Category Archives: jewish thought

Sam Lebens- God’s Chosen People

Posted on August 24, 2026 by | Leave a comment

The concept of a chosen people preferred by God challenges core ideas about fairness, divine love, and human equality. If God loves everyone equally, singling out one specific group for a special covenant or status appears to contradict that fairness. If God is over all of humanity, then how could God pick one people? It seems to imply a capricious deity or one closer to Greek myths. More importantly in our era, the concept generates arrogance, racism, chauvinism, or violence. It implies that one group is inherently better than the rest and often demeans the humanity of the other group. However, the concept of the Jewish People chosen from among all the people is a substantial part of the Bible and Jewish everyday liturgy.

The latest volume to offer a solution to this  problem is an excellent new book by Rabbi Dr.  Samuel Lebens, God’s Chosen People: Judaism’s Most Divisive Doctrine (Oxford, 2026). Lebens is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa specializing in early analytic philosophy especially Bertrand Russell, the nature of propositions, the nature of fiction, and writes widely on the analytic philosophy of Judaism. His PhD is from Birkbeck College, University of London, and he completed post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Notre Dame and at Rutgers University with Rabbinic Ordination from Rabbi Zalman Nechemia Goldberg.

Leben’s method takes as a fundamental given the tenets of Judaism, which, for him, include existence of God, revelation, and Bible interpreted through Rabbinic method. He does not argue for these, rather they are his starting premises. Like many Evangelical analytic theologians, who Lebens studies, the goal is to formulate a position that he can live with, a Judaism with enough analytic philosophy defense to be cogent and defensible.

Lebens stands on the shoulders of several recent works to create his theology of Jewish choseness including the classic Rabbi Prof Michael Wyschogrod, Body of Faith (1983),  Rabbi Prof David Novak, The Election of Israel: The Idea of the Chosen People (2007), and Prof Yehuda Gelman, God’s Kindness Has Overwhelmed Us: A Contemporary Doctrine of the Jews as the Chosen People (2012). The last one by Gelman used the tools of analytic theology; Lebens acknowledges his debt to this work,

However, Lebens is more Biblically based than Gelman, analyzing five Biblical models of choseness of the Jewish people. You can read about the models in the interview. This is analytic presentation of materials is Leben’s strong suit; his collecting the data from a broad range of materials: Biblical, Talmudic, Medieval Philosophic, Rosenzweig, and Modern Orthodox thinkers. This extensive range is unique to this book compared to his predecessors.

In addition, Lebens emphasizes his belief in a personal God as the Jewish view. He rejects all abstract views of God and all impersonal views. His belief in this is strong enough for him to discount medieval Jewish thought and all Jewish views of an abstract God. Therefore, despite his broad historical reach,  mainly of the thinkers he discusses are presented for him to reject them.  

Lebens makes good use of Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks’ ideas. And Lebens is part of a growing trend to follow the thought of formerly obscure thinker Rabbi Nathaniel ibn Fayumi who taught that God sends a prophet to every nation. (See my prior posts on the use of Nathanel ibn Fayumi by Rabbi Yaakov Nagen and by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed). Lebens, however, is original in how he presents ibn Fayumi as a continuity of Rabbi Saadiah Gaon.

In the 1948 debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston, on the nature of God and philosophy, Russell argued for modern analytic logic thereby rejecting the medieval classics and Copleston argued for the classic scholastic theism. It was exemplar in showing two methods for reading texts from prior centuries, are they treated as objects for analytic analysis or as traditions received. Lebens is clearly on the side of Russell. I am much less comfortable rejecting Maimonidean positions. And Lebens chapter on Jewish mysticism, was unnecessary in its current form.  

Since the book only sporadically dips into the scholarship, it missed a few books that would have help develop his arguments such Chosen and Unchosen: Conceptions of Election in the Pentateuch and Jewish-Christian Interpretation (2009)by Joel N. Lohr. The book directly deals with the Biblical models of choseness and election in both Jewish and Christian thought, and specifically deals with Wyschogrod, Novak, and Jon Levenson.

My bigger issue is how his book relates to actual Jews and Jewish opinions. I tried pushing these issues in several of my questions. In 1983, Prof Arnold Eisen, wrote a book The Chosen People in America: A Study in Jewish Religious Ideology where he states: “A Jewish ethnic identity was illegitimate in democratic America; in clinging to the illusion of chosenness which demanded such an identity, Jews brought their sufferings upon themselves.” Eisen quotes the Conservative Rabbi Milton Steinberg who observed in 1934: “Only a people of acrobats could preserve a semblance of poise on a footing so unstable.” Based on this, does Leben’s book speak to a reader who does not accept his premises?

I think it does. It offers for Jews an exemplar example of Evangelical analytic theology based on Biblical truth. The rigor, extensiveness, and overview of many positions make it almost a basic reader on the topic. Most prior analytic works were articles arguing for a single position. Lebens offers range and depth. The book would make an ideal book for an introduction to Jewish thought especially in Modern Orthodox high schools or in gap year program. The book would raise the level of discussion to sophisticated levels. I make this recommendation, with the caveat that the instructor should complement the book by arguing for their own positions including those of Halevi, Maimonides, or Kabbalah, as well as modern thinkers who are not modern Orthodox.  

Finally, even though the book is being published by Oxford University Press, an earlier draft is also available on the Virtual Beit Midrash of Yeshivat Har Etzion as forty-five digestible lectures as Choosing a Theory of Chosenness. I emphasize this because the list price for the new book is $165. The book is worth reading, worth arguing with, and stay tuned for some responses here.   

  1. Why did this topic interest you?

My children had some disturbing experiences in the religious school system in Israel. On numerous occasions, they were witness to hateful and racist statements, not merely from their peers, but even from their teachers. Those experiences cemented my opinion that Jewish supremacism is growing steam in the rank and file of the Religious Zionist community in Israel. My decision to excavate and thoroughly explore the notion of chosenness was my attempt to do the intellectual heavy lifting required to challenge that supremacism, using the sources of the Jewish tradition itself.

2. What are the Biblical models of choseness and why did you pick two as best?

I found there to be five central Biblical models of the election of Israel:

One- The Genesis Model: The main notions within this model are that the choice of Abraham and his progeny was somewhat arbitrary (in that there may have been other individuals, no less qualified than Abraham); the choice of Abraham was intended to bring blessing to all of the families of the world – such that the election is a means to that universalistic end; the chosen are called upon to showcase and embody the political virtues of justice and equity (i.e., tzedek and mishpat); the chosen are to be liminal, and to utilize that liminality as a counter-cultural voice in the conversation of humanity; and they are called upon to struggle with man and with God.

Two- The Marriage Model: This refers to the idea that the chosen were not chosen for any mission in particular. Instead, they were chosen because God had fallen in love with them. The Torah and its laws, on this construal of the relationship, function like a marriage contract.

Three- The Priesthood Model: The guiding slogan of this model is that we are to be a “kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” Whatever the Levitical priests are supposed to provide to Israel, the Israelites are called upon to provide for the nations of the world.

Four- The Zechut Avot Model: “Zechut Avot” refers to the merit of the ancestors. On this model, the Jewish people have a special status, not in virtue of their own achievements, but merely in virtue of the merit of their illustrious ancestors.

Five- The Name-bearing Model: On this model, the Jewish people are to be witnesses to the existence of God, and to carry His name, or His reputation, among the peoples of the world.

These models aren’t exhaustive, since they neglect various other metaphors: God is the farmer and Israel is His vineyard; God is the shepherd, and Israel are His sheep; God is the potter, and Israel are His clay; God is the King, and Israel are His subjects; we are the allotment of land that He inherits, and He is our inheritor. But none of these metaphors are developed as extensively as the five models I’ve identified.

I found that Models iv and v are easily subsumed into the other models. For example, you might think that the Marriage Model is true, but that God didn’t fall in love with us so much as with our ancestors. Alternatively, you might think that bearing God’s name in the world is part of the mission of a global priesthood, or part of the mission bestowed upon Abraham. That leaves us with three main models.

In later stages of the book, I argue that the Genesis Model and the Priesthood Model can be combined into one coherent picture.

The Marriage Model can’t be taken too literally, for Biblical reasons, if we’re to reconcile it with other models of the election. Theologically, when taken too literally, the Marriage Model renders God guilty of favoritism and caprice. Accordingly, I would say that the relationship between Israel and God is aptly described as a passionate marriage, but only in some respects. It is the first two models that must take the lead.

  • 3.How do you deal with difficult Rabbinic texts on this topic?

Many of the most difficult Rabbinic texts, ones that reputedly dehumanize non-Jews, have been well dealt with already by others. To that end, I lean heavily upon (and embellish) Rabbi Eliezer Berkovitz’ masterful early work, What is the Talmud?

But more than that, I discover two potentially surprising data points.

First: with a proper understanding of their etiology and underlying symbolism, the Rabbinic laws known as eiva and darkei shalom – which prohibit actions that would cause animosity between Jews and non-Jews, and mandate various acts of kindness towards non-Jews – are not to be understood as political exigencies, or compromises. On the contrary, they are motivated by central ethical convictions of the Rabbis.

Second: the Rabbis take the most problematic Biblical model of the election – the Marriage Model – and entirely recalibrate it. Instead of portraying Israel as the bride of God Himself, they portray Israel as the bride of God’s daughter – the Torah. God is then recast as our heavenly father-in-law. This means that we only occupy any sort of special status to the extent that we’re living our lives in accordance with the Torah. To the extent that we’re not, the status will be attenuated.

This Rabbinic Model nevertheless has to rub shoulders with other conceptions of the election. And thus, it isn’t fair or possible to flatten the Rabbinic data and to pretend that there was always consensus. On the contrary, my aim is to trace all of the major lines of development and to find, where possible, the best fit between them all; without pretending that all of the sources are in agreement.

4.The liturgy states repeatedly that God chose us- asher bachar banu mi kol Haamim- how do you deal with this?

The fact that we were chosen “from among all of the nations,” doesn’t ipso facto entail that other nations haven’t also been chosen for other purposes. To that end, see Amos 9:7.

The fact that we have been exalted over other “tongues” and above the “uncircumcised” has nothing to do with our ethnicity or race, but with the language that we’ve been co-opted into speaking – i.e., the language of Torah – and her rituals, such as circumcision.

To the extent that we’ve been sanctified as a people, the liturgy tends to insist that it’s only because we have been given the Torah and holds only to the extent that we cleave to that Torah.

There’s no doubt that Jewish supremacists will nevertheless find lots of phrases in the liturgy to cleave to, but I argue that a closer reading of those texts always falls short of endorsing any one particular model of the election. In fact, the relevant liturgical texts tend to manifest a studied neutrality when it comes to the various competing Biblical and Rabbinic models of the election. A proper understanding of the etiology of even the most offensive sounding liturgical formulations inevitably undermines their offensive appearances; or so my study has found.

5. How do you both accept and reject the approach of Maimonides?

I endorse Maimonides’ goal of articulating an entirely non-racial construal of Jewish identity. I also hope to preserve an inspiring detail of his understanding of the Priesthood Model. On his account of that model, it isn’t only the non-Levitical tribes of Israel who are invited to share in the overall mission of the Priesthood to the world; but that:

Each and every person of all the inhabitants of the world whose spirit generously motivates him, and who understands with his wisdom, to separate himself and stand before God to serve Him and minister to Him and to know God, proceeding justly as God made him, removing from his neck the yoke of the many reckonings which people seek, he is sanctified as holy of holies (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Shemitta VeYovel, 13:13).

But there are two related respects in which I think we should diverge from the Rambam. The first is that his theology entails that God is not a personal being and that, as such, God can enter into no particular form of relationship with any individual or community.

That theology is alien to the Bible’s presentation of God, and alien to much of the Rabbinic movement’s conception of God, such that Jewish believers in revelation should be very reticent to embrace it. He was operating with an Aristotelian conception of how metaphysical explanation is supposed to work. Once that background has been removed, the argument that pushes Maimonides to his apersonalist theology is no longer compelling at all.

Secondly, and as a consequence of his apersonalist theology, one finds that Maimonides basically rejects the entire notion of chosenness. To the extent that anything remains chosen, on his conception of things, it is the religion of Judaism, but not the Jews. This is a highly revisionary conception of the election.

6.Why do you reject a non-personal or abstract God?

My rejection of the abstract God stuff can be boiled down to this: Given the Biblical and Rabbinic data, and the extent to which a great deal of Judaism is built upon the notion that God is the sort of being with whom a nation can have a covenantal relationship, I think that there’s a burden of proof upon the apersonalists. I accept that if you swallow a wholly Aristotelian conception of how metaphysical explanation is supposed to work, then you end up almost automatically with a very abstract God. But I don’t swallow that metaphysics. In my book, I go through every argument that supposedly entails that God isn’t a person, and I show them to be wanting. This leads me to think that, with no working argument against a personal God, we should lean into the tradition and revelation and accept that God is a person; albeit a perfect person. So, I argue. That part of the book is inspired in part by Rabbi Heschel, and also, in part, by contemporary analytic theology, where it’s increasingly common to think of God as a person.

7. How do you solve the issue of chosenness for Yehudah Halevi?

Despite Halevi’s presentation of himself as an opponent to Aristotelian philosophy, he nevertheless contends that God is entirely above description, and so entirely apersonal. The central challenge for a Jewish philosopher who embraces an apersonalist theology is this: how can an apersonal God enter into a personal relationship with a particular people at a particular time?

Maimonides answers this question by denying that God enters into such a relationship. Judaism might be chosen, but not the Jews.

Halevi answers our question by supposing that the Jews are a species set apart from all other human beings; possessed of a special “divine influence.” By making this move, Halevi can say that God didn’t have to make a choice in revealing His Torah to just one people. Instead, there was only one people who were at all qualified to receive it.

This was a massive innovation on the part of Halevi. In fact, Ehud Krinis argues that Halevi’s whole conception of an elevated form of human being was a foreign import gleaned from Shi’ite Islam (Krinis, God’s Chosen People: Judah Halevi’s ‘Kuzari’ and the Shi’i Imam Doctrine). I reject this innovation, not least because I reject the apersonal theology that motivated it.

And yet, despite my rejection of the Rihal’s conception, my reading allows us to defend him against the accusation of out-and-out racism.

Rabbi Dr. David Novak, is his book The Election of Israel: The Idea of the Chosen People,  contends that Halevi was never motivated by racist animus. As Novak details: Halevi recognizes the existence of righteous gentiles, just as he recognizes the existence of wicked Jews. Accordingly, Halevi doesn’t think that we Jews enjoy a “moral superiority over the rest of humankind.” The capacity for prophecy is the one and only advantage that Halevi thinks to be innately and uniquely possessed by the Jew. Moreover, Halevi seems to think that, in the end of days, all people will become Jewish. Indeed, on Novak’s well-reasoned reading, Halevi even concedes that the child of two converts, despite having no genealogical link by which to inherit the “divine influence,” will inherit it anyway.

To Novak’s defense, I would add just two further points. First: perhaps the central conceit of Halevi’s book was supposed to communicate to us that he still held non-Jews in the highest regard. Second: once we realize that Halevi was forced into his otherwise unsightly position by the shackles of an apersonalist theology, we can better understand the predicament that he was in; even if it isn’t one that we share.

8. How do you deal with the approach of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson?

The Rebbe was heir to the intellectual tradition, within the tapestry of Jewish thought, that seems most wedded to ethnocentrism and supremacism. There are approaches in the Kabbalah according to which non-Jewish souls derive from the dark side of reality – the sitra achra. They are repeatedly described as impure, such that Jews shouldn’t even approach them. This gave rise to a mystical tradition in which Jews and gentiles were said to have different sorts of souls. Indeed, Rabbi Chaim Vital says that Jews have two souls, whereas gentiles only have one. Despite Talmudic assurances to the contrary, these traditions often imply that only the Jews have a share in the world to come. This tradition arguably finds a firm hold in the Tanya, which was the founding text of the Lubavitch movement.

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, by contrast, seems to have been animated by a profound concern for the physical and spiritual welfare of non-Jews. Accordingly, when one looks through his writings, one sees various ingenious attempts to utilize the strident monism of the mystical tradition, in an effort to dislodge from that same tradition the appearance of xenophobia.

My hope is that, against the backdrop of my book’s intellectual history, people will be better placed to appreciate what it is that the Rebbe achieved in his conception of the election. His theory manages to combine elements of (1) all of the Biblical models; (2) the incarnational elements of certain Rabbinic models of the election; (3) Maimonidean universalism; (4) the notion that God’s choice of Israel was supra-rational (since God’s choice of Israel, for the Rebbe, remains a mystery); and (5) the Two-Track Model (pioneered by certain German rabbis, according to which Israel and the gentiles are both called upon to serve God, but to do so in different co-equal ways).And yet, despite his best efforts, the resulting view still contains a residue of supremacism. Religious philosophers not so tightly wedded to the Tanya, I argue, will be better served elsewhere.

9. How do you use and then modify Prof Michael Wyschogrod’s thought?

Wyschogrod’s defense of a personalist theology is one of the most stridently formulated in the literature. How dare we be ashamed, he would ask us, to describe God in the terms that God Himself deploys in the Bible? My own personalist theology is in his debt.

But his conception of the election, though it may have been motivated by a desire to protect the spirit of Biblical theology, and to combine that spirit with a rejection of supremacism, remains deeply unattractive to me because Wyschogrod ultimately insists and defends the claim that we are, without being inherently better than others, literally God’s favorites.

His defense of God’s special love for the Jews is built upon the notion that any father, if sufficiently honest, will admit that he has a favorite child. Doubtless, Wyschogrod would accuse me of dishonesty, but – as the father of three children – I insist that I don’t have favorites. On the contrary, the three loves that I bear to them are entirely incommensurate.

In order that humankind should be able to understand God’s love for us all, God chose to love us in a distinctively human way; and – according to Wyschogrod – human love always has favorites. The non-favorite nations, like any non-favorite child, should at least take solace from the fact that God’s love for each of us is real. How do we know that it’s real? Because, like human love, it has favorites. If it didn’t, he claims, it would be more like the “love” of a faceless bureaucracy. If we want something more discerning, passionate, and personal then we’ll have to accept that it will have favorites.

Because I disagree with its central premise – that fatherly love always has favorites – I find myself entirely rejecting Wyschogrod’s conception of the election. If anything, I would argue that he’s taking the Bible’s Marriage Metaphor too literally. His God seems capricious.

10. How do you use and then modify Prof. Yehuda Gelman?

Yehuda Gellman’s work on the election is excellent. I would be proud if my work could be seen as an attempt to enfold his own conception of the election into something broader; on the basis of a more extensive survey of the relevant source material, from the Bible until today.

My own conception of the election is a version of what I call the Two-Track Model. It’s a model that I find articulated first by Rabbi Yisrael Lipschutz (the Tiferet Yisrael) and Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch; later to be developed further by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. On the Two-Track Model, and for reasons I develop in the book, God calls upon humanity to serve Him in two complementary and co-equal ways: the Jews on a Jewish track, and Gentiles on a gentile track.

Gellman adds to this that the love that God explicitly showers upon the Jews, in His acts of revelation and providence, is a figuration for the love that God actually has, equally, for all people. Were God to reveal this love in equal measure to all people, they would be rendered paralyzed by it. Accordingly, in His relationship with Israel, God allows the people of the world to see, just a sample, of the saving grace and love that He has in store for all human beings in the eschaton. This view is entirely consistent with the theory I develop.

11. Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan famously wrote that modern Jews cannot accept the concept of the chosen people anymore. How would you respond?

Mordechai Kaplan is absolutely right to worry that, any attempt to cast ourselves as a light unto other nations, “smacks of arrogance.” Indeed, that worry accompanies me throughout the book as I look to articulate a version of the doctrine – deeply rooted in the relevant source material – but immune from the accusation of arrogance or cultural imperialism.

On the other hand, Kaplan’s efforts to purge the Jewish faith of this doctrine were doomed to fail. That’s because the Jewish faith walks a delicate line between, on the one hand, the belief that we have something sufficiently valuable to add to the world that it would be a shame if we were to assimilate and disappear; and, on the other hand, the belief that we have no obligation to convince gentiles to become Jewish. In other words, we neither want to assimilate nor to proselytize; and it’s hard to hold onto both of those positions unless we believe that we have been called upon (either by fate, or destiny, or God) to play a role that does not need to be played by others. That’s the job of the doctrine of the election.

12. This may be all well and good for analytic theology, but most see in real life an ethnocentric, tribal form of chosenness writing off anyone not Jewish.  On the street, I would not get anything like your theology. Now what?

A Jewish theology is not automatically invalidated by the fact that it isn’t embodied in the faith of a particular Jewish community. Indeed, it might be the job of a Jewish theologian to criticize communities and to argue that, given their own theological axioms, their current form of life stands to be corrected.

To address this issue, I adopt a radical argument of Rabbi S. R. Hirsch. On his view, the mechanisms of cultural transmission and providence can be trusted to pass down an accurate presentation of what God demands from us, in each generation, formally or externally – literally, in terms of how we should behave, in order to discharge legal obligations – but they cannot be equally well trusted to make us understand how to perform those laws with the right spirit. The logic and textual basis for such a position needn’t detain us here, but it does allow me to maintain that many of the models of piety that can be found among truly sincere communities of God-fearers, might – despite their many virtues – stand in need of correction.

13 What happened to all your discussions of excreta and dreams from prior works?  This work seems so much straighter.

I am a product of my upbringing in the analytical tradition of philosophy. I think it’s fair to say that – especially among the more metaphysically inclined of the analytical philosophers – our tradition is one that celebrates weird and wacky ideas. David Lewis, for example, was legendary for using his belief in an infinite number of entirely real and concrete universes to solve all sorts of philosophical quandaries. The only objection that he knew he couldn’t defuse was the so-called “incredulous stare” that his work inspired.

So too, when it comes to the metaphysics of religion, I’ve been happy to explore and to occupy the most peculiar sounding terrain, from my discussion of omnipresence, and whether it problematically locates God within so-called filthy places, to my discussion of the nature of creation, that places all things – including you and me – within the mind, or even the dream, of God.

That wacky streak isn’t entirely missing from this book – but it’s only wheeled out when absolutely necessary.

This book was written to address a particular moment in Jewish history, in the hope that it might move hearts and minds towards a more open and even pluralistic form of Judaism. To that end, I try, whenever possible, to base my arguments only upon assumptions that I think will be widely shared by the audience I would most like to move. Consequently, I keep the wackiness to a minimum.

14. How do you rely on Nathaniel ibn Fayumi? How and why do we give him such deference?

I suppose one could lean upon the fact that the Rambam lauded him so effusively in his Epistle to Yemen. That constitutes quite an approbation! But, notwithstanding the Rambam’s praise, the fact that his work made so little impact upon subsequent thinkers, such that his ideas were never assimilated into the warp and woof of Jewish thought, suggests that he isn’t owed particular intellectual deference, unless and to the extent that his arguments stand on their own two feet.

However, I give him a degree of attention in my book for two reasons. First, he stands as an interesting example of a medieval sage embracing a far-reaching and seemingly quite extreme form of pluralism. That, to my estimation, makes his work noteworthy. Moreover, his thought can help us to extend Saadya Gaon’s theory of the election to its logical extreme. And Saadya Gaon’s position as a fountainhead of Jewish thought, I think, is in no doubt.

Saadya Gaon embraces a radically reductive account of our chosenness. He seems to think that God gave a true religion to multiple nations – each one with their own public and miraculous Sinai-like event. All that renders the Jewish people special – in Saadya’s eyes – is that we have better retained our God-given religion than any of those other nations, who have largely been lost to history. Rabbi Netanel, who seems to have been a great admirer of Saadya Gaon, can be seen as extending the radical seed of Saadya’s picture to argue that God hasn’t stopped sending prophets to other nations. Moses remains our guide, but – as far as Rabbi Netanel was concerned – Mohammed may have been sent by God to guide the Gentiles of the Arabian Peninsula.

15. How do you rely on the thought of Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks?

Rabbi Sacks developed a communitarian theology that, in turn, gave rise to an interesting and often misunderstood form of religious pluralism. Rooted against the background of those views, Rabbi Sacks developed an account of our chosenness.

I argue that, in light of the Biblical and Rabbinic data, and in light of the weight of the Jewish tradition, as it has unfolded from the days of Saadya Gaon until today, Rabbi Sacks’ theory of chosenness – suitably unpacked and embellished – stands out as the most robustly supported, and philosophically attractive articulation of the doctrine to date.

Rabbi Sacks grapples with the internal conflict that Judaism hosts between the universalism of its monotheism, with its creed that all human beings were created in the image of God, and the particularism of its mission for the Jews. What emerges is a complex view that can’t give a simple “yes” or “no” answer to the question, as to whether the Jews are somehow special. The reason that it can’t be answered simply is that, according to Rabbi Sacks, we were chosen precisely so as to be the ambassadors of this notion called the dignity of difference. In his words:

God, the creator of humanity, having made a covenant with all humanity [in the covenant with Noah], then turns to one people and commands it to be different in order to teach humanity the dignity of difference. (53)

We are chosen to be different, so to speak, in order to showcase to the world that God values cultural and even religious diversity.

Notice how this gels with Yehuda Gellman’s view, since something about our election helps to illustrate how God values every culture, so long as that culture continues to respect the moral code of the Noahide covenant. And thus, as long as polytheism, atheism, or unjust forms of monotheism exist, on the one hand, and as long as totalizing cultures continue to exist that would seek to bulldoze over cultural diversity, and refuse to recognize the varied and authentic relationships that multiple peoples can have with one God, on the other hand, the election of the Jews will still have a distinctive role to play. That is the Jonathan Sacks heart of this book.

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

Posted on August 13, 2026 by | Leave a comment

Sunday is the 91st 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.

  1. 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.

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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The World is Informational: Kabbalah and AI

Posted on November 1, 2025 by | Leave a comment

For those interested in AI and/or kabbalah, I just finished a first draft of a paper from a conference. Comments via PM welcome

In the new global age of AI, the world is informational. For some thinkers, Kabbalah offers conceptual models for understanding the operation of this new informational world. I will look at four diverse authors: Mitchell P Marcus, head of Computer Science at the University of Pennsylvania, Avinoam Frankl, a product developer in an Israeli high-tech firm, Asher Crispe, who has worked as a Chief Technology Officer, and the entrepreneur Eduard Shifrin who has a degree in science and supports Jewish causes. All four of them seem to be independent of each other. All four authors start with Sefer Yetzirah to explain creation in AI terms, several of them turn to the emanation scheme of Lurianic Kabbalah. Most notably, one of the thinkers considers transhumanism as the messianic era when knowledge will flourish. I also present Arthur Green’s recoiling from these positions.

Here is the paper without Academia.edu

AI talk-Brill OCT 26Download

Here is the link to academia.edu

This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Four_World.png0 International license.

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A Jewish Trinity has been published

Posted on October 26, 2025 by | Leave a comment

My book, A Jewish Trinity: Contemporary Christian Theology through Jewish Eyes, has finally appeared. I thank my generous colleagues for some amazing blurbs for the book.

Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Trinity-Contemporary-Christian-Theology/dp/1506484239

Bookshop.org

https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-jewish-trinity-contemporary-christian-theology-through-jewish-eyes-alan-brill/2f957ce5502bfa80?ean=9781506484235&next=t

Barnes & Noble

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-jewish-trinity-alan-brill/1146818166?ean=9781506484235

A Jewish Trinity: Contemporary Christian Theology through Jewish Eyes is a groundbreaking study that signifies a new development in the relation of Jews to Christianity. Alan Brill should be commended for the breadth and depth of his scholarship, as well as for his openness of mind and respectful approach to Christian tenets of faith. This is a unique achievement, and both Jews and Christians will greatly benefit from reading it. Yaakov Ariel, professor of religious studies, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill

This book brims with generosity to Brill’s Christian interlocutors, grounded in his lifelong serious study of Christian texts and theologies and in his mastery of Jewish traditions. That such a book exists is a cause for rejoicing. Too often, Jewish and Christian thinkers avoid talking together in a constructively comparative way, due to a paralyzing fear of getting things wrong or being criticized by the other. This book is a treasure trove for future conversation, undertaken in a spirit of respect while avoiding a false syncretism. Matthew Levering, James N. Jr. and Mary D. Perry Chair of Theology, Mundelein Seminary, and author of Engaging the Doctrine of Israel

Alan Brill is central to the new age of Christian-Jewish theological dialogue and cooperation. Here, he shows his unique mastery of the greats of modern Christian theology. Brill reviews traditional Jewish and Christian background materials to modern positions to reveal fascinating parallels and important differences between Christian and Jewish theology. The book will be of great interest to Christians interested in comparisons between Jewish and Christian theology. In addition, it holds deep resources for work in constructive Jewish theology and contemporary Christian theology. Steven Kepnes, professor of world religions and Jewish studies, Colgate University

Brill’s approach to Christian and Jewish theologies as two vibrant, diverse, and constantly evolving traditions makes this book a true tour de force in comparative theology. Brill compellingly demonstrates that these two traditions coexist in a shared theological “neighborhood,” at times intersecting and at times diverging, without ever renouncing their common intellectual and spiritual milieu. A Jewish Trinity offers an inspiring, illustrative, and delightful journey into the multidimensional relationship between Christian and Jewish theologies, through which one can learn much about both oneself and the other. Karma Ben Johanan, Department of Comparative Religion, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and author of Jacob’s Younger Brother: Christian-Jewish Relations after Vatican I

Alan Brill is a master of Jewish and Christian sources, and this is a breakthrough book. He examines key Christian doctrines, showing commonality, difference, and intriguing unanswered questions arising from his comparative exercise. Brill keeps the conversation open and avoids any facile assimilation. Gavin D’Costa, professor of interreligious theology, Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, Rome, and emeritus professor of Catholic theology, University of Bristol

The work of theological reflection in Jewish-Christian dialogue too often has been lop-sided, with Christian theological perspectives dominating. In this book, Alan Brill offers a Jewish counterweight, indicating new pathways for Jewish comparative theological reflections on core Christian doctrines. Such work is needed in order to propel the dialogue further. Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, Kraft Family Professor and director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, and author of The More Torah, the More Life: A Christian Commentary on Mishnah Avot

Alan Brill’s direct engagement of Christian systematic theology helps advance the profoundly important but neglected area of theological study in the dialogue called for by the Second Vatican Council. The book significantly deepens the theological dimension of contemporary Christian-Jewish dialogue. Matthew Tapie, associate professor of theology, and director of the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies, Saint Leo University

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Rabbi Melamed on the Divine Spark in other religions

Posted on June 30, 2025 by | Leave a comment

Continuing my discussion about Rabbi Melamed on Other Religions. I started with his statements on Hinduism and will now look at his broader premises- see “The Divine Spark among Other Religions”  and here “Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook on Different Religions.” Once again, I will use the posted selective English translation because it is accessible; however, I do have the Hebrew original marked up with marginal notes and a full response.

      For Rabbi Melamed, all religions have a spark of the divine, some of the light of the divine, and help the world advance toward its moral perfection. The religions of the world educate towards the moral foundations, “each religion according to its level.” Through accepting these points, Rabbi Melamed removed any stigma of other religions as needing to be negated  or the need to call other religions as demonic, entirely false, or to teach a restrictive exclusivism where only Jews have religion.  Rather, for most people in the world, Melamed thinks that “it is right for every person to continue in the faith of their fathers, because with the loss of faith, moral corruption increases.”

      Rabbi Melamed also thinks that the religions of the world are progressing toward deeper and more abstract forms of understanding their religions, thereby removing “the dross of the crude material elements within it” allowing them to elevate their souls “to higher faith and morality.” Jews should not follow these religions; however, the religions of the world “serve as a moral and faith compass for all peoples.”  Rabbi Melamed acknowledges that religious ideas are evolving and progressing to deeper understandings, the ancient and medieval forms of the religion that most people know from textbooks do not reflect current ideas in those religions. He has spoken with many people and read many books to overcome the essentializing of religions in ancient forms. I am always surprised at people who think other religions are where they were in 500 CE or even 1700 CE, but at the same time have a modern understanding of Judaism.

      Rabbi Melamed’s fundamental starting point is the discussion in  Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook’s Le’Nevuchei Ha’Dor and his other books. However, Rabbi Melamed draws out the full potential implications in some of Rabbi Kook’s statements, going beyond the prior understandings to create a new broader vision, melding his views with those of Rabbi Kook. To highlight the contrasting understandings of Rabbi Kook, it is worth noting that Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook had views, also based on Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, that were deeply adversarial to Christianity and other religions, as were those of his student Rabbi Aviner. One should treat the use of Rabbi A. I. Kook and the explanation of the citations of Kook by Rabbi Melamed as innovative and expansive, blending the ideas of the Kook with contemporary application by Melamed.

      Rabbi Kook wrote that the world’s religions serve a divine providential purpose, gradually elevating humanity towards its ultimate goal. There is an evolutionary unfolding of humanity from a crude understanding of God toward an abstract belief in one God. In the meantime, people need “a tangible belief in idols that provide them with basic principles of conduct and morality.” Therefore, Rabbi Kook thinks every religion has “a divine spark of morality that sustains it, through which it sets standards of good and evil” as they advance “towards the belief in divine unity “ (‘Le’Nevuchei Ha’Dor’, Chapters 8; 14:1).

Each religion contains a divine spark expressed “through different educational and cultural systems, aimed at improving human spirit and material conditions, the time and the world, the individual and the community (‘Orot: Ze’ron’im’, 6).Therefore, even concerning the lowest form of idolatry, “one cannot decide that the entire religion is erroneous,” as it may have been suitable for them in the past to uplift them somewhat. There are different levels among religions, and some are more refined “in morality, character, and conduct, and thus, their customs and idolatrous practices are not as detestable and filled with disgust as others” (‘Le’Nevuchei Ha’Dor’, 14:1; ibid, 39:1; ‘Rishon Le’Yaffo’, 91:1)

Even pagan and idolatrous religions may have served a purpose in their time. But no specific hierarchy is created. But the important element is the Divine spark in all things. God has a presence in the world and its cultures and is not limited to a single group.

      The reason for this acceptance of other religions is based the idea that there is a natural division and diversity of nations, an idea going back to the Second Temple literature and continuing through the Middle Ages and beyond. Each nation has their own spirit, either angelically above, internally as their animating force, or as volkgeist. In Rabbi Kook’s writings, we have a grand vision of the elevation of all of humanity. We also have kabbalistic ideas of divine sparks in all things. Finally, we also have neo-Platonic ideas of all things upwardly aspiring to the divine. No longer is the discussion of other religions limited to Talmudic discussions of stones on the road for Mercury or statues of Aphrodite.

      Rabbi Melamed explains Rabbi Kook’s idea to mean that even pagan religions serve a divine purpose and that even the representations of the gods through idols point to higher “values of truth and goodness.” Greek mythology teaches moral lessons. Melamed uses his textbook knowledge of Greek myths to state that even the gods are subject to Fate, thereby showing that there is a divine destiny and higher ethic even higher than the gods of the myths. For Melamed the “ancient myths where, despite the great power of the gods, it is limited, and they are subject to fate. Furthermore, their actions also affect their destiny, and any idol that crosses certain limits—such as excessive indulgence or pride, or extreme disregard for other gods—will be punished by more powerful, higher forces. These higher forces reflect a higher value system, in which a belief in the one true God is hidden.” Greek myths show a higher theistic vision and teach moral.

      Whereas Rabbi Moses Feinstein, allowed the Greek myths only because the religion was dead and considered the myths as showing that the Greek beliefs were nonsensical, non-ethical, and immorally licentious, Rabbi Melamed, in contrast, following Rabbi Kook see the guiding hand of divine providence in the narratives as part of God’s plan for uplifting each nation of the world and that the very myths contain moral lessons. Rabbi Feinstein’s approach limits knowledge of God and morals to Jews,  awash in an immoral world. Rabbi Melamed sees the knowledge of God in all nations and all nations are on a journey to ultimate perfection.

       As most Jewish universalists, he quotes  “For from the rising of the sun to its setting, My name will be great among the nations; and everywhere incense is going to be offered in My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 1:11). Showing that all religions are really worshiping the Biblical God in their various forms of worship. Rabbi Melamed is clearly an inclusivity, finding a place for other religions in categories of Torah, and he is Jewish-centered, but some of his ideas are moving to a universalism.

      For example, Rabbi Melamed cites the Talmud to claim that all religions are worshiping the true high God of the Bible even if they use representation. “Our Sages explained that all idolaters refer to God as “Elah de’elahaya” – “God of gods” (Menachot 111a).”Despite using idols, “there was a deep-seated belief in a Supreme God, the source of truth and morality.” Most people were not on the level to recognize this, but there “were exceptional individuals who delved deeply into their faith and directed their primary prayers to the God of gods.” Hence, he can acknowledge the Ancient Greeks Neoplatonists, or the Hindu Upanishads, and others as expressing the best views of the era. Nevertheless, these religions improved “the values of truth and goodness in people’s hearts. In these paragraphs, he is beginning to sound more like Rabbi Menashe ben Israel or Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh.

      Even more surpassing is that Rav Kook wrote that the sages of other religions even merited divine inspiration, (ruach ha’kodesh), a form of prophecy, through which they deepened their faith and educated their people. Rabbi Melamed accepts this. But in his printed book he cautiously does not mention the current discussions among these circles about acknowledging that Muhammad, Buddha, or Guru Nanak may have divine inspiration. The medieval position of Rabbi Nathaniel ibn Faymi (d. ~1165) that God sent prophets to all nations and establishes a religion for all nations, is becoming more accepted as a valid position. In general, one should compare Rabbi Melamed to Rabbi Yakov Nagen to get a sense of the current approaches- see Rabbi Yakov Nagen- here. One should note that Yehudah Halevi already called Plato, Aristotle, Hermes, and Zoroaster as divine (elokhi) and Maimonides granted Baalam the same prophetic status as the patriarch Jacob. Hence, even ancient pagans may have had some form of divine prophecy.

      Rabbi Melamed cites the later pietistic Aggadah Tanna de-Vei Eliyahu: “I testify by Heaven and Earth that whether it is a man or woman, servant or maid, gentile or Israelite, ruach ha-kodesh rests upon him according to his deeds” (Ch. 9).The original Tanna de-Vei Eliyahu is a parallel of Galatians (3:28) “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female…” But here in the Jewish Aggadic text, we have a greater universalism and a noticeable inclusion of all the people of the world in Holy spirit, which originally may have meant divine connection or inspiration corresponding to a Christian sense of the Holy Spirit but it is being understood in the 21st century as referring to prophecy, probably because the phrase Ruah Hakodesh is used in contemporary Rabbinic language to refer to prophetic inspiration and prophecy. Rabbi Kook added that it is possible that the leaders of religions even received heavenly assistance to perform miracles, so that their followers would accept the religion that advanced their moral state (‘Le’Nevuchei Ha’Dor’, 14; 46; 57).

      Based on Rabbi Kook, Rabbi Melamed declares that one “should not denigrate other religions, including the more idolatrous ones.” This halakhic pronouncement seemingly undoes prior Rabbinic exhortation to make fun of idolatrous religions. Rabbi Kook taught that: “Such denigration is also against the very essence of faith and religion, and therefore, those who throw off the yoke will take the arguments and words of disparagement said about other religions and hurl them at Judaism, as happened in practice.” In making fun of another religion, the arguments against another religion can just as easily be turned around to attack Judaism causing Jews to lose their faith. Rabbi Kook taught: “we need to deepen our understanding of the value of other beliefs according to the Torah,” and show the greater and more comprehensive light that exists in the faith of Israel. In our age, greater respect for all religions leads to a stronger respect of the religious core of Judaism.

      Should the nations continue in their idolatry? He answers, “even the exceptional individuals among the nations who knew that God is the “God of gods,” the source of all powers, did not abolish idol worship. This is because they knew that belief in one abstract God was too lofty, and without faith being applied to tangible forces called idols, and reinforced by rituals, they would not succeed in establishing the moral values that would elevate their people and religion.” People are not ready to worship without images and statues. This is the same answer given by the medieval Hindu scholastics Shankara, Ramanuja, or Madhva, that the people are not ready to give up their representation. It is also the answer given in the 20th century by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, philosopher and former President of India. Rather than the more traditional and popular Orthodox Midrash Says dualism of Torah consisting of all truths and morals contrasting with idolatry as immoral and lacking any truths, the other religions, even idolatry, serve to bring people to God. The religions of the world are on a sliding scale, very similar to what is taught in Hindu textbooks since the early Middle Ages and even in the 21st century.

      Idols made of wood and stone still have the function of curbing evil inclination and keeping people from committing crimes. Even idolatrous rituals keep people on a virtuous path.  At the same time, “if they continue to observe the laws of their religion, they could gradually ascend, until they merit reaching the true level of faith, drawn from the light of Israel. Therefore, according to their value, their religion has religious significance.” Rabbi Melamed concludes that “we can recognize and honor them for approaching the light of God, according to their own way.” It is important to note, that Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook also wrote this about prior philosophic understanding of Torah, declaring that contemporary understandings of Jewish concepts need to evolve beyond the medieval.

Christianity and Islam

Rabbi Melamed follows Rabbi Kook that Christianity and Islam are not foreign worship because they were influenced by the Hebrew Bible and thereby show greater divine light. These two religions display “a further stage of progress in the process of purifying faith and morality, from crude idolatry, towards pure faith in God. And as noted above, they possibly have been granted prophecy and the performance of miracles

      However, Christianity and Islam are flawed “in that they do not recognize the central role of Israel in revealing God’s word and blessing to the world, and instead, claim to replace them – while harming Jews. For him, “there is a necessity that over time, Christians and Muslims cleanse themselves of hatred of Israel, and become able to draw, from the source of Israel’s faith, illumination and guidance, according to what is appropriate and suitable for them for constant elevation and Tikkun Olam (repair of the world).” (Americans in the culture wars should take note that Rabbi Melamed used positively the word tikkun olam  a word freely used by Rabbi Kook, Rebbe Nachman, Rabbi Ashlag, and other Eastern European rabbis- for citations of its use by traditional rabbis  see here).

      In conclusion, Rabbi Melamed states that even now, when there is still hatred by Christians and Muslims of Jews, and they still have problematic elements, it is still “proper to respect the foundations of faith and morality in their religion, through which they succeeded in elevating many people to have better qualities and to achieve love and fear of God.

      Unlike those who differentiate Judaism’s attitude toward Christianity and Islam, Melamed notes “that Rabbi Kook consistently refers to Christianity and Islam equally. True, Islam is purer of idolatry, but apparently, this advantage is not decisive compared to the aspects in which Christianity is preferable to Islam.” Rabbi Abram Kook, in later decades when he was fighting the extensive Christian mission, has derogatory statements about Christianity, which were given emphasis by his son Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook.

      Rabbi Melamed concludes that Christians and Muslims are obliged to continue in their religion. Once again quoting Rabbi Kook: “The religions founded on the basis of the Torah and the Prophets, certainly have an honored value, for those who hold to them are close to the light of God, and knowledge of His glory” (“LeNevuchei Ha’Dor” 14:1). Rabbi Melamed is creating some form of Religions of the Book, in which the three religions are all based on Torah.

they have “the great moral principles they took from the light of the Torah, which also strengthened in them, with greater vigor, the pure human feeling”. And by way of this, arose from them “individuals with a pure spirit, from whose gathering they will establish for themselves religious customs, which fulfill their destiny, to elevate the soul to good qualities, to love of God, and fear of Him. Therefore, they are certainly obligated to follow the ways of their legislators, who are held in their nation as holy men, according to their value and nature”. Therefore “it is proper for every person perfect in knowledge to understand, that those who engage in them, according to the tradition in their hands, are engaging in the service of God, according to their level” (ibid 8).

Rabbi Yakov Emden’s approach of seeing great moral value in them, especially Christianity, has been accepted by Rabbi Melamed. In the past, one found it in Isaac Baer Levinsohn, Rabbi Benamozegh, Rabbi SR Hirsch, and in Rabbi Kook. But now, it has become mainstream halakhah in Rabbi Melamed. It has also been extended from just Enlightenment era Christianity to all of Christianity and Islam.

Conversion

Rabbi Melamed quotes Rabbi Kook that each nation has its own unique religion and therefore, one should generally not convert. Rabbi Kook wrote (“Le’Nevuchei Ha’Dor” 8) that it is not proper for a person to convert from their religion, including members of idolatrous religions. Because every religion also expresses the social and national character through which it was formed, and one who leaves it, betrays their family, their people, and their good values.

      According to Rabbi Kook, it is often beneficial to convert from a lower religion to Christianity or Islam, “because will grow from the recognition of the unity of God (which exists in Christianity and Islam) will, in any case, bring blessing to the whole world”. However, according to Rabbi Melamed, looking at 21st-century reality, this is not always true because sometimes religious ideas and virtues will be lost in the process of giving up native religion. “For we have learned that from every religion, one can remove the dross–until it remains clean of idolatry and bad qualities.” He cites the example of Hinduism, which has deep learning and morality and recognizes the one true divine source. Many times, “leaving it for Christianity or Islam may be considered a descent.” They lead less moral life or damage their spiritual lives.

Avodah Zarah Be-Shituf (Idolatry in Partnership)

Rabbi Melamed assumed that non-Jews are allowed shituf and in this he is quoting Rabbi Kook who wrote: “Noahides are not warned about shituf” (Shmoneh Kevatzim 8:44); and it is an aspirational goal for those who do not even have shituf” (Orot Yisrael ve’Techiyato 5). In addition, Rabbi Melamed singles out for accepting the same opinion on the permissibility of shituf for gentiles  his predecessors Rabbi Charlap (Mei Marom 10:35; 12:32, 2), Rabbi Menachem Mendel the ‘Tzemach Tzedek’ (‘Derech Mitzvotecha’ ‘Mitzvat Achdut Hashem’ and Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, as well (Likutei Sichot 20 p. 16 nt 44). For a full discussion of his position, where he cites many opinions, including those who think shituf is forbidden to non-Jews, see Rabbi Melamed’s discussion here.  But there is no need to email Rabbi Melamed (or me), the citations of those who think it is forbidden. He knows them and discusses them at the link

God Name will be One

In conclusion, Rabbi Melamed cites the universalism of Rabbi Kook, who advocated loving all humanity and all nations despite differences in religion or race. Moreover, he advocated for understanding the other nations, especially their religion, since it is central to nations.  Rabbi Kook wrote: “Love for people should be alive in the heart and soul, loving every person, especially, and loving all nations.” Any expression of hatred towards gentiles is “only for the wickedness and filth in the world.” This love should be maintained “despite all changes in religious beliefs, opinions, and despite all distinctions of races and climates.” (Middot Ha-Ray’ah: Ahavah, 5).For Rabbi Melamed,  one should “understand the views and characteristics of different nations and communities as much as possible, to establish how to build human love on practical foundations. Since religion is central to the spiritual and practical life of nations, Rabbi Melamed concludes that it is evident that Rabbi Kook’s intention also includes different religions. Thus, Israel will be able to fulfill its purpose, bringing the word of God and His blessing to the world

      Finally, since all religions can elevate themselves, there is no aspiration for religions to be nullified; rather each religion has a unique hue, reflecting the special character of the people in which it was created. Thus, the vision is for each religion to purify itself of all its flaws and reveal its unique path in serving God and contributing blessings to the world. This is the prophetic vision of “I will remove their blood from their mouths and their abominations from between their teeth, and they shall remain even for our God” (Zechariah 9:7).  And of “For then I will turn to the peoples a pure language that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one accord” (Zephaniah 3:9). (This is unlike Prof Menachem Kellner’s Maimonidean universalism envisioning that all people will have to become Jews).

      Ultimately, every nation will maintain their own religion but be elevated in the messianic vision. “Alongside each nation’s special devotion to its religion, humanity as a whole will be united through the connection of all nations to Israel and its center in Jerusalem, as it is said, ‘For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7).

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Marc Shapiro interview- Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New

Posted on June 19, 2025 by | 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.

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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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Rabbi Eliezer Melamed on Hinduism

Posted on June 11, 2025 by | Leave a comment

The Israeli rabbinic world has finally begun to take account of the religions of the world, especially Hinduism and Buddhism, and has recently declared that they have the same status as Christianity.  

      Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, of Yeshivat Har Beracha, who is considered one of the leading halakhic authorities of the Religious Zionist world,d has recently issued a new volume of his comprehensive presentation of Jewish law entitled Emunah veMitzvotav (Faith and its Commandments), (Har Berakhah, 2025). In the new volume, Melamed presents a Jewish legal view of other religions, specifically Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. To write these chapters, he consulted with several outside experts who were knowledgeable about both halakha and other religions (including myself).  I will discuss these views of Hinduism in this blog post and will deal with his approach to Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam in later blog posts. I will also cite the English summaries on the Yeshiva’s website so everyone can follow, even though I have the Hebrew original.

      The bottom-line conclusion is the Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism have been declared by Rabbi Melamed as forms of the halakhic category of shituf (associating something else with God), a category formulated because some Medieval Ashkenaz legal authorities who in their perception saw that Christian had the same Biblical God as Judaism but associated God with something else, Jesus.  The innovation in this book about Asian religions is that he treats the statues and images in Hinduism and Buddhism in the same manner as Christianity. He is decisive that for non-Jew,s “according to most halakhic authorities, there is no prohibition against practicing idolatry b’shituf. Therefore, as long as the idol worshiper also directs his worship to the one God above all the gods, he does not violate any prohibition.”

      Melamed naturally holds that this form of worship through images, intermediaries, and statues, where offerings are made and incense burned, is forbidden to Jews.  For him, the second commandment not to have images is addressed to Jews only because they have a special status. Non-Jews can have images, statues, and intermediaries (See Nahmanides Ex 20: 3).

      Many of us have been explaining for years that Hinduism today is not worshipping many gods. This was decaled in the Jewish- Hindu Rabbinic summits in 2007-2009, which was signed by the Chief rabbi and various rabbinic figures, but they have never been translated into Hebrew. He acknowledges that contemporary “Hinduism believes in a supreme source for all the gods.” This is a new start for a halakhic understanding of Asian religions, to treat them as believer in one supreme being. On some level already twenty five years ago, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz was stating that Hinduism and Buddhism are monotheistic enough for halakhah.

      Even more importantly, Rabbi Melamed shows a great appreciation for the gifts of Hinduism, including meditation, religious pluralism, imagination, arts, personal expression, beauty, and sensitivity to all living beings.

It is important to note that the immense richness in Hinduism… the important place given to meditation that enables deep inner listening, has created an especially pluralistic position toward different religions and rituals…  From the wealth of thought and imagination about man and his soul, they can offer humanity an abundance of personal expression, and ways of dealing with the challenges of existence. Thus, the pluralism within Hinduism will coalesce into a movement toward the correction of the world and will not dissipate, wasting precious energy in vain. The rich and magnificent art that developed in India in literature, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and more, will inspire people from all nations to add beauty and pleasure to the world. They will also be able to provide the world with the special sensitivity they developed toward all living creatures and plants, based on respect for all beings, and a desire not to harm them. The more they adhere to belief in one God and morality, the more they will channel this sensitivity toward the overall movement of correcting and redeeming the world.

This is an impressive acknowledgment from a halakhic rabbi, and he placed this statement in the middle of his legal discussion. This will be the mainstream position of his followers for decades to come.

      On the other hand, Melamed needlessly includes an essentialist reading of Hinduism from Christian sources explaining how they used to be demonic, worship idols, and of low morals. He reproduces the classic early 20th century Christian reading of world religions where each one is to found defective.  In this reading, Hindus are polytheists (a Protestant word) and demonic because 1 Corinthians 10: 20 affirms that Gentiles do sacrifices to demons and not to God. Following this line of thinking, he credits Hinduism with offering to demons. Yet, official forms of Hinduism since antiquity did not consider appeasement of various malicious spirits- Asuras and Rakshasas- as official Hinduism or as demonic. At best, they were forest spirits to be appeased when entering their realms. In contrast, Judaism has a large number of shedim, mazikim, ruhim, and lilin. The Talmud is filled with discussions of these beings and how to avoid, appease them, or even see them. We have many magical bowls and magical formula from the Rabbinic world. (see here in my interview with Prof Harari) The scapegoat ritual, as presented by Nahmanides, was to appease the demonic evil side, a clear act of demonic worship. Some have a custom at circumcision to place food for the spirits, and there are lots of Jewish customs of spilling water or wine to appease the spirits.

      In a similar manner, he condemns Hinduism for its former human sacrifice. But this practice is uncertain and may, or may not, have ever existed in the Bronze Age. Or it may have been done by marginal cults or non-Hindus. Yet, the Bible is explicit that Abraham thought he was to sacrifice his son, Jephthah sacrificed his daughter (Judges 11), there was the cult of Moloch, and King Ahaz sacrificed his son (2 Kings 16:3) and so did King Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33:6). If these Biblical stories are not normative, then the Hindu examples are equally not normative except through the colonial Christian gaze.

      Imagine if a Hindu would present Judaism as superstitious compared to modern Hinduism and trace how Judaism evolved from human sacrifice to a religion still inferior to Hinduism. This was the actual way that the Hindu Neo-Vedanta modernists such as Swami Dayananda, Swami Vivekananda, and the Scholar Surendranath Dasgupta saw Judaism as primitive compared to Hinduism and that Judaism is blind to its own idolatry and human sacrifice. (I dealt with it here and in my book).  They said this a full century ago, based on Christian anti-Judaism, we should not be hearing these things today. Jews do not see the Bronze Age idolatry of the Bible as in continuity with Rabbinic Judaism (circa 200 BCE to 200 CE), even if we claim cultural continuity. Hindus do not shy away from acknowledging that the Indus Valley Bronze age culture had primitive elements, even if they are not in continuity with the Upanishads religion (circa 200 BCE-200 CE)

      Rabbi Melamed also thinks the advancement of Hinduism in the modern era was due to the encounter with the ideas of Biblical Judaism as mediated by Christianity and Islam, which allowed them to find the best in their own tradition. “When it encountered fundamental ideas like those in the teachings of Judaism, about belief in one God and the moral imperative to correct man and society, it was able to give them a central place, as they resonated with deep currents that had existed within it for ages… Hinduism survived with vitality, as it has the ability to absorb lofty ideas, and progress through them.” Melamed is explicitly following the evolutionary thought of Rabbi Kook who wrote: “In every religion, there is a divine spark of morality that sustains it, through which it sets standards of good and evil. Thus, humanity can gradually advance towards the belief in divine unity and its moral teachings (‘Le’Nevuchei Ha’Dor’, Chapters 8; 14:1).” But Melamed adds that the “encounter with monotheism” from “the values of the Bible, whether consciously or unconsciously, became fundamental values in Hindu culture, based on which modern Indian society tries to build itself in the areas of governance, law, education, science, and economics.” He does not realize that in most of these fields, the Indian civilization was already advanced in antiquity; he has a British colonialist gaze.  We should note that the same Hindu modernists of a century ago ascribed the rise of the Biblical Abraham as based on the more advanced Hindu culture of the Vedas. And that many Modern Hindu thinkers of the early 20th century, including Swami Sivananda, the modernist teacher of Yoga, wrote that Judaism is derived from Zoroastrianism which itself is a corruption of the Vedic religion. Hence, the Abrahamic religions are Vedic at their core.

      To his credit, Rabbi Melamed accepted the ancient Upanishads quote proving Hindu theism from the Rabbinic author, Rabbi Yissachar Hyman, who wrote a Hebrew book called Judaism and Hinduism.

A student asks the sage: “How many gods are there?” The sage replies: “Three thousand three hundred and thirty-three.” The student says: “Yes, of course, but how many gods are there really?” The sage replies: “Thirty-three.” The student says: “Yes, of course, but how many gods are there really?” The sage replies: “Three.” The student says: “Yes, of course, but how many gods are there really?” The sage replies: “One and a half.” The student says: “Yes, of course, but how many gods are there really?” The sage replies: “One.”

It is an important quote for him to acknowledge that Hinduism did not just discover a single supreme being in the modern era. But Rabbi Melamed then has nothing to connect it with hisotriclaly or conceptually, hence he treats it as a hidden idea needing to be revealed in modernity through Biblical influence. However, the idea of one Supreme Being is in the Bhagavad Gita (~200 CE) and in the years 700-1000 CE, all the major religious commentaries and philosophers, including Sankara, Ramanuja, and Madhva, each taught a single divine being. It is like skipping in your understanding of Judaism from the Bible to modernity, thereby bypassing the Talmud and Maimonides.

      Nineteenth-century Europeans used to write that Jews had no ethics, certainly not compared to Christianity, and the Europeans did not think that Hindus had ethics either. Rabbi Melamed reproduces this Western critique of Hinduism ,not realizing that the same books said Judaism had little ethics. He does not seem to know about the extensive Hindu systems of ethics, hospitality, responsibility, duty, and of repentance,

      The need to bring up the caste system in ancient Hinduism was unnecessary and served no halakhic purpose or any purpose in contemporary discussions. It would be like a book on Judaism, starting with various difficult Biblical texts about marrying off a minor daughter or a discussion of contemporary Judaism, starting with Jews are divided into 12 tribes and the Levites don’t own land.

      In sum, Rav Melamed, because of his acceptance and stature has changed the discussion n Hinduism. His treating Hinduism as shituf and acknowledging the gifts of Indian culture is a huge advancement. It is certainly better than the Rabbis who declare anything from Hindu culture as forbidden or declare that it has an impure spirit hovering over it, or who use Wikipedia drivel to declare everything polytheistic. Rav Melamed is even better than those who use Joseph Campbell’s (or Heinrich Zimmer’s) universal vision of the ancient Aryans as polytheistic heroes, which has little to do with the actual Hindu religion. And we have certainly moved beyond the 2006 sheitel hair controversy, where the Rabbi just asked how it compares to the Mercury worship mentioned in the Talmud. (For more, see here).

      The article on the Yeshivat Har Beracha website includes a picture of a lined-up row of Ganesha statues waiting to be bought for use in worship. I am not sure that I would include such a picture of deities. Yeshivat Har Beracha would certainly not post a picture of a crucifix or even of a nativity scene. The fact that they posted a picture of a row of Ganesha statues indicates that the process of acceptance and integration of Hinduism is far from over. (Update: In response to my blog post, they changed the picture to someone meditating.)

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Expressive Relgious Zionism: An Interview with Shlomo Fischer

Posted on June 9, 2025 by | 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.

  1. 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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          Siddur Torat Chacham, a siddur Rashash by R. Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern

          Posted on November 23, 2024 by | Leave a comment

          What are the Lurianic Kabbalistic intentions? How do they work and how does one read the baroque pictorial notations of a Lurianic siddur? This interview may be one of the first explanations in English that gets to the core of the matter. This is a very technical interview, very detailed, geared for those in the know.

          This great review was written by Jeremy Tibbetts, a rabbi, who is the co-director of OU-JLIC for Anglos in Jerusalem and is the Director of Education for Yavneh, an intercampus leadership program. He is a student at Hebrew University in Jewish Thought, intending to focus on the Rashash and kavanot.

          Earlier Kabbalistic intentions from the early Kabbalah until Rabbi Moses Cordovero (d.1570) provided a concurrent mental intention or visualization for the words of the prayerbook. The performance of the liturgy needed an extra level of intentionality.

          Rabbi Isaac Luria, the Ari, (d.1572), in contrast, taught a doctrine of an innumerable array of spiritual entities, arranged in a vast enormous system. The prayer intentions were not directly related to the words, but rather, mental operations with this vast system.

          Rabbi  Shalom Sharabi, known as the Rashash (born Yemen,1720, Jerusalem1777) reworked the Lurianic instruction as pictorial images and not sentences. The siddur depicted the kavanot instead of describing them. In order to do this, the Rashash utilized divine names to map out and represent the different spiritual structures that the kavvanot act upon. Sharabi’s style about the spiritual realms Tibbetts calls “near trance-like lists depicting the different layers of spiritual constructs.” For examples, see the 2 pictures below from the Rashash prayerbook.

          A new edition of the Rashash siddur was composed by the contemporary Kabbalist R. Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern called Siddur Torat Chacham, a siddur Rashash by R. Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern (born 1967). A full presentation of Lurianic praybook intentions for 1678 pages. Tibbetts proclaims that this is “a groundbreaking achievement in the world of Jewish mysticism and in kavanot.”

          For many, Rabbi Morgenstern is their contemporary teacher in kabbalah and his influence is immense on this generation and the generations to come, due to his large number of students and the many rabbis and Hasidim who study with him. In addition, he publishes voluminously, generally about fifty pages a week which come out as edited books. His method is to integrate divergent schools into a harmony assigning a different function or a relational position to each one. In this case, he integrates, the Kabbalah of Sarug, Yehudah Ashag, Rav Nahman, Ramchal, and the Komarno Rebbe into the Rashash.

          Back in the infancy of this blog in 2010, I did a blog post on Derekh Yihud, which is, Morgenstern’s pamphlet of visualization meditations. (From what I hear, it is not a part of his current teachings and the visualizations are not found in this siddur).

          For those looking to understand this practice as a system of meditation, then skip down to question #9 on the psychology of this practice, question #12 on the visualization method, question #13 on this practice, and question #15 on why should one engage in this practice. Some of you, or many of you, might want to read these answers before the more technical answers.  

          I am especially proud of this interview because of the accurate and detailed information that it provides. In contrast, most mentions of the Lurianic intentions in English are vague intoned mentions, without content or context, of tzimzum, yihudim, kabbalistic trees, and sacred power. This interview fills in the needed details.

          1. What is the siddur of Rabbi Morgenstern?

          The siddur Torat Chacham, a siddur Rashash by R. Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern shlit”a (born 1967), just saw its new complete reprint in a pocket-sized print (even though it is a remarkable 1678 pages!). The first printing of the siddur was a full decade ago. This is the ultimate siddur for a student of R. Morgenstern or Kabbalah more broadly: it’s a groundbreaking achievement in the world of Jewish mysticism and in kavanot.

          2) What is the siddur of the Rashash?

          R. Shalom Sharabi zy”a, also known as the Rashash (born Yemen,1720, died 1777 Jerusalem). In his early years, he decided to undertake an arduous journey to move to Eretz Yisrael. Initially this brought him to Bombay in India, where he settled for awhile and was first exposed to Penimiyut haTorah and the Zohar. Eventually, he ended up taking passage through to Baghdad, Damascus, and ultimately from there, to the Old City of Jerusalem. Eventually, he becoming the next rosh yeshiva of Beit El, where he began to showcase his new approach.

          The siddur Rashash was, for the Rashash himself, first and foremost a personal project. One of his most monumental achievements in the world of Kabbalah at all is his siddur. He worked on it over his life, continually writing, erasing, and rewriting. He never taught from it or attempted to disseminate it in his lifetime. In that sense, using a siddur Rashash is really entering into the Rashash’s personal world of prayer. His students took his siddur after he passed away and began copying and eventually printing it for broader use. The standard siddur Rashash is built around the Rashash’s reworking of Lurianic kavanot as depictions and not sentences.

          Before the Rashash’s siddurim, prayer books which contained Lurianic kavanot described in full sentences what the practitioner should intend. One of the Rashash’s key innovations as a post-Lurianic thinker was in laying out a new version of the siddur which depicted the kavanot instead of describing them. In order to do this, the Rashash utilized divine names to map out and represent the different spiritual structures that the kavanot act upon.

          These punctuated divine names are considered by many of the Kabbalists to be ideal both because they minimize the concern of one imagining something physical when praying with kavanot and because the names always refer back to Hashem directly and prevent one from getting caught up in the various spiritual tikkunim one is attempting to perform. The shem Havayah is the shem ha’atzmi, a name which uniquely indicates Hashem’s infinitude, allows us to intend towards something discrete while maintaining a connection to the infinite and undefined Or Ein Sof which animates everything.

          The siddur Rashash is largely concerned with describing spiritual worlds and largely unconcerned with explicitly treating human experience and life. The Rashash offers very little in the way of a phenomenology of kavanot despite creating a nine-volume prayer book which takes hours to complete and is used on a daily basis.

          A hallmark of Sharabi’s innovative style is his ability to take the Arizal’s logic of the spiritual realms and apply it iteratively on every level, often leading to what can only be described as near trance-like lists depicting the different layers of spiritual constructs. This is closely tied with the doctrine of arachin or “relativity” for Sharabi, which reads the map of Lurianic Kabbalah as applicable in any level. Just as a person is from one perspective a child and from another perspective a parent, what we call Malchut in one context could be considered Binah or Keter in another context, and so in this view, the map of the worlds as sketched in Lurianic Kabbalah is more epistemological than ontological.

          3) What is unique in the siddur of Rabbi Morgenstern and his approach to the Siddur Rashash?

          R. Yitzchak Meir Morgenstern’s siddur Torat Chacham is innovative precisely for its attempt at reintegrating other strains of post-Lurianic thought with the kavanot of the Lurianic siddur edited by Vital.

          Perhaps most starkly, the additions in the siddur draw heavily upon the Kabbalah of Rav Yisrael Sarug zy”a (late 16th century – mid 17th century), an early student of Luria. Sarug’s approach was mainly rejected because Rav Chaim Vital, the main pupil and disseminator of Lurianic Kabbalah, casts aspersion on him as an authentic student. Many Kabbalists saw the Sarugian approach to Kabbalah as irreconcilable with Vital’s description of Lurianic Kabbalah. In particular, Sarug had terminology that was largely absent in Vital’s writings about tzimtzum and what he envisioned a whole series of worlds called Olam haMalbush at the very beginning of creation which Vital doesn’t mention. Sarug’s writings deal largely with worlds which precede those described by R. Chaim Vital, Furthermore, Sarug’s account of creation deals at length with the Hebrew letters and their formation which is also absent from  Vital’s account.

          Rav Morgenstern has been working for nearly 15 years to try to reconcile and reintegrate the two systems. Part of his research has trended towards the historical, attempting to unveil hidden connections that Rav Shalom Sharabi and his students may have had to Sarug’s version of Lurianic Kabbalah. Perhaps most notably, Rav Morgenstern suggests that Sharabi’s version of Etz Chaim had Sarugian writings appended to it, implying that he considered them authentic to the Lurianic-Vitalean set of writings and that he studied them.

          R. Morgenstern leans heavily on Hasidut Chabad for this project, in part because Chabad and its various offshoots accepted Sarug’s Kabbalah. R. Morgenstern uses these writings to develop a trailblazing anthropocentric reading of Sarugian Kabbalah. R. Morgenstern connects the concepts of Sarugian Kabbalah to the different ratzonot within the Divine mind which are meant to be realized through the process of creation.

          4) Can you give an example?

          Some of the most central and longest kavanot in the standard siddur Rashash are when one raises divine sparks up so that they can be transformed into shefa for us. The Arizal himself did not specify each and every level that they ascend to, only that they go up to “to the greatest heights.” The Rashash did spell out all of these ascensions in his theoretical works, he did not include those steps in his siddur. R. Morgenstern maps out this full ascent and adds in for the first time these levels of Olam haMalbush which in his view are also activated as part of the Rashash’s system of kavanot.

          5) What about his use of Ramchal, Sulam and Komarno?

          Alongside these innovative inclusions, kavanot are brought throughout the siddur from Kabbalists such as the Ramchal zy”a (1707-1746) and the Sulam zy”a (1885-1954) without clearly stating how they should be integrated with the standard kavanot haRashash.

          This becomes even more of a question in sections lsuch as tachanun, where each of the 13 attributes of compassion is matched with one of Rebbe Nachman zy”a’s (1772-1810) 13 sippurei ma’asiyot. There is lastly a notable change in the actual nusach of the siddur.

          While an Ashkenazi nusach of the siddur Rashash does exist, Rav Morgenstern’s siddur reconstructs the nusach of Hasidut Komarno from the Shulchan haTahor, the first Komarno Rebbe zy”a’s (1806-1874) commentary on the Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim (though notably in a few sparse places he writes that he prefers the Breslov approach to nusach instead). Thus the siddur becomes a sort of weave of numerous Kabbalistic streams, most of which have never been brought together before in this manner.

          6) Why is this siddur unique in its Kabbalah?

          Rav Morgenstern, inspired by Rav Moshe Schatz shlit”a, is a proponent of a sort of “Grand Unified Theory” of Kabbalah. He takes it as axiomatic that the different schools of Kabbalistic thought are in harmony, not dissonance. The Ramchal’s Kitzur Kavanot, the Hasidic Saraf Pri Etz Chaim or Pri Kodesh Hilulim, and the Rashash’s Rechovot HaNahar are essentially describing the same thing in different levels of meaning and detail in this view. But it’s not enough to say that they align with each other: it is not possible from this perspective to truly understand Kabbalah without bringing these schools together. Each one constitutes a puzzle piece in the mosaic of sod. Kabbalah becomes a discipline not only of knowledge acquisition, but of integration.

          7) How is this process of harmonization shown in the siddur?

          This siddur is a monumental achievement as the first one to truly embrace this approach of harmonization and to connect it with the Rashash, the most difficult and the most conservative of the post-Lurianic schools. For those more steeped in the world of the Arizal, the Rashash, and his beit Midrash, they’ll find many additions to the siddur from the Torat Chacham, one of the most difficult works of Kabbalah from the Rashash’s talmid muvhak R. Chaim de la Rossa zy”a (early 18th century – 1786). One prominent examples would be the insertion of the kavanah for mesirut nefesh before any part of tefillah where one raises up divine sparks.

          While the Rashash would not necessarily disagree with these additions, the fact that they are not included in the original siddur indicates that they were not as critical unlike the many kavanot which were codified.

          The new small edition of the siddur chol also contains hundreds of pages of notes and essays in the back which explain why the siddur is laid out as it is, often citing and invoking different disagreements amongst the talmidei haRashash.

          8) Why would a yeshiva student or student of the Kabbalah want to own or use this?

          It is one of the most comprehensive and mature works of R. Morgenstern and his beis medrash, which may be a reason in its own right to own it. It can serve as a valuable window into the inner prayer life of one of the greatest Kabbalists of our time. Additionally, it is perhaps the only truly integrated siddur for those who want to stand at the confluence of the different strains of Kabbalah, not only by bringing in Hasidut, but by including kavanot from everything from medieval works of Kabbalah like Brit Menucha to the Gra zy”a (1720-1797), Ramchal, Sulam, and more. In this regard, it will serve as a textbook and guidebook rather than an actual prayer book, offering notes on nusach or different Kabbalistic ideas to integrate into one’s own prayer. Others still will buy it out of aspiration, more to make sure they have one rather than risking it running out and having to wait for a reprint years later.

          9) How does Rabbi Morgenstern explain the process of psychologically performing kavanot?

          This is sort of the big question with kavanot haRashash in general. Just like in any other siddur Rashash, the instruction to the practitioner throughout the siddur is simply “veyichaven,” “intend” that the worlds and sefirot are interconnecting in a given permutations by that corresponding word of tefillah. However, the Kabbalists would not consider the siddur Rashash to be a visualization guide.

          They would in all likelihood be averse to one picturing the spiritual structures and sefirot which are part of the Kabbalistic siddur.

          Neither the Rashash in his time nor R. Morgenstern in this siddur told us exactly what that means mentally. In fact,  in R. Yekutiel Fisch’s Sod haChashmal Vol. 5, there is a lengthy “teshuva” from R. Morgenstern on the subject of kavanot which quotes the Rashash’s son, the Chai baShemesh zy”a (mid 18th century – 1808), echoing this desideratum: “even though we have intention according to our intellect, each person according to their level, we don’t know what the explanation of ‘intention’ is… and what is ‘intend’ or how one attains ‘intention’” (pg. 207).

          Nonetheless, there is one clue which Rav Morgenstern offers us from the siddur’s introduction which sheds some light on this question. He champions the Torat Chacham’s idea (building on the Rashash) that an individual’s kavanah must work on three levels: klal gadol, klal beinoni, and prat. He sorts the three central schools that his siddur aims to integrate into these categories: the Kabbalah of R. Yisrael Sarug, which speaks about the highest worlds of any post-Lurianic school, is the klal gadol; the Kabbalah of R. Chaim Vital, centered on Atzilut and the tikkunim which most directly impact our own world, is the klal beinoni; and Hasidut, which deals with the lowest and smallest levels of human experience, is the prat.

          10) Which of these levels does he emphasize?

          Paradoxically, the prat smallest level of Hasidut brings us the highest in R. Morgenstern’s view. On the micro-spiritual level, each individual sefirah and level of spiritual existence experiences whatever is above it as Ein Sof. Said differently, the more one zooms in to the details of the spiritual structures of Kabbalah, the more one experiences the system as open and ever-expanding. This is why this perspective is the most suited to truly understanding the infinitude of the Ein Sof, as each level constitutes a new self-disclosement of the infinite revelations of Hashem. This is the unity which R. Morgenstern sees between Hasidut and the school of the Rashash: for both of them, the divine is in the details.

          Returning to R. Morgenstern’s teshuva in Sod haChashmal, he offers several more insights into the psychology of kavanot. First, he explains that the Rashash’s innovation of depicting the kavanot as punctuated shemot Havayah over the prior Lurianic siddurim which explained each kavanah in words was rooted in the Rashash’s desire to not separate the kavanot from the Ein Sof. The mechaven must always hold an awareness of the infinitude of Hashem alongside the particular kavanah at hand.

          11) Where does separation from physicality fit in?

          He quotes the Shemen Sasson zy”a (1825-1903) who riffs off of the Shulchan Aruch in OC 98:1 in describing kavanah as “to strip one’s soul, to separate it from physicality, and to awaken the upper worlds… as explained in the kavanot of Shema at bedtime and in the secrets of dreams and prophecy.” This seems to be a dual kavanah.

          While the latter part might have seemed obvious given the focus of the kavanot on the upper worlds, the former is not only a powerful statement of how the kavanot should impact a person’s embodied experience but also should indicate that through Kabbalistic prayer, one first directs one’s soul away from this world in order to impact the upper worlds.

          He goes on to quote the Hasidic masters the Maor vaShemesh zy”a (1751-1823) and R. Pinchas of Koritz zy”a (1725-1791) alongside the pre-Lurianic Kabbalist R. Moshe Cordovero zy”a’s (1522-1570) on the ability of kavanot to “purify the mind and increase devekut,” even without proper understanding.

          This devekut for R. Morgenstern is itself the awareness of the Ein Sof behind each and every kavanah. The need to hold the unity of the Ein Sof amidst the plurality and intricacy of kavanot is central for R. Morgenstern, so much so that he writes that if the extreme details of the siddur Rashash distract a person from this devekut, then they should not use it.

          12) What is the role of emotion vs visualization?

          The truth is that R. Morgenstern’s Torah contains both: in works like Derech Yichud, a Kabbalistic meditation guide that R. Morgenstern prepared over several years to attempt to integrate meditation and Kabbalah/Hasidut, you see that he leans very heavily into visualization-based meditation, and at the same time in many places in De’ah Chochmah leNafshechah, where R. Morgenstern’s weekly sichot are recorded, as well as in Bayam Darkecha, written and published by a close talmid of R. Morgenstern, the emphasis is strongly on the emotive and psychospiritual impact of kavanot.

          As mentioned above, the siddur is not meant to be a visualization guide. R. Morgenstern’s siddur does contain additions though which at first glance seem to involve some form of visualization. For example, when ascending the different heichalot in Shacharit, he adds in detailed descriptions of their layout and appearance from the Zohar. There’s no “kavanah” added alongside them. This is also the case with other additions in the siddur, e.g. the sketching of the malbush at the end of sim shalom and the addition of parts of the mishkan in each beracha of the Amidah.

          Even more radically, there are numerous yichudim (letter-based meditations) from the writings of the Kabbalists which have been added in, despite the near universal consensus in the world of Lurianic Kabbalah that even yichudim which utilize words or pesukim which appear in the siddur should not be added as part of the daily intentions. R. Morgenstern defended this practice previously in his haskamah to the siddur Sha’ar Ruach haKodesh which also added in yichudim, as well as in the essays appended to his siddur, based mostly on Ziditchov and Komarno Hasidut.

           The fact that no specific intention is written for any of them calls into question their exact purpose: their very inclusion in the prayer book would seem to suggest that they are included to be part of the kavanot in one form or another, yet without a particular intention, they can also be read as associative companions which are meant purely to enhance and deepen a non-visual experience of kavanot.

          13) If kavvanot are not visualization then what are they? Are they just things to think about when reciting the liturgy, like reading a book of kabbalah simultaneously to reciting the siddur?

          This is a really hard question! On the one hand, they’re not supposed to bring one to a form of contentless contemplation as done in meditating on the on the breath.  On the other side, they’re not a scholastic or academic exercise.

          They are meant to be somehow performed and not just considered. I think also that the Kabbalists did not see them as liturgy in the same way that the siddur is. We aren’t communicating to God or requesting that God unify the worlds with the kavanot.

          They saw the “intending self,” the part of the self which is associated with conscious intention, as the highest part of the self which could act on one’s body or soul. It is through deep focus, one can use the mind like a hand to move the upper worlds. Some of the Kabbalists note that these mental acts cannot be affected without reciting the actual words of prayer.  In other words, one contemplates and focuses in on the kavanot as they stand independently, and that also forms the intention for when I say that word or phrase in the siddur. So it creates its own form of non-imagistic meditative concentration around and through the words of tefillah.

          14) Should one start with this siddur?

          I think probably not. If one is interested in exploring kavanot in general but does not have the prerequisite experience with Etz Chaim, Sha’ar haKavanot, Rechovot haNahar and the like, the siddur Rashash is nearly impossible to use.

          When a person wants to actually start learning how to use the siddur Rashash, R. Yechezkel Bing shlit”a’s Nekudot haKesef (who is himself thanked in the siddur Torat Chacham’s introduction for offering guidance as it was being made) and R. Gamliel Rabinowitz’s Tiv haRashash both explain the siddur in depth, even line by line in some cases.

           When I wanted to start learning how to use a siddur Rashash, what was first recommended to me was to start with a more basic siddur and commentary which would give me a sense of the Kabbalistic flow of tefillah. The siddur Keter Nehora (also called the Berditchever siddur), the Shelah’s siddur commentary, the Matok miDvash siddur, and the Yesod veShoresh haAvodah are all great starting points as they are not overly caught in the particularist mechanisms of kavanah.

          R. Mechel Handler shlit”a, a living Kabbalist in Boro Park, has a recommended and ordered reading list in his Peticha leKavanot haRashash for anyone who wants to start using a siddur Rashash: he suggests the classic Sephardi Kabbalistic starting point of Otzrot Chaim with the Matok miDvash commentary, followed by Etz Chaim, then Sha’ar haKavanot Drushei Keriat Shema Drush Vav (called drush ha’ikkar by some), and ultimately delving into numerous seforim which focus on the different parts of tefillah.

           I would add that before opening Otzrot Chaim, I gained a lot from using introductory seforim like Siftei Chen, Yedid Nefesh, Klalei Hatchalat haChochmah, and R. Handler’s sefer mentioned above.

          15) Why do Rashsash/Morgenstern kavvanot? What not play Dungeons and Dragons? Why use these Baroque notations in the 21st century? Just daven

          I’ll suggest three answers based on the Kabbalistic tradition. The first is about the largest layer of ramifications that the kavanot can have. R. Shaul Dweck haKohen zy”a (1857-1933), a rosh yeshiva in the Rashash’s tradition, wrote that the redemption will come after a certain amount of nitzotzot, divine sparks scattered in the world through the vessel’s shattering, are raised up. However, through the performance of proper actions we can bring that redemption more quickly. In this view, the siddur is the guidebook to how we can open the world to greater connection to Hashem, it pulls the levers which allow the hashgacha to come to expression.

          The second answer is that they work on the most individualized level. The Arizal writes in the introduction to Sha’ar haMitzvot that “according to the greatness of the joy in truth and inner good heartedness will they merit to receive the supernal light, and if they do this continuously, there is no doubt that ruach hakodesh will rest upon them.” There are two things which this quote communicates about the inner experience of kavanot: 1) the kavanot and one’s emotional state are intertwined and therefore emotion is therefore not disconnected from kavanot, and 2) there is a shift in one’s cognition through the performance of kavanot, through the receiving of this supernal light and ultimately through experiencing ruach hakodesh as part of them. According to another Lurianic source (Sha’ar haKavanot Drushei haShachar 1), this light enters the soul through the performance of kavanot.

          I’m not an expert practitioner, but I do find that they bring a greater sense of attunement, presence, and a sense of devekut as well.

          Lastly, these kavanot are a body of thought which is already “home-grown” within the Jewish tradition. The Kabbalists developed these kavanot with reference to the full gamut of Torah. So, if someone is seeking some kind of meditative experience out of prayer, this is one of the most expansive Jewish answers.

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          David Shasha on Kellner, Idel, and Nationalism

          Posted on July 8, 2010 by | 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

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          New unpublished Rav Kook

          Posted on May 28, 2010 by | 5 comments

          My reader Paul Shaviv showed up earlier this week and left the blogging equivalent of a baby in a basket in a comment on my About page. He posted a link to a pdf of one of the new Rav Kook works that have been recently transcribed. I had assumed that this was already discussed and linked elsewhere.

          Rav Kook left behind scores of notebooks of his thoughts. Many of those notebooks were used by the Nazir to create Orot Hakodesh as an editor’s synthesis. Others were used by R Zvi Yehudah to produce a different voice for Rav Kook. Recently, some of these notebooks have been published as Shemonah Kevatzim. In the last few years, even more material has come forth from the archives creating a serious academic and Merkaz haRav world debate on why were they hidden until now? what was edited out? Does it change our view of Rav Kook?

          For those of us in the field, none of this is new. It is the bread and butter of academic conferences. Back in summer 2009 at the World Congress for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem when others were heading home already, I attended session 352 held in the evening in the Senate room located away from the other sessions . The session was dedicated to the editorial changes and changes over time in rav Kook’s thought. The speakers were Neriah Gutel, Yehudah Mrsky, Udi Avramovitch and Bitty Yehudah. And the audience was the entire cabal of Rav Kook experts (minus a few for specific personal reasons.) Their papers and the discussion afterwards discussed all the debated issues of what do we learn from these new volumes? How was Rav Kook’s vision different at the beginning? And what was consciously changed and censored?

          Everyone had already read Avinoam Rozenak’s Hidden Diaries and New Discoveries: The Life and Thought of Rabbi A. I. Kook Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies – Volume 25, Number 3, Spring 2007, pp. 111-147, which first appeared in Hebrew. Rozenak showed that some of these writing had a more antinomian element to them and that the editors were more conservative.

          So here is the 250 page pdf of one new books, Harav Kook- leNevuchai Hazeman The work starts off following the Guide of the Perplexed for content but then veers off course. Very little of it is new, we have seen almost all of the paragraphs or at least the ideas before in his other works. What we gain is a turn a phrase here, a named interlocutor there, and an alternative organization illuminating Rav Kook’s thought pattern.

          We also have two recent articles in Kipa [in Hebrew]. One used the aforementioned Udi Avramovitch as its expert source. Udi finds the volume more radical than the printed version and he finds a greater identity of God’s will and the will of the people. He also claims that in this work Rav Kook claims a value for other religions and that they worship the one true God. The second article quotes the army and settlement Rabbi Yosef Kellner that the book is essential to read but they are confining distribution, and here is a letter by Rav Kellner about the book.

          Rav Kook started the volume while still in Europe and finished it in Jaffa. The book starts off discussing the image of God as volition- will. Human have a will to make manifest as creativity in the world. Yes, Schopenhauer’s definition of man as the guide for our generation. (Along the way Spinoza is deftly defeated by the volition of R. Moses Hayyim Luzatto)The second chapter tells me that Saadayah and Maimonides saw that books of sectarians (minim) multiplied so they were compelled to write philosophic works. That does not inspire me in its understanding of the medieval but tells me more about Rav Kook. In a later chapter, he tells me that “all revolutions are good for clearing away the small minded people and narrow visions” with a later in the paragraph phrase that “they all follow the pure knowledge of God” Holy Hegelian Marxist! What do I do with these grapplings with the sectarian writings of German Idealists for a Torah for the 21st century?

          Can we use this as a guide for social revolution now? Well, let look at what he said about the problem of favoritism, corruption and cronyism in rabbinic courts. Rav Kook was against any change to the institutional fabric and rejected secular oversight or higher courts to oversee lower batai din, threatening to return to the R. Hayyim Sonnenfeld camp. What of women in modern world? He did not think women should vote or study Torah. What of secular studies? The new diaries show that he encouraged his inner circle to avoid the wisdom of the gentiles and stick to the prophetic Torah.

          Furthermore, we tend to read Rav Kook as if he is the one pushing the envelope on the potential diffusion of God’s light in a new age. Rather than responding to forgotten correspondents who were more radical than he was like R Shmuel Alexandrov or R. Moshe Seidel. These newly released versions, at first reading, will make it easier to find the original dialogue partner. As you read through it, let me know if you find any especially unique passages or if you can detect changes from the beginning to the end of the writing process.

          For the meaning of these writings, I await the series of new scholarly articles that will be written in the next few years. The one thing these writings do show is his concern with making a new passionate Jew beyond cognitive focus of the Eastern European beit midrash. A new Jew concerned with volition, inner voice, volkgeist, a new age, love, and seeking a new knowledge of God.

          Immediate Update– both the article in Kipa and the file of Rav Kook have been take down, the link wont work. I can understand the removal of the unpublished book, but what benign or nefarious power took down a current news article. If anyone knows then please let me know. The article in Kipah is cached and one can still get to the Headline but not the article. Friends in Israel, what’s the story?
          Next Update– I just posted the pdf from my saved copy and the articles reappeared with minor changes.

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          Arthur Green- Radical Judaism #2 of 5 parts

          Posted on April 26, 2010 by | 6 comments

          The first chapter is on Green’s quest for God.

          Continued from part 1- here.

          Continue to part 3 – here. Continue to part 4 here.
          part 5 here

          Green writes that he is a Jewish seeker looking for a lone path. He discusses his atheist upbringing and that he is seeking a middle path between atheism and theism, which he finds in his poetic pantheistic reading of Hasidism.

          Green wants to be both a seeker and the spiritual leader of our age. His calling himself a seeker is a bit much at this point when Green sets himself up  as an exemplar and leader of our age.  Someone who is seeking does not write an article called “On Being Arthur Green” implying that one should learn from his wisdom – it was published when he first got to Hebrew College. One can only write an article like that at a pinnacle to share your wisdom. In addition, Green has been in the public eye and noted in the newspapers his whole life.

          As a spiritual autobiography of someone who was in all the important places, there was little on his teachers at JTS or Brandeis. Nor on his classmates David Novak, Reuven Kimmelman, and  Byron Sherwin. Nothing as doctoral adviser at Penn or his being President of RRC. Nor a mention of being invited as a young academic to Peter Berger’s “other side of God” retreats or being one of the youngest involved in the Classics of Spirituality and World Spirituality series. Nothing on founding Shefa quarterly with Jonathan Omar-Man and Adin Steinsatz. And most surprisingly nothing on the founding of the first havurah while in grad school Havurat Shalom in Somerville, where along with his buddies Danny Matt, Michael Fishbane, James Kugel and Michael Strassfeld they set out to create a new Judaism for a new age. As a seeker he can claim to “still haven’t found what I am looking for” and not need to survey the past. But if he is offering wisdom that he holds as truth then the disestablishmentarianism is a bit jarring.

          Green himself attributes his title Radical Judaism to the radical “God is dead” theology of the 1960’s. He claims that the holocaust and historical criticism ruptured his faith. He found his way back through the non-personal pantheistic hiding God of Hasidism and Kabbalah. He attributes his salvation in the writings of  Hilell Zeitlin (H”YD) who went from freethinking journalist to fervent Hasid and was uniquely able to interpret Hasidism through the eyes of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Tolstoy. Zeitlin created an urbane Hasidism for his urban newspaper readers.

          As a side point, Green’s Tormented Master followed the interpretive lines of Zeitlin and portrayed Rav Nahman as struggling with doubt and freethinking.  When Mendel Pierkaz gave a negative review of Green as “Hasidism for a new world” since it was based on Zeitlin, everyone was furious and even more furious when Piekarz reprinted his review.  The sacrilege was that Green was considered in America as the true university interpretation of Rav Nahman. Now Zvi Mark is the regnant academic work on Rav Nahman and has a different reading of Rav Nahman than Greens, and more people follow the interpretation of Rav Nahman by Rabbis Kenig, Schick, Arush and Schechter et al than academic works.

          Green accepts his involvement in the psychedelic age and quaintly defines post-modernism as the rejection of modernity by the counter culture of the 1960’s  They sought to transcend the rational into the realm of myth, drugs, pantheism, and poetry. (Go read Art Green’s early psychedelic works under the pseudonym Itzhak Lodzer.)

          Green accepts as another side to his thought that of religious humanism- Kafka, Buber, and Hebrew literature.

          After almost 40 years, Green is not claiming identity of his thought with Heschel anymore. He does claim affinity to Tom Berry (d 2009) visionary advocate of evolutionary ecological development of human consciousness, human lifestyle, and our life on the planet. Berry is the near forgotten theologian of the Age of Aquarius and moon landing, who barely got obituaries last summer when he died. Green reminds people of Berry’s positions on our sitting on the edge of a new evolutionary moment where religion will no longer be literal. Like in 2001 Space Odyssey, the world is being thrust into the future and mankind needs to evolve with it.  Religion will now be a mystical pantheism of energy flow that God providentially directs. Yes, he believes this but just not literal the way fundamentalists or orthodox believe. This God is not the theistic God of the Protestant era but “God” – the force of the astro, geo, bio, psych, realms.

          Many years ago, Green wrote an article in Shefa Quarterly on the need for a new Jewish theology deserves reprinting for its quest for remytholization over rationalism. Not shattered myths but learning to make the myths of Pesikta, Zohar, and Rav Nahman come live again. For a sense of what this new volume lacks in its discussion of myth compared to older Green writings, here are some excerpts from a NYT interview from 1989 about the new RRC prayer book. They give a sense of the kernel of the birth his rejection of rational for myth and learning to see religion as a progressive force.

          While the notion of a ”chosen people” is still excluded from the new liturgy, the mention of miracles, like the splitting of the Red Sea, have been restored. Dr. Arthur Green, president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and one of the editors of the new volume, said the ”language of myth” speaks powerfully to many people, even if they do not believe in the literal details. ”As myth, the ancient tale of wonder underscores the sense of daily miracle in our lives,” he said.

          Dr. Green, the president of the college, said the prayer book was molded by events that began unfolding in the 1960’s, and ”our view of religion and its place in society have drastically changed” since then. The nation, he said, went from debates over ”Is God Dead?” to seeing the power of religion in the civil rights movement and in the movement to end the Vietnam War. ”We learned from the 60’s that religion can be a progressive social force for change,” he added.

          Continue to part 3 – here.
          Continue to part Four here
          Continue to part 5 here.

          Copyright © 2010 Alan Brill • All Rights Reserved

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          Arthur Green- Radical Judaism #1 of 5 posts

          Posted on April 6, 2010 by | 4 comments

          There is a new book from Arthur Green that is his mature vision for a Neo-Hasidic Renewal Judaism. I received a review copy as soon as it came out and have been grappling about whether this will be a short quickly review or a very long full study. In his introduction, Green quotes Arnold Eisen as telling Green that he should put out a definite scholarly version of his theology. The actual product is a version that is actually less scholarly and more personal than the prior versions and can serve as an eminently readable introduction to his thought.

          In the interim as I continue to write up my own reflections, David Wolpe has put out a very concise and insightful review. Wolpe puts his finger on the pulse of the book as having a renegade provocative 1960’s tone. He also catches how a technical academic scholarly approach glides in Green’s hands into New Age mysticism. Green’s work rejects Biblical theism into a minimal theology of mystical metaphors. Wolpe calls it pantheist and animist but I think there is much more going on. Green’s God would feel comfortable on the shelf with Eliade as a myth and symbol, sacred cyclical time deity.

          The view of God of Arthur Green, Michael Lerner, and others has been given a quite cogent philosophic and theological analysis by Michael Silver, A Plausible God: Secular Reflections on Liberal Jewish Theology (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006)

          Those of us interested in Kabbalah and Hasidism have a much more complex relationship with Green’s work than does Wolpe because Green’s Tormented Master was one of the first works available in English. Green has had a presence in both the academic and theological use of Hasidism, and the field consists of his students. Nevertheless, many of the original readers of Tormented Master have either moved on to the works by the Breslov Research Institute and no longer turn to academic works or the readers turned to charismatic teachers by Aleph –Alliance for Jewish Renewal.

          Those of us who teach Polish Hasidism, when dealing with Green’s works have to grapple with when Green is modernizing in a natural way, when he transforms it into his own renewal view, and when he just truncates away an essential element such as Torah study or halakhah.
          Continue to post 2 of 5 posts on Arthur Green – here.

          March 30, 2010 Rethinking Judaism By Rabbi David Wolpe

          Arthur Green, author of “Radical Judaism: Rethinking God and Tradition” (Yale University Press, $26), has been working to reimagine Judaism since his early days as a renegade scholar and theologian. The book under review is filled with interesting observations and sources. They are knit together in a neo-Chasidic, kabbalistically infused ’60s activist Judaism that claims Green as one of its pioneers and preeminent spokesmen. To rework a Divine self-description, this book will be persuasive for those to whom it is persuasive. Some will find it a bracing tonic; for others it will be Jewish learning sprinkled with heresy. Can “radical Judaism” speak to people outside the envisioned circle?
          Most of Green’s book (a capstone to the trilogy, “Seek My Face, Speak My Name” and “Ehyeh: A Kabbalah for Tomorrow”), is deliberately provocative. “Radical Judaism” should not be the title of a book that soothes. It is accessibly written, although occasionally with a kind of academic-cum-New Age mistiness that some will cherish and others will not: “Just as Y-H-W-H is not a ‘thing’ but refers to the transcendent wholeness of Being that both surpasses and embraces all beings, so is the soul to be seen as the transcendent wholeness of the person, a mysterious essence that is more than the sum of all the characteristics of that person we could ever name.”
          Green’s approach is panentheist. God is not a separate Being who created and superintends the world. Rather God is in all things, shot through the fabric of life, but because the system as a whole is greater than its parts, God is also more than the sum of life. If this smacks of a kind of “Avatar”-ish paganism, that charge is one kabbalists have always had to combat. Green insists it is not pagan, as his predecessors always did. He is right; it is not worship of nature; it is rather a deification of the totality of all that is. For moderns, such a theology may be the only possible piety. To a classical taste, while this may not be paganism, it is at least in the animist suburbs.
          Green wrests from this premise some very beautiful and inspiring imagery. Speaking of faith, he wisely says, “We can only testify, never prove. Our strength lies in grandeur of vision, in an ability to transport the conversation about existence and origins to a deeper plane of thinking.” This he seeks to do by insisting that we have to reconceive of God and the world. Everything is interdependent, connected and organismic — and together this vast, pulsing reality is what we can augment or diminish by our actions. In the modern world we have learned to look at systems, and his is a sort of systems theology.
          For Green, our great task is awareness. The book is divided into classical categories — God, Torah, Israel. Within each, he struggles with the particularity and universality of the tradition. He struggles as well with the need, given a modern audience, to explain traditional concepts before he can offer a revisioning of them.
          As one would expect of a leading light of the chavurah and renewal movements, Green’s book is also a call for Jews to be politically activist. Environmentalism, anti-war activities and other traditional causes of the left are seen not as political choices, but as spiritual imperatives. To criticize the book for this is foolish: One can agree or disagree with convictions and still esteem the courage to have them. For Green, a religious position that does not embrace his politics contradicts the heart of his theology of interdependence: As we are all bound together, universalism, environmentalism, radical activism in many areas is a concomitant of theological understanding.
          Green writes several times that he hopes non-Jews will take up this book as well. Certainly much of his theology is not “specifically” Jewish: There is no chosenness, for there is no Chooser. Jews have special responsibilities arising from their history; yet other groups do as well. Green reads his beliefs from the sources of Judaism, and does so with deep knowledge and skill, but they are surely not the predominant reading. Other religious traditions can be read to endorse the same conclusions, as he readily acknowledges. Indeed, Green repeatedly encourages Jews to turn to other traditions, East and West, for insights absent or unacknowledged in our own.
          In a pluralistic age, readers will have different feelings about such ecumenicism. Some will see it as a great strength; others as a disqualifying weakness. As one whose belief in God is more traditional than Green’s, I remain enlightened and provoked, but ultimately unpersuaded.

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          Eleven Maskilim

          Posted on April 1, 2010 by | 1 comment

          In the Haaretz Passover supplement there is a nice introduction to the important maskilim of the end of the 19th century. In their time, they were the intellectuals who were read by everyone who wanted to sustain the Jewish community.

          Some of these Russian haskole figures are the banes of the 1890- 1940 Yeshiva world and one finds many allusions and refutations to the writings of the mussar movement or the writings of the Yeshiva world. (Anyone have any favorite citations? Let see who has the best one. Bear in mind that Schulman was the translator of Graetz and that Hasidic tales are based on the model of Zweifel.)

          The Mizrahi movement of Reines and his followers Zev Yaavetz and A. M. Lifshitz incorporated the changes to Jewish education advocated by these maskilim. Modern Orthodoxy does not really come from Rabbi S.R. Hirsch and Germany but from the hundreds of Russian rabbis who moved to the US and turned to the Maskilim and the Mizrahi rabbis to help create a Hebrew education system. Between the two wars most of the Mizrahi movement lived in the US and only made aliyah in the early 1950’s. Figures in US Orthodoxy like Pinchas Churgin, Moshe Seidel, Wolf Gold, Shimon Federbush, Meir Bar-Ilan are the forgotten creators of our elementary school system of Hebrew, navi, maps, charts, and “mi amar le-mi.” These Russian born Mizrahi educators are nearly forgotten in American Jewish memory. Day school curriculum is based on these Mizrahi movement figures and their use of the haskole works.
          High Schools used to present many of these haskole figures as if they were all observant, some were and some were not.

          Lights on in the park By Haim Cohen
          Along with shady paths and playgrounds, Tel Aviv’s Haskalah Park offers a history lesson on the Jewish enlightenment

          Like the names of 11 streets in the adjacent neighborhood, Bitzaron, the park commemorates the Jewish Enlightenment movement (the Haskalah). Portraits of 11 Enlightenment thinkers (maskilim) adorn the shelter in the south of the park,

          The maskilim called for education, tolerance, love of mankind and morality, the spread of knowledge and the valorization of the Hebrew language. They expressed their ideas through journals, newspapers and books. Among the key maskilim were the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, who is considered the father of the Jewish Enlightenment, and Isaac Eichel, its founder; Isaac Baer Levinsohn, one of the first maskilim in Russia; Samuel David Luzzatto, from Padua in Italy; philosopher and historian Reb Nachman Krochmal; the poet Y.L. Gordon and many more.

          Leading lights

          Each of the 11 maskilim represented in the park was given an appropriate nickname. There are The Linguist (Yehuda Leib Ben-Zeev), The Satirist (Isaac Erter), The Itinerant Maskil (Abraham Baer Gottlober), The Translator (Kalman Schulman), The Reconciler (Eliezer Zvi Hacohen Zweifel), The Scientist (Chaim Zelig Slonimski), The Scholar of Jewish Studies (Solomon Rubin), The Concordance Compiler (Salomon Mandelkern), The Bibliographer (Yitzhak Isaac Ben-Yaakov) The Teacher (Israel Haim Tavyov) and The Typical Maskil (Mordecai Aaron Guenzburg).

          The Concordance Compiler

          Salomon Mandelkern (1846-1902) established the impressive project of the Hebrew-Latin Bible concordance “Heikhal Hakodesh” (Leipzig, 1896), the exhausting distribution of which cost him his mental health. Mandelkern was a Hebrew poet, a Bible scholar and a philologist. He translated German and Russian masterpieces into Hebrew, served as a government rabbi in Odessa and was active in the promulgation of the Haskalah.
          At the southern edge of the park is a table with his Hebrew translation of Lord Byron’s poem “So We’ll Go No More A-roving” (Leipzig, 1890).

          The Scientist

          Chaim Zelig Slonimski (1810-1904) wrote and published many scientific texts in Hebrew on mathematics, astronomy, optics, engineering and more, and reported to Hebrew readers on innovations in science in his newspaper Hatsfira (the first Hebrew newspaper published in Poland). Slonimski invented many things, including a calculator in 1844, and served as the head of the Zhitomir rabbinical seminary and as censor of Hebrew and Yiddish books for the Russian government.
          Etched on one of the handsome tables in the park is the title page of his work on astronomy, “Sefer Kokhava Deshavita,” which was published in Vilna in 1835, along with an illustration of the solar system from the book’s appendix.

          The Teacher

          Israel Haim Tavyov (1858-1920) ran an “improved heder” (traditional primary school), wrote textbooks in Hebrew and briefly (1908-10) published a vowel-pointed daily newspaper for children, Hehaver. He was also a playwright, author, translator and researcher of language and folklore who earned his living as an accountant and teacher.

          The Satirist

          Isaac Erter (1791-1851) was one of the key figures in the Hebrew literature of the 19th century (as well as a teacher and physician). In his works, he criticized the ways of the Hasidim, describing Jewish life in Galicia in a sarcastic and amusing way.

          The Reconciler

          Eliezer Zvi Hacohen Zweifel (1815-1888) criticized the way in which the Haskalah’s bitter enemy, Hasidism, had developed, but in his work “Peace on Israel” (1868-73, in four volumes), he described the early days of Hasidism in a positive light. His moderate and tolerant approach was a source of tension with his fellow maskilim. He was also a historian and wrote essays and fictional works, but earned his living as a preacher and teacher of young children, and as a teacher of Talmud at the Zhitomir rabbinical seminary. On a table in the park there is a quotation from his “Peace on Israel” about the exhausting work of a maskil:

          For nigh 30 years I’ve been writing this and I’m fatigued.
          For whom? And why? It’s a mystery even to me.
          For my sake? For heaven’s sake? No! On different grounds
          On grounds embracing all the wheels of reality and life
          Grounds that keep species, persons and health alive
          Grounds obvious to some and to others unfound.

          (from “Peace on Israel,” by E.Z. Zweifel, Volume III, Vilna, 1873).

          The Linguist
          Yehuda Leib Ben-Zeev (1764-1811) published pioneering, widely distributed books of grammar and syntax, textbooks and dictionaries, such as “Talmud Lashon Ivri” (1796) and “Otzar Hashorashim” (1807-1808).

          The Typical Maskil

          Mordecai Aaron Guenzburg (1795-1846) was one of the earliest maskilim, and an outstanding figure in the Jewish Enlightenment in Lithuania in the first half of the 19th century. He translated many books into Hebrew and Yiddish, aiming to expand the horizons of the Jewish public, and wrote books on Russian history and the Napoleonic wars. His autobiographical work “Aviezer” was published posthumously. This is a rare book for its time, written in the 1840s, in which he frankly described his life and childhood and touched upon fundamental problems of the traditional society.

          The Translator
          Kalman Schulman (1819-1899) translated modern literature into Hebrew, as well as books on history and geography that were published in many editions. The most outstanding of his translations is that of the French writer Eugene Sue’s “The Mysteries of Paris” which is considered the first modern novel to have been translated into Hebrew. He taught Hebrew literature at the rabbinical and teachers seminary in Vilna, and was active in the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia.

          The Scholar of Jewish Studies

          Solomon Rubin (1823-1910?) was one of the most prolific of the Haskalah writers. His research covered many areas of Jewish studies, including history, Hebrew literature and folklore, linguistics, Jewish philosophy religions of the ancient East. He also translated books and plays into Hebrew. He wrote a doctorate at Goettingen University in Germany (1868) and earned his living, inter alia, as an accountant and teacher.
          The Itinerant Maskil

          Abraham Baer Gottlober (1811-1899) is known mainly for his autobiographical memoirs of his wanderings, in which he described Jewish life in Eastern Europe, Hasidism and the Haskalah. Gottlober was a writer and poet in Hebrew and Yiddish, a translator, a teacher of Talmud and a historian. In the last years of his life, he was a member of Hovevei Zion, an organization that promoted Jewish settlement in the land of Israel.

          The Bibliographer

          Yitzhak Isaac Ben-Yaakov (1801-1863) was a publisher of ancient Hebrew manuscripts and a book trader. His greatest bibliographic project, “Otzar Haseforim” (1877-80), listed about 17,000 Hebrew books in print and manuscript. He published a special edition of the Hebrew Bible in 17 volumes with Rashi’s commentary, new notes and a translation into German in Hebrew letters from Mendelssohn’s commentary (the Biur) on the Pentateuch.

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          Copyright © 2010 Alan Brill • All Rights Reserved

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          Levinas: Mature Jewish faith and Conference on Difficult Freedom

          Posted on March 27, 2010 by | Leave a comment

          This week I had the opportunity to teach this wonderful passage of Levinas again. Levinas exhorts his reader to have a mature faith and get rid of one’s primitive and childish views of God. A person needs to understand that God does not promise anything or follow one’s magical thinking about God. He asks: “What kind of strange magician did you project as the inhabitant of your heaven.” Only an empty heaven allows one to take on the responsibilities of justice in this world. Only a heaven empty of childish perceptions allow an adult’s God can have an inner sense to fight evil and seek good. The eternal covenant is a Divine demand for goodness and justice, the deepest significance of the covenant between God and Israel.

          What is the meaning of the suffering of the innocent? Does it not witness to a world without God, to an earth where only man determines the measure of good and evil? The simplest, most ordinary response would indeed be to draw the conclusion that there is no God. This would also be the healthiest response for all those who until now have believed in a rather primitive God who awards prizes, imposes sanctions, or pardons mistakes, and who, in His goodness, treats people like perpetual children. But what kind of limited spirit, what kind of strange magician did you project as the inhabitant of your heaven – you who today state that heaven is deserted? And why are you still looking, beneath an empty heaven, for a world that makes sense and is good?

          Yossel son of Yossel experiences, with renewed vigor, beneath an empty heaven, certainty about God. For his finding himself thus alone allows him to feel, on his shoulders, all of God’s responsibilities. On the road that leads to the one and only God, there is a way station without God. True monotheism must frame answers to the legitimate demands of atheism. An adult’s God reveals Himself precisely in the emptiness of the child’s heaven. That is the moment when God withdraws Himself from the world and veils His countenance. “He has sacrificed humankind to its wild instincts,” says our text. “And because those instincts dominate the world, it is natural that those who preserve the divine and the pure should be the first victims of this domination.”

          But by the same token, this God who veils His countenance and abandons the just person, un-victorious, to his own justice – this faraway God – comes from inside. That is the intimacy that coincides, in one’s conscience, with the pride of being Jewish, of being concretely, historically, altogether mindlessly, a part of the Jewish people. “To be a Jew means… to be an everlasting swimmer against the turbulent, criminal human current… I am happy to belong to the unhappiest people in the world, to the people whose Torah represents the loftiest and most beautiful of all laws and moralities.” Intimacy with this virile God is attained in passing an ultimate test. Because I belong to the suffering Jewish people, the faraway God becomes my God. “Now I know that you are truly my God, for you cannot possibly be the God of those whose deeds are the most horrible expression of a militant absence of God.” The just person’s suffering for the sake of a justice that fails to triumph is concretely lived out in the form of Judaism.

          Translation from the VBM shiur of Tamir Granot- Read full Version Here

          This coincided with the web announcement of a great conference on Difficult Freedom, Levinas’ early Jewish writings. First published in 1963, with a second edition appearing in 1976, Difficile Liberté is considered Levinas’ most accessible book and constitutes an excellent introduction to his work: philosophy, Biblical and Talmudic commentary, a traditional yet new approach to Judaism, and an educational mission.
          « Readings of Difficult Freedom» is the largest international conference ever devoted to Levinas and his work. For an entire week, more than 180 speakers from 41 countries will present and discuss the ideas presented in Difficult Freedom. In addition, during the entire conference week there will be lectures and debates in a number of cultural centers in Toulouse as well as screenings of movies and documentaries. The conference and events are all open to the public.

          Here are the plenary sessions.
          Here are the concurrent sessions.

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