Zionism by Milton Viorst

Author:Milton Viorst
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466890329
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

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Rav Abraham Isaac Kook

1865–1935

Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook

1891–1982

REVIVALISTS

In 1904, Rav Abraham Isaac Kook, convinced by the pogrom in Kishinev that a secure life for the Jews was no longer possible in his native Russia, left behind a solid rabbinic career to settle with his wife and children in Palestine. Kook had no allegiance to Zionism, which he regarded as impermissibly secular. He also considered Zionism too similar to the aggressive nationalism that was infecting much of Europe. But he had by then turned away from the rabbinic doctrine that the Jews could return to their land only under the Messiah’s leadership. In Palestine, Kook shaped an ideology that over the years transformed Zionist thinking, locking Judaism and nationalism in a tight political embrace.

Rav Kook was already a creative force in Jewish theology when he migrated to Palestine. “Rav” was an honorific title signifying his intellectual eminence. He had three daughters, for whom he had no plans, but he also had a son, named Zvi Yehuda, whom he never doubted would follow him into the rabbinate. Yet father and son were quite different. The Rav was a commanding theologian whose mind covered a full range of Jewish spirituality; Jewish nationalism was only one of his interests. His son, less gifted intellectually, grew up a more practical man. Under his father’s tutelage, he came to think of nationalism and religion as synonymous. Zvi Yehuda made his mark on Jewish life by engaging in religious activism, fulfilling his father’s vision of infusing Zionism with Jewish belief.

The Zionist doctrine devised by Rav Kook, the father, maintained that the secularism which the pioneers brought with them from Europe was a passing fancy, a temporary digression from the Jews’ age-old fidelity to their religion. The pioneers may not have perceived God’s presence in their settlement of the land, he said. But far from abandoning Judaism, they were conducting themselves according to God’s will.

“If a Jewish secular nationalism were really imaginable,” Rav Kook once wrote, “then we would be in danger of falling so low as to be beyond Redemption. But secular nationalists do not know how closely they are linked to the spirit of God. A Jewish nationalist, no matter how secular his intentions, is steeped in the divine spirit. A single Jew can sever his bonds to God but the House of Israel cannot. All of its dearest possessions—its land, language, history, customs—are vessels of the Lord’s spirit.”

“Only in the Land of Israel,” he declared another time, “can the people of Israel engage in Jewish independent creativity, whether in the realm of ideas or daily life and action.… Revelations of the Holy can be pure in the Land of Israel; in Exile, they are mixed with dross and impurity.”1

Rav Kook found the roots of his defiance of Orthodoxy deep in the body of Judaism. In drawing widely in his writing from diverse sources, he filled his work not only with conventional theology but with an elusive mysticism. As he saw it, the dogma that barred Jews

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