Lifelong Thinker

Understanding the fundamentals of this man really is like a building and a spiral - there are multiple levels, and then you can go through them again and sense more and more depth each time. Previously there were some milestones of his life. Now for his intellectual milestones…

He was an intellectual. He was a thinker. For the duration of his life he was studying and thinking and writing. To understand this man, like we mentioned above, he went through a lot and was always moving and working and starting things and joining things. He was also always engaged in reflection and expression of ideas. 

Existential Writer

In Europe, before coming to Israel at the age of 40 (almost), he had been a young rabbi for almost 20 years, and wrote articles and books. His work included halachic material, and sermons, also Kabbalah and ethics, he dealt with worldview and ideas of philosophers and secular intellectuals, he did poetry, and was engaged in public matters and ideas there. 

That is all to say, on the outside he was engaged in community and political life, including Zionism, but everything outside was correlating or drawn from his internal world. He was first of all a thinker and writer, motivated personally by existential religious matters. 

Then he arrived in Jaffa in 1904, and he stopped writing the way he always did. Some of his writings he destroyed, some writings before publishing he halted. From then on his method was entirely alternative.

He only wrote in short bursts of poetic spiritual expressions that would come to him intuitively, like unctions during prayer and meditation. He did this for decades since arriving in Israel (and without getting too far ahead, this accumulated into a lot of material).

Orot Legacy

During his lifetime, he sought editing for this material that came out of him, to give it to the people. But it was complicated. His friends and followers who were professional editors and were proficient in religious sources and intellectual ideas, did not manage to set a path that was accessible to him. 

In the end, what worked for him, was when his son mostly, and another close disciple - the Nazir: they would collect all the ‘paragraphs’ written by the Rav, did not edit them essentially, except maybe typos and citing sources and adding commas and spacing, etc.

They mostly organized the paragraphs according to topic. And then published entire books that were essentially topical collections of all these random special paragraphs, branded as the Orot series (‘lights’). 

Actually, there was a tiny measure of subtle subversive editing, by the son, mostly intended to moderate some expressions that he perceived as too extreme, or that he anticipated would be perceived as too extreme - mostly pointing at the kabbalistic prophetic nature of these thoughts and writings, and secondly, in the direction of how the Jews in Israel, the pioneers secular, enlightened, socialists and such, how they were in their innovative and creative ways were actually an asset of spirituality and the knowledge of G-d. 

The ultra-Orthodox camp during the lifetime of the Rav did not like this stream of thought at all and because of that basically excluded him from their world, and also went against him in other ways to diminish his influence and legacy. 

The son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, managed to protect his father’s legacy to a significant degree, by these edits, and otherwise taking conservative action whilst maintaining his fathers writings and institutions. (His father had a hard time limiting his words and expressions but accepted some of the pressure measures from his son, just some.)

Why Like This

The writing style above had everything to do with his mindset, as he came to Israel, which was that there is a difference between the Torah of Exile versus that of Israel. Well actually, here first he came to Israel and felt different, it was first of all an existential shift for him, and then he laid it out in terms of ideas behind it.

When he landed he could only write in this poetic spiritual style, with his intense spiritual feelings, he felt there was no other way he could write.

The worldview of this is that in Israel the spiritual unction is prophetic, or is prophetic potential, or in the direction of prophetic. In the biblical sense.

He lived life from childhood with opposing forces and peoples, and he learned quite authentically and naturally to recognize the value in both sides and unite them, and generally develop an inclusive personality, by which he has sympathy and grace and acceptance of others.

He appreciates others and wants them to get along. 

His personality and experience of appreciating others and uniting paradox flows smoothly with the Kabbalistic-Lurianic-Hasidic to assume and distinguish the divine root of goodness in all things and in all people.

Definitely that notion would include brave and vibrant Jewish pioneers in Israel, despite their secularism.

How does this and that relate to messianism?

Everything is related

It is not that he just wanted to be popular, or just liked other people and then was inclusive. There was a worldview there. Even Kabbalistic, because the qualities associated with the higher Sphere of Keter - Ratzon (crown - will) are those strengths of the secular pioneers - creativity, courage, for example.

All people are naturally, deep inside, graced by G-d with different qualities that come from above, from the divine - some with qualities of religion typically, holiness, scholastic ability. 

What really disgusted the Rav deeply was the inclination of many to separate between peoples, to exclude others and their qualities, instead of mutual recognition and digging out and mixing the good divine rooted qualities.

The humanistic empowered nature fascinated him, and he loved them for it - on a theological level as well. He thought it was the inspiration of the Spirit of G-d, to create, fight, break down barriers, discover wonderful new things - and prophecy. 

Hegelian Style

What also sticks out with the general thinking and view of the world of the Rav, is that he thinks like they did back then in the late 19th century, he thinks in terms of late modern historical processes and nations as units or beings of sorts. 

His thinking is somewhat influenced by Hegel, like most intellectuals at the time! History is a dialectical process, in which there is a back and forth, a critical force towards the status quo and then a synthesizing force. 

And ultimately this is a progressive process, of thinking and science and culture and ethics being refined over time - as if history is moving in progress. 

For Hegel that process was peaking with German Christian “civilization” in the late 19th century, and his theology was basically humanist. 

For the Rav, this was a divine process with the Jewish nation in the center, moving towards a modern Israel kingdom leading knowledge and morality and peace globally, including spiritual enlightenment.

Everything was in a positive constructive religious and humanist movement, in the mind of the Rav…

So naturally, it was simple for him to recognize humanistic Jewish Zionistic and Hebrew activity as a divinely ordained good historical process - because everything was the work of G-d and His touch was in everything, including humanism and other nations and religions. 

He was a man of novelty. He embraced change. He was not anxious of repercussions following changes. He recognized the reality of repercussions but was more worried about conservative setbacks obstructing change, which was the hand of G-d in the world, and in history. 

And so he was tolerant of risk, radicalism, a bit of chaos, and even heresy. It was not heresy for its own sake but heresy for a purpose. He turned heresy upside down, as something to embrace and spiritualize instead of attack conservatively.

The conservative forces were the dangerous ones, sticking to old ideas and structures that restrict progress - that restrict G-d’s process!

The pioneers were heretical, but trailblazers for the divine historical process, led by the divine spark deep inside their spirits. 

Obvious Conclusion

And what do we call this divine historical process peaking? We call it messianic.

Because these are the footsteps of the Messiah, that motif in the Bible and rabbinic literature, as the tradition says, that in such times, preceding THE redemption, there will be an abundance of chutzpah, of obstinate heretical people and actions. 

The Zionist pioneers were just that, obstinate heretics breaking ground as part of the historical stage preceding messianic redemption. Everything will pan out and be clear and one in the end.

The Rav thought all these things before the first world war. This is his thinking and the enterprise of his first decade in Israel 1904-1914.

The great world war and the Balfour declaration and shift between Ottoman and British empires enhanced the feeling of all these ideas above. It was happening. 

Jews were returning. Empires were shifting. The Kingdom of Israel was being rebuilt. He poured his soul into the unity of the people, by mutual understanding and ideological pluralism. 

He had in mind the traditional concept of the Talmud, Maimonides, and others, as one way messianic history would take place - messianic redemption is freedom from national subjugation of foreign kings.

And he had in mind the traditional concept of Lurianic and Hasidic Kabbalah, that works of tikkun, of unity and piety, will bring balance in the Divine Spheric System, introducing spiritual restoration, phasing out of Exile, back to Israel.