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Longing for the Land: Understanding the Dream and Challenges of the Modern State of Israel

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Longing for the Land: Understanding the Dream and Challenges of the Modern State of Israel COMPETING VISIONS OF ISRAEL?: RAV ABRAHAM ISAAC KOOK AND RAV ZVI YEHUDAH KOOK Sources Compiled by Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz, JTS director of Israel Programs, Jerusalem August 20, 2020 Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) 1. Meir Berlin, Nineteenth Zionist Congress, Lucerne, 1935 Rav Kook loved the Jewish people the way only a father can love his children. Nobody is left after him who will love this nation fiercely . He understood his people, the situation of the generation, and its life conditions, and that is why he forgave them everything. 2. ‘The Land of Israel’ Eretz Yisrael is part of the very essence of our nationhood; it is bound organically to its very life and inner being . To regard Eretz Yisrael as merely a tool for establishing our national unity—or even for sustaining our religion in the Diaspora by preserving its proper character and its faith, piety and observances—is a sterile notion; it is unworthy of the holiness of Eretz Yisrael. A valid strengthening of Judaism in the Diaspora can come only from a deepened attachment to Eretz Yisrael. The hope for the return to the Holy Land is the continuing source of the distinctive nature of Judaism. The hope for the Redemption is the force that sustains Judaism in the Diaspora; the Judaism of Eretz Yisrael is the very Redemption. 1 3. On Israel’s Exile and Return We left world politics under a duress that had an inner will, until that fortunate time when it will be possible to run a polity without evil or barbarity, the time for which we hope . .And now the time has come, very near . We received [in biblical times] but the necessary foundation for a people, and once the sprout was weaned, we were deposed from sovereignty , diffused among the gentiles, sown deep in the earth, until the nightingale time and the voice of the dove will be heard in our land (Song of Songs 2:12). 4. Rav Kook as in Abraham Melnikoff, London Jewish Chronicle, September 13, 1935 When I lived in London, I would visit the National Gallery, and my favorite pictures were those of Rembrandt. I really think that Rembrandt was a tzaddik. Do you know that I when I first saw Rembrandt’s works, they reminded me of the legend about the creation of light? We are told that when God created light, it was so strong and pellucid that one could see from one end of the world to the other, but God was afraid that the wicked might abuse it. What did He do? He reserved that light for the righteous men when the Messiah should come. But now and then there are great men who are blessed and privileged to see it. I think that Rembrandt was one of them, and the light in his pictures is the very light that was originally created by God Almighty. 5. Pinkas 12:1 All holiness and tikkun are founded on the point of truth within the soul. So long as it is strengthened and expands its writ over all avenues of life, all the energies, feelings, thoughts, and motions, thus everything rises, all is sealed in the seal of God, which is truth (BT Shabbat 55a) . All the exercises of the Torah are meant to expand the rush of truth, unhindered, with no antinomy or contradiction, as all the fountains flow together from different directions . to that place where there is no contradiction or separation. Only absolute peace, that is the vessel that contains blessing for Israel. And what is the blessing inside that vessel? You must love truth and peace (Zechariah 8:19). 6. Ma’amerei 365-366 From my fount of tears, which I cannot stop, I call to you, my brothers, each one a seal upon my heart (Song of Songs 8:6), no matter your party . I don’t know who is to blame—better to say we are all to blame . What has become of us! And now, House of Israel! My holy name defile no longer (Ezekiel 20:39). Lay aside anger, learn to look at each other, party to party, with the eyes of compassionate brothers cast together into great trouble, willing to unite for one sacred goal: the common good, its dignity and sacred service . return, and live (Ezekiel 18:32), dear, wounded brothers. 2 7. Fourfold Song There is one who sings the song of his soul, and in his own soul finds all . .And there is one who sings the song of the nation, who cleaves with gentle love to Knesset Yisrael as a whole, and sings her song with her, grieves for her sorrows and delights in her hopes . .And there is one whose soul expands farther beyond the bound of Israel, to sing the song of man . And there is one whose spirit expands and ascends even higher, to the point of unity with all creation, with all creatures and all worlds, and sings with them all . .And there is one who ascends above all these songs in a single union, and all sound their voices . The song of the self, of the nation, of man, of the world—all come together within him at every time, in every hour. And this perfection in all its fullness ascends and becomes a sacred song, God’s song, Israel’s song . Rav Zvi Yehudah Kook, 1891-1982 8. Torat Eretz Yisrael Torah is a national constitution, a Divine cosmic and national law, embodied in a Divinety chosen Land. A Divine community with a real government, a real army, a real economy, and all of the other down to earth aspects of normal, national life. This orientation to Torah brought an enlightened understanding of the State of Israel today, which represents an important stage of the Divine historical process which brings Jewish sovereignty over Israel to its Messianic ideal 9. Torat Eretz Yisrael For the genuine keeping of the Torah is only in Eretz Yisrael. In every other place, the commandments are imposed as a way of reminder, so that when we return to Israel, we will know how to keep them. 10. Rabbi Shlomo Chaim HaCohen Aviner as in Torat Eretz Yisrael Rav Tzvi Yehudah wanted us to know that living outside of Israel was unpleasant indeed: . .We are careful to eat kosher food, because a Jew understands that to live a life of kedushah, he must observe the dietary laws . .How much more so our surroundings, the air we breathe, and the land we walk on. In Israel, we are surrounded by kedushah, by holy air and holy soil. And every moment we are here, we are performing a mitzvah, as our Sages say: everyone who walks four cubits in the Land of Israel merits a portion in the World to Come. In contrast, outside of Israel, the air is impure, the land is impure, even halachically, the Diaspora is categorized as possessing a state of defilement similar to that of a grave. 3 Yossi Klein Halevi, Like Dreamers, 32-33 The eve of Israel’s nineteenth Independence Day, May 14, 1967 . “This is the day that God made, we will rejoice in it,” read a banner on the wall, quoting Psalms. Independence Day was claimed by the secular and rejected by the ultra-Orthdox for the same reason: as a celebration of human effort rather than divine intervention. For Mercaz, though, this was one of the most sacred moments of the year: the founding of the State against impossible odds, immediately after the Holocaust, meant that the God of Israel could no longer bear the humiliation of His people. Rabbi Zvi Yehudah rose to speak. The young men stood, an honor guard. Though seventy-six years old, the rabbi moved with vigor . he confessed, there was occasion when he too couldn’t join in the dancing and kept aloof from the peoples’ celebration. It happened on the night in 1947, when the UN voted for partition of the Land of Israel into two states, one Jewish, one Arab. “The whole nation flowed into the streets to celebrate in its feelings of joy,” he said. “But I couldn’t go out and join in rejoicing. I sat alone, and burdened. In those first hours, I couldn’t make my peace with what had happened, with the terrible news that the word of God in the book of Prophets had now been fulfilled: They divided My Land!” And now, he suddenly cried out, “Where is our Hebron? Have we forgotten it? And where is Shechem? Have we forgotten it? And where is Jericho? Have we forgotten it? And where is the other bank of the Jordan River? Where is every clod of earth? Every piece of God’s land? Do we have the right to cede even a centimeter of it? God forbid! . .In that state, my whole body was stunned, wounded and severed into pieces. I couldn’t celebrate. ‘They divided my land!’ They divided the land of God! . .I couldn’t go outside to dance and rejoice. That is how the situation was nineteen years ago.” 4 11. Yehudah Mirsky, Rav Kook, 228-229 [Rav Abraham Isaac] Kook kept his distance from individual movements, seeing each as playing its role—an ecumentical vision that led to his own political paralysis. Facing new realities, and unable or unwilling to maintain his father’s exquisite dialectical balances, Zvi Yehudah took sides. His father had never written or thought much about statehood, government, or sovereignty as such.
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