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Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook zt"l - Biography
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Abraham
Isaac Kook (1865–1935) was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the
British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the Religious Zionist
Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, Jewish thinker, Halachist, Kabbalist and a
renowned Torah scholar. He is known in Hebrew as הרב אברהם יצחק הכהן
קוק HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, and by the acronym HaRaAYaH
or simply as "HaRav." He was one of the most celebrated and
influential Rabbis of the 20th century.
Biography
Rav Kook was born in Grīva, Latvia (now part of Daugavpils, then a
town in Courland Governorate of Imperial Russia) in 1865, the oldest
of eight children. His father, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Ha-Cohen Kook, was
a student of the Volozhin Yeshiva, the "mother of the Lithuanian
yeshivas", whereas his maternal grandfather was a member of the Kapust
dynasty of the Hassidic movement.
As a child he gained a reputation of being an ilui (prodigy). He
entered the Volozhin Yeshiva in 1884 at the age of 18, where he became
close to the rosh yeshiva, Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv).
Although he stayed at the yeshiva for only a year and a half, the
Netziv has been quoted as saying that if the Volozhin Yeshiva had been
founded just to educate Rav Kook, it would have been worthwhile.
During his time in the yeshiva, he studied about 18 hours a day.
In 1886, Kook married Batsheva, the daughter of Rabbi Eliyahu David
Rabinowitz-Teomim, (also known as the Aderet), the rabbi of Ponevezh
(today's Panevėžys, Lithuania) and later Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of
Jerusalem. In 1887, at the age of 23, Kook entered his first
rabbinical position as rabbi of Zaumel, Lithuania. In 1888, his wife
died, and his father-in-law convinced him to marry her cousin,
Raize-Rivka, the daughter of the Aderet's twin brother. In 1895 Kook
became the rabbi of Bausk (now Bauska). Between 1901 and 1904, he
published three articles which anticipate the fully-developed
philosophy which he developed in the Land of Israel. During these
years he wrote a number of works, most published posthumously, most
notably a lengthy commentary on the Aggadot of Tractates Berakhot and
Shabbat, titled 'Eyn Ayah' and a brief but powerful book on morality
and spirituality, titled 'Mussar Avikhah'.
In 1904, Rav Kook moved to Ottoman Palestine to assume the rabbinical
post in Jaffa, which also included responsibility for the new mostly
secular Zionist agricultural settlements nearby. His influence on
people in different walks of life was already noticeable, as he
engaged in kiruv ("Jewish outreach"), thereby creating a greater role
for Torah and Halakha in the life of the city and the nearby
settlements.
The outbreak of the First World War caught Rav Kook in Europe, and he
was forced to remain in London and Switzerland for the remainder of
the war. During this time, a famous episode occurred: “When I lived in
London I used to visit the National Gallery, and my favourite pictures
were those of Rembrandt. I really think that Rembrandt was a Tzadik.
Do you know that when I first saw Rembrandt’s works, they reminded me
of the legend about the creation of light? We are told that when G-d
created light, it was so strong and pellucid, that one could see from
one end of the world to the other, but G-d was afraid that the wicked
might abuse it. What did He do? He reserved that light for the
righteous when the Messiah should come. But now and then there are
great men who are blessed and privileged to see it. I think that
Rembrandt was one of them, and the light in his pictures is the very
light that was originally created by G-d Almighty” (The Jewish
Chronicle; London, 13 September 1935, p. 21). In 1916, he became rabbi
of the Spitalfields Great Synagogue (Machzike Hadath, "upholders of
the law"), an immigrant Orthodox community located in Brick Lane,
White chapel. Upon returning, he was appointed the Ashkenazi Rabbi of
Jerusalem, and soon after, as first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine
in 1921. Kook founded a yeshiva, Mercaz HaRav Kook (popularly known as
"Mercaz haRav"), in Jerusalem in 1924. He was a master of Halakha in
the strictest sense, while at the same time possessing an unusual
openness to new ideas. This drew many religious and nonreligious
people to him, but also led to widespread misunderstanding of his
ideas. He wrote prolifically on both Halakha and Jewish thought, and
his books and personality continued to influence many even after his
death in Jerusalem in 1935.
Kook built bridges of communication and political alliances between
the various Jewish sectors, including the secular Jewish Zionist
leadership, the Religious Zionists, and more traditional non-Zionist
Orthodox Jews. He believed that the modern movement to re-establish a
Jewish state in the land of Israel had profound theological
significance and that the Zionists were agents in a heavenly plan to
bring about the messianic era. Per this ideology, the youthful,
secular and even anti-religious Labor Zionist pioneers, halutzim, were
a part of a grand Divine process whereby the land and people of Israel
were finally being redeemed from the 2,000-year exile (galut) by all
manner of Jews who sacrificed themselves for the cause of building up
the physical land, as laying the groundwork for the ultimate spiritual
messianic redemption of world Jewry. He once commented that the
establishment of the Chief Rabbinate was the first step towards the
re-establishment of the Sanhedrin.
While building bridges with mainly anti-religious elements, he burned
bridges with the traditional original ultra-Orthodox Jewish Litvish
and Chasidic streams. He is considered by them as an outcast and by
many as an apikoros. His books and name are never mentioned by them in
Halachic discussions.
His empathy towards the anti-religious elements aroused the suspicions
of his more traditionalist haredi opponents, particularly that of the
traditional rabbinical establishment that had functioned from the time
of Turkey's control of greater Palestine, whose paramount leader was
Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, Rav Kook's greatest rabbinical rival.
Kook once quoted a rabbinic axiom that "one should embrace with the
right hand and rebuff with the left". He remarked that he was fully
capable of rejecting, but since there were enough rejecters, he was
fulfilling the role of embracer. However, Kook was critical of the
secularists on certain occasions when they went "too far" in
desecrating the Torah, for instance, by not observing the Sabbath or
kosher laws. Rav Kook also opposed the secular spirit of the Hatikvah
anthem, and penned another anthem with a more religious theme entitled
haEmunah.
 Rav
Kook fathered three children through his two wives: two daughters and
a son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook. His nephew was Hillel Kook.
Legacy
Abraham Isaac Kook handwriting
While Rabbi Kook is exalted as one of the most important thinkers in
mainstream Religious Zionism, he was close to what is now called
Hardal. Indeed, there are several prominent quotes in which Kook is
quite critical of the more modern-orthodox Religious Zionists (Mizrachi),
whom he saw as naive and perhaps hypocritical in attempting to
synthesize traditional Judaism with a modern and largely secular
ideology. Kook never shied away from criticizing his peers, religious
and secular, as well as the increasingly cloistered traditionalists
living in the Holy Land, whose way of life he characterized as being
similarly affected by the negative and abnormal conditions of the
Jewish exile, and therefore just as "inauthentic" as that of their
Zionist counterparts. Kook was interested in outreach and cooperation
between different groups and types of Jews, and saw both the good and
bad in each of them. His sympathy for them as fellow Jews and desire
for Jewish unity should not be misinterpreted as any inherent
endorsement of all their ideas. That said, Rav Kook's willingness to
engage in joint-projects (for instance, his participation in the Chief
Rabbinate) with the secular Zionist leadership must be seen as
differentiating him from many of his traditionalist peers. In terms of
practical results, it would not be incorrect to characterize Kook as
being a Zionist, believing in the re-establishment of the Jewish
people as a nation in their ancestral homeland. Unlike other Zionist
leaders, however, Kook's motivations were purely based on Jewish law
and Biblical prophecy. His sympathy towards the Zionist movement can
be seen as a major stepping-stone to the Religious Zionist movement
gaining momentum and legitimacy after his death.
The Israeli moshav Kfar Haroeh, founded in 1933, was named after Kook,
"Haroah" being a Hebrew acronym for "HaRav Avraham HaCohen". His son
Zvi Yehuda Kook, who was also his most prominent student, took over
teaching duties at Mercaz HaRav after his death, and dedicated his
life to disseminating his father's philosophy. Rav Kook's writings and
philosophy eventually gave birth to the Hardal Religious Zionist
movement which is today led by rabbis who studied under Rav Kook's son
at Mercaz HaRav |