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Rabbi Avraham Yizhak Hacohen Kook: Between Exile and Messianic Redemption*

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Rabbi Avraham Yizhak Hacohen Kook: Between Exile and Messianic Redemption* Rabbi Avraham Yizhak HaCohen Kook: Between Exile and Messianic Redemption* Judith Winther Copenhagen Religious Zionism—Between Messsianism and A-Messianism Until the 19th century and, to a certain ex- tute a purely human form of redemption for a tent, somewhat into the 20th, most adherents redeemer sent by God, and therefore appeared of traditional, orthodox Judaism were reluc- to incite rebellion against God. tant about, or indifferent towards, the active, Maimonides' active, realistic Messianism realistic Messianism of Maimonides who averr- was, with subsequent Zionist doctrines, first ed that only the servitude of the Jews to foreign reintroduced by Judah Alkalai, Sephardic Rab- kings separates this world from the world to bi of Semlin, Bessarabia (1798-1878),3 and Zwi come.1 More broadly speaking, to Maimonides Hirsch Kalisher, Rabbi of Thorn, district of the Messianic age is the time when the Jewish Poznan (1795-1874).4 people will liberate itself from its oppressors Both men taught that the Messianic pro- to obtain national and political freedom and cess should be subdivided into a natural and independence. Maimonides thus rejects those a miraculous phase. Redemption is primari- Jewish approaches according to which the Mes- ly in human hands, and redemption through a sianic age will be a time of supernatural qual- miracle can only come at a later stage. They ities and apocalyptic events, an end to human held that the resettling and restoration of the history as we know it. land was athalta di-geullah, the beginning of Traditional, orthodox insistence on Mes- redemption. They also maintained that there sianism as a passive phenomenon is related to follows, from a religious point of view, an obli- the rabbinic teaching in which any attempt to gation for the Jews to return to Zion and re- leave the Diaspora and return to Zion in order build the country by modern methods. Re- to establish a Jewish homeland is a transgres- settlement in modern terms provides the link sion of the oath imposed by God on the Jewish necessary for the completion of the redemp- people not to hasten the advent of the Messiah, tive process by subsequent divine intervention. and not to rebel against the Gentiles. Only The rabbinic concept of redemption was thus God would be able to bring redemption, which extended to mean "redemption of the country" would take the form of divine ordinance.2 besides "redemption of the people". It follows that important sections of Jewry As Alkalai says, "Redemption must come opposed the budding Zionist idea. Zionism slowly. The land must be restored and pre- was an abomination in that it would substi- pared by degrees." The introduction by Alkalai 69 and Kalisher of a natural, voluntaristic factor Messianic Tension into the yearnings for redemption was a daring move for their period.5 Rabbi Kook's teaching was an innovative inter- pretation of Zionism, not in terms of halakha, In religious Zionism of the second genera- Jewish Law, but in terms of the Jewish religion tion, that of Rabbi Mordecai Eliasberg (1817- as a belief system. He tried to understand the 1889), Rabbi Shmuel Mohilewer (1824-1898), secular Zionist world view, attempted to see Yehiel Michael Pines (1843-1913), and Rabbi redemption as a multi-step process, visualized Yizhak Reines (1839-1915) Messianic elements the Land of Israel as a spiritual centre, and im- were suppressed. Nor was much expression bued its centrality, although profanely based, given to Messianic argument by later Mizrahi with religious significance. thinkers or during the years preceding the foun- Rabbi Kook's doctrine is anchored in the 6 dation of Ha-Po'el Ha-Mizrahi in 1922. Messianic feelings that were deeply ingrained in him. He was living, so to speak, in a state of It must be pointed out, however, that the Messianic tension and in the belief that the religious Zionists of this period have made a processes affecting contemporary society gen- great effort to tone down the historical fact erally, and the Jewish people specifically, such that Zionism was basically a secular movement. as the return to Erez Israel and the restora- They defined the significance of the resettle- tion of the country, are signs of athalta di- ment in Erez Israel solely in terms of Jew- geullah, the beginning of divine redemption, ish religious law, knowing that a certain de- figuratively speaking, the footsteps of the Mes- gree of purity can only exist in the Land of siah. The war of 1914-18 with its horrors and the Jews. Behind their professed attitudes, atrocities, reminiscent of the apocalyptic rev- however, considerably abstract ideas were hid- elations associated with the End of Days, and ing. They saw the settling in Erez Israel lit- the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which he wel- erally as a mizvah, a religious commandment comed as an act of divine deliverance, strength- and task, since the mizvot could be fulfilled ened Kook's conviction that his time would in their essential purity and perfection only in reach beyond the historic hour. In the Jewish Erez Israel. They imagined that even those process of redemption he saw far-reaching con- who join in the rebuilding of Erez Israel for sequences, not only for the Jewish people and secular reasons would finally achieve fulfilment for Judaism but for the world at large, which of all commandments. And they felt that na- in his interpretation was undergoing constant tional consciousness is the first phase in the change. collective return to Torah.7 But by and large, His passionate love of the Jewish people religious Zionists still seemed unable to grasp was without limits. This love was the source the historical significance of the Zionist rev- as well as the content of his life. Without this olution. Religious Zionism became an inte- love of Israel, he felt, his life would have been gral part of the World Zionist Organisation but without sense or meaning. did not play a central part in the ideological moulding of the Zionist revolution during the Yishuv, the pre-1948 settlement in Palestine. It lacked the courage and the ability to con- Listen to me, my people, out of my soul I front the secular Zionist movement, which in speak to you, out of the soul of my soul, out turn rejected and denied the intrinsically reli- of the string with which my life is bound to gious foundations of Jewish nationhood. It also you all, and through which you are bound to lacked a spiritual leader of distinction. One me, out of the feeling which I cherish more important and unusual exception was Rabbi than all my profoundest emotions: you, only Avraham Yizhak HaCohen Kook, a great tal- you, only all, all of you, all your souls, all mudic scholar, mystic, philosopher, and poet, your generations, only you are the fullness and a prophetic thinker .8 of my life, in you I live, in you, in your 70 community my life is worthy of the word aware of the fact that the new yishuv, the post- life, without you I have nothing; all hopes, 1881 settlement, was essentially secular and all endeavours, the value of life, all that I that the influence on yishuvic ways of life by only find within myself when I am with you, the second wave of immigrants, who were so- and I must bind myself to the souls of you cialist and anti-religious in a doctrinaire way, all, I must love you with a love that knows was every day becoming more powerful. Im- no limits—you give me fullness for life, for mediately before the outbreak of World War I work, for Torah, for prayer, for poetry, for in 1914, Kook travelled to Berlin in order to hope. Through the channels of your beings I attend the second convention of World Agudat feel all, I love all. On the wings of your spirit Israel, the movement dedicated to the preser- of tenderness I am borne towards love of vation of Orthodoxy (their first convention was God... by your eternity I live eternally, by in 1912). After having spent the years between your glory I am filled with splendour and 1914 and 1918 in Switzerland and England, he, magnificence, through your suffering I am upon the emergence of the Balfour Declara- filled with pain; if sorrow reigns in your tion organised Degel Yerushalayim, The Ban- hearts I am filled with affliction, with the ner of Jerusalem, for the "purpose of imbuing wisdom and understanding within you I am the Jewish national revival in Erez Israel with full of wisdom and understanding (Orot Ha- the religious ideals and traditions of the Jew- Re'ayah, p. 66-67). ish people" .11 He did not return to Palestine until 1919 when he was elected chief rabbi of As Ben Zion Bokser puts it, however, the entire yishuv of Palestine, an office he held until his death in 1935. His love reached out to all people, regardless of nationality, race or religion. This love was for him at the heart of Judaism and its high- est goal was to sensitize Jews to that love, Kook's Time, His Sources, His Writings so that through them this sensitivity might also touch the rest of mankind.1° Rabbi Kook only to some extent, and reticent- ly, mentions his sources in Jewish thought and among Gentile philosophers, with whom he was chiefly acquainted through secondary sources. Life But it is abundantly clear that Jewish medieval thinking, the teachings of Kabbalah and of Ha- Rabbi Kook was born in 1865, in Greiva (now sidism predominate in his thought.
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