Detailed
Description |
|
Polemical work attacking R. Abraham Isaac Kook for his philosophical work ha-Orot. It is dated on the day that it said, “and there was light” (Genesis 1:3) in the month of Elul in the year “to separate from the books of the hizonim לחבדיל מספרי החיצונים (680 = 1920).” Kol Ha-Shofar begins with the quote, “In the place where you hear the sound of the shofar, rally to us there; our God shall fight for us” (Nehemia 4:14). It then states that it is a mizvah to publicize the prohibition of our great rabbis, leaders of the generation, from our holy city Jerusalem, who have united concerning the work ha-Orot written by Abraham Isaac Kook (without his rabbinic title) and his other works. It then quotes, “He who says to the wicked, You are righteous; him shall the people curse, nations shall loathe him” (Proverbs 24:24). The work continues in this vein and has quotes from many distinguished rabbis, among them R. Joseph Hayyim Sonnenfeld, R. Diskin, R. Hayyim Berlin, and many others from Erez Israel and Europe. The leaves of this copy are still uncut.
R. Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) was born in Griva, Latvia in 1865. His father was a student of the Volozhin Yeshiva, the center of mitnagdut, whereas his maternal grandfather was a member of the Hassidic movement. He entered the Volozhin Yeshiva in 1884, where he became close to the Rosh HaYeshiva, Rav Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin (the Netziv). Already in his youth, he was well known as a prodigy. At the age of 23, he entered his first rabbinical position. Between 1901 and 1904 he published three articles which anticipate the fullydeveloped philosophy which he developed in the Land of Israel.
In 1904, he came to the Land of Israel to assume the rabbinical post in Jaffa, which also included responsibility for the new secular Zionist agricultural settlements nearby. His influence on people in different walks of life was already noticeable, as he attempted to introduce Torah and Halakha into the life of the city and the settlements. The outbreak of the First World War caught him in Europe, and he was forced to remain in London and Switzerland for the remainder of the war. While there, he was involved in the activities which led to the Balfour Declaration. Upon returning, he was appointed the Rav of Jerusalem, and soon after, as first Chief Rabbi of Israel (though the state had not yet been been born). Rav Kook was a man 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.
In accordance with his harmonistic view of man and of the world, Kook refused to see a sharp dichotomy between the sacred and the profane, maintaining that all that was essential to human life was potentially sacred. All the advances that men achieved in science were part of the intellectual growth of mankind, and if these advances appeared to undermine religion, this was no reason to suspect their intrinsic value. What was wrong, Kook argued, was not the progress of science but the fact that religious thinking did not progress intellectually at an equal rate. His authority and influence continue to this day. R. Kook was a prolific writer, who, according to his students, wrote out of the constant urge to create. He never attempted to construct a comprehensive system, and his style mirrors the quality of his personal insights and mystical reflections. |
