I took a class about Rav Kook last summer. I remember the instructor, he was great, and I remember we listened to John Lennon's "Imagine" and then I argued with Jonah about whether or not that song coming true would be a good thing (can you guess what side I was on?) But it was good to revisit some of Kook's writing a year later, when everything I learned last summer has had some time to process.
Kook was born in a small town in Latvia. When he went to Yeshiva, he was extremely pious but yet was heretical because he loved to speak in Hebrew (which was a no-no, at the time, Hebrew was reserved for prayer). He became a prominent rabbi in Europe before he moved to be the rabbi of Jaffa in 1904. He was very spiritual and devoted, but also made some notably lenient rulings as rabbi, such as saying that they didn't need to let the soil of Israel lie fallow on the 7th year (as is commanded in the Torah0 due to some technical reason (probably survival...). He visited Europe in 1914 but got stuck by WWI, and so didn't return to Eretz Israel until 1919, where he was elected Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Palestine, which he did until he died in 1935.
You know, sometimes I think of myself as very religious. But then I read stuff by someone who's really REALLY religious and I then think maybe I'm not very religious at all, haha. Kook definitely makes me feel secular.
Quotes from "The Land of Israel"
"In the Holy Land man's imagination is lucid and clear, clean and pure, capable of receiving the revelation of Divine Truth and of expressing in life the sublime meaning of the ideal of the sovereignty of holiness; there the mind is prepared to understand the light of prophecy and to be illumined by the radiance of the Holy Spirit. In gentile lands the imagination is dim, clouded with darkness and shadowed with unholiness, and it cannot serve as the vessel for the outpouring of the Divine Light, as it raises itself beyond the lowness and narrowness of the universe. Because reason and imagination are interwoven and interact with each other, even reason cannot shine in its truest glory outside the Holy Land."
"Deep in the heart of every Jew, in its purest and holiest recesses, there blazes the fire of Israel."
From "The War"
"It is not meet for Jacob to engage in political life at a time when statehood requires bloody ruthlessness and demands a talent for evil."
From "The Rebirth of Israel"
"An Ancient Jewish heresy, in which pagan influence was present, announced the abolition of the specific commandments of the Torah, while it haughtily and magniloquently took over religious and ethical values from Judaism."
I'm pretty sure he's talking about Christianity here, and I found it interesting. Those be fighting words!
"The world of the gentiles is tattered and rent. In its view the body is divided from the soul, and there is no inner bond and identity between matter and spirit, no basic unity between action and idea. At present, before the Light of Israel becomes manifest, the doctrine of Communism represents the highest spiritual ascent of gentile culture. But how poor is a world in which this black evil has raised its head and pretends to be its highest aspiration."
Again, pretty accusing! I think it's interesting that he calls communism a black evil, especially in contrast to the social zionists I read about earlier. And I like his note about embodiment.
"It is a grave error to be insensitive to the distinctive unity of the Jewish spirit, to imagine that the Divine stuff which uniquely characterizes Israel is comparable to the spiritual content of all the other national civilizations."
From "Lights for Rebirth"
"It is a fundamental error to turn our backs on the only source of our high estate and to discard the concept that we are a chosen people. We are not only different from all the nations, set apart by a historical experience that is unique and unparalleled, but we are also of a much higher and greater spiritual order. Really to know ourselves, we must be conscious of our greatness. Else we shall fall very low."
This is where he definitely started to make me very uncomfortable. When I think of the people I know who are of the highest spiritual order... they're not Jews, haha! But I think the demands of Judasim are very high. I prefer to think of "chosen" as the idea that we were chosen to receive the Torah, which mean stat we, very early on in human ethical development, were ordered to behave in a very civilized fashion, and I do think we should remember that or we could, and do, fall very low.
"But Jewish secular nationalism is a form of self-delusion: the spirit of Israel is so closely linked to the spirit of God that a Jewish nationalist, no matter how secularist his intention may be, must, despite himself, affirm the divine. An individual can sever the tie that binds him to life eternal, but the House of Israel as a whole cannot. All of its most cherished national possessions - its land, language, history, and customs - are vessels of the spirit of the Lord."
Aaaand right when he seems really out there to me, he comes back with something I love:
"The claim of our flesh is great. We require a healthy body. We have greatly occupied ourselves with the soul and have forsaken the holiness of the body. We have neglected health and physical prowess, forgetting that our flesh is as sacred as our spirit. We have turned out backs on physical life, the development of our senses, and all that is involved in the tangible reality of the flesh, because we have fallen prey to lowly fears, and have lacked faith in the holiness of the Land. 'Faith is exemplified by the tractate Zeraim (plants) - man proves his faith in eternal life by planting."
"Our return will succeed only if it will be marked, along with its spiritual glory, by a physical return which will create healthy flesh and blood, strong and well-formed bodies, and a fiery spirit encased in powerful muscles. Then the one weak soul will shine forth from strong and holy flesh, as a symbol of the physical resurrection of the dead."
Aaaaand then he ends with something totally out there. Physical resurrection of the dead??? I was with you, Rav Kook! Why'd you have to go saying something weird like that???
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