Between Rabbi Kook and his son: The path that changed the face of Religious Zionism | Liora Minka

On the 3rd of Elul, the day of the passing of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, it is fitting to return and observe the figure of one of the most original and daring thinkers to arise for the Jewish people in the modern era. Rabbi Kook was not just a Chief Rabbi, and not just a public leader. He created a new consciousness, which gave deep spiritual meaning to the national enterprise and laid the ideological foundations for classical Religious Zionism as it was at its inception.

Rabbi Kook's great innovation was the ability to see in the state, even before it was established, not just a political framework, but a stage in the process of redemption. Unlike many of his contemporaries, who saw in secular Zionism a rebellious movement, Rabbi Kook dared to say that Zionism is part of the divine plan for the redemption of Israel. He granted value-based legitimacy to the enterprise of the pioneers and saw in the working of the land, the building of the country, and the creation of a modern Hebrew society an expression of God's will. In doing so, he created the conceptual infrastructure that allowed the religious public to integrate into the emerging state out of a sense of mission and not as a way of compromise.

Rabbi Kook's statism was a theological concept. The state, even when it is far from perfection and is not a Halachic state, is the "foundation of God's throne in the world." Although the state is not perfect, it is holy. This concept allowed one to see the army, the economy, politics, and daily life as part of the project of Tikkun Olam (repairing the world).

Rabbi Kook the father was a universal thinker. His language is elevated and mystical, and describes ongoing historical processes. The Ra'ayah emphasized the becoming, the gradualness, the complexity. The tour of the settlements held at his initiative in 1914 is still considered today as one of the most important, moving, and fascinating public moves in the history of the Yishuv. In this tour, he and other rabbis visited dozens of settlements of the new Yishuv, most of whose residents were secular. He expressed his uncompromising appreciation for the pioneers and spoke with them at eye level, with great love, in a way that is non-judgmental and with full appreciation.

Many in Religious Zionism see him as the great thinker of statism, of the holiness of the mundane, and of the connection between a modern state and an ancient spiritual vision. His son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, emphasized different sides of the path. The gap is not only stylistic. It reflects two consciousnesses. Rabbi Kook the father wrote in a universal, poetic, broad language that seeks to contain all parts of reality and to see redemption as a complex and ongoing process. His son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, operated in an existing state, in a reality of political decisions, and turned his father's ideas into an action plan: settlement, the integrity of the land, absolute, aggressive, and practical commitment.

The day of the passing of the Ra'ayah Kook calls upon us to hold a discussion on the path of Religious Zionism today, on the attitude toward the state, on the attitude toward secularism, and on the way in which we understand redemption in a complex and changing reality.

The author is an educator, formerly the chairwoman of "Emunah" — the National Religious Women's Organization.