tefillin shel yad on the head to fulfill the mitzvah, but only stating that this is a respectful way to carry the tefillin shel yad if you have to remove it from your arm. This has no relevance to what I wrote about someone without arms (unless he has to carry the tefillin shel yad).

Yet I have now seen the following responsum of R. Jacob Meskin in his Even Yaakov: Rosh ha-Shanah (New York, 1954), no. 55 (p. 101a), who indeed derives from the Maharam Schiff that one can fulfill the mitzvah of the tefillin shel yad by putting it on one’s head.

[17] “Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of a Revolution,” Tradition 47:3 (2014), p. 71.

[18] The title of R. Kook’s work is ערפלי טהר. How is one to pronounce the first word? I write Arpilei since in my experience this is how it is pronounced in Religious Zionist circles. It also appears this way in some machzorim (mussaf of Rosh ha-Shanah, at the beginning of Shofarot, in the paragraph (אתה נגלית. Most importantly (to me at least) is that R. Meir Mazuz states that the word is pronounced this way. See Ha-Mahzor Ha-Meduyak: Rosh ha-Shanah, at the end of לאוקמי גירסא which is found at the beginning of the volume. He sees ערפל (segol under the peh) as parallel to כרמל (segol under the mem). In Isaiah 1:18 the latter word appears as וכרמלו, with a hirik under the mem.

Others write Arpelei, with a sheva under the peh, and intuitively this is what most would assume. This is also how the word is vocalized by R. Seraya Deblitzky, Tikun Tefilah (Bnei Brak, 2010), vol. 2, p. 27, and by the ArtScroll machzor. Wolf Heidenheim, Philip Birnbaum, and Daniel Goldschmidt, in their editions of the machzor, place a patah under the ayin and under the peh. They also do not put a dagesh in the peh, so ערפלי is pronounced Arfalei. Heidenheim explains some of his reasoning in the Rodelheim Machzor (1872), p. 63b, and says that his vocalization is “without any doubt the correct version”.

Regarding the words ערפלי טהר, it is also worth noting that in Bereshit Rabbah 99:3 the following words appear: ערפלא טורא. When I first saw this I thought that there must be some connection to the Rosh ha-Shanah prayer, and this is indeed noted by Matenot Kehunah, ad loc. Yet the truth is that none of the commentaries really know what to make of these words, and it would appear to be a corrupt text. See Albeck’s note in his edition of Bereshit Rabbah, vol. 3, p. 1275.

[19] See Omer Silber, ‘Ha’arafel be-Taharato,” Ma’galim, 5 (2007), p. 311.

[20] חושים is written defective in the Torah.

[21] In Bereshit Rabbah 46:26 it states:

בתורתו של ר’ מאיר מצאו כתוב ובן דן חשים

This apparently means that R. Meir’s Torah scroll differered from the current Masoretic text. However, many traditional commentators assume that it is only referring to a note that R. Meir added to his personal copy of the Torah or to a book of his commentaries on the Torah.

[22] The book of Jubilees must have also been troubled by the plural ובני דן, as it provides us with the names of Dan’s other sons and tells us that they died in the year that they entered Egypt. See Jubilees 44:28-30.

According to Sotah 10a Hushim killed Esau. However, the Jerusalem Talmud, Ketubot 1:5 and other rabbinic sources state that that Judah killed him. See S. Buber’s note to Aggadat Bereshit (Cracow, 1903), p. 160 n. 14. Tosafot, Gittin 55a s.v. bihudah, tries to reconcile the conflicting sources, but there are difficulties with this reconciliation. See Buber’s note referred to above. Regarding this matter, R. Samuel Jaffe, in his classic commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud, Yefeh Mar’eh (Venice, 1590), to Ketubot 1:7 (p. 264a), has quite a strange passage. In commenting on the text in the Jerusalem Talmud that Judah killed Esau, rather than note that this is disputed by the Babylonian Talmud, Jaffe writes:

וליתא דחושים בן דן הרגו ביום קבורת יעקב אבי’ ע”ה כדאי’ בפ”ק דסוטה

Has anyone ever seen this type of language – וליתא – used with reference to a talmudic source? It is one thing to use the term וליתא when rejecting a view put forward by one’s contemporary, but here Jaffe is rejecting a passage in the Jerusalem Talmud.

[23] In my post here I wrote:

In Limits of Orthodox Theology, I did not discuss the commentary of Ibn Ezra (Ex 20:1) referred to by Schonblum. That is because I assumed that he agreed with the standard medieval view that even though Moses may have written things on his own accord, when these texts were later included as part of the Torah given to the Children of Israel, this was done at God’s direction and that is what sanctified the text. I am no longer convinced of this. All Ibn Ezra says in his commentary to Ex. 20:1 is that minor variations in wording are due to Moses changing God’s original words. Nowhere in his commentary does Ibn Ezra state that Moses’ changes were ever given divine sanction.

[24] “The Rov zt”l: The Nigleh and the Nistar,” in Zev Eleff, ed., Mentor of Generations (Jersey City, N.J., 2008), pp. 262-263.

[25] For other versions of the story, see Nathan Kamenetsky, Making of a Godol (Jerusalem, 2002), vol. 2, pp. 1118ff. See also Otzrot ha-Sofer 14 (5764), for a story (really a fairy tale) about how the Malbim came to the Hatam Sofer to request a haskamah. He falsely told the Hatam Sofer that the haskamah was for a book of his teacher when it was actually for a book the Malbim wrote. When the Hatam Sofer learnt of this deception, he declared that the Malbim’s life would bring him no peace, which is indeed what would later happen.