What is Happening in Israel? Part One: Rav Kook and Rabbi Kahana
by Rabbi Dovid Eidensohn
What is happening in Israel to the Zionist Orthodox? Frightening pictures of police and protestors, battles between the army and protestors, and people thrown out of their homes and with nowhere to go. We never thought we would see it. Is there a way to understand this, or do we just have to watch until we collapse? More important, where is all of this going?
For those of us concerned about Israel, the inner turmoil is the greatest danger. The Second Temple was not just destroyed by the Romans. When the Romans arrived, the Jews were battling each other. Jews burned the stores of food that would have prevented famine, and insisted that the Jews go forth and battle instead of sitting behind the stout walls of Jerusalem. So when the voice of fierce patriotism is heard in the holy land, and when people talk about civil war, we have to realize there is a mortal danger.
What is the source of the present day militants? Why do they defy the government and fight to live among ferocious Arabs, when they know they are endangering their children? One source is Rav Kook, of blessed memory, accepted by the majority of Jews in Jerusalem as their Rov over half a century ago. Rav Kook was one of the senior students of Vollozhen, the major Yeshiva in the world over a hundred years ago. When someone wanted to know something in Shass, he asked Rav Kook. He learned eighteen hours and sixty blot a day. He was known as someone who, in every area, was a master, but in each of these areas, there were perhaps others slightly above him, but none had it all as he did. As a young man, ranking as he did at the top of the students of Vollozhen, or among the top, the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem took him for his daughter. Thus, Rav Kook was ideally positioned to become the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem when his father-in-law passed away.
The Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem, at the time, the head of the Ashkenazim Haredim, was the Adereth, an uncompromising zealot. The Adereth decreed that Hebrew could not be spoken, but this was not accepted. He feared that the Zionists, who believed in spoken Hebrew as a substitute for Judaism, would gain entree into the Haredi world if Haredim spoke Hebrew and stopped speaking Yiddish. However, throughout Jerusalem, and surely in Bnei Braq, many completely Haredi Jews and Torah scholars cannot speak Yiddish and speak only Hebrew. The Adereth, however, was opposed to this as being a break in the mesora and tradition that could conceivably lead to more changes. Even the zealots refused this edict of the Adereth, and Rav Sonnenfeld said it was not binding as other rabbis refused to go along with it.
If such a person took Rav Kook as a son-in-law and potential successor, surely Rav Kook was very far from a moderate and certainly not a liberal or radical in Torah matters. And yet, today, Rav Kook perceived as the antithesis of the Haredi position and surely the antithesis of his father-in-law. Why?
To understand Rav Kook, we must understand his times. After World War I, the Torah world greatly declined. Most of those who came to America dropped Orthodoxy. Stalin destroyed the Yeshivas and Orthodoxy in Russia. Thus, millions of Orthodox Jews were wiped off the slate. WWI itself created great changes in society, and religion declined among Jews, and was replaced with science, socialism, and materialism. Rabbis had little influence outside certain circles.
The Torah world then split. The Chofetz Chaim organized Agudath Israel with senior Litvishe and Chassidic rabbis, and they surrounded the wagons, and created standards foreign to the vast majority of Jews. But others, even prominent rabbis, did not accept this isolated ghetto, but strived to work with the general community to save what could be saved. There were famous arguments between the two leaders of the generation, both Kohanim, the Chofetz Chaim and the Ore Somayach, Reb Meyer Simcha, the Rov of Dwinsk. on this very issue.
Reb Mayer Simcha, the Rov of a major city, and the Chofetz Chaim, the head of a Yeshiva, could not see eye to eye. At one time the two argued so intensely that Rav Mayer Simcha rushed from his house, holding his mouth, so that he not reply. A similar argument took place between another Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Chaim Brisker, and Rav Meyer Simcha, and the two did not speak for a while. Finally, Rav Chaim Brisker called for his coat, and went to pay his respects to Rav Mayer Simcha. When asked about this he replied, "And should I not pay my respects to the Gadol HaDor?"
Even while Agudath Israel pursued the daf yomi program, enabling even laity to learn the entire Talmud every seven years, most Jews were pursuing money or radical idealisms. Great wars appeared in the Jewish community itself regarding the various idealisms of the times. Each strived to gain control of the Jewish community for its own ends. This happened in Europe, and it spilled over into the fledgling Jewish community of Israel.
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, the Torah community was melting down. One class of twenty Haredi children produced one Haredi and everyone else was lost. Senior politicians in the secular Israeli parties descend from distinguished parents who could not hold on to their children. Rav Kook, realizing the great power of the Jewish love for Israel, sought to use it to bring people to Torah. At the time, he was successful in this, and achieved great influence. Meanwhile, the followers of the Chofetz Chaim and Reb Chaim, and the Aguda rabbonim, continued with their pure efforts behind ghetto walls.
There was thus a schism in Orthodoxy, and a scissors effect, as one camp went to higher and higher standards, zealotry and rejecting the world, and the other entered the world and accepted much of its essential culture and programs. The majority were not zealots or Haredim, but this small, focused element, grew slowly but surely, from its own children and those it could attract.
Rav Kook was a genius, a scholar, a mighty leader and influencer of people, but, and here is the crucial point, his could see black and call it white, utilizing Kabbala and genius to do this. He eulogized and praised Herzl, whose writings and beliefs tended in the direction of uprooting Judaism, and who once wrote that he would lead the Jews to conversion to Christianity, and remain, himself, the last Jew. Can an Orthodox rabbi eulogize and praise such a person? Rav Kook had the belief that the drop of holiness in each violently secular and anti-religious Zionist would one day burst into flame. He was a dreamer. He was naive. And this, more than any specific philosophy, is what his disciples inherited.
An American Rosh Yeshiva who as a young youth studied under Rav Kook once challenged his mentor, pointing out the lies the Zionist leaders were telling him. He suggested that the zealots and Haredim would never have fallen for these lies. After this discussion, Rav Kook could not sleep the whole night, and the next day, this bochur got it from the Rebbetsin, who asked him, "What did you tell my husband that he was pacing the floor the entire night?" But it was too late. The lies were accepted, and the program continued.
The Six Day War was a mighty miracle and goodness for the Jewish people, but most Jews rejoiced within some limits. Not so those who imbibed fully the naivety and Kabbalistic hopes of Rav Kook. For them, the End was here already. Only faith was needed. When they were dragged out, they were shocked theologically, not just physically beaten. At last, the fantastic naivety was exposed for what it always was. It was not the first time in Jewish history that such things happened.
Not everyone dragged away by the army and police was a follower of Rav Kook. A strong element of Rabbi Mayer Kahana's followers met their challenge in Gaza. Rabbi Kahana, from his youth, was on fire with the vision of giving G-d the faith that could produce Redemption. He died, his son died, and his disciples were dragged away. Years ago, I went on the radio to debate the disciples of Rabbi Mayer Kahana. I got to know some of his followers. These were the perfect believers, young people who had not had time to know life and its realities, and who were perfect fodder for the articulate and the personality who could light their souls. Now, what is happening to that light?
This is the element that created a Sanhedrin, which is a joke, but they don't think it is. They are pious, learned, dedicated, and live only for HaShem. From such people, mixed with naivety and dreams, Jewish tragedies are fashioned.