Customer Reviews

Abraham Isaac Kook: The Lights of Penitence, the Moral Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters, and Poems (Classics of Western Spirituality)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was a wonderful survey and introduction of Rav Kook's works. The philosophical texts are compelling and inspiring, the letters are touching and personal, and the poetry exposed a sincerity and passion which could not be harvested from any history book. Fantastic, meaty reading.

Rav Kook was the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine and helped lead the continuing dialogue of Jewish Mysticism into the 20th century. This collection of his writings is both profound and beautiful. Some of the pieces such as 'The Lights of Penitance' might appeal only to scholars, but Kook's poetry can be appreciated by all. His idea of a unified Judaism where the secular and the holy both make up parts of the whole are very moving. Other themes include vegetarianism and a universal love for all people.

Rav Kook is the greatest Jewish thinker in the last 200 years because he most fully understands the spiritual crisis of the modern Jew. Although there were a number of dynamic Jewish religious leaders who took up the mantle of leadership in order to rebuild the shattered remnants of the Jewish world in the wake of the Holocaust such as the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik and the Satmar Rov, their message was basically directed at a relatively small group of Jews. Rav Kook has a message for the entire Jewish people. His great contributions were: (1) to emphasize the dynamic nature of both the spiritual and physical worlds, and, one the one hand, tell the traditional religious Jew that the Torah is flexible and can stand up to the challenges of modernity and change, while on the other hand demonstrating the perpetual relevance of the Torah to the Jew who has a less than full commitment to it; and (2) to demonstrate the absolute necessity of the Jewish people to return to the Land of Israel and build a modern society rooted in the Torah. This fine book gives a sampling of these ideas and is a good introduction to the mind of this remarkable thinker.

This is an excellent anthology, and contains samples of a number of different kinds of writing Rabbi Kook Z"Ts"l did. There is the text of his perhaps most well- known work, "Orot" and there are letters, essays, and poems. Rabbi Kook was a remarkable poetic thinker, like Pascal, Kafka, Kierkegaard, . He was too deeply devout and tremendously learned-a master of commentary in all forms of Jewish sacred Literature. His writing is often difficult to understand as it is so richly poetic.
But behind it all is a philosophical system based on his reading of the Torah, a system which sees the Cosmos as a whole moving toward Redemption. And which in this sees the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel as central to this cosmic process. Rabbi Kook is one of the great religious Zionist thinkers, and his ability to see the good and positive in the works of others, non- religious Jews and non- Jews also make him a philosopher who can speak to us today.
This work should certainly be read by every Jew who wishes to understand the Jewish role in history. It should also be read by every human being who wishes to come in touch with the work of an inspiring thinker with a message of love and redemption for all of mankind.

Abraham Isaac Kook has had the Theophany. It is evident in his writing. It informs it. He has been reduced to nothing and raised up. His error and sin have been made whole, they have become the garments by which he understood his nakedness.

He has seen the same world made new. Here, even the shadows are golden.

The Union has been made in him. He has spanned the abyss. He has stood in the presence of Angels. He has proved the Divine. He has witnessed. And he serves the whole with his testimony.

His writing is accessible to everyone, all will benefit from it. Yet only a sweet few will cry tears of joy and affirmation. For our memories, this friendship will last forever.

To anyone interested in the miracle of being, I recommend this text. Don't waste time drinking from other men's buckets. Kook offers up the source. Drink freely, borrow his eyes.