Abraham
Isaac Kook (1865-1935)
is known in Hebrew as HaRav Avraham Yitzchak
HaCohen Kook, and by the acronym HaRaAYaH.
The first official Ashkenazi Chief
Rabbi of then British-controlled Palestine
(a position which was later succeeded by
that of Chief Rabbi of Israel), he established
the foundation of the Chief Rabbinate of
Israel, the Rabbanut, and Israel's national
rabbinical courts, Batei Din, that work in
co-ordination with the Israeli government,
having jurisdiction over much law relating
to marriage, divorce, conversion, and education.
He built bridges of communication and political alliances
between the secular Jewish Zionist leadership and believers of Religious
Zionism. He believed, according
to his theological system, that the youthful, secular and even anti-religious
Labor Zionist pioneers halutzim were actually part of a grand divine
scheme 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.
His empathy towards the anti-religious elements aroused
the suspicions of his more traditionalist haredi opponents, particularly
that of the old-time rabbinical establishment that had functioned from
the time of Turkey's control of greater Palestine, whose paramount leader
was Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld, Rabbi Kook's greatest rabbinical rival.
He was an alumnus of the famous yeshiva of Volozhin,
a scholar of the Talmud and kabbalah, and an author
of far ranging works on Jewish thought and mysticism.
In Rav Kook's thought, the
topic of Kodesh and Chol (sacred and profane)
plays an extremely important role. Kodesh
is the inner taam (taste or reason) of reality
- it is the meaning of existence; Chol is
that which is detached from Kodesh and is
thus neutral, without any meaning. Judaism
is the vehicle whereby we sanctify our lives,
and “attach all the practical, secular
elements of life to spiritual goals which
reflect the absolute meaning of existence
- God Himself..” [1]
In March of 1924 he made
his first visit to America to attend a “Zionist
Conference” held in New York that year.
The Rabbi Kook Museum is
located at
9 Rav Kook Street,
Jerusalem.
Hours of Admission: Sunday through
Thursday, 9am-3pm; Friday, 9am-12pm
Phone number: 972-2-6232560