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Rav Kook’s Guide for Today’s Perplexed-Interview with Aryeh Sklar

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Alan Brill | Leave a comment

Sunday is the 91^st yahrzeit of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. In 1904, Rabbi Kook penned a notebook where he addressed what he thought were the leading theological challenges of his day. He addressed evolution, atheism, Biblical literalism, religion and science, as well as many chapters on morality. He was not entering those fields; rather, he was offering a view of a deeper unity of the religious and secular realms. The speculations in the book push many boundaries about the Bible, science, evolution, and other religions. The manuscript has an evolutionary vision more direct, more open, and more universally utopian than the later edited volumes of his. The book remained unpublished until 2010, when it began to circulate in manuscripts. Here was my blogpost when it became known. It was later formally published as Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor.

Aryeh Sklar has done the English reader an immense service by translating this important book into English as Rav Kook’s Guide for Today’s Perplexed (Kodesh Press, 2026) as a source for contemporary Jewish thought. Rabbi Aryeh Sklar teaches Talmud and Jewish philosophy in yeshivot in Israel. He holds a BA in English Literature from Yeshiva University, and an MS in Jewish Philosophy from BRGS. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife Michal and their two sons, Avichai and Itai.

What is striking in Sklar’s translation Rav Kook’s Guide for Today’s Perplexed is that Sklar is grappling with the content of the book for the contemporary world. Sklar is asking big questions about the morality of Torah in order to create a ethical resource for today. Without being overtly political, Sklar hears in the text a strong call for morality and ethics, even an evolutionary goal of a higher morality.

The translation and notes show the enthusiasm that Sklar brings to the project. I am sure his students love the discussion he is opening. You can hear his excitement in the interview, and he is now working on translating Rabbi Kook’s Afikim ba-Negev, written in the same year.

Sklar’s moral presentation contrasts with that of Marc Shapiro’s book Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New (see our blogpost here), who was motivated by being “deeply intrigued by his unconventional views, but also because I thought others, particularly those within the Modern Orthodox community, would find them of great interest.” There, the goal was unconventionality and broadening supposed intellectual limits. Here in Sklar’s translation, the goal is to use it for a moral worldview.

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, the author of the widely accepted Peninei Halakha, series of Halakhic works, has already made this new volume of Rabbi Kook a pillar of his thinking on many topics, especially the acceptance of other religions and part of God’s plan. I have posted on Melamed’s approach. One of the weaknesses of the book is its English and Anglo focus, debating minor American opinions about Rav Kook without fully integrating the major Hebrew interpreters, both scholarly and rabbinic.

There were originally footnotes comparing Rabbi Kook to Rabbi Soloveitchik as well as notes providing parallel passages elsewhere in Rabbi Kook. They were editorially removed; let us hope for a second expanded edition. One pet peeve, the Henri Bergson term Lebensphilosophie (philosophy of life) was translated as Existential; it has been corrected in this interview)

This is a long interview, well worth printing out and reading. More importantly, the translation should enter the curriculum of Orthodox educational institutions, especially gap year programs, HS classrooms, and rabbinical training. The translation should be a required starting point for those grappling with the Jewish morality of the state. We should thank Sklar for his passion for the topic.

How did you get interested in Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor ?

I was introduced to Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor by a close teacher of mine, Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, in 2010, soon after the work had been leaked onto the internet. I had been dealing with some religious perplexity in my own life, and Rabbi Wolicki offered to study it closely with me for a full year in Israel. That was one of the most important years of my life. Through Rav Kook, I came to see that truth is larger than any single approach, and that all sides point to a center, a core, of deep unification.

I was truly impressed with Rav Kook’s willingness to confront and even accept what seemed to be unacceptable notions to Judaism and religious belief in general. Rav Kook in Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor advocates turning away from complex philosophy and turning more toward ethics.

“We need to make fundamental something that is eternal and of which no person of human character can deny; and that is morality and justice (ha-yosher ve-ha-tzedek). Morality and justice are the depth of wisdom and its foundation. Only through them can we enter into a conversation with all people, for you will not find a person who does not [feel] obliged to give morality and justice their due.” (Chapter 3)

This was a rich foundation for me to unite the varieties of religious experience I found in Orthodox Judaism. What encourages moral growth? Who focuses on it as an ideal? Can even discordant ideas, regardless of their literal “truth,” bring man closer to a higher moral plane? Eventually the book mattered to me so much that I set out to translate it and annotate it, a project that ended up taking over a decade to complete.

Rav Kook’s overarching approach was to unite all planes of existence, to hold past, present, and future together, and to insist that morality and peace are standards that must be understood and explained according to our religious outlook. Our differences, says Rav Kook, should actually be a cause for unity, not factionalism.

On Morality

2. How does he resolve the tensions of natural morality and Torah morality?

Rav Kook believed that there was really no conflict between what he called “natural morality” – the intuited ethical feelings produced by a spiritually and emotionally healthy individual, derived from the divine soul in man – and the Torah’s morality. The only conflict is practical. Sometimes, the Torah makes demands that in the short-term compromise the natural moral feeling, in pursuit of a long-term moral outcome.

Rav Kook does express concern regarding a related tension. Immanuel Kant had raised the distinction between autonomous morality, that which is internally created and self-enforced, and heteronomous morality, that which is thrust upon a person from without, often laws of society. Kant felt that heteronomous morality was a kind of enslavement. Rav Kook formulated this as a problem when “legislative morality” – Torah law – runs contrary to the internal will for natural morality. Rav Kook spends considerable time in his early writings on this (see particularly Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, ch. 22).

Rav Kook believed that this could be resolved by creating a two-tiered approach to Torah. Judaism wants to bring out the inner morality in all people, and it uses external laws to arrive at that eventual societal destination – what we might call the messianic age. Even if the individual person has already realized within themselves a high moral understanding, they must submit to the needs of building a society and not “push the end” and “cut the shoots,” to use the rabbinic terminology.

3. You mention that many of his ideas on ethics and morality contained in this book have been available for many decades in his other books and have had little effect. So what power does it have if it had 122 years with no effect?

I’m not sure how we measure the effect here. Who knows where we would be without Rav Kook’s philosophy informing the ideas of the religious Zionist world? Maybe in the alternative history we would be much worse off. But I would say that too often those who claim to follow Rav Kook in Israel follow their own beliefs instead.

4. What does Rav Kook think is appropriate speech about Arabs in Israel?

There is a letter regarding this that had a very big impact on me, so much so that back when personal blogs were a thing I translated it and put it there. The scholar Yehudah Mirsky told me in response to my post that he doesn’t think there is one word from Rav Kook that is hateful about Arabs, in all his writings.

This important letter (Igrot ha-Rayah II:398) was written in 1911 and sent to Meir Bar-Ilan, son of Rav Kook’s former rabbinic mentor, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin. Meir Bar-Ilan was the editor of a popular newspaper in the Land of Israel, Ha-Ivri, and Rav Kook contributed articles there. In the letter, Rav Kook complains that the newspaper printed a literary story that painted Arabs in an unflattering light:

“My friend, I find it a sacred duty upon myself to arouse your honor’s attention regarding the style of the depiction ‘Judah Guards the Orchard’ in issue No. 44 of ‘Ha-Ivri.’”

He talks about how descriptions of “hatred” towards “the Arab enemy,” and “rhetoric filled with a revolutionary spirit” should not be printed in the newspaper, for “it does not align with our aspirations and is not suitable for the situation at all!”

In making his case, Rav Kook focuses on practical concerns, in that there are people who read the Hebrew-language newspapers in order to find this kind of material and go on to castigate the Jews in the Land of Israel, and others will also pass it along to the Ottomans and cause political trouble for the Jews in the Land of Israel.

He concludes the letter:

Please, my friend, for the sake of the Lord, God of Israel, chosen in the Desired Land, who has begun to show us sparks of His light, from His kindness and truth, to remember His holy nation, to give it a boundary in Judah (cf. Ezra 9:9); please do not grant space in your noble newspaper for things like these, whose benefit is zero, and whose harm is immense beyond measure. On the contrary, as much as possible, we ought to describe the pleasant situations of the ways of peace and brotherhood that we find between the best of the Yishuv who act in truth, and the Arab inhabitants of the land – of course, the noblest of them.

A few months later, in 1912, Rav Kook sent another letter (Igrot ha-Rayah II:411) to Meir Bar-Ilan recommending that he speak to his friend Alexander Ziskind Rabinowitz, who could relate to him stories of “peaceful sentiments” between the Jews of the settlements and Arabs of the region.

In 1921, Rav Kook wrote a letter (Igrot ha-Rayah, vol. 4, p. 84) about how “even with the kind view (ayin tova) we take in relation to our cousins and neighbors who dwell in the land – the Arabs,” how much more so we should love our brothers, the Jews helping to build the land. The kind perspective toward their “Arab cousins” was a given for Rav Kook.

Even if someone wants to read Rav Kook’s letters here purely in pragmatic and diplomatic terms, I will respond: Well, if only the followers of Rav Kook would write letters to newspapers decrying racist descriptions of Palestinians or other groups, even just to be diplomatic! Even more so if some of them would see these letters and not engage in this kind of rhetoric themselves!

I understand that a lot of history, painful history, has happened since Rav Kook wrote those words. Would he view the situation similarly today? I believe that Rav Kook, as understood in his totality, as someone who saw true unity of all things, understood how to relate to his Arab neighbors much better than his son’s followers today. Those who disagree and think Rav Kook was naive, or too idealistic, should just come out and say it: they have a fundamentally different worldview than he did.

5. Rav Kook postpones ideal morality until the messianic age? Why do you find it satisfactory?

There are two ways to answer this. First, Rav Kook has an idea (see especially Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, chs. 10, 16, and 31) that in some generations, a certain Torah law will be difficult to grasp, especially regarding its moral nature, but a time will come when it makes perfect sense. An example he gives (in Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, ch. 16) is regarding the obligation to procreate. He writes that life in his time was extremely difficult, and it seemed in the short term that having children was an immoral act. Why, someone could argue, should we subject new life to these terrible conditions? However, he argues, if you believe in a glorious messianic future, it would be immoral not to have future generations that could take part in that fortune.

Secondly, in Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor (ch. 13), Rav Kook presents a view of the authority of the Sanhedrin that he believes even the Orthodox should accept. After all, the Sanhedrin was the Supreme Court of its time. It had tremendous power to decide the law. Rav Kook argues: if Orthodox Jews believe the Sanhedrin will be brought back in the messianic age, and it will have the ultimate power to decide the law, why wouldn’t they “update” or “reinterpret” the law where necessary according to the modern circumstances?

Thus, Rav Kook ingeniously claims, the Orthodox have the same belief as the Reform – the laws of the Torah should be subject to changing generations. The only difference is timing and authority. In the future Sanhedrin, these differences will become null and the two factions will unite, because surely the Sanhedrin will be able to see the changes of circumstances and redefine the laws as they see fit.

This theory of law and authority opens the floodgates. It’s dangerous stuff. I understand why the publishers of Rav Kook’s writings at the Institute of Rav Tzvi Yehudah (Kook), when they published Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor in Pinkasei ha-Rayah, vol. 2, decided to remove the chapter entirely. I don’t agree with doing that, but I understand the motive behind it. On the other hand, it also gives us a new way to answer questions of morality and the Torah:

If you have a problem with the morality of the law, you should eagerly await the return of the Sanhedrin. The future Sanhedrin, Rav Kook believed, would have to consider new circumstances, new understanding, and decide which laws were meant to be understood differently or limited severely. He believed this to be embedded in the Torah itself, and could not happen without interpreting it accordingly for the era.

In a letter to Moshe Zeidel, he denies that this should be called “development of the law.” In the letter (Igrot ha-Rayah I:90), Rav Kook explains at length his theory of hermeneutics. He writes that if the Sanhedrin and the rabbis have the capability of interpreting the Torah in a different way than it had been interpreted before, and it is accepted by the people, that interpretation must have been latent in the Torah all along (he writes similarly in his introduction to Ein Aya).

Interestingly, there is a flipside to this. The Sanhedrin could also institute even stricter laws and interpretations where they see the need. There is a balance, for Rav Kook, and they won’t please all the people all the time.

6.How and why does he acknowledge that Judaism is not the inventor of the world’s “moral and righteous laws”?

Rav Kook writes: “The Jewish people never claimed any credit as the inventors of the world’s moral and righteous laws, or even as the inventors of the principle of monotheism.” (Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, ch. 32)

For Rav Kook, the discovery of ancient documents, such as the Code of Hammurabi, which bear striking resemblance to the stories and legal traditions of the Torah, does not mean the Torah is a non-divine document. Rather, he believed that the Torah is the continuation and the purification of ideas that started from the earliest days of the human species.

Great people all over the world have the capacity to uncover lofty moral and philosophical truths, Rav Kook argued, so why would the Torah be bereft of them? The Bible itself reports the existence of early prophets, figures like Methuselah, Enoch, Shem, and Eber, whose character teachings, customs, meditations, and true narratives remained with the ancient nations and were engraved in their writings. This, he says, is precisely why modern researchers keep finding parallels between Torah concepts and the relics of ancient civilizations. He even adds that many commandments are of the sort that individuals would naturally incline toward from man’s inner nature, since human intellect is itself a spark of the divine light.

So, all nations have people who find the truth. Judaism’s distinction is not invention but clarification and mission: the prophecy of Moses refined these universal ideas from the confusion and error that had crept into them, and the Jewish people were chosen to carry, purify, and disseminate them as an eternal covenant. That is why he can conclude, remarkably for his time, that archaeological research uncovering these parallels should be used “for honor and splendor, and for strengthening faith,” rather than feared, and he believed that with greater archeological knowledge, there would be greater faith in the historical legitimacy of the Torah in the world.

Rav Kook combats the idea too prevalent in some Jewish circles, even today: “There are people who think that one can only have perfect faith in the true Torah of Moses so long as one also believes that other faiths are all ‘false and foolish’ (Lamentations 2:14), and that there is nothing positive in holding fast to them. This is not true… There is much evil that comes from this view if it is not corrected.” (Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, ch. 14a)

In chapter 36, Rav Kook describes the problem of Jews who abandon Judaism because they find positive aspects and even advancement in other cultures and religions, which they had been brought up to believe could not possibly exist. “How terrible is this error, to hang the uniqueness of the Jewish people upon the lowliness and degeneracy among the nations, when all of our hopes and dreams are to spread authentic knowledge of God, and refined moral laws throughout the entire world! Could it really be that we should, God forbid, hope for a hindering of our national existence?”

On Biblical Literalism

7. How is the account of Genesis not literal?

Rav Kook writes in many places that books need to be written by rabbinic scholars explaining how the Torah can be upheld even according to whatever popular theory is going around at the time. He saw this as a continuation of the methodology of Maimonides in the Guide for the Perplexed, where Maimonides defended Judaism within the philosophy of Aristotle (see Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, ch. 2-3). Rav Kook writes that if a certain philosophical concept, ideology, or social movement fails, the Torah stays the same and can be interpreted according to the newer or more accepted theory of that time (see Ein Ayah, Shabbat, vol. 1, 2:5).

If so, you never know with Rav Kook if he is telling you how the Torah could be interpreted to align with a certain idea, or how the Torah should be interpreted. That makes his actual position difficult to ascertain.

Does Rav Kook believe the creation narrative of Genesis 1-4 is largely literal? He spends entire chapters of Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor explaining that narrative allegorically. With the background of his belief in providing interpretations that he knows could be later disproven, I think we can say that the answer is, he doesn’t much care whether or not a given passage is literal, particularly regarding the first four chapters of Genesis. The main thing is that if someone is bothered by a cosmological theory such as Aristotle’s theory, or a biological theory such as Darwin’s, then it is the rabbi’s obligation to take it head on, accept the premise of the theory, and then “build a palace of Torah above it” (Igrot ha-Rayah I:134).

Thus, Rav Kook is known for his relatively uncommon rabbinic support (at the time) for the theory of evolution, and wrote that it does not present a problem in reading the biblical story. In Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, Rav Kook writes that evolution doesn’t make us dismiss God’s involvement in creation, but rather that evolution should astound us even more, that God set into motion a creation in such a way to evolve like this and end up here – and beyond.

8. What about the specifics of the stories of creation and of Adam and Eve in the Garden?

Firstly, the story of creation, he writes, is so dense and esoteric that we don’t understand the simple meaning of it anyway. He cites a midrashic passage that Maimonides and Nahmanides also cite: “To relate what happened at Creation to beings of flesh and blood is impossible. Therefore, Scripture concealed it, ‘In the beginning God created.’”

Once you realize this, the text itself is fair game for any way you want to understand it, because the Sages already told us the true meaning is basically impossible to understand.

Secondly, he states that it’s possible that God took the genre and narratives of contemporary cultures because the Jewish people would accept it. God just purified the ideas so that they were kosher, so to speak. In Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor (ch. 52), he writes:

“There is no problem whatsoever even were we to say that the prophecy took as its lesson a vision of creation as was widespread in those days, making it into the foundation of the standard conception of the relationship of the Creator to creation, so that man would recognize his Master…”

Third, he also describes a fascinating approach that allows for a kind of literal interpretation of creation, just from a different point of view: what if the story is being told in a simplistic way like notes of someone on the surface as the process of formation happened over the course of hundreds of millions of years? How would that be described? This allows for a large part of poetic license.

Then there’s the story of Adam and Eve. As background to this, it is important to note that according to Rav Kook, human beings possess an innate, divine understanding of truth. What blocks us from truth is our over-complicated intellect. The intellect is of course important, but not the ultimate source of truth; the soul is.

This, to Rav Kook, is the foundational story of the Torah. Adam and Eve and their story are a metaphor about the human condition and the distance created by being more intelligent than the animals. How could man evolve to forget God? The answer is intelligence. Now, did God speak to a particular person? Did Adam and Eve sin? Did God actually cast them out of the Garden? For Rav Kook, the command not to eat from the tree is an allegory for man realizing his connection to the divine and the problems of overcomplicating his intellect. The story as a whole is a metaphor for the developing problem of the God-Man relationship and it being ironically torn asunder by the complications of becoming human, an, of a higher order than the animal kingdom.

Rav Kook writes that we live in a world of rationality and intellect. And we are worse off for it. That isn’t to say that we should shun the intellect, but only to realize we lost something, a knowledge from deep inside, because of our emergence as human beings from the animal kingdom.

Now, what about all the genealogy that occurs in Genesis 5? Isn’t Adam at the top of that list? Interestingly, Rav Kook writes (Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, ch. 5):

“This transition was passed through by an individual who had reached a perfected state making him fit to be called ‘Man’ (Adam). Through these psychological causes, a great breach was created between him and life. This individual is ‘Historical Man.’ From here onward, the Torah will tell mankind’s history in precise detail.”

In my opinion, Rav Kook is still talking within the metaphor: as if Adam were a single person. Others who I’ve discussed this with tended to see in this a concession that the story is somewhat historical, in that it actually happened to a particular individual. I don’t think that is necessary.

Rav Kook with the mayor of New York John F, Hylan 1924 (Rav Moshe Mordechai Epstein on the left)

Morality of War

9. What are Rav Kook’s ideas on morality of war?

Rav Kook saw war itself as a moral evil, but sometimes practically necessary to achieve moral ends.

“And as for war: it would have been utterly impossible, at a time when all the neighboring peoples were literal ‘wolves of the night’ (cf. Habakkuk 1:8), for Israel alone not to make war. For then they would have gathered together to destroy them completely, God forbid. On the contrary, it was very necessary to cast fear upon these savages, even through harsh conduct, but only with a view toward bringing humanity to what it ought to be, not to force the hour before its time.” (Igrot ha-Rayah I:89)

The Torah’s intent was that by establishing the Israelite nation as a stable and respected entity, then they would have the ability to shine the light of morality and righteousness upon the world. Eventually, that would result in everyone laying down arms and realizing that war is never truly moral.

In one of his notebooks (Kevatzim mi-Ktav Yad Kodsho I:34), Rav Kook argues that the Torah’s rules of war themselves point us in this direction. Particularly, the law of the “beautiful captive” (Deuteronomy 21:10-14), which directs a soldier on what to do if he wants to take a woman home from the battlefield. The Talmud (Kiddushin 21b) already saw fit to probe the morality of this law, declaring that “the Torah only speaks counter to the evil inclination.” Rav Kook writes there that the Torah was written to include a time where people had not yet completed their moral education. Thus, he states, “it is impossible for one nation to actually raise itself to a moral state of refraining from war while all the other nations still grasp the sword with full force.” However, the law of the beautiful captive is a signal. The Torah expects us to rise above the law of the captive woman, because it is motivated by the “evil inclination.” Once society achieves that realization, he says, the Torah hopes we will go further and realize “that it is not right to spill blood even for political ends… and we will recognize that every weapon is nothing but a thing of shame (cf. Talmud Shabbat 63a).”

It’s worth noting that during WWI, Rav Kook set his mind to write about what war represents, its positives and negatives, and these entries were edited and published in the beginning of Orot. I had the extreme displeasure of reading an article recently where the author claimed Rav Kook was enthusiastically militaristic, since Rav Kook wrote in Orot, “When a great war comes to the world, the messianic power is awakened.” The author had to ignore everything else Rav Kook wrote on war to have this position. These passages in Orot are not Rav Kook glorifying war, but finding purposes and positives in everything, even in seemingly negative things.

Rav Kook’s early writings emphasize the knowledge that comes from two “impulses”: the moral impulse, and the revelational impulse (originating in Bachye ibn Pakuda’s Hovot ha-Levavot, “Service of God,” 3). For Rav Kook, we all begin with the moral impulse. We know it in our hearts, naturally. The revelation of the Torah, however, demands certain actions as part of a long-term program to help lead all of humanity toward a path of moral enlightenment. Not always will these two impulses align in the short-term. It is the job of wise people to show how the Torah/revelational impulse is working toward the same agenda as the moral impulse. (See his essay “Afikim ba-Negev,” as well Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, ch. 51).

Many have also discussed Rav Kook’s view of Amalek. Since Rav Kook doesn’t believe in absolute, irredeemable evil, he writes (Middot ha-Rayah, “Ahava”) that we must love even Amalek, despite the Torah command to utterly destroy them.

10.How do you reconcile Rav Kook’s vision of an ethical messianic age with current religious Zionist rhetoric?

Rav Kook was ultimately a person of love. That isn’t to say he wasn’t harsh when he had to be, but it was all with the goal of unity. Do current religious Zionist leaders focus on the idea of unity of disparate parts playing their role? It seems to me that too many religious Zionist leaders seem to encourage friction: against secular Israelis, against “the left,” against the ultra-Orthodox, and more than anyone else, against the Arabs within Israel and without; everyone who is not them. This is not what needs to happen. Rav Kook’s posture was conciliatory and peace-loving. Many stories are reported of the love and kindness he extended to those who insulted and denigrated him. Unfortunately, this version of Rav Kook (the true one) has been buried by a single focus: land, war, and us-vs-them mentality.

The followers of Rav Kook, and in particular the followers of his son, Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, have often overly emphasized the importance of messianic thinking, of the value of the land, of nationalism. Now, all of these were of course values for Rav Kook Sr. as well, but they were hardly the most important in his thought – Rabbi Yehuda Amital once pointed out that Rav Kook uses the word “mussar,” ethics and character development, far more than he does the phrase “eretz yisrael,” the land of Israel.

But because these “grand-followers” focused on particular aspects of this great leader, they seem to have felt the need to repress or de-emphasized writings and ideas from Rav Kook that might steer away from that religious-national project. It is my belief that this is why we find some Israeli Jews who identify with the camp of Rav Kook and his followers, yet act in ways which are clearly contrary to Rav Kook’s vision of morality and justice. That is another reason why bringing Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor and other writings of his forward is so important.

On History and Other Religions

11. What is his vision of communal and human progress?

Rav Kook believed in the upwards progress of history, which he sometimes called “hishtalmut.” This was likely influenced by the ideas of Hegel and other philosophers – Rabbi David Cohen (the “Nazir”, his close student) wrote that Rav Kook’s later thought was influenced by Henri Bergson and the idea he had of an “elan vital,” some kind of force driving history toward constant evolutionary improvement (Rav Kook adds the divine to this force).

To Rav Kook, history is divinely orchestrated. Just as the original “shattering of the vessels” (to put it in kabbalistic terms) from an absolute unity resulted in the fractured existence we experience, so too the universe is engaged in an extremely slow return to that unity. It is man’s job to play a role in that return. Rav Kook takes this kind of idea to the next level in Orot ha-Teshuvah, arguing that repentance is not changing one’s core, but returning to it.

When we talk about a return to unity, we should note that Rav Kook had a peculiar notion of unity. To him, unity was not conformity. Instead, it was precisely through differences of mind and action that we could achieve true unity. Similar to how every piece of a puzzle is different, yet when connected they form one picture, so too every individual should use their talents and abilities to connect and help others connect toward building the overall picture of humanity and ultimately the universe.

What is true for the individual is also true for the nation. Just as national unity is everyone in the nation working toward the national agenda with their unique talents, so too every nation has its unique characteristics and talents that should be used to unite nations internationally. This idea, in turn, he likely derived from 18th-19th century philosophers such as Montesquieu, Herder, and Hegel.

12. How do the other religions reflect the spiritual development of humanity? How is this different than his work Orot?

In Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, Rav Kook’s agenda was to show the good in every major movement and ideology. Repeatedly, he cites the Mishna in Avot that states, “There is nothing that doesn’t have its place.”

So, although idolatry and polytheism are abhorrent to the Torah, the practitioners of those religions are better off than with no beliefs, he writes, because at least they fear their gods, making their society more civilized than one under pure nihilism.

The next level above that is monotheistic religions. These are not perfect, writes Rav Kook. Certainly not as perfect as the divinely given Torah. But they are better because since monotheism is true, their moral compass therefore will tend to be better, and there is hope of unity through the belief in a unified God.

The next level above that is monotheistic religions based on Torah. Rav Kook calls these “branched off” religions from Judaism. Christianity and Islam carry something genuine from the source, and Rav Kook believes we should treat them accordingly. In fact, we should want pagans to become Christians and Muslims, he writes, if the other choice is paganism. He even says the fact that Christianity turned Jesus into a God can be justified because the “brilliant light” could only be accepted by people inclined toward paganism in that form (Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, ch. 39a). In other words, it was a stepping stone out of paganism toward true monotheism, and necessary.

He remains in his conviction that Judaism is special. It alone can unite all nations and religions, since it alone is religion built upon a specific place and a specific nationhood, and therefore has a spiritual center that no other religion has in its essence. It alone can be the heart of the metaphorical “man with many body parts, or to be clearer, like a family with different kinds of people,” as he puts it.

Additionally, he critiqued Christianity for the idea of supersessionism – “the underlying conviction… that Judaism has been superseded, God forbid” – since for him, only Judaism can succeed in achieving for the world “the highest perfection of all humanity.”

To Rav Kook, the popularization of these higher forms of monotheistic religions is part of God’s plan. In his writings, Rav Kook derives this idea from Maimonides in Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 11:40 (which was ironically censored by Christian printers in earlier printings). Maimonides there writes that even though “there is no greater stumbling block than Christianity,” still, “ultimately, all the deeds of Jesus of Nazareth and that Ishmaelite who arose after him will only serve to prepare the way for the Messiah’s coming and the improvement of the entire world, motivating the nations to serve God together as it says, ‘I will transform the peoples to a purer language that they all will call upon the name of God and serve Him with one purpose’ (Zephaniah 3:9).” This statement by Maimonides was accepted by Nachmanides in Torat Hashem Temimah, and Rav Kook cites this source in Metziot Katan, 80 and 180, and Midbar Shur, Drush 21.

Other sources Rav Kook may have had in mind are Rabbi Judah ha-Levi in Kuzari 4:23, where he talks about God’s plan that the “seed” of Judaism should produce fruit of its tree like Christianity and Islam. Likely a major source for Rav Kook was 19th century German rabbinic scholar Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who writes (Nineteen Letters, Letter 9) that Christianity was a great boon for mankind, teaching pagans morality, monotheism, and paving the road toward the messianic future.

It would seem that Rav Kook changed his tone once he came to the Land of Israel. Rabbi Bezalel Naor writes that Orot is a “sustained intellectual battle… [that] hammers away, piece after piece, at the moral turpitude, hypocrisy, and spiritual inadequacy of the Church…. If anything, ‘Christophobia’ would more likely be the word to describe Rav Kook’s attitude toward Christian civilization.” (Naor, Introduction to Orot, Koren/ Maggid, 2015, 67–68)

In one of Rav Kook’s early essays when he came to the Land of Israel, “The Way of Renaissance,” Rav Kook called Jesus a “charismatic individual.” This caused a great deal of consternation among members of the Old Yishuv, a very conservative bunch. It is indeed possible that Rav Kook, or his son who edited Rav Kook’s notebooks to produce Orot, intentionally sought to downplay Rav Kook’s views on other religions to combat the suggestion that Rav Kook was tolerant toward Christianity.

I would suggest the contradiction may be answered in a different way. Rav Kook often distinguishes between the ideal and the practical. In Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor itself (chapter 10), he treats vegetarianism as a moral ideal that is simply not livable in the present world. Its value can only be seen in future time periods, when the time is right. Similarly, other religions: they hold objectively positive values – but those cannot be recognized fully by the Jewish people until the Messianic future. In a letter (Igrot ha-Rayah IV:1276), Rav Kook writes that the Jewish people will appreciate Christianity and Jesus, even to praise Jesus, only when the messianic age arrives and Christians admit to the truth of Judaism: “Only then at that fortunate time will our writers be able to say something positive concerning this personality – but only then, not now.” In another letter (Igrot ha-Rayah I:112), Rav Kook writes that Judaism does not seek to destroy other religions, but, based on Zechariah 9:7, to purify them and bring the “drops of light” they have been divinely granted to bring them to the fore in messianic times.

If so, I suggest the following: In Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor and other early writings, Rav Kook was willing to express the positive formation and progression of Christianity and Islam. Later, after arriving in the Holy Land, he preferred to discuss their present, practical negatives, believing wholeheartedly that the positives latent in those religions could be expressed in the quick arrival of the messianic age.

13. How does he acknowledge the potential for miracles and prophecy in other religions especially Christianity and Islam?

This is absolutely astounding. Rav Kook is willing to grant that perhaps Jesus did indeed receive divine prophecy, walk on water, and turn water into wine. For why not, if these religions ultimately represent positive progress in humanity? He writes:

“No one should view those ‘branched-off’ religions, in and of themselves, in a negative light. It is possible that there was divine impulse in this, on the part of the founders [of those religions], that they strive to improve an impressionable portion of humanity, to whatever extent was proper” (Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, ch. 8).

In other words, he believes that since Christianity and Islam are helping to prepare the world for perfection and steering people away from polytheism, God may have even given their founders – Jesus and Mohammed – prophecy. He goes even further than that. He is willing to grant that perhaps these founders actually performed miracles divinely “prepared” for them:

“It is possible that some perceptible wonders were prepared for them, if it was necessary to encourage them, since this is relevant to humanity’s improvement, over which the hand of God stretches from the beginning of existence to the end.”

14. Why does he think nationalism is not enough?

Rav Kook gives several distinct reasons why nationalism alone cannot suffice, at least not for the Jewish people (see particularly Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, chapters 13 and 37).

First, nationalism is emotion, not reason. “For ultimately, nationalism is based only on feeling, and when a person is called upon to explain its purpose, ‘he will find no reply.’” A people that was so severely forbidden from idolatry, which was itself “feeling based merely on consensus and delusion that filled the entire world,” has been constitutionally trained to reject anything built on “delusive feeling.” Rav Kook argues that anyone who wishes to establish “a nationalist feeling within the Jewish people, but in a less idealized form than that which has already been clarified to them, will never succeed.”

He writes that Jewish nationhood is unlike any other because it was created by its religion, not merely accompanied by it. Among the nations, “when the power of nationalism grows strong among the peoples, religious feeling weakens,” since “the nationalist feeling has already come to take their place.” Other nations, Rav Kook writes, can absorb their nonobservant members without damaging their core, for “their religion does not encompass their entire lives,” but Judaism is unique as a religion built on nationalism, and nationalism built on religion. Strip away the religion, Rav Kook writes, and you have stripped away the very glue of the nation.

He also believed pure nationalism is too particularist. Zionism, unmoored from a universal ethic, is actively dangerous. He observes that in his day “a life-will has begun to beat in the hearts of many peoples. From this has emerged the foundation of nationalism, which breaks down the boundaries of ethics, justice, and morality” (chapter 46). Jewish nationalism, he writes, must therefore be tied to its universal mission (Judaism the religion), to bring the moral unity represented by one God.

Rav Kook saw in the secular pioneers a life-force and a self-sacrifice that much of the pious world had let go slack. He believed that they were unconsciously “sparking” their religious inner selves. His argument is about what an ideal must contain if it is to sustain a people, not about who is entitled to belong to it. A nationalism that knows only itself, that can name no purpose beyond its own survival and strength, will in his opinion eventually turn narrow and then cruel, because nothing within it sets a limit on what may be done in its name. Judaism, Rav Kook believed, states that this particular nation exists for the sake of justice, compassion, and the moral unity of all humanity under one God. Israel’s return to its land is supposed to be part of its overall universal mission of justice, compassion, and morality.

Next Project

15.Why is Afikim Banegev your next project? What is it? What is interesting in that work?

Afikim ba-Negev is really a fascinating document. Rav Kook had published it in a series in the journal Ha-Peles, over the years 1903 and 1904. It is the last and longest of three essays Rav Kook published there, and contains some of Rav Kook’s core ideas that he would maintain for the rest of his life, regarding Zionism and religion, nationalism, politics, the importance of Torah observance even for ostensibly secular Jews, the importance of clarifying and refining Jewish philosophical and theological ideas, including understanding the rationale for the Torah commandments, and the concept of putting moral truths at the center of religious and intellectual life.

What Afikim ba-Negev is mostly known for, when it is known at all, is its section on vegetarianism. This section was excerpted and reprinted in Maamarei ha-Rayah vol. 2, and collected by Rav Kook’s disciple Rav David Cohen into the standalone volume Chazon HaTzimchonut VeHaShalom (“A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace”).

I had read it in the course of translating Rav Kook’s Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, focusing on what everyone else already did: the similar ideas regarding vegetarianism present in both works. Scholars Rabbi Eitam Henkin and Rabbi Shachar Rachmani, in their analysis of Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, each note not just the conceptual similarities, but the word-for-word copying that occurred between Afikim ba-Negev and Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor in certain sections. Because of this, it allows us to place Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor in the time period either concurrently or after Afikim ba-Negev – i.e., around 1904.

It’s really too bad that I didn’t look into this essay enough while translating Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor, because I’ve found over and over again that there is almost no idea that appears in Afikim ba-Negev that doesn’t also appear in Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor. In fact, sometimes, a turn of phrase in the essay has cleared up a confusing idea in Le-Nevukhei ha-Dor I never understood before. I believe this essay deserves to stand on its own and become better known in the study of Rav Kook’s thought.

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Posted in ethics, israel, jewish thought, religious zionism, Uncategorized

Tagged jewish ethics, Morality, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Relgious Zionism

Marc Shapiro interview- Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New

Posted on June 19, 2025 by Alan Brill | Leave a comment

For more than a century, many of the writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook remained in manuscript, hidden away from the public eye. The works of Rabbi Kook that were published in the interim had many passages removed from them. Only in the last quarter century have these original manuscript works been published. The Shemonah Kevatzim are the original notebooks that Rabbi David Cohen (the Nazir, d 1972) and Rabbi Zvi Yehuda (d. 1982) used to produce the standard editions of Rabbi Kook’s writings. In these notebooks, we see many passages that the editors left out of printed editions. And in Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor, we see a Rabbi Kook grappling with many of the religious issues of late nineteenth-century thought. These new works present to the reader a vista on a Rabbinic thinker struggling with many of the issues of fin de siècle modernity. In a recent book, Marc B. Shapiro presents choice quotes of these writings for an American Orthodox audience.

Marc Shapiro’s new book is Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2024). Marc B. Shapiro holds the Weinberg Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Scranton, Pennsylvania. A graduate of Brandeis and Harvard universities, he is also the author of Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, 1884–1966 (1999); The Limits of Orthodox Theology: Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles Reappraised (2003); and Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History (2015), all published by the Littman Library. Shapiro produced many videos and podcasts about his work on Orthodox rabbis and their ideas; he is deeply appreciated by his audience.

In the book, Shapiro picks out many of Rabbi Kook’s major ideas that would be new to his audience including the challenges of modern science, treating the Bible in a non-literal way, the notion of natural morality as a counter to book law. his view of other religions, even acknowledging the possibility of alternate revelations, his idea of how a future Sanhedrin will update Jewish law, as well as his defense of Orthopraxy for those who cannot accept all the dogmas. Shapiro uses his vast knowledge of other Orthodox thinkers such as Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (d. 1959) and Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (d.1966) to contextualizes Kook’s statements. The focus of the book is on topics of interest within English-speaking Orthodoxy (or of interest to Shapiro) and not on Kook’s use of Hegel and Schopenhauer, his views of history, or individualist views of creativity. At many points, Shapiro contrasts Rabbi Kook to the limits within American Orthodoxy, or has personal asides where he directly speaks to American Orthodoxy. These ideas of Rabbi Kook from 100 years ago were influential in the formation of Religious Zionism, which developed sharply different from American forms of Orthodoxy.

The ideas in the book have dozens of well-known interpretations in Religious Zionist thought, so the book would not be an innovation to them or their students. To take one example that I know well, Shapiro presents Kook’s ideas that the religions of the world are all part of the dew of the divine light and part of a Divine plan to uplift the world. Contemporary interfaith work, however, is already situated in a context where Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, Rabbi Oury Cherki, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, as well as my friend Rabbi Yakov Nagen, as well as many others, have been working for decades within Rabbi Kook’s framework to encounter other religions positively as part of a divine plan.

Another example: Shapiro cites that Rabbi Kook encouraged the study of Jewish thought, and only those trained in it should comment on Jewish thought. But Jewish thought is standard, in a Religious Zionist education consisting of at least the six thinkers of the Relgious Zionist canon Maimonides, Halevi, Maharal, Ramchal, Hayim of Volozhin, as well as mastery of Rabbi Kook’s writings. From there, one branches out to Midrash, Kabbalah, Hasidut, or even Franz Rosenzweig’s Star of Redemption. If one visits a Religious Zionist bookstore such as Dabri Shir, the majority of books are of Jewish thought. Shapiro’s book works as a foil to American Orthodoxy’s omission and is not meant to comprehend the way these statements of Rabbi Kook about Jewish thought are presented and lived by the culture of Jewish thought as understood by Religious Zionist Rabbis such as Rabbis Melamed, Avinar, Ariel, Bin Nun, Shagar and Cherlow, each in a unique manner.

The pleasure of the book, for me, is in the details and notes. Lots of citations to interesting quotes from books and a wealth of parallel ideas to Rabbi Kook. I had forgotten that Rabbi Kook had a responsa about Bahai and I learned that Rabbi Zini, the editor of Eliyahu Benamozegh (d.1900), ironically rejects the universalism of Benamozegh and of Rabbi Kook. I do wish that the book had engaged with the proximal context of Rabbi Kook, including universalist thinkers such as Rabbi Shmuel Alexanrov, a fellow Volozhin graduate with whom Kook corresponded about Buddhism, who had more radical views about other religions.

In many ways, this book continues Prof Marc Shapiro’s lifelong interest in showing the limits of Orthodox theology. Shapiro shows that Kook’s thought is broader than American Orthodox thought and that many of Kook ‘s ideas have parallels in other Orthodox Jewish thinkers whom Shapiro has written about, thereby creating or advocating a broader spectrum of ideas. I recommend reading some of his other articles here for a fuller discussion. For many American Modern Orthodox and Yeshivish readers, the book will be eye opening. They are already familiar with and appreciate Shapiro’s wide-ranging presentations of historical figures with Orthodoxy. They will welcome the book. The book is a fun and easy read for those interested in the topic, and is worthy of a long summer Shabbat afternoon to enjoy the book.

1. Why did you write the book?

Starting with the publication of Rav Kook’s Shemonah Kevatzim, we have been fortunate to see the release of a series of new books from Rav Kook, including Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor, his modern-day Guide of the Perplexed (though he didn’t give it that title himself). These writings, some of which were suppressed, cover a range of topics that I find particularly fascinating, and which have not been the focus of much writing on Rav Kook. In these works, Rav Kook expands upon ideas he mentions only briefly elsewhere, such as his views on sacrifices and the role of the religious masses.

I wrote this book because I am deeply intrigued by his unconventional views, but also because I thought others, particularly those within the Modern Orthodox community, would find them of great interest. Many had only known him as the prophet of religious Zionism. I believe the book has struck a chord because already several people have told me how surprised they are at the breadth of ideas Rav Kook explored. His openness to other religions is one example, but there are many more. Rav Kook brought originality into nearly everything he discussed, so it is no surprise that his newer books contain such fresh and thought-provoking insights.

2) You discuss evolution and the long evolutionary sense of a long history, including events long before the Bible, such as the Pleistocene age, but you mention that it is already accepted in Modern Orthodox High School textbooks. So, why do we need thinkers from 100 years ago to justify what is already accepted?

I don’t think it is a matter of needing thinkers from a century ago to justify anything. What I aimed to do is expose people to the perspectives of rabbinic leaders like Rav Kook and R. Herzog on these matters. That, in itself, has value, even if it doesn’t have any immediate practical implications. Furthermore, while it is true that Modern Orthodox high school history classes may accept that human civilization predates the traditional Jewish dating, I have seen very little reckoning with this from an Orthodox theological perspective.

How can one reconcile the biblical chronology of human development with the findings of modern scholarship, which show that humanity existed long before the timeline outlined in the Bible? At one time, the Modern Orthodox world devoted significant effort to reconciling an ancient universe with the book of Genesis. These efforts often focused on dinosaurs and fossils, and sought to show that creation could have occurred billions of years ago even though the Torah’s literal account places the world’s creation at less than 6,000 years ago.

Yet R. Herzog was not troubled by an ancient universe. His focus was on the next step: If humanity’s creation and expansion predate the Torah’s account, then the early chapters of the Torah must be understood in a non-literal fashion.

Rabbi Herzog hoped to write a book to define the boundaries of non-literal interpretation in the Torah. Unfortunately, he never had the chance to do so. Had he written this book, he would have needed to determine when the Torah shifts from “mythic history” to actual historical events. With his knowledge of history and science, he would have approached events like the Flood and the Tower of Babel differently than his predecessors in the traditional world. In his letters, which I published in the book, you can see how he struggled with the challenge of determining how far a non-literal interpretation could be extended, particularly as such an approach would break with the traditional views held by earlier commentators.

3) Why are you addressing American Centrist Orthodoxy with Rav Kook’s view when he is not the major influence on the community?

It is true that Rav Kook is not the dominant influence in the community, but he does hold a significant influence, and hopefully, that influence will continue to grow. As I mention in the book, I believe that many of Rav Kook’s insights which have nothing to do with Religious Zionism, on topics such as the appropriate curriculum, the place of halakhah, secular studies, literalism in Torah interpretation, heresy, halakhic change, natural morality, and other areas, will be of particular interest to the Modern Orthodox community. Yet the book is not only directed to them. Rav Kook’s ideas should be fascinating to all readers, regardless of their background or affiliation.

4) You seemingly paint Rav Kook as a modernist, yet we know he gave very anti-secular studies directives to his inner circle of students.

I would not describe Rav Kook as a modernist, especially given the associations that term carries. However, I would agree that he should also not be regarded as a traditionalist. It is true that Rav Kook spoke about the importance of secular studies, but we cannot ignore the fact that the yeshiva he founded did not include them in its curriculum. Moreover, most of his students did not engage with secular disciplines, and Rav Kook did not actively encourage them to do so. Even R. Zvi Yehudah, who had broad interests in his early life, ultimately embraced a “Torah-only” lifestyle.

A similar question arises when we consider Rav Kook’s stance on academic Jewish studies. He definitely valued these areas, as seen in a 1908 letter to Rabbi Isaac Jacob Reines, whose yeshiva included secular studies. In the letter, Rav Kook expressed his intention to establish a yeshiva that would include the study of “Hokhmat Yisrael” (Iggerot ha-Re’iyah, vol. 1, p. 148). In a letter to R. Isaac Halevy, author of Dorot ha-Rishonim, R. Kook reaffirms the necessity for new approaches in scholarship, arguing that the traditional approach will not be able to stand against the forces seeking to tear down tradition (Iggerot ha-Re’iyah, vol. 1, p. 188). Despite these sentiments, however, Hokhmat Yisrael was never incorporated into his yeshiva’s curriculum.

R. Ari Chwat has written two articles documenting Rav Kook’s positive attitude toward modern scholarship (Talelei Orot, vols. 13 and 14). Chwat explains that Rav Kook ultimately recognized that, at that moment in time, other priorities needed more emphasis, such as Jewish nationalism and the study of the Bible and “Emunah”. As a result, his dream of including an Orthodox Hokhmat Yisrael in the curriculum had to be postponed. I think a similar reasoning can be applied to secular studies. Rav Kook certainly appreciated them, but incorporating them into his yeshiva’s curriculum seemed too far a step for him. For those who were already inclined to these fields, he would be supportive, but not in the sense of making them part of the curriculum or encouraging students who had no such inclinations.

5) You mention that Rabbi Kook’s soul was aspiring to prophecy, Ruah Hakodesh and spirituality, and in his writings he preferred those over Talmud. Are you advocating those spiritual soul building forms of Torah?

I am not advocating for any forms of Torah that focus on spiritual soul-building experiences, but some are inclined in that direction. For example, the Nazir who was focused on the renewal of prophecy, perhaps seeing how Rav Kook sensed that he might have failed in this area could have been too much of a “downer” for those who wished to renew the prophetic spirit and saw Rav Kook as their guide in this matter. If there are Religious Zionist thinkers in Israel today who seriously imagine a resumption of prophecy, they intend this to come about through the study of Kabbalah. In this regard, they would be following the tradition of Rav Kook as carried on by the Nazir, rather than by Rav Zvi Yehudah, who was a more “this-worldly” figure.

I would simply note that Rav Kook himself had doubts about whether his own inner spiritual experiences were genuinely from God or simply creations of his imagination. In a passage that the Nazir—who himself was striving for prophecy—censored, Rav Kook wrote: “I listen and I hear from the depths of my soul, from among the feelings of my heart, the voice of God calling. I experience a great trembling; have I so descended to become a false prophet, to say God sent me when the word of God has not been revealed to me.” I find Rav Kook’s honesty in this passage very refreshing, as it reveals his own self-doubts.

6) Where is Rabbi Hertzog the same or different than Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook?

R. Isaac Herzog, who succeeded Rav Kook as the Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Eretz Yisrael, was quite different from Rav Kook. Unlike Rav Kook, he had a deep secular education, was fluent in many languages—both ancient and modern—and was fully at home in academic Jewish studies. His works primarily focused on talmudic studies and Jewish law, mostly from a traditional perspective, but he also produced academic works. Unlike Rav Kook, Kabbalah was not a central feature of R. Herzog’s life.

Rav Kook, as we know, was very much a mystic whose thoughts and his thoughts spanned the spectrum of ideas. While he also wrote on Talmud and halakhah, he did not view this as his primary contribution. Rav Kook had no formal academic training and did not produce works that could be categorized as academic. When faced with a conflict between science and Torah, Rav Kook looked at scientific conclusions—based on his understanding—and sought to harmonize them with Torah. R. Herzog, on the other hand, was deeply engaged with understanding how historians and scientists arrived at their conclusions. He carefully examined historical and scientific texts and reached out to leading non-Jewish scholars to hear their perspectives.

7) You discuss the Bible as not literal. Can you explain?

I try to place Rav Kook’s perspective within a larger context by examining how other figures have addressed the apparent conflicts between Torah and science or history. Given that Rav Kook’s approach may seem unconventional to many, I felt it was important to show how others have approached these issues, including medieval Maimonideans. Years ago, I discovered a number of letters from R. Herzog on this very topic, and the book provided an opportunity to explore how he addressed the issue.

R. Herzog’s primary concern was the biblical chronology. Modern science and history suggest that humanity has existed for a much longer period than the biblical account would indicate. R. Herzog’s first step was to determine whether there is any doubt regarding the modern scientific and historical conclusions. If there are any doubts, the biblical narrative can be understood literally. However, if there is no doubt about the scientific conclusions regarding the timeline of human history, he believed there is no choice but to interpret the Torah’s account in a non-literal way.

8) You seem to advocating both Orthopraxy and Social Orthodoxy. You seem to use Rabbi Kook to advocate for Modern Orthodox who are lax in mizvot and non-believers because they send their kids to day schools and give to Jewish causes.

I am not advocating for Orthopraxy or Social Orthodoxy. What I highlight are important statements from Rav Kook in which he demonstrated an openness both to non-observant Jews and to observant Jews who did not subscribe to traditional Orthodox dogmas. While Rav Kook did not support either of these approaches, he saw ways in which these individuals could still be included within the community. What we today call Orthopraxy fits squarely within the framework Rav Kook mentions, namely, that those with heretical beliefs, as long as those beliefs do not have an impact in the real world, should not be regarded as heretics.

When it comes to non-observant Jews, an important distinction should be made. Rav Kook did not embrace all Jews simply because they were Jewish, which contrasts with the approach commonly found in today’s kiruv organizations. When Rabbi Jacob David Wilovsky challenged Rav Kook on his relationships with the irreligious—after all, there are the explicit halakhot about how to treat them—Rav Kook explained that there is a difference between those who are irreligious yet possess what he referred to as the segulah, and those who lack it. In a formulation that distances him from the Chabad approach, Rav Kook wrote, “I do not befriend all transgressors, but only those whom I feel have a great power of segulah within them” (Iggerot, vol. 2, p. 188).

Today, especially after October 7, we can clearly see that there are many irreligious Jews who have the segulah that Rav Kook spoke about. They take pride in their Jewish identity and are connected to the Jewish people and the State of Israel in various ways. These are the very people Rav Kook was referring to. We need not limit his words to the early pioneers, who were driven by an ethical vision and were willing to sacrifice so much for the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. Even more ordinary, “run-of-the-mill” Jews—such as those in bourgeois America—can be included in Rav Kook’s category of those who possess the segulah.

9) At the very end of your book, you point out that Rav Kook was against giving women the right to vote. But we have given women the right to vote. Therefore, we cannot accept everything he said. How do you determine what to take?

With every great thinker one will find teachings that are enduring and others that are transitory. When it comes to determining which parts of the Torah should be interpreted literally and which should not, Rav Kook acknowledges that there are no clear-cut markers, and that the intuitive sense of the Jewish people will ultimately provide the answer. I believe we must adopt the same approach when evaluating Rav Kook’s own teachings.

To return to the example you mentioned, while communal sentiments can shift, it is hard to imagine ever going back to an era in which the denial of women’s suffrage, as advocated by Rav Kook, is considered “the Jewish” approach. In this regard, as in many others, it is often the people’s intuitive sense that leads the way, and later rabbinic decisions simply give their imprimatur to the collective feelings of the community.

10) You write that you heard a shiur by a Centrist rabbi on the topic of “lo tehonem” (not to give a gentile a present or a compliment). You say that we have to let it drop. How do we determine what to drop since there are lots of things that are not modern values?

The issue here is not that we have to “let it drop.” It had already been dropped, and halakhic justification had been offered in justification of this. What we are facing today is an attempt to revive it, so to speak. Normally, when reviving a forgotten practice, the main concern is whether the community is prepared to adopt a greater stringency. However, in this case, the “stringency” challenges our ability to live a normal life within a modern democratic society. R. Jehiel Jacob Weinberg already wrote about the need to declare this type of halakhah no longer relevant. In a letter to Samuel Atlas, after mentioning some discriminatory laws, R. Weinberg wrote: “We must solemnly and formally declare that in our day, this does not apply. Meiri wrote this, but the teachers and rabbis whisper to their students that all of this was written because of the censor.”

11) Rav Kook speaks of the evolution of animals to higher states. What does that mean?

I see myself in the rationalist camp, and the idea that animals will evolve to a higher state of consciousness is something that is difficult for anyone with a rationalist perspective to accept. While Rav Kook certainly draws on Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, we often see that his ideas diverge from those of Maimonides in significant ways.

However, even if one cannot accept Rav Kook’s perspective on this issue, we must understand it as part of his broader vision of the world evolving toward greater perfection. It is also worth noting that his suggestion that animals will advance to a higher level helps explain why he that believes consuming animals will eventually become impossible. We kill animals to eat but if they advance to a higher level then they will no longer be “animals” as we now know them. Similarly, in such a world, animal sacrifices would no longer be applicable. The animals would no longer be the same creatures that were originally commanded to be sacrificed, so the Torah’s commandments regarding sacrifices would no longer apply.

12) You seem to write about two forms of natural morality. Can you explain?

Rav Kook speaks of trusting the natural instincts of the religious masses, and of natural morality as an inner sense that should remain uncorrupted. These are simply two expressions of the same phenomenon. Rav Kook believes that natural morality reflects divine values because the soul itself is implanted by the divine. As such, its intuitive feelings arise from this divine source and should be seen as pure, rather than as sentiments to be dismissed.

Rav Kook even describes these inherent natural feelings as characterizing the Patriarchs, who lived in a pre-Torah era and were thus forced to strive for perfection without the guidance of the written Torah.

Rav Kook’s perspective on natural morality, especially as it pertains to the masses, is particularly refreshing. In yeshivot we are taught that in matters of Torah, all valuable knowledge flows from the rabbis to the people; it is a one-way street. Rav Kook, however, turns this into a two-way street, where the masses also have something significant to offer to Torah scholars. While in the Haredi world, the idea of Daas Torah is often contrasted with Daas Baalei Batim, Rav Kook sees the religious masses as preserving Torah truths that sometimes elude the Torah scholars. This leads to a more inclusive vision of Judaism, in which a broader segment of the population can contribute in meaningful ways.

13) How would you answer those who critique your position on studying Jewish thought by saying that only halakhic authorities should decide such issues?

Rav Kook identified a significant problem: There are individuals who possess great halakhic knowledge but lack a deep understanding of Jewish thought. As a result, these individuals tend to adopt a “stringent” stance on matters of Jewish belief. They assume that everything they believe is a principle of the Torah, and if anyone expresses a differing opinion, they regard that person as a heretic. Therefore, even if one argues that halakhic authorities should be the ones to decide such matters, it is crucial that they also be well-versed in Jewish thought—a combination that has historically been quite rare.

In general, however, I do not accept the premise that halakhic authorities can “poskin” on matters of Jewish thought the way they decide questions of kashrut or Shabbat. I also do not believe that a view “accepted” years ago can now be ruled out of bounds. While some more recent Orthodox authorities adopt this position, Maimonides rejected such a conception, and I believe it lacks logical sense. I discuss this issue in my article, “Is There a ‘Pesak’ for Jewish Thought?” available here.

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Posted in halakhic theory, interfaith, israel, jewish thought, rabbis, religious zionism, Uncategorized

Tagged Evolution, Marc Shapiro, modern orthodoxy, orthodox Judaism, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Rabbi Herzog, rabbi Kook

Expressive Relgious Zionism: An Interview with Shlomo Fischer

Posted on June 9, 2025 by Alan Brill | Leave a comment

How can you have Religious Zionists who write poetry and music as a religious quest but who also want to override government decisions? How can you have some who want meditation, spirituality, and trips to India combined with violence? Does the vision of Rabbi Kook expect adherence to the state or to an individual intuition? Shlomo Fischer wrote a book about religious Zionism as a romantic movement, in which he answered the questions.

The book is called Expressivist Religious Zionism: Modernity and the Sacred in a Nationalist Movement (Routledge, 2024), where he deals with Religious Zionism as a form of individual expressionism. Unfortunately, the book is incredibly expensive, even as an academic monograph,

Shlomo Fischer studied at Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavne and in ITRI yeshiva. He did his BA in Columbia College (History) and his PhD. in Hebrew University (Sociology). He has lived in Israel since October 1976. Fischer taught in the School of Education of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem until his retirement. He is now a Senior Fellow, Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI), Jerusalem, and the Area Head for Sociology and Jewish Identity. He has published extensively on the intersection of religion, politics, and social class in Israel.

Many of us are familiar with Fischer’s ideas from the numerous articles that he published over the years. They are all worth reading and posted at academia.edu. But this book collects his ideas into a single volume. There is great originality in his thinking,g making connections that seem obvious after he makes them. Religious Zionism is understood based on the tensions in Romantic thought, within the tensions with the French Revolution, and even with the ideas of Robespierre’s Reign of Terror. Religious Zionism is treated as a thoroughly modern phenomenon, akin to other modern revolutionary movements. After reading his essays, one understands how this movement, with its dual emphasis on the nation state and inner human will is different than the modern voluntaristic view of society and human interaction. The important analytic category is that Religious Zionism should not be compartmentalized into the categories of messianism or fundamentalism; rather, it should be compared to other movements.

The interview starts off with questions about his book, then a question on a paper he wrote comparing Religious Zionism to American Orthodoxy. The final two questions on Bezalel Smotrich and Naftali Bennett expand his paradigms to contemporary issues, as well as a conclusion with a comparison to Daesh. The book does not deal with music, poetry, or spirituality of the movement. Nor does it deal with the recent turn to Religious Zionist Indigeneity, where they seek to return to Biblical times to farming, winemaking, and adapting Bedouin dress as well as the recent turn to the Biblicism of Joshua-Judges in discussing war, which is chosen over the rabbinic tradition.

I must repeat, this blog is about theology and religious philosophy, not contemporary politics. Please do not contact me about Middle Eastern politics or the war.

The ideas in the book should be foundational to any understanding of Religious Zionism. Many of us have been positively influenced by Fischer’s articles for years. It is worth reading this interview in its entirety to understand his views.

What is your book about?

My book is about religious Zionism, but it is not a chronological history of Religious Zionism. Rather, it wants to make a series of analytical claims about the movement as a romantic nationalist movement with a strong emphasis on self-expression. The book describes the two “moments” of expressivism – the first part of the book is devoted to the “collective moment” of expressivism in the period (1967- ca.1994), and the second part is devoted to the current “individual moment” of self-expression (1995-2025).

2) Explain your concept of seeing in Religious Zionism, individual expressionism, and national bohemianism.

Israeli Religious Zionism exhibits an underlying philosophical core rooted in the modern notions of self-expression and the realization of the free and authentic self. This shapes the way that it thinks about religion, politics, nationalism, the individual, and the collective.

According to the philosopher, Charles Taylor, who coined the term, the expressivist philosophical approach which was elaborated by such thinkers as Herder, Goethe, and Hegel, contains three central Ideas which are also represented in the religious philosophy of R. Kook and the school of Religious Zionism that is associated with him.

(1) Spiritual ideas become ultimately clarified and realized when they are expressed in a material medium, such as language, music, painting, and social institutions. Thus, God is concerned to express His Divine ideals in the mundane material world in order to complete His perfection.

(2) All thinking is carried out by natural, material human beings whose true authentic inner will must be recovered. Religious Zionist ideology assumes that all created human beings have their inner will to return to their source in God. This inner will needs to be recovered since it is obscured by natural drives and passions.

(3) The unity of life and existence. In principle, the physical and the spiritual, thought and matter, body and soul are not separate realms but are unified in holistic fashion.

Religious Zionists applied these ideas to the collective plane as they sought to realize divine ideals in the Land of Israel. Thus, they engaged in founding the state, defending it , and developing the Land of Israel including the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) after the Six Day War.

In the nineteen nineties, they turned to the individual plane, to realize their inner will to connect to God through embodying spiritual ideas in the material world through poetry, cinema, performing arts, sex, relationships, progressive education, personal reading of the Bible etc. Hence, starting in the nineteen nineties, there was a turn to individual expressionism, however, without giving up collective commitments. Hence you have nationalist bohemianism. For example, wildcat, “outpost” settlements in the West Bank that offer “spa” like activities and Yoga and meditation.

3) What is the relationship between collective will and individual expression in Religious Zionism, especially Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook?

Expressivist thinkers have to deal with the problem of recovering the true inner will. The early expressivist thinker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau answered that question in double fashion. His first answer is by entering into the social contract and identifying with the general will a person can overcoming his/her particular, egoistic will, I recover, in my role as a citizen, my rational and moral self. The second answer, given in Emile: Or Treatise on Education, is by bringing up a child in isolation from society and thus letting his natural self grow and flourish without reference to the wishes or expectations of others.

R. Kook and others in his wake also suggested these two paths. In certain passages he advocates identifying with the general collectivity of each ontological level – Israel, humankind and the entire universe in order to connect with the Divine All. In other passages R. Kook takes the individualist path. He talks about connecting with the voice within one of pure, faith and natural morality, which he held had the quality of revelation. Contemporary Religious Zionist figures develop the individual approach to one’s inner voice. They view Hasidic prayer and meditation, poetry and art, relationships and sex as paths to uncover the authentic voice within them.

The more one delves into one’s soul, the more one finds at the root of one’s soul the organic connection to the national community. This combination is what is responsible for “nationalist bohemianism” consisting of the simultaneous cultivation of one’s unique self together with commitment to the nation and nationalist aims.

4) What’s new in your approach to Rabbi Kook?

Unlike previous research that pointed out parallels in specific ideas between expressivist thinkers, such as Fichte and Hegel with the thought of Rav Kook, I show that the parallel is with the entire intellectual style of expressivist thought. Furthermore, I show the relationship between this configuration of thought and modern nationalism. R. Kook’s religious philosophy takes place upon the background of modern Jewish nationalism, in which the idea of a national will has to be expressed.

My major thesis is that Rabbi Kook’s thought embodies different inner tensions such as that between the emphasis on the individual or on the collective. There is also a tension between the bottom-up path for effecting the unity of the material and the divine, that is, the path that starts with the human being and the recovery of his inner will to join to God or the “top-down” path that identifies with the divine light clothing itself in the mundane world in dynamic fashion. I show that favoring one or the other paths has had far reaching political implications in regard to the relationship of Religious Zionism to the Israeli government and its policies.

5) How did the 1970s create an expressive political identity in Religious Zionism?

Religious Zionism ideology needed to integrate the two separate components of their identity: their commitment to modern nationalism and their commitment to Orthodox Judaism. To solve that problem, the Religious Zionists developed the notion of the Torah State. This meant that they imbued modern nationalist activity such as settlement, agriculture, economic development, defense and military activity with religious significance and at the same time tried to bring it under religious regulation.

In the 1920’s, members of HaPoel Hamizrachi, the Religious Zionist Workers movement, developed this guiding idea first in regard to the local community – the religious kibbutz and moshav. In the nineteen fifties and sixties the generation that grew up under the state, organized the Young Guard of the National Religious Party, trying to implement this idea on the national level. However, they ran into difficulty as they tried to formulate a clear, consistent, and practical program.

The Six Day War and the conquest of the Greater Land of Israel (including the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the Northern Sinai Peninsula) provided them with a solution. The program of settling and incorporating the Greater Land of Israel provided them with a clear practical program for implementing the Torah state. In this way, they developed a Torah program in regard to the key policy issues of defense and foreign relations. Because of the romantic-organic way of thinking that characterized the expressivist stream in religious Zionism, the Land of Israel was thought of as an organic unified entity which cannot be divided or reduced. You cannot have half of the Land of Israel just as you cannot be half pregnant.

Thus, R. Tzvi Yehuda Kook imbued the political program of incorporating the Greater Land of Israel with cosmic theological significance, and at the same time instilling practical, material significance into the religious philosophy. The Greater Land of Israel was a metonym for an entire theological approach and way of life, which is the implementation and embodiment of Divine ideals in the concrete, material and mundane world. Hence it its concreteness it “is bound in an essential way to the life of the nation” (Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook Orot, 1,1).

6)How did this expressionism lead to the anti-establishment position and the creation of the underground (mahteret), which culminated in the assignation of Rabin and the disengagement protests?

The will to retain and incorporate the Greater Land of Israel was considered by expressivist Religious Zionists to be an expression of the objective, metaphysical inner general will animating the Jewish people, orienting them towards returning to their source in God. This idea, which was expressed in R. Tzvi Yehuda’s broadsheet, Lo Taguru , received its validation in the demonstrations against the Separation of Forces Agreement negotiated by Henry Kissinger in the spring of 1974 and in the settlement attempts in Judea and Samaria in 1975, in which masses of people from different walks of life participated. With the government turnover in 1977 and the ascension of the Likud to become the ruling party, settlement of the Greater Land of Israel became official government policy.

The Likud government, nevertheless, opened peace negotiations with Egypt and began to return territory – Sinai and Yamit- which was met with wide support for peace.

However, R. Tzvi Yehuda stated “The public is not with us.” So, the dilemma that presented itself to the expressivist Religious Zionists was how to respond when the empirical general will of the Jewish people as expressed in its empirical political life differed from, or contradicted the objective, metaphysical general will that was attributed to the Jewish People.

This dilemma was similar in structure to that of the Jacobins in the French Revolution: Should one follow, the objective general will given by reason and embodied in the rule of the enlightened and virtuous (Robespierre and Saint-Just), or should one follow the will of the empirical majority? Robespierre claimed that since he was uncorrupted and totally dedicated to the common good and exclusively used his reason, he had access to the objective general will even if the mass of ordinary citizens disagreed with him. Hence, he and the fellow members of the Committee of Public Safety were entitled to dominate France, including sending people to the guillotine.

Here too in Religious Zionism, two approaches were formulated about embodying Divine ideals in the material world. The revolutionary approach was formulated by Yehuda Etzion of the Jewish Settlers Underground in three remarkable articles written from his prison cell. This approach maintained that one should implement the “true” inner metaphysical general will. Etzion argued that through the spontaneous engagement of the activist the activist recovered the objective, metaphysical general will of the Jewish People. Through his active and conceivably violent response the activist “plugs into” the general and divine will and charismatically achieves “the lower rung of prophecy”, thus attaining religious authority and legitimating his violent actions.

The other approach, represented by Rabbi Tzvi Thau, derives from the “top down” path, in which the divine light devolves gradually into the lower material world – the state of Israel- shaping it according to divine ideals. The Divine Providence chooses to bring the redemption by natural means, through the empirical public collective life of the will of the Jewish people. The redemptive process necessarily involves setbacks and disappointments. Violent activism is the worst thing one can do because it weakens the very vehicle of redemption, the State of Israel, thereby constituting a revolt against God’s Providence and Sovereignty.

7) What is the relationship of the ideology of the post-1967 Gush Emunim and the current post-1990’s expressivist individualist Religious Zionists?

My study interprets the earlier founding generation of Gush Emunim in the light of the developments of the last thirty years. My premise was that the newer phenomena of individual self -expression were rooted in the religious culture of the founding generation of romantic Religious Zionism.

The first part of this study based on my doctoral dissertation was devoted to reinterpreting the founding generation (up to the Disengagement from Gaza in August 2005) as a movement focused on various facets of collective self-expression. The second part of the study is indeed devoted to the recent emergence of an emphasis on individual self-expression.

One of my conclusions is that there is no simple division between “liberals” and conservatives, or “fundamentalists” vs. moderns or moderates. Not only does inward individualism go together with collective commitments but the same energy towards individual self-actualization that fuels creativity in music, theology, poetry etc. can also fuel self-actualization through violence and revenge.

Thus, the broad milieu of the “hilltop youth and the outpost culture” fuels both violence and vandalism against Palestinians and significant musical, literary and theological creativity. Conversely, the conservative and authoritarian school of R. Thau advocates civic moderation and obedience to State authority figures and upholding as it were, the rule of law.

8) You distinguish between two Orthodox cultures: American “Centrist Orthodoxy” and Religious Zionism. How do they differ?

American “Centrist Orthodoxy” and Religious Zionism differ from each other in terms of their roots and underlying problem that they respectively address.

Centrist Orthodoxy addresses the dilemma generated by the possibility of integration into the surrounding American non-Jewish society: To what extent should one engage in non-Jewish practices and activities (such as studying secular subjects) in order to advance. In Centrist Orthodoxy the issue is that of steadfast loyalty to the heteronymous Halacha despite the integration. This ongoing dilemma results in a discourse concerning Jewish practice formulated in terms of what is permitted and what is obligatory and wherein lie the true obligations.

The assumption underlying Centrist Orthodox practice and discourse is that there are constant, social, cultural and psychological obstacles to fulfilling the will of God and hence rabbis must constantly encourage such fulfillment. Accordingly, the legitimation of such engagement with the secular studies offered by such figures as R. Lichtenstein z”l.is that secular knowledge, including humanistic knowledge and culture enhances one’s ability to do the mitzvot in an enhance and enriched way. Furthermore, it makes one God’s partner in the creation and maintenance of the world.

In contrast, the engagement of Israeli religious Zionism is not with the non-Jewish world but with secular Jewish nationalism, consisting of the tension between the sovereign autonomy of nationalism and the demands of religion. The basic thrust of nationalism is that the nation determines not only its own fate but also its own values and goals. This, of course, is a challenge to God’s sovereignty. R. Kook’s religious philosophy offers a resolution of this tension by identifying the inner will of the nation as a whole and its individual members with the universal cosmic striving towards God. Thus, the inner autonomous national will becomes sanctified and an expression of the highest religious aspiration. Israeli Religious Zionism culture is focused upon uncovering the authentic self and inner will of the collective and its members.

In addition, the two communities differ in their relationship to the Haredi world. The American Centrist and Haredi communicates essentially address the same problem – loyalty to the heteronymous religious tradition in the face of the attractions of American modern society. This is one of the reasons why the boundaries between the Centrist Orthodox and yeshivish Haredim is not very sharp or non-porous. Centrists and the Haredim offer different solutions to their common challenge, but these can be arranged in a spectrum. More engagement with the modern world perhaps offers a richer and broader religious experience but it also increases the risk of defection. The Haredim will settle for a safer if poorer religious environment. They can also claim more prestige insofar as they are more authentic, rigorous and consistent in their adherence to the Halacha. Thus, they have influence over Centrist Orthodoxy.

In Israel, Religious Zionists and Haredim live in different spiritual universes. They are not addressing the same issues. Israeli (Ashkenazic) Haredim tend to deny the sanctity of this worldly national phenomena and especially the national will. Thus, Israeli Religious Zionists do not feel beholden to the Haredim.

9) What do you do at the Jewish People Policy Institute and what are your other activities?

At the Jewish People Policy Institute, I am the house sociologist. I analyze Israeli society, and I also include within my purview research and analyses of Diaspora Jewish communities, especially North American ones. In recent years, together with colleagues I have written reports on American Evangelicals and on polarization in the American Jewish community. Every year in the context of a project called the Jewish World Dialogue I conduct focus groups with a few hundred American Jews. This year we are focusing on the relationship of young Jews at universities and other places to progressive identity politics. We are interested in whether and how young Jews are (re)negotiating their personal and collective identities after Oct. 7 I. Until my retirement, I taught in the School of Education in Hebrew University for over thirty years.

My research on Religious Zionism expressivism stemmed from my educational endeavors. After the Rabin assassination, I founded together with colleagues an organization called Yesodot whose aim was to advance education for democracy in the State Religious school system. It was a very tough sell. Aside from all the negative responses that we received we did receive one interesting response that repeated itself over and over. This response said that we are not interested in democracy in the political sense, but we are very interested in school democracy, dialogue, student choice, open education etc. In other words, they wished to include a degree of expressive individualism in their very Orthodox yeshiva education. I started to ask myself where does this interest in expressive individualism come from in this fundamentalist ultra-nationalist movement?

10) Where do Bezalel Smotrich or Naftali Bennett fit in?

The difference between the hard right wing of contemporary Religious Zionism headed by Bezalel Smotirch (who is focused upon traditional concerns of land and settlements) from Naftali Bennet and Matan Kahana (who are more moderate, statist or civic) is precisely the question of the relevance and applicability of the expressivist higher synthesis of religious elements with secular nationalist and liberal ones, as formulated by R. Kook in his concept of the Supreme Holy redemptive synthesis.

The conservative elements have reservations about such a redemptive synthesis. Many feel that they can dispense with any partnership or even consideration of secular or liberal points of view and simply enforce hardline religious and nationalist policies. This is partly due to their perception of the widespread acceptance of religious nationalist ideology by wide sectors of the Israeli public.

Rabbi Thau, leader of the conservative Hardal movement, has not rejected this idea of a synthesis of religious and liberal-secular elements entirely since he remains committed to R. Kook’s religious philosophy. Yet, he is very reserved about its immediate application. For him, we should now use the current era to strengthen the religious element, so that when we do accomplish such a synthesis, it will be truly transformative and redemptive. In addition, according to him some liberal and secular ideas are simply too evil or unnatural to take part is such a synthesis.

Looking at the other side, Naftali Bennet is not well versed, personally, in R. Kook’s teachings, nor is he mainly oriented towards theology. Nevertheless, among his supporters there are those who were firmly ensconced in the Kookist, expressivist tradition. These include Kookist intellectual and writer Motti Karpel, R. Eliezer Melamed (Rabbi of the Har Bracha settlement near Nablus) , Sarah Eliash and R. Yoel Bin Nun of the veteran leadership of Gush Emunim. These seem to be open to partnership with the secular and liberal or centrist hi-tech elites that Bennet is in close contact with. Through such partnership, they will “elevate” the secular elements religiously and nationally, but they will also benefit from the secular/liberal commitment to morality and universalism. Some of these rabbis and religious elites regard this partnership as providing “hints” or “footsteps” of the redemptive higher synthesis. Some of these religious figures affiliated with Bennet have implemented or advocated relatively liberal policies regarding non-Orthodox streams, conversion and Kashrut.

11) This approach seems similar to Daesh’s, with its emphasis on expressive individualism and use of poetry.

The comparison with ISIS is very valid. The case study of Religious Zionism reinforces the important insight that most of the violence of extremist religious or national religious groups is not connected to their anti-modern, “fundamentalist” religious nature, but to their modernity.This study is therefore continuous with Olivier Roy’s scholarly research on the European volunteers of ISIS, who were not particularly Islamic in their behavior or observance of Salafi norms. Rather, they were embedded in European youth culture. Similarly, their nihilist desire for death, both of themselves and their targets, staged according to the aesthetics of Hollywood action films and video games, is more connected to generational revolt and similar instances of contemporary mass violence, such as the shootings at Columbine and the Baader-Meinhof group, than it is vertically descended from the writings of Ibn Taymiyya and Hasan al-Bana.

Even though the religious, sociological, and political contexts of the Islamic State and Religious Zionist Hilltop Youth are very different, as is the nature and manifestation of the violence, ISIS being vastly more murderous, there are crucial points of contact. Both participate in forms of youth culture claiming that their elders have “sold out”, are inauthentic, and practice inauthentic religion. Both seek authenticity in poetry and in various forms of expressive individualism. Both also tie this quest for truth and authenticity to violence. Thus, the violence of both the Hilltop youth and that of ISIS is modernist violence and links up to figures such as Conrad (Heart of Darkness), Ernst Junger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon.

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Posted in israel, jewish thought, religious zionism

Tagged Relgious Zionism, Romanticism

David Shasha on Kellner, Idel, and Nationalism

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Alan Brill | 10 comments

David Shasha is a proponent of all things Sefardi and a radical follower of Jose Faur who envisions a Levantine synthesis of Jewish and Arabic humanism. Shasha offers a critique of Kellner, Idel and others as destroying the humanistic foundations of Judaism. He claims that they destroy the foundation of Maimonidean humanism even if they accept Maimonides. Kellner advocates for the rationalism of Maimonides but back-handedly considers the Maimonideans as too demanding for the common person, as rejecting folk religion, and as not the Jewish tradition. Shasha demands that Maimonides be considered the tradition or else Maimonideans would always be in a defensive position. If one does not live in a rational world then all the power is in the magical hand of the rabbis.

Shasha places blame at the feet of Moshe Idel who explores the magical, irrational, and mythic forces in Judaism but who also maintains that this theurgic world is the world of the Talmudic Rabbis. For Idel, the Rabbinic tradition is magical. Kabbalah is not a Gnostic intruder into Judaism but the very meaning of the commandments for the Rabbis. Once Jews studied Saadyah, Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Gersonides as the traditon, now they read Abulafia and Zohar. For Shasha, this is tantamount to a return to idolatry and the source of militant nationalism. Full Version here.

Shasha writes:
At the center of this controversy is the vexing question of Jewish authenticity.
In his 2006 study “Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism,” Menachem Kellner adopts an approach that has become standard in most Jewish circles, writing:

“The Jewish world in which Maimonides lived was uncongenial to the austere, abstract, demanding vision of Torah which he preached. Evidence from a wide variety of sources shows that Jews in Maimonides’ day – common folk and scholars alike – accepted astrology, the magical use of divine names, appeals to angels, etc.”

In a noble attempt to elevate the thinking of Maimonides, Kellner’s arguments bizarrely lend credence to the positions of the anti-Maimonideans.
In the book’s conclusion he states:

The world favored by Maimonides’ opponents, on the other hand, is an “enchanted” world. Many of Maimonides’ opponents, in his day and ours, do indeed accept the efficacy of charms and amulets, and fear the harm of demons and the evil eye. But it is not in that sense that I maintain that they live in an enchanted world. Theirs is not a world which can be explained in terms of the unvarying workings of divinely ordered laws of nature; it is not a world which can be rationally understood. It is a world in which the notion of miracle loses all meaning, since everything that happens is a miracle. In such a world instructions from God, and contact with the divine in general, must be mediated by a religious elite who alone can see the true reality masked by nature. This is the opposite of an empowering religion, since it takes their fate out of the hands of Jews, and, in effect, puts it into the hands of the rabbis.

We can see the tension at the heart of Kellner’s argument, a tension that forces his hand in accepting the absolute authenticity of the mystical-occult tradition of the Kabbalah and rejecting the Jewish validity of Maimonidean rationalism.

Kellner’s book contains a forward by Hebrew University professor Moshe Idel, perhaps the single most influential academic in the world of Judaica, a winner of the prestigious Israel Prize and a ubiquitous presence in the world of Jewish studies. Idel has relentlessly promoted the pro-magic, neo-pagan, anti-rational strain of Jewish tradition also called Kabbalah.

Idel’s scholarly project has been designed to affirm the authenticity of the mystical-occult Kabbalah and undermine the validity of the rational standards of Religious Humanism. As we see in a representative passage in his seminal 1988 work “Kabbalah: New Perspectives”:

Kabbalah can be viewed as part of a restructuring of those aspects of rabbinic thought that were denied authenticity by Maimonides’ system. Far from being a total innovation, historical Kabbalah represented an ongoing effort to systematize existing elements of Jewish theurgy, myth, and mysticism into a full-fledged response to the rationalistic challenge.
It is, however, possible to assume that, if the motifs transmitted in those unknown [Kabbalistic] circles formed part of an ancient weltanschauung, their affinities to the rabbinic mentality would be more organic and easily absorbed into the mystic cast of Judaism.
According to this hypothesis, we do not need to account for why ancient Jews took over Gnostic doctrines, why they transmitted them, and, finally, how this ‘Gnostic’ Judaism was revived in the Middle Ages by conservative Jewish authorities.

Shasha concludes:

This has led to the rejection of Sephardic Jewish Humanism as formulated by Maimonides and an affirmation of an ethnocentric Jewish chauvinism based on the magical mysticism of Kabbalistic theurgy. It is a Judaism that rejects the tenets of a critical reading of the Jewish past and has led us to the sort of ideological purity and militant nationalism that has become characteristic of the intractable impasse in the Middle East. Though this occult process has been secularized by Zionism, it is apparent that the ideological values of the mystical continue to animate the Jewish self-perception in a nationalistic sense.

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Posted in israel, jewish thought, kabbalah, philosophy, Uncategorized

Tagged david shasha, kabbalah, menachem Kellner, Moshe idel

Ben-Gurion, Bergman and Aurobindo in Israel

Posted on May 30, 2010 by Alan Brill | 4 comments

Here is a found nugget from Tusar N. Mohapatra

I read Sri Aurobindo to find some light in our difficult days

Professor Samuel Hugo Bergman (1883-1975)
Prithwindra Mukherjee

In a recent conversation[1], I mentioned that in 1972, as a guest of the Hebrew University for lecturing on Savitri, I made the acquaintance of Yehuda Hanegby, editor of the monthly Ariel. During this visit, Madame Themanlys, commissioned to interview me for Kol Israel, the official radio, revealed her identity as the daughter-in-law of a personal friend that the Mother had in Paris, belonging to Max Théon’s group. I would like to speak of a third interesting personality whom I met in Jerusalem : Professor Schmuel Hugo Bergman, commonly known as Samuel Bergman.

On the eve of my talk, during a dinner, Dr Poznanski, the Rector of the University, informed me that Professor Bergman, Dean of the University, was hoping to listening to me but, owing to his health (running 89), he could not be present at my lecture; he would appreciate if I went to have breakfast with him on the next morning.

I was staying with my friend, Professor Joseph Sadan, and had my meals with his parents at the picturesque Hayim Nahman Bialik Street : Joseph’s father Dov Sadan was a well-known scholar in Ladino, and his mother treated me with refined traditional dishes from Central Europe. Yehuda came to pick me up for going to see Bergman. Yehuda knew him pretty well and informed that Bergman had been a school-mate of Franz Kafka in Prague, and a zealous friend and translator of Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). In 1920, Bergman along with Martin Buber (1878-1965) had founded in Palestine a “dual national” area to house peacefully Jews and Arabs, before joining the Hebrew University.

On entering the impressive library where sat the venerable scholar, I discovered rows of books by Sri Aurobindo. Amused by my reaction, he asked me to take the seat in front of him and commented on showing me the set : “This was our food for thought; David and I read Sri Aurobindo to find some light in our difficult days.”

Yehuda whispered : “By David, he means Ben Gurion !”

[1] “Meeting Prithwindra Mukherjee”, Article and Interview by Sunayana Panda, The Golden Chain, August 2009, p.13

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Posted in hinduism, israel, Uncategorized

Tagged ben-gurion, hugo Bergman, Sri Aurobindo

Tzvia Greenfield: Israel’s first female Haredi MK- Meretz Activist

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Alan Brill | 7 comments

From Haaretz- full version here

Tzvia Greenfield. Israel’s first Haredi female to be elected to the Knesset, she is a fierce critic of her own community’s attitudes to the peace process and modernity; describing the Haredi community as being “incapable of compromise.” Yet she still lives in it, a resident of the Jerusalem suburb of Har Nof.

Of course, her horizons are far broader than the narrow vista of ultra-Orthodoxy. The 62-year-old, who has a doctorate in political philosophy from the Hebrew University, was elected on behalf of Meretz last November. She advocates a two-State solution based closely on the pre-1967 War borders; a self-proclaimed egalitarian, she’s in favour of women rabbis and religious pluralism.

The mother-of-five, who sent her children to national religious high-schools and both her sons to the army, arrives as expected wearing a sheitel (one that looks like a sheitel) and a long dress.

She then speaks candidly about her prospects of influencing change: she is unsure that Israel’s left can be revived – she’s not sure they can awake secular Israel from its “slumber”- and feels compelled to channel change in her own back-yard, despite disillusionment about the trenchant positions of the Haredi world, which her Austrian “ultra-Orthodox Zionist parents” brought her into.

She describes the “haredization” of parts of Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh as “killing” those places: “Once they take over a community no one else can live in – like in some parts of Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh – that’s unacceptable. That is something people won’t tolerate because they want to live their lives. One neighbour cannot impinge on the other’s rights; it’s true the Haredi community doesn’t understand its task in a democracy. It believes when its population grows in a territory, the whole area should be governed by its rules.

She added: “An essential part of adjustment is in being a minority; the problem is when they become a majority. They are already driving people out of Jerusalem and not just the secular – but the modern Orthodox; because they cannot tolerate this. If the Haredi community gets large enough we won’t see nice developments.”

Her non-interventionist liberal instincts means she defends its right to promote a school curriculum that bares little resemblance to the national model: she believes a “balanced” approach is necessary in seeking to bring the Haredi world into the modern age, without assaulting its delicate nuances. “Interfering in questions of education is particularly sensitive and fragile,” she argues. “Thinking from all sides, I think society has to ensure Haredim aren’t poor. Despite Israeli society’s investment it’s a very poor community.”

Can Meretz deliver change? “I’m not sure. I think the left all over Europe and particularly Israel has severely failed on many assignments and I think the left should profoundly reconsider its goals and how it goes about them. To me after years of being a peace activist it’s a shameful situation and I think it’s unacceptable not to look at ourselves.

Q and A

Bearing in mind you say some religious people have difficulty with compromise how would you like to see change stemming from the religious world?

Religious people have difficulty grasping essential ideas like peace, compromise and accepting others. These are difficult issues and they’ve got to be worked out.

I’m writing a book on the subject. I decided I had to write down what I think and that would be the best way to explain how one could retain ones religiosity and faithfulness to ones position and yet encourage profound changes.

I have one answer to your question. I think a religion ought to be concerned with human beings and not objects. Too often traditional religions have a great interest in objects and not enough in human beings. That has to be shifted completely. The emphasis and the concern should be entirely different and there are ways to do it.

Do you think the demonstration of the human side of the Judaism has been lost?

I think there is not enough concern about human beings, and I mean human beings in general, including non-Jews. As a religious person I believe that all human beings were created in the image of God.

What we’ve seen in Israel in the last thirty or forty years ever since the ’67 War is a concern with land. That’s an object. It’s become the centre of attention for religious people and I think that’s a major mistake and I think that should be changed.

Where do you stand on issues of religious pluralism and the rights of all sects of Judaism to have equal funding with regards to conversion programs and education?

Of course I support pluralism. People have to make their choices and decide what’s for them. There’s no way the state should direct on what or how they should do things. Every citizen should be a free subject to make his or her decisions without any input by the state whatsoever.

How would you, as a progressive Haredi, advocate it modernises its approach to self- governance?

Education. Education is the answer to everything, The fact that it blocks general education to its community is part of the problem because they never really understand what is going on and make their own decision. I would try and allow these people to get education without breaking down the system altogether, without enforcing education on them in a way which cannot acceptable, not only for them, but even for me. I don?t believe in enforcing it brutally; it has to be done carefully.

The very fact it’s living in the modern world, is affecting it. We are talking about the younger generation that will make decisions about what they are doing. In both America and Israel. They are re-evaluating the world that their parents have brought them into. We’re probably going to see changes in the next 20-30 years. After all, they do not want to be poor.

You hope that the secular and Haredi worlds can live side by side but at the moment even the modern Orthodox are getting annoyed with the Haredim as the recent riots in Beit Shemesh prove.

Once they take over a community no one else can live in – like in some parts of Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh – that’s unacceptable. That is something people won’t tolerate because they want to live their lives. One neighbor cannot impinge on the other’s rights; it’s true the Haredi community doesn’t understand its task in a democracy. It believes when its population grows in a territory the whole area should be governed by its rules.

The Haredization of Jerusalem is already here – how can this situation be clawed back?

The community is poor, uneducated and very militant – the combination is lethal. It will kill Jerusalem.

How can the Haredi leadership recognise the need to modernise?

There is one factor in favour of modernisation- poverty. Some of the leadership recognizes and is concerned by this. Although the politicians would recommend poverty should be paid for, the leaders have a deeper approach. Certain changes must occur. First women join professions. Later on some men join. Things will change. Young men will be encouraged to join colleges. Already now there are a couple of colleges where Haredi girls are accepted to law or commerce school.

What do you think about the status of women in the Haredi world?

The big issue here is a very delicate one. That is children. Large families thirty years ago was six children; now there’s 13 or 14 – from one wife. I believes the glorification of bringing as many children as possible is a definite way of ensuring women can’t bring their advantages into effect – subjugation.

It’s inconceivable for a woman to say to her husband, “I won’t have more than three children” – a cause for divorce. Inconceivable and non-existent.

Do you think there should be Orthodox female rabbis?

I’m all for it. I think if women want to serve as rabbis in religious function they should be given the right to do so. The issue of depriving women a religious position is part of deprivation of women from positions of power. Women don’t have equal rights in Judaism because they never had them in any field of life- a general result of subjugation.

Why is there a lack of state involvement in social issues?

The state has been run by conservatives who don’t want equal rights for women, Arabs, anyone; any progressive left issues. They want to sabotage these things.

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Posted in israel, religious zionism, Uncategorized

Tagged Meretz, Tzvia Greenfield

On the Economy and on Sustenance: Judaism, Society, and Economics [Hebrew]

Posted on January 9, 2010 by Alan Brill | 3 comments

Al haKalkalah ve-al haMihyah eds Itamar Brenner and Aharon Ariel Lavi 2008

I just got around to reading another volume in the “Jewish Thought and Cultural Criticism” series, they reflect the thinking going around Religious Zionist circles Below are short summaries of the articles without the details to give you a sense of the volume. I will focus more on the ones that deal with Jewish thought.

Section One
The opening essay by Rav Shagar Z”l presents two understandings of the Sabbatical Year Shmita- a functional one and a spiritual return to harmony with nature and the Divine. He presents an ambivalence of inner and outer views of society. Hazal were ambivalent on carrying on Sabbath- it is one of the 39 prime categories but also a melakhah gerua but one can make eruv. He says that Hazal were more concerned with outer bounderies with the natural order than internal ones with the camp. He applies that back to the Sabbatical year. But along the ride, he discusses Midrash, Zohar, Heschel, and Mordechai Breuer, He concludes “Shimita is a catharsis, a disengagement and a purification from acquisition and civilization.

Dov Berkovits offers a nice analysis of the agricultural laws as showing wealth as the blessing of God and we partake of God’s blessing. He compares this to John Locke where wealth is human initiative. For Locke, God mandates government and human are left free, while for Hazal there is an interaction of the Divine and the human.

Roni Bar-Lev, who is working for a PHD under Avi Sagi discussed wealth in the writings of Rav Nahman of Breslov.He shows how for Rav Nahman, a kosher Jews should be far away from money or acquisition. Money is vile. In the story “master of prayer” the wealthy are so delusional that they organize themselves into angelic ranks based on their wealth. Yet, it is needed in the world. Greed is the only vice that cannot be transmuted to good, but desire itself can be transmuted.

Motti bar-Or of Kolot also offers the distinction in zedakah between the functional and the getting closer to the Divine.

Aharon Lavi, an editor of the volume doing a PHD in economic gives us a long article that is a gold mine of playing Jewish thought off of economic concerns. He major thesis is that Jewish thought offers a model of giving and receiving (mashbia, mekabel) , a connected societal model which he contrasts with Utilitarianism. He cites Chabad, early Hasidut, Zohar, Rav Nahman to create his model, more Chabad than others. For him, the Torah is pro Keynes and against Milton Freidman He also explores other images of tikkun, from above and from below. He concludes by rejecting Naomi Klein’s ideas of NO LOGO because she does not get the cultural elements.

Section two
Israel Auman, the noble prize winner offers a Hebrew translation of his English articles on Risk Aversion. Yaakov Rosenberg offers a Richard Posner analysis of hilkhot nezikin.Julian Sinclair offers a translation of his English article on climate change and Judaism. The political Kabbalist Yitzhak Ginzburgh creates a kabbblah of management. And Yossi Zuriah (I am not sure if this is how he spells his name) ponders applying ideas of Shimitah to the high tech industry- “shareware” “open source” and why this would still keep the company afloat.

Section three

Articles from a current Israeli halakhic debate on not relying on heter iska today. Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach was against using it today. Some say we should use Arab banks. So this volume has Rabbis Yaakov Ariel and Yoel Bin Nun on the topic on minimizing the use of heter iska as much as possible. This is a VBM shiur by Daniel Wolf that gives the background. Some of these arguments could use a review of Money Supply before writing
The same section has an out of place article by Yael Wilfed presenting part of her Duke PHd comparing Roman and rabbinic concepts in philanthropy. Conclusion – Romans were concerned with the collective state and gave out bread, the sages were concerned on a personal level.
There is an article by Yosef Yitzahak Lifshitz presenting his libertarian anti-socialist views, seems a translation from Azure. (It should have been in part II). And an article of Meir Tamari and an article by Edo Rechnitz, from the Beth Din for money, on targeting Zedakah

Little prepared me for the afterword by Rabbi Menachem Froman Of Tekoa
He start off by discussing how people found Religious Zionism from decades ago as all socialism and secular at its core but observant only on top of that. He turns to hasidut to discuss how we have to do things leshem yehud, to unify God, to sanctify the everyday. Then he moves to Rav Nahman to discuss how everyday life and money is the evil side and that God wants us to enter the evil side to redeem it. We then get a homily on the Zohar in which there is a disjunctive inserted between Lo (DO NOT) and KILL (Tirzah) meaning that sometimes you have to do what is normally forbidden. We then move to the importance of making an offering to the evil side as shown by the scapegoat offered to the evil side, but Froman’s question is why the second goat? Answer- we need to return to the non-spiritual, the mundane. We need to bring the spiritual work into the mundane into the evil side of dealing with money.
Then he discusses Camus’s myth of Sisyphus and the Plague and concludes that Torah teaches us not to ask about the outcome; we need to do things lishmah. He concludes with a discussion weaving together the Zohar, that the world is the evil side and Doug Adams – Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
I read the Rav Froman piece last Shabbat and right after Shabbat I read a great article on Rav Froman in the religious section of MAARIV/NRG.

If you do comment, please comment on ideas, not people. And please do not arrive to offer scatter shot citations of articles on economics and Judaism from the RJJ and TUM journal and the like.

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Posted in israel, jewish thought, religious zionism

Tagged aharon lavi, economic judaism, economics, Itamar brenner, Menachem froman, shagar

Islam as the relgion of Hesed

Posted on December 11, 2009 by Alan Brill | Leave a comment

Dr Avraham Elqayam is head of the Shlomo Moussaieff Center for Kabbalah Research and professor of Kabbalah at Bar Ilan University. A number of years ago he wrote an article in the journal of the Torah veAvodah movement called “The Religion of Mercy: Encounters with Islam” Deot 19, (2004) 6-8 (It is a late night freehand translation). I am not sure of his current opinion but it is a very interesting three page article. He does not draw broader implications than those presented here.

In the article, he discusses the clash of civilization that puts Jews on the side of Western civilization. He demurs:

But are Jews part of the flesh of the flesh of Western Civilization? I am astonished! My family lived under the Muslim world in Spain and afterward in a small community in Gaza City. They lived submersed in the midst the Arabic Muslim civilization.

On the identification of Judaism and the West:

The question is – do we have to continue in this direction until we reach opposition or do we need to go in another direction? The Torah recounts how Isaac and Ishmael went together to bury Abraham. It is valid to ask on the role of Yishmael in the Jewish spiritual tradition. Our modern philosophers, especially [Franz] Rosenzweig betrayed us. I will turn, therefore, from the world of philosophy to the world of mysticism and Kabbalah. Perhaps there we will find a path and a direction.

Elqayam finds three approaches in Jewish mysticism to Islam. Kabbalah, Jewish Sufism, and Sabbatianism.

In Kabbalah- the world is all symbolic of the divine realm, therefore

When you contemplate about Islam, think about Ishmael in the parashah [Hayai Sarah] Ask what is being symbolized, what is the allusion in the world of divinity. It is surprising to reveal that the Spanish kabbalists saw the essence of Islam as connected to the power of the sefirah hesed. Abraham our patriarch represented hesed and Ishmael comes from Abraham, therefore Islam represents hesed.

In its inwardness, Islam is a religion of hesed This is the self-consciousness of the Muslims themselves. Muslims are called in Arabic a religion of tolerance. This opinion appears in the writings of Yosef Gikitilla….The destiny of the Islamic nation amidst the humanity is to represent Divine hesed.”

Rabbi Abraham Maimoni was influenced by the Sufi mystical schools. He quoted the learning of Sufis, and praised their use of music, body posture, and prostrations.

Rabbi Abraham Maimuni saw Sufism as a form of meta-religion that bridged between Islamic spirituality and prophetic spirituality. His intention was understandably to imitate the prophets and not the Muslims, except according to his opinion, only the Muslims preserved the path of prophecy. We have seen in him the spiritual possibility within Judaism that preserves the Jewish identity but which expresses the spiritual world of Islam- the Jew lived in the culture of Islam, drawing leaven from the Muslim world yet making a synthesis between the worlds as a Jew.

Shabbatai Zevi converted to Islam and his followers created a synthesis that mixed both religions, they were Muslims who also kept Jewish practices including the Jewish holidays. [He gives several examples of the syncretism]

He conlcudes:

We need to reconnect the fine threads and the gleanings– that bring us to our brothers Ishmael, that are almost lost to us. It is possible that the time has already passed but we are required at least to try. It is incumbent upon us to begin afresh to build a spiritual bridge between Judaism and Islam, to this I desire.

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Posted in interfaith, israel, jewish thought, kabbalah, theology

Tagged Abraham maimuni, Avraham elqayam, clash of civilizations, deot, interfaith, Islam, Judeo-Islamic synthesis, kabbalah, Shabbatai Zevi, Yishmael

Rabbi Hirschenson’s Malki Bakodesh

Posted on December 6, 2009 by Alan Brill | 6 comments

I was given a copy of the 2006 reprint of Rabbi Hayyim Hirschenson’s Malki baKodesh on my last journey. I have read the older Hebrew edition. But as I pack for the next journey, I took it out to read for Shabbat.and looked at the new edition, He writes as 1929 Zionist. who attended the early Zionist congresses and wants to deal with the political problems that will arrive. He wants to assure that Religious Jews would not require a king and would not require the institution of sacrifices. He wants to allow people on to the Temple mount but as house of prayer for all people. It is permitted to join the Jewish legion even if it is a non-obligatory war- yet was are not in a messianic age. Finally, he accepts the concept of a high court of appeals- something that Rav Kook vehemently objected to its institution.Along the way and unlike most Rabbinic works are discussions of Horace Kalen, Louis Brandeis, and Jabotinsky. He supports the creation of legal boards and mishpat ivri to avoid Rabbinic courts. And finds the Balfour declaration a major event that should reorient Judaism. No law of the Torah can be against true civilization

In the original 1929 edition there was already an English preface which encouraged the role of the populous, and the need to make sure the halakhah does not perish. ” They deal with considerations of primary importance for every Jew who is interested in the organic continuation of Jewish life in the line of historical development of Jewish teaching on the basis of Halacha.” The editor of the new edition notes the influence of Abraham Lincoln’s “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”.

He is anti Kingship based on the Abrabanel. And his approach seems to solve problems by making things problematic. The Bavli says this but the midreshei halakhah say other things and our questions cannot be answered so we can have a removal of a Rabbinic category. So unlike Maimonides who creates an ideal messianic halakhah- Hirschenson shows there is no ideal and there the laws are inoperative. He also used the technical questions of the Vilna Gaon, R. Akiva Eier and the Torah Temimah, to remove closure. As a said in my YUTorah class on Hirschenson- he is not just creating liberal position but works through Horayot and Sanhedrin and undoing them. Unlike others who try and make him Maimonidean, philosophic, or intellectual modernist. He is more historic oriented, a strong defense of popularism, and is more about removal of law than the construction of new law. (cf, the volume’s introduction that compares him to David Hartman).

A few theological points:

He writes that he was witness to WWI and the slaughter of the Armenians and decides that there is a need to write a new Zohar style apocalypse, like the Nistarot of Rabbi Shimon or Zohar Shemot 6-7, which he wrote and called “Tikkune Hamalkhut”

He wrote and analysis of Spinoza’s ethics and what we can learn from it in Spinoza’s work, contained in his Musagei Shav veha-Emet. He can use Spinoza because he is not trying to create rationality, rather he is seeking to create opening for a broader life, like Rabbi Reines.

Coincidently, I had Hirschenson’s hagadah at hand, literally, someone recently sent me a copy.

Here are a few ideas from it:

“Maimonides did not intend that there would be only 13 principles of faith; there are many other principles in the Torah. Maimonides needed to explain only those principles that the masses would not understand because of their philosophic depth… There are many halakhot that are also principles such as those of “kill and do not violate.” And in the case of the Hagadah, the wicked son writes himself out of Judaism.

He translates “pereshut- zu derekh eretz” as one of the class system, perishut means class and the Jews who were originally upper class were treated as lower class and that is a major afflication.

The hagadah states that Jews are free in many countries due to minority rights but they are not spiritually free yet because are feeling the oppression of the majority culture and therefore do not have love of Torah and fear of heaven. He also notes that until he cme to the US, he never knew why both phrases are needed and now he sees that one can have a sense of heaven and be totally removed from [the laws of] Shabbat and Torah.

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Posted in holidays, israel, jewish thought, religious zionism

Tagged abarbanel, abraham lincoln, hagadah, hayyim Hirschenson, malci bakodesh, malki bakodesh, Mishpat ivri, rabbi reines, religious zionism, SPinoza

Restoring Sacrifice viewed from Nepal

Posted on December 2, 2009 by Alan Brill | 3 comments

There are many who look forward to re-instituting sacrifice in Judiasm. Notice the reaction that it gets in Hinduism. Would we get the same reaction? Would Judiasm and Hinduism now be linked, with pejorative intent, in peoples minds as the two religions of sacrifice?Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism do not have sacrifice of animals as part of a regular order – Jews and Hindus do.

Mumbling something about Rav Kook writing that the restored sacrifices will be vegtable does not seem to have much clout when Kooks current followers are assiduously studying Kodshin and growing their nails long as they long for the Temple mount.

Now if I gave out this article to eighth graders while teaching Leviticus they would probably be appalled but what of 11th graders? How about kids after a year in Israel?Is there a way to create a modernist or contemporary approach to kodshim? What would be a contemporary approach seeing that since it is our sacred texts, we will witness a return of the repressed. How seriously is everyone taking kodshim? I like the study of kodshin, whether Griz or Chofetz Chaim, and especially Mishnayot. But are we heading back to actual practice? As you read this, think of how different Jews will react and is this the Judiasm of the future?

Here is a conflated account from two versions

“Animal slaughter fest” begins despite protests in Nepal November 24, 2009

Kathmandu, Nepal — Despite appeals to halt the centuries-old custom of animal sacrifice, Gadhimai festival on Tuesday started in southern Nepal with millions of devotees flocking from various parts of the country and India. It is estimated that some 35,000 to 40,000 buffaloes, which are brought mostly from India, for the world’s largest ritual sacrifice at the temple.

India’s noted animal right activist Maneka Gandhi had also written a letter to Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal appealing him to stop the sacrifice. Meanwhile, Animal Welfare Network Nepal and Anti-Animal Sacrifice Alliance has written to head priest Mangal Chaudhary and organising committee chief Shiva Chandra Kushwaha to stop the mass sacrifice.”We beg you to consider our plea. As the two important persons you have the ability to show wisdom, compassion and courage by doing everything to stop the killing of innocent creatures in the name of the God,” the letter said.

The government has, however, remained non-committal on its role in ending the custom. We will not interfere in the centuries-old tradition of the people, an official said.

Around five million people, 80 per cent from India, will arrive to observe the festival this time. Some 3,00,000 to 5,00,000 animals will be sacrificed during the two-day festival.

Hindus in Nepal routinely offer animals for sacrifice to appease deities, Especially power goddesses, for good luck and prosperity. But the festival held every five years at the Gadhimai temple in southern Nepal was condemned this year by animal rights activists.

Scores of butchers carrying big curved knives killed the animals in an open field as thousands of devotees stood by, witnesses reached by phone said. More than 80 percent of Nepal’s 27 million people are Hindus.

“It is a tradition and people’s faith. How can any protests stop that,” asked Mangal Chaudhary, chief priest of the temple, adding there were no protests.Some devotees said they were offering animals for sacrifice in the hope of being blessed with a son, preferred by many parents in Nepal and India.

3 Comments

Posted in israel, popular religion, religious zionism, ritual

Tagged animal sacrifice, hinduism, kodshim, Kook sacrifice, korbanot, sacrifice

This is How Redemption Looks- Chayuta Deutsch

Posted on October 26, 2009 by Alan Brill | Leave a comment

Chayuta (also spelled Hayuta) Deutsch is the editor of the Akdamot Journal, published by Beit Morasha of Jerusalem, and the author of Nechama: The Biography of Nechama Leibovitz, published by Yedioth Ahronot Press. She was the literay editor for Ha-Zofeh during its sensationalist decade.
She has a new book out “ככה נראית גאולה” This is how Redemption Looks. Something for me to get next trip to Israel.
“ככה נראית גאולה”, מאת חיותה דויטש, הוצאת “ידיעות ספרים”. 239 עמודים. The book is short stories about the Relgious Zionist world–Think “Serugim”
Here is an excerpt.

Facebook for book

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Posted in israel, religious zionism

Tagged chayuta deutsch, religious zionism, ככה נראית גאולה

Israel as an Educational Text

Posted on September 23, 2009 by Alan Brill | Leave a comment

I just received by email the latest report from Synagogue 3000’s Synagogue Studies Institute “Bringing Conversations about Israel into the Life of American Congregations.” Authors Alex Sinclair and Esti Moskovitz-Kalman

It seems the goal after 2000 years and the return to the land of Israel is to go back to treating Israel as a symbol- or a text, an idea, a midrash. Not to treat Israel as a flesh and blood realpolitic middle eastern country, at least on the synagogue level. Israel is something to understand from a distance through the lens of one’s personal life. Birthright is successful since it takes place in Israel but is an American experience, as are many of the “year in Israel” programs. It does not let Israeli reality interfere with eduction. These programs allow American to understand Israel though the lens of their American suburban lives.

They study refers to another recent study that shows that American Jews are not emotionally distant from Israel, just lost in the self-absorption of their pleasure seeking lives.

What of AIPAC and CPMAJO and their advocacy activities? ANS: They collide with Jewish education.

Here are some quotes:

Israel is a Jewish Text

We begin with an audacious claim: Israel is a Jewish text like all other Jewish texts. And we Jews know a thing or two about how to read, discuss, teach, learn and draw meaning from texts.

We know how to grapple with a text we find problematic. We know how to incorporate the ideas of texts into our own lives….

The “distancing from Israel” hypothesis has been challenged empirically (Sasson, Kadushin, and Saxe 2008).Nevertheless, from a value perspective, both schools of thought agree that it is absolutely critical that Israel engagement become a vehicle for personal meaning-making Without a deep level of personal meaning, the American Jew will not engage with Israel. Our claim is that conversation is a significant educational means and end to lead to that personal meaning-making, even, and indeed especially, for those Jews who have weak prior commitments to Israel.

Sasson, T., Kadushin, C., and Saxe, L. (2008). American Jewish Attachment to Israel: an assessment of the “distancing” hypothesis. Boston: Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies

A congregant I am working with right now says “I have no interest in going to Israel; there are a thousand other places in the world where I would rather go.” I don’t think we have yet answered these questions for the vast majority of people.

The Israel Advocacy Agenda — Friend or Foe?

However, notwithstanding its value in the political sphere, Israel advocacy can collide with Israel education. The advocacy agenda may alienate those who don’t like politics in general. It certainly repels congregants who question the very Israeli policies that the advocates espouse. It frustrates those who reject being told that contrary to the ethos of the democracy in which they live, they may not voice their doubts about Israel’s policies openly and honestly.

Article

I am not sure what to think about this. I do think they are correct educationally. They are correct about the way American students project on Israel and I do think education need to be separated from advocacy. (i dont want to discuss politics) But it means that Israel has to become part of the construction of an American life, a projection onto a silent land It is like the ideal in Graham Green novels novels of marrying someone who does not speak your language in order to have an ideal marriage, since one can project onto the silent spouse anything one wants. The longing of Yehudah Halevi and the heavenly Jerusalem of a Hasidic text is more inspiring than actual Israeli society.

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Posted in israel

Tagged israel, Synagouge 3000

Category Archives: israel

Rav Kook’s Guide for Today’s Perplexed-Interview with Aryeh Sklar

Marc Shapiro interview- Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New

Expressive Relgious Zionism: An Interview with Shlomo Fischer

David Shasha on Kellner, Idel, and Nationalism

Ben-Gurion, Bergman and Aurobindo in Israel

Tzvia Greenfield: Israel’s first female Haredi MK- Meretz Activist

On the Economy and on Sustenance: Judaism, Society, and Economics [Hebrew]

Islam as the relgion of Hesed

Rabbi Hirschenson’s Malki Bakodesh

Restoring Sacrifice viewed from Nepal

This is How Redemption Looks- Chayuta Deutsch

Israel as an Educational Text

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