Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution Author: Yehudah Mirsky | Language: English | ISBN:
B00I50EXPU | Format: EPUB
Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution Description
Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) was one of the most influential—and controversial—rabbis of the twentieth century. A visionary writer and outstanding rabbinic leader, Kook was a philosopher, mystic, poet, jurist, communal leader, and veritable saint. The first chief rabbi of Jewish Palestine and the founding theologian of religious Zionism, he struggled to understand and shape his revolutionary times. His life and writings resonate with the defining tensions of Jewish life and thought.
A powerfully original thinker, Rav Kook combined strict traditionalism and an embrace of modernity, Orthodoxy and tolerance, piety and audacity, scholasticism and ecstasy, and passionate nationalism with profound universalism. Though little known in the English-speaking world, his life and teachings are essential to understanding current Israeli politics, contemporary Jewish spirituality, and modern Jewish thought. This biography, the first in English in more than half a century, offers a rich and insightful portrait of the man and his complex legacy. Yehudah Mirsky clears away widespread misunderstandings of Kook’s ideas and provides fresh insights into his personality and worldview. Mirsky demonstrates how Kook's richly erudite, dazzlingly poetic writings convey a breathtaking vision in which "the old will become new, and the new will become holy."
- File Size: 1675 KB
- Print Length: 287 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0300164246
- Publisher: Yale University Press (February 1, 2014)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00I50EXPU
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #340,249 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
I confess that I just received this book, which I had pre-ordered, and couldn't put it down. No only is it the first in-depth, book-length intellectual biography of Rav Kook in English, but it sets a standard that may never be equaled. The author's knowledge of his subject is profound and thorough, his writing is a pleasure to read, the historical photos significantly add to the volume, and the classic design and production should please any book-lover. For seasoned students of Rav Kook's thought, it contains many new points of information and rich insights, while for those who are new to the subject, it will supply the religious, cultural and historical context needed to appreciate -- or at least, begin to appreciate -- this towering and complex modern mystic.
By For Two Cents Plain
This is an outstanding biography of a towering Jewish figure who is not as well known today as he should be. Mirsky correctly emphasizes Rav Kook's thought rather than the details of his daily life and his family. The author brilliantly focuses on Rav Kook as a mystic, a religious reformer, and a lover of the people of Israel and of the land of Israel -- yet resists the temptation to place this great rabbi and thinker, who died in 1935, into today's categories of "modern Orthodox" versus "haredi." Rav Kook was disdained, even hated, by much of the Jewish religious establishment of his day because of many elements of his thought -- particularly the concept that secular Zionists were helping to bring about the redemption of the Jewish nation. Yet in many ways, he was hardly the equivalent of today's liberal Orthodox rabbis. For example, he opposed women's right to vote in religious elections in the Jewish community of Palestine.
This is an intellectual biography, which is exactly what is needed for a thinker such as Rav Kook. However, Mirsky's elegant prose style makes it a fascinating book to read, if not always easy reading. Highly recommended.
By Jonathan Groner
VINE VOICE
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