Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Jewish Spirituality

by Kaplan, Lawrence J.; Shatz, David

• ISBN13: 9780814746530
• ISBN10: 0814746535
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-10-01
• Publisher: New York Univ Pr

Summary

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) was the first Ashkenazic chief rabbi of mandatory Palestine. Admired for the incredible diversity of his talents and interests--talmudist, halakhist, kabbalist, mystic, theologian, moralist, poet, and communal leader--Rav Kook's world outlook extolled breadth and derided narrow specialization. More than any other Orthodox thinker in modern times, he addressed, squarely and boldly, the confrontation between Judaism and the modern world. Kook serves as a natural model to those Jews who seek a religious understanding of and response to the culture and politics of the modern age.These essays, most published here for the first time, offer a range of analyses and interpretations covering, in an accessible, systematic, and comprehensive fashion the major areas of Rav Kook's thought. Among the issues discussred are: his relationship to the Jewish mystical, philosophical, and halakhic traditions; poetry and spirituality; harmonism and pluralism; tolerance and its limits; Zionism, messianism, and politics; and Rav Kook today.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Note on Transliterations and Citations
Contributors
Introduction	p. 1
Rav Abraham Isaac Kook and the Jewish Mystical Tradition	p. 23
Rav Kook and the Jewish Philosophical Tradition	p. 41
Rav Kook: Neither Philosopher nor Kabbalist	p. 78
Poetry of Spirituality	p. 88
Halakhah, Metahalakhah, and the Redemption of Israel: Reflections on the Rabbinic Rulings of Rav Kook	p. 120
Harmonism, Novelty, and the Sacred in the Teachings of Rav Kook	p. 159
Tolerance and Its Theoretical Basis in the Teaching of Rav Kook	p. 178
Dialectic, Doubters, and a Self-Erasing Letter: Rav Kook and the Ethics of Belief	p. 205
Immortality, Natural Law, and the Role of Human Perception in the Writings of Rav Kook	p. 237
The Land of Israel and Historical Dialectics in the Thought of Rav Kook: Zionism and Messianism	p. 257
Zion and Jerusalem: The Jewish State in the Thought of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook	p. 276
Zionism As a Return to Mount Sinai in Rabbi Kook's Thought	p. 290
What Would Rav Kook Have to Say about the State of Israel Today?	p. 301
Bibliography	p. 309
Index of Names, Terms, and Topics	p. 325
Index of Passages from Rav Kook's Writings	p. 341
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