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Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution
Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) was one of the most influential—and controversial—rabbis of the twentieth century. A visionary writer and outstanding rabbinic leader, Kook was a philosopher, mystic, poet, jurist, communal leader, and veritable saint. The first chief rabbi of Jewish Palestine and the founding theologian of religious Zionism, he struggled to understand and shape his revolutionary times. His life and writings resonate with the defining tensions of Jewish life and thought. A powerfully original thinker, Rav Kook combined strict traditionalism and an embrace of modernity, Orthodoxy and tolerance, piety and audacity, scholasticism and ecstasy, and passionate nationalism with profound universalism. Though little known in the English-speaking world, his life and teachings are essential to understanding current Israeli politics, contemporary Jewish spirituality, and modern Jewish thought. This biography, the first in English in more than half a century, offers a rich and insightful portrait of the man and his complex legacy. Yehudah Mirsky clears away widespread misunderstandings of Kook’s ideas and provides fresh insights into his personality and worldview. Mirsky demonstrates how Kook's richly erudite, dazzlingly poetic writings convey a breathtaking vision in which "the old will become new, and the new will become holy."
289 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 16, 2013
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March 23, 2016
This is an intellectual history and biography of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935). In it we are reminded of the cultural trends and ferment of the world of Eastern European Jewry in the late 19th century - Hasdism, Mitnagdim, Musar, economic disruption and migration, the beginnings of Zionism - as the young Avraham Yitzchak Kook comes into adulthood and seeks a spiritual and economic path.
Rav Kook arrived in Palestine in 1904 as part of the Second Aliyah and was appointed the Rabbi of Jaffa, a name that his enemies continued to assign to him when he later ascended to the position of Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine in Jerusalem.
He was loved in that role as Rabbi of Jaffa - when a housewife brought him a chicken with a question about its kashrute, he would pay her for it if his decision found that it was unkosher. He did not wish to do her harm, or discourage future questions. He was a rabbi of this-worldly Jaffa, not crazy-for-God Jerusalem. At the same time, he was an interlocutor of many of the famous intellectuals of the era, and one of the rare religious visitors to the secular kibbutzim. In his time in Jaffa, he drank in the revolutionary and messianic spirit of his times, working to make halacha relevant to farming and life in the land of Israel, as the Jewish people was reborn all around him. Beginning in Jaffa, he built a synthetic intellectual architecture of national, spiritual and mystical rebirth.
In essence he was an orthodox Jew, with a difference. He was open to the trends and implications of modernity swirling around him. In the secular Zionists whom his compatriots in orthodoxy despised, he saw the beginnings of the redemption of Israel. He developed a vision of a Jewish People comprised of many kinds of people each playing a different role in bringing the moshiach (messiah) and redemption. He was genuinely open to modernity, in some of its senses.
Where others fearfully perceived a world falling apart and descending, he saw a world coming together and ascending, with art, science, national rebirth and religion all moving in the same direction.
He was mocked by many in the orthodox community for his insistence that the secular Zionists in their various beliefs were some how part of God's plan for the redemption of Israel. But he did not waver in his vision.
He was a poor administrator and an open mystic.
His life ended in 1935, 12 years before the State of Israel came into being, as the story of the British occupation was beginning to draw to its close.
He became an icon to the religious Zionists of the 1960s, but their uses of his name do not seem true to his spirit. He was not a practical man, although he occupied an eminently practical and administrative position as Chief Rabbi under the British.
He lacked a coherent political vision, or any apparent thoughts about democracy. He had many thoughts about the mystical meanings of Jewish peoplehood and nationhood, but little to contribute to the questions of how to administer a nation that included many ethnicities and religions. Perhaps the uses to which he was put are explained by his failings as a political thinker and actor - his ideas became an open field that his successors were free to make of what they wished.
His life was contemporary with my great grandfather, Reb Yosef Moshe ("Yoshe") Hochstein, who was also born in the 1860s and died in the 1930s. Reb Yoshe would probably have looked askance at Rav Kook's openness to modernity and at his Zionism.
The story of his intellectual development, his political involvements and his mystical explorations makes for interesting reading.
Rav Kook arrived in Palestine in 1904 as part of the Second Aliyah and was appointed the Rabbi of Jaffa, a name that his enemies continued to assign to him when he later ascended to the position of Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine in Jerusalem.
He was loved in that role as Rabbi of Jaffa - when a housewife brought him a chicken with a question about its kashrute, he would pay her for it if his decision found that it was unkosher. He did not wish to do her harm, or discourage future questions. He was a rabbi of this-worldly Jaffa, not crazy-for-God Jerusalem. At the same time, he was an interlocutor of many of the famous intellectuals of the era, and one of the rare religious visitors to the secular kibbutzim. In his time in Jaffa, he drank in the revolutionary and messianic spirit of his times, working to make halacha relevant to farming and life in the land of Israel, as the Jewish people was reborn all around him. Beginning in Jaffa, he built a synthetic intellectual architecture of national, spiritual and mystical rebirth.
In essence he was an orthodox Jew, with a difference. He was open to the trends and implications of modernity swirling around him. In the secular Zionists whom his compatriots in orthodoxy despised, he saw the beginnings of the redemption of Israel. He developed a vision of a Jewish People comprised of many kinds of people each playing a different role in bringing the moshiach (messiah) and redemption. He was genuinely open to modernity, in some of its senses.
Where others fearfully perceived a world falling apart and descending, he saw a world coming together and ascending, with art, science, national rebirth and religion all moving in the same direction.
He was mocked by many in the orthodox community for his insistence that the secular Zionists in their various beliefs were some how part of God's plan for the redemption of Israel. But he did not waver in his vision.
He was a poor administrator and an open mystic.
His life ended in 1935, 12 years before the State of Israel came into being, as the story of the British occupation was beginning to draw to its close.
He became an icon to the religious Zionists of the 1960s, but their uses of his name do not seem true to his spirit. He was not a practical man, although he occupied an eminently practical and administrative position as Chief Rabbi under the British.
He lacked a coherent political vision, or any apparent thoughts about democracy. He had many thoughts about the mystical meanings of Jewish peoplehood and nationhood, but little to contribute to the questions of how to administer a nation that included many ethnicities and religions. Perhaps the uses to which he was put are explained by his failings as a political thinker and actor - his ideas became an open field that his successors were free to make of what they wished.
His life was contemporary with my great grandfather, Reb Yosef Moshe ("Yoshe") Hochstein, who was also born in the 1860s and died in the 1930s. Reb Yoshe would probably have looked askance at Rav Kook's openness to modernity and at his Zionism.
The story of his intellectual development, his political involvements and his mystical explorations makes for interesting reading.
June 12, 2017
Rav Kook was the Chief Rabbi of British Mandate Palestine and one of the first Haredi Zionists. He is also the major religious inspiration behind right-wing religious nationalism in Israel and considered the spiritual father of that sector of Israeli society. This is the first accessible biography of Rav Kook in English.
This is a dense and complex read but a joy for anyone interested in Jewish or Israeli history. Rav Kook was far more mystical and creative in his thinking than anyone might have dared to guess. There is much to inspire us today, including Rav Kook's deep love of his fellow Jews, from anti-religious secularists to ultra-Orthodox Jews who opposed any cooperation with them. There is also much that is sobering, including Rav Kook's inner feelings about the non-Jewish world in the light of World War I. An important correction to all of the many ways that Rav Kook is used politically today, it reveals a complex man who embraced contradiction as a core part of his spiritual path.
This is a dense and complex read but a joy for anyone interested in Jewish or Israeli history. Rav Kook was far more mystical and creative in his thinking than anyone might have dared to guess. There is much to inspire us today, including Rav Kook's deep love of his fellow Jews, from anti-religious secularists to ultra-Orthodox Jews who opposed any cooperation with them. There is also much that is sobering, including Rav Kook's inner feelings about the non-Jewish world in the light of World War I. An important correction to all of the many ways that Rav Kook is used politically today, it reveals a complex man who embraced contradiction as a core part of his spiritual path.
December 24, 2018
This book ended on a high note for me. It took a little while, particularly in the first few chapters, for me to get invested. Like many books that focus so heavily on ideas, Mirsky's dissemination of Kook's life and works can be dense. But the story found a rhythm, particularly when worldly and personal events forced Kook out of his head a little bit. :P
Born in the Russian Empire and moving to Jaffa during the Second Aliyah, Kook was in many ways admirable to my own sensibilities. He tried to find common ground between religion (or "Orthodoxy,") Zionism and progressive secularism at a time when those ideas were opposed. Perhaps somewhat in the vein of Elijah of Vilna (whom I read a little bit about in THE GENIUS: ELIJAH OF VILNA AND THE MAKING OF MODERN JUDAISM, and who also played a bit into Kook's education,) he tried to get disparate schools to work together in service of a higher truth. His stepping stone into public controversy was challenging political Zionism, which wanted to do away with religion. Kook countered that religion was the only thing that kept nationalism from devolving into "violent, self-serving chauvinism."
Nationalism has been on my mind as the left grows more diametrically opposed (not that they were ever fans) and the right embraces it more and more, and I wonder where Jewish nationalism fits into all of this. The idea of "nations" has played into Jewish religion for millennia (goyim means "nations" and Jewish religion has always banded us together as one shared people with one shared biblical past. Which even if it didn't physically happen has certainly bound Jews together through text study and holiday rituals for generations.) And Chloe Valdary, recently in a Tablet article, pointed out that Israel, despite "ethnocentrism," actively supports (if arguably not well enough) it's minorities, which is the antithesis of nationalism based on racial purity. https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/2774... Kook also worked together with Arabs during his life in pre-state Palestine.
Also on my mind is my recent read of KILLING A KING: THE ASSASSINATION OF YITZHAK RABIN, as I asked myself the unanswerable question about whether or not Kook would have approved of Yigal Amir's religiously-inspired assassination. Kook died decades before Amir was born, and his support of the "settlement" of the land of Israel was done under the auspices of foreign empires (Ottoman and British), not under the nationalism that was more idealistic than reality for him. In fact it seems that Kook paid little attention to issues of statecraft that later defined Rabin's career. He spent World War I outside of Palestine, and instead of blaming the atrocities on warring nation-states, he blamed Christianity. Also controversially, he believed in a "bright spot" endgame to all that suffering, in that it led to the Balfour Declaration. Though politics and universalism played into his thinking, his primary aim is spirituality, "light unto the nations" style: "Israel's return to Zion would make for the possibility, at long last, of the emergence of an ethic that can sustain the world precisely because it does not despair of it but rather seeks to have the natural world realize its own participation in the divine."
This devout belief speaks to fewer people today, both Jewish and Gentile. And like most learned men, Kook considered himself to be a tzaddik and had an inflated sense of self, if also altruistic. Like with many of these biographies that span the heady thought dumps of men, I can't help but wonder where the women are, probably running themselves ragged at the actual work of sustaining a household and community. Mention of the personal is relatively scant. And of course Kook, who was unusual in his consideration for disparate opinions, would never stretch as far as to endorse women in the public religious sphere. It was enough that Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah, wrote that Kook "has not one iota of grace or even humanness." :P
But Kook faced opposition from almost all quarters, so it's enough to feel sorry for the guy, even if Mirsky doesn't dwell on his feelings. The players changed, particularly after the Balfour Declaration made Zionism much more popular, but different Jewish groups were still at each other's throats. And they always seemed to take issue with something specific whenever Kook attempted to speak for more than one of them.
It's almost surprising at all that Kook was elected to become British Mandatory Palestine's first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi. Mirsky explains it as varying Zionist factions actually working in harmony, because they realized that Kook would give both the religious and the seculars some legitimacy. "Zealots" most often opposed him, and some ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods still reference him in disparaging terms.
Kook died in 1935, so he didn't have to grapple with the Holocaust. His son, Zvi Yehuda, did, and he edited his father's works to highlight more nationalism and less universalism. (Also he saw secular Zionism as over and done with, where Kook saw it as "reciprocal," to paraphrase Mirsky, with religious Zionism.)
Mirsky moved on to his own takeaways in his conclusion, including that Kook was too idealistic in his ideas for them to actually gain purchase in reality, but that "it is his contradictions that save him, above all his genuine difficulty in reconciling his celebration of Israel with his love of humanity." I believe that Mirsky proved all this through Kook's writings that he shared in his book, though I could use more thorough study. All in all, of all the Jewish rabbis and scholarly men that I've read about this year--from the Gaon of Vilna to Rab Nachman of Bretslav, and maybe Moses Montefiore on a more political bent--Kook feels the most approachable. Not only because the modernist age he grappled with is closest to my own, but that he embraced the most complexity.
Born in the Russian Empire and moving to Jaffa during the Second Aliyah, Kook was in many ways admirable to my own sensibilities. He tried to find common ground between religion (or "Orthodoxy,") Zionism and progressive secularism at a time when those ideas were opposed. Perhaps somewhat in the vein of Elijah of Vilna (whom I read a little bit about in THE GENIUS: ELIJAH OF VILNA AND THE MAKING OF MODERN JUDAISM, and who also played a bit into Kook's education,) he tried to get disparate schools to work together in service of a higher truth. His stepping stone into public controversy was challenging political Zionism, which wanted to do away with religion. Kook countered that religion was the only thing that kept nationalism from devolving into "violent, self-serving chauvinism."
Nationalism has been on my mind as the left grows more diametrically opposed (not that they were ever fans) and the right embraces it more and more, and I wonder where Jewish nationalism fits into all of this. The idea of "nations" has played into Jewish religion for millennia (goyim means "nations" and Jewish religion has always banded us together as one shared people with one shared biblical past. Which even if it didn't physically happen has certainly bound Jews together through text study and holiday rituals for generations.) And Chloe Valdary, recently in a Tablet article, pointed out that Israel, despite "ethnocentrism," actively supports (if arguably not well enough) it's minorities, which is the antithesis of nationalism based on racial purity. https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/2774... Kook also worked together with Arabs during his life in pre-state Palestine.
Also on my mind is my recent read of KILLING A KING: THE ASSASSINATION OF YITZHAK RABIN, as I asked myself the unanswerable question about whether or not Kook would have approved of Yigal Amir's religiously-inspired assassination. Kook died decades before Amir was born, and his support of the "settlement" of the land of Israel was done under the auspices of foreign empires (Ottoman and British), not under the nationalism that was more idealistic than reality for him. In fact it seems that Kook paid little attention to issues of statecraft that later defined Rabin's career. He spent World War I outside of Palestine, and instead of blaming the atrocities on warring nation-states, he blamed Christianity. Also controversially, he believed in a "bright spot" endgame to all that suffering, in that it led to the Balfour Declaration. Though politics and universalism played into his thinking, his primary aim is spirituality, "light unto the nations" style: "Israel's return to Zion would make for the possibility, at long last, of the emergence of an ethic that can sustain the world precisely because it does not despair of it but rather seeks to have the natural world realize its own participation in the divine."
This devout belief speaks to fewer people today, both Jewish and Gentile. And like most learned men, Kook considered himself to be a tzaddik and had an inflated sense of self, if also altruistic. Like with many of these biographies that span the heady thought dumps of men, I can't help but wonder where the women are, probably running themselves ragged at the actual work of sustaining a household and community. Mention of the personal is relatively scant. And of course Kook, who was unusual in his consideration for disparate opinions, would never stretch as far as to endorse women in the public religious sphere. It was enough that Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah, wrote that Kook "has not one iota of grace or even humanness." :P
But Kook faced opposition from almost all quarters, so it's enough to feel sorry for the guy, even if Mirsky doesn't dwell on his feelings. The players changed, particularly after the Balfour Declaration made Zionism much more popular, but different Jewish groups were still at each other's throats. And they always seemed to take issue with something specific whenever Kook attempted to speak for more than one of them.
It's almost surprising at all that Kook was elected to become British Mandatory Palestine's first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi. Mirsky explains it as varying Zionist factions actually working in harmony, because they realized that Kook would give both the religious and the seculars some legitimacy. "Zealots" most often opposed him, and some ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods still reference him in disparaging terms.
Kook died in 1935, so he didn't have to grapple with the Holocaust. His son, Zvi Yehuda, did, and he edited his father's works to highlight more nationalism and less universalism. (Also he saw secular Zionism as over and done with, where Kook saw it as "reciprocal," to paraphrase Mirsky, with religious Zionism.)
Mirsky moved on to his own takeaways in his conclusion, including that Kook was too idealistic in his ideas for them to actually gain purchase in reality, but that "it is his contradictions that save him, above all his genuine difficulty in reconciling his celebration of Israel with his love of humanity." I believe that Mirsky proved all this through Kook's writings that he shared in his book, though I could use more thorough study. All in all, of all the Jewish rabbis and scholarly men that I've read about this year--from the Gaon of Vilna to Rab Nachman of Bretslav, and maybe Moses Montefiore on a more political bent--Kook feels the most approachable. Not only because the modernist age he grappled with is closest to my own, but that he embraced the most complexity.
December 12, 2019
Really great biography. Kinda wish it was longer and more in depth.
May 8, 2022
This is a short, somewhat easy-to-read biography of Rav Kook: I say "somewhat" because Rav Kook's own writings are difficult enough that the quotes from his writings are less accessible than the more biographical parts of the book.
One example of Rav Kook's work cited by Mersky is Kook's discussion of three powerful ideas: the holy, the nation, and humanity. Each of these, wrote Kook, has become the property of one Jewish faction- holiness for Orthodoxy, the nation for Zionists, and humanity for liberalism (by which he meant classical liberalism and its descendants, not liberalism in the U.S. sense of "liberalism vs. conservatism"). Kook emphasized that all three factions had elements of sacredness; liberalism emanates from universal ethics, nationalism emanates from love of one's community, and Orthodoxy from a desire for God.
However, this book is interesting less because of its discussion of Rav Kook's ideas than because it humanizes him and gave me more of a sense of his weaknesses, and of the controversies swirling around him.
For example, Mirsky discusses Kook's relationship with the haredi community, which was often hostile for two reasons. First, Rav Kook sometimes was lenient in halakhic rulings. For example, he was willing to certify sesame oil as kosher for Passover, because modern factories made leavening impossible, and thus there was no risk that sesame oil would turn into a leavened (and thus forbidden) product. However, local Hasidic rabbis disagreed, arguing that sesame oils were similar to legumes that were too easily confused with leavened grain to be appropriate under Ashkenazic custom. Second, Rav Kook was willing to reach out to, and even praise, secular Zionists, because of his general respect for the national idea and because he thought they were working to bring a significant Jewish presence to the land of Israel. By contrast, haredi authorities saw them as godless freethinkers.
Mirsky also emphasizes what was missing, or at least outdated, in Rav Kook's thought. Unlike (for example) Lubavitcher rebbe Menachem Scheerson, Kook was not an organizer or a leader of men: the Chief Rabbinate under his direction was underfunded. Kook was fundamentally an optimist who didn't write much about anti-Semitism. His attitude that probably seemed pretty appealing in the 1910s, but may have been less appealing in the 1930s, which were marked both by Arab pogroms against Jews and by intra-Zionist violence between socialists and Revisionists. (Perhaps fortunately, Kook did not live to see the Holocaust).
One example of Rav Kook's work cited by Mersky is Kook's discussion of three powerful ideas: the holy, the nation, and humanity. Each of these, wrote Kook, has become the property of one Jewish faction- holiness for Orthodoxy, the nation for Zionists, and humanity for liberalism (by which he meant classical liberalism and its descendants, not liberalism in the U.S. sense of "liberalism vs. conservatism"). Kook emphasized that all three factions had elements of sacredness; liberalism emanates from universal ethics, nationalism emanates from love of one's community, and Orthodoxy from a desire for God.
However, this book is interesting less because of its discussion of Rav Kook's ideas than because it humanizes him and gave me more of a sense of his weaknesses, and of the controversies swirling around him.
For example, Mirsky discusses Kook's relationship with the haredi community, which was often hostile for two reasons. First, Rav Kook sometimes was lenient in halakhic rulings. For example, he was willing to certify sesame oil as kosher for Passover, because modern factories made leavening impossible, and thus there was no risk that sesame oil would turn into a leavened (and thus forbidden) product. However, local Hasidic rabbis disagreed, arguing that sesame oils were similar to legumes that were too easily confused with leavened grain to be appropriate under Ashkenazic custom. Second, Rav Kook was willing to reach out to, and even praise, secular Zionists, because of his general respect for the national idea and because he thought they were working to bring a significant Jewish presence to the land of Israel. By contrast, haredi authorities saw them as godless freethinkers.
Mirsky also emphasizes what was missing, or at least outdated, in Rav Kook's thought. Unlike (for example) Lubavitcher rebbe Menachem Scheerson, Kook was not an organizer or a leader of men: the Chief Rabbinate under his direction was underfunded. Kook was fundamentally an optimist who didn't write much about anti-Semitism. His attitude that probably seemed pretty appealing in the 1910s, but may have been less appealing in the 1930s, which were marked both by Arab pogroms against Jews and by intra-Zionist violence between socialists and Revisionists. (Perhaps fortunately, Kook did not live to see the Holocaust).
April 19, 2021
I enjoyed it a great deal at first, but then got bogged down in the details about 3/4 of the way through. For me, as a non-professional, it just ultimately wasn't worth it to keep going. I loved the first half though!
September 16, 2018
Wonderful read for a great biography of Rav Kook. Although not the best book to learn his philosophy. Overall an awesome read!
December 14, 2019
And amazing biography about a complex figure!
July 7, 2021
Fascinating, informative, and beautifully written
August 24, 2021
“The Jewish people..are the foundation of the entire Torah.”
December 2, 2025
Lost me around page 215. Most powerful in breaking down Kook’s approach to mysticism, less gripping in unfolding historical events.
December 10, 2022
I didn’t realize how much Rav Kook was influenced by Chabad. Then again, I didn’t realize much about Rav Kook at all, so I’m glad I read this book. Full ten-page review of this book to follow. . . maybe. *nervous laugh*
Update, yeah, so I'm not posting that ten-page review. But here's the conclusion of my assignment for those interested. Yehudah Mirsky’s Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution is a thorough, multi-faceted, and fascinating work on the life and outlooks of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook. With compassion, complexity, and care, it tells the story of a controversial man who impacted Jewish and Zionist history forever.
Update, yeah, so I'm not posting that ten-page review. But here's the conclusion of my assignment for those interested. Yehudah Mirsky’s Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution is a thorough, multi-faceted, and fascinating work on the life and outlooks of Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook. With compassion, complexity, and care, it tells the story of a controversial man who impacted Jewish and Zionist history forever.
April 6, 2016
An incredibly interesting overview of this defining leader of pre-1948 Israel. Spends a lot of time showing how he became the leader that he ultimately was. The book is academic, yet incredibly accessible. I do wish it incorporated even more textual examples of Kook's, but it gives you a real glimpse into who he was.
August 24, 2016
Well done. Heavy on the philosophy which I can't say I fully understand. Excellent chapter at the end on how R Kook's students (and theirs) took his ideas (or pieces of them) and branched off in a few different directions.
December 28, 2014
Great biography and discussion of the works of Rav Kook.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews