Creator Bio
Abraham Isaac Kook
1865–1935
Abraham Isaac Kook was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Palestine, a post in which he served from 1921 to his death, and a mystical thinker. He was born in Latvia and first settled in the Land of Israel in 1904. He spent part of World War I in London but returned to Palestine. Kook forged a religious Zionism that emphasized the role of human activity in bringing the messianic age and, unusually, argued that secular pioneers, who were conventionally the targets of Orthodox wrath, were unwittingly doing God’s work by settling the land and thus creating the necessary material substratum for the Messiah’s coming. Long after his death his thinking was a major influence on the messianic Zionist movement Gush Emunim.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
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On the Election of Women
I was honored to receive your request to express my opinion on the current question of electing women to the Jewish representative assembly…
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On Women’s Voting
. . . We believe that our outlook on social life in general is more refined and purer than that of contemporary civilized nations. Our family is sacred to us in a manner more profound than [is the…
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Excerpts from His Sacred Writings
54. There are two paths toward faith; one is the absolutely true one, and the other is the rational one. The latter changes in accordance with the times. There are occasions when, if there is some…
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Speech on the Opening of the Hebrew University, 1925
The prophet of consolation prophesied (Isaiah 60: 4–5): “Lift up your eyes and look about; they have all gathered and come to you. Your sons shall be brought from afar, your daughters like babes on…
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The Light of the Messiah
[ . . . ] That sacred foundation, which constitutes the main theme of all this great vision, contains within it a hidden ray of the light of the Messiah, the redeemer who is revealed and concealed…
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On the Division between Zionism and Religion
[ . . . ] I find myself obliged to commence with a general preface, which I bring to the fore on each occasion that I have occasion to speak about the way of “the Mizrachi” [movement] and its value…
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Holiness in Flesh/On Physical Exercise
Just as King David combined his ability as warrior with his sacred liturgical activity, so nowadays physical exercise done to provide the Nation with strength and the spiritual exercises of the…
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Ideological Diversity and Unity: Orthodoxy, Nationalism, and Liberalism
Three forces are wrestling now in our camp. The battle between them is especially discernible in Erets Yisrael, but their effect draws from the life of the nation at large, and their roots are…
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Souls of Chaos
The conventional pattern of living, based on propriety, on the requisites of good character and conformity to law—this corresponds to the way of the world of order. Every rebellion against this…