Shepherd of Israel

Ha’Ra’aya, the Rav...

He mixes and fleshes out Zionistic messianism, or messianic Zionism. It is hard to decide which sides of that coin or heavier. 

What is interesting about the Rav is that he has a broad thought out worldview, drawing of course from different sources and traditions. When we encounter something that he says or does, it can be understood within the context of his relatively extensive worldview. 

His worldview is definitely messianic, among other things. He was many things to many people, because of his broad worldview. But for him it all was one package. Here are some guidelines.

Spiritual Dialectical

The Rav was born in 1865 in the Russian empire - Latvia of today. His father was from the factions that were strongly opposed to the Hasidic movement, and his mother was from a Chabad family (mega Hasidic).

This is where it begins, his natural acceptance of opposing streams, making them a complimentary whole. 

The Rav studied at the prestigious (‘Lithuanian’, aka mitnadgdim, those opposed to the Hasidic movement) Volozhyn yeshiva in its glory days. 

Hardships of Life

In 1886 he was married for the first time and then was appointed rabbi of the community in the town of Zeimel, in Lithuania. Tragically, his young wife died of an illness, leaving him with a baby girl. He married for the second time. And became the rabbi of Bauske, in Latvia, in 1896.

In my opinion, the death and remarriage, and moving from one place to another, or also a fundamental part of his character make up. He is not foreign to tragedy. He gets around, moves on, is exposed to different places and ideas and people, always moving and progressing. 

In the latter position in particular, he was around many secular and not just orthodox Jews, it was a vibrant and colorful community, often with tension between the secular ‘enlightened’ and religious conservative Jews, as well as pro and non- Zionists.

This is another obvious level of his background, before coming to Israel, in engagement with opposing forces within Judaism. In his soul and life itself, he experienced the Hasidic versus their opponents, the secular versus orthodox, and Zionist versus non.

When the opportunity presented itself, he took it - in 1904 the Rav Kook accepted the invitation to be the rabbi in Israel of Jaffa and the surrounding agricultural settlement communities, with his wife and daughter and only son, Zvi Yehuda (who plays an important role later on). 

Melting Pot

Jaffa - Tel Aviv was vibrant as well, hot on topics that concerned the public, what with the seculars and the Arabs and the changes in the world and all the literature and the ideas of the Jewish institutions. 

But just months before the first World War, by chance the Rav was traveling to the Zionist congress in Switzerland, when it erupted, and there in Switzerland he found refuge, as a displaced person essentially. There he served as a rabbi and then continued to London in 1916 to lead an ultra-Orthodox community there. 

All the while the Rav was extremely active in advocating Zionism. He participated in public discussions and even addressed the matter in Parliament leading to the Balfour declaration (not that he was entirely responsible for that Zionist accomplishment, but he contributed!).

Then the war ended. Finally he was able to return home to his beloved land of Israel Jewish community and face all the issues here. 

Tough Crowd

One of the first things he did was to start another Zionist party or organization. He named it Flag of Jerusalem. It was a religious-Zionist movement, differentiated slightly but significantly from the Mizrachi movement founded by Reines. And in 1919, he moved up a notch - becoming the rabbi of Jerusalem, moving there to his house on Nevi’im street (today a museum of his legacy).

The Rav established the official (pre-state) rabbinate institution of the Jewish settlement, and was its first Ashkenazi rabbi. He established a yeshiva, calling it the central global yeshiva, what is coined today, ‘merkaz ha’rav’, literally, the ‘rav - center’, where the main language was Hebrew! And on top of that, they were also studying non-rabbinic matters!

But another tragedy struck, the youngest daughter of the Rav, aged 12, fell from the stairs and died. He was never the same. 

Eventually the political religious Flag of Jerusalem movement was disassembled, as it never quite took off. 

Also, the rabbis of the Haredi camp decided together to write him off and denounce him and his ideas and institutions, mainly because of halachic rulings he issued that were liberal, and also because the Rav blatantly recognized a very positive root and element of the secularists, whom he defended.  

Another blow to the Rav was the infamous murder in 1933 of cHaim Arlozorov, a high ranking official in the proto-governmental institution of Israel, the Jewish Agency. It created quite a conspiracy in regards to who did the murder, but 2 Jews were arrested and alleged guilty, but even though it was not exactly confirmed, there was much antagonism before and after, as the more hawkish revisionists allegedly incited against Arlozorov.

The Rav took the whole matter very personally, was torn that the Jewish community was torn, publicly defended the Jews accused of murdering a fellow Jew, and was then criticized intensely by the socialist camp for defending those accused Jews of murder.

In 1935 he died of cancer, and was buried on the Mount of Olives, 70 years old.