Rav Kook's Call For Leaders To Deal With Modernity

There are a few ways people may react to an attack on their beliefs.

One reaction is that they can isolate themselves so that they don't have to deal with it at all. In this way, they protect themselves from any doubts of their beliefs, like a child sticking his fingers in his ears so that he doesn't have to hear what he doesn't want to hear. There are people in Orthodoxy like that, and the problem for them is what to do about when someone decides to take their fingers out of their ears; after all, it is very difficult to keep their fingers in there for their whole lives.

One reaction is to look into the beliefs, understand them, think about why your beliefs don't conflict, and be merry. That way, you don't have to put your fingers in your ears. There are people in Orthodoxy who are like this as well, and there is a fear that if they don't put their fingers in their ears at some point, they'll stop believing at all in what they started with and accept the other side.

Rabbi Menachem Leibtag calls the first approach isolation, and the second one inoculation, and he goes for inoculation as a pedagogical philosophy.

Rav Kook had a similar point of view. He believed that yes, we must understand new beliefs and new understandings of science in the world. But his difference is that he believed we must use them to create the edifice of Torah for our generation. Use archeology, use evolution, use moral systems, to build Torah on, and people will accept it, and thus we can save Judaism, halachic Judaism. Taking a cue from huge rabbis such as Rabbi Saadia Gaon, the Kuzari, and Maimonides before him, he believed that one must use the science and prevailing beliefs of our day to understand the Torah as a tool for the people.

And he lays that responsibility at the the feet of the Torah giants, the leaders of every generation, to show how this is possible. He says this in L'Nevuchei HaDor 2:

החכמים הראשונים ז״ל כר״ס גאון והרמב״ם, כשראו שנתרבו ספרי מינים בעולם, והוטלו בלבבות סערות ודעות משובשות בשרשי התורה, השתדלו הרבה להוציא את הנבוכים ממבוכתם והישירו את הדרך לפני בני הדור, להורותם שאין המושכלות האמתיות יכולות לסתור שרשי התורה חלילה, ולא דבר אחד מדבריה, כי אם לפעמים נתחכם על ידי דרכי הדרישות לעמוד על עמקה של תורה, ותחשב זאת לנו לצדקה שנזכה לעמוד על נקודת האמת בהבנת התורה

When the medieval sages such as Rabbi Saadia Gaon and Maimonides saw an increase of heretical books in the world, and that intellectual storms and mistaken ideas about the roots of Torah were being placed in people's hearts, they made great efforts to take the perplexed out of their perplexity. Thus, they straightened out the path for the people of their generation. They taught people that it is impossible for rational truths to contradict the Torah, God forbid. Instead, sometimes we become smarter through the ways of research, to stand upon the depth of the Torah. It should be counted for us for righteousness that we merit to stand upon the point of truth in the understanding of the Torah.

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והנה מזמן הראשונים ז״ל עד דורינו זה נתרבו הדעות, והידיעות החדשות שנתרחבו נגעו לפעמים גם כן בנחלת האמונה, עד שלהבלתי מעמיקים ימצאו עוד מקום לנבוכים חדשים, מה שלא יספיקו להם ההישרות הראשונות, כי בזמן ההוא עוד לא נודעו הסיבות המביאות לידי דרכי הנביכה החדשות.

Behold, from the time of the medieval sages until our generation, ideas have proliferated, and these new ideas that have proliferated sometimes touched upon the territory of our faith. For people who are unwilling to go into the depth of the Torah, there is now more room for newly perplexed people. The original “straightenings” [of the medieval sages] are insufficient for them, because in those days they did not yet know all the new issues that bring about ways for new perplexities.

על כן זאת היא חובת חכמי דורינו האמיתיים, לצאת בעקבות רבותינו הראשונים לדאוג בעד הנבוכים, ולהרחיב ידיעתם במצב החכמות כפי ארחות הדרישות החדשות, ולהראות איך שצריכות כל האמתיות להיות מושקפות על פי התורה. ובאין ספק כי כל העובדים בזה בלב טהור ושום שכל יצליחו במפעלם. ורוח ד׳ הבוחר בתורה להיות לאור עולם תלמדם להשכיל לכל דבר, להעמידו על מכונו ואמתתו.

Therefore, it is the obligation of the true sages of our generation to follow in the footsteps of our medieval rabbis to look after our perplexed people and to broaden their knowledge, in the intellectual situation, according to the new research. They must show them how any truths are supposed to be viewed according to the Torah. Without a doubt, everyone involved in this with a pure heart and a clear mind, will be successful. The spirit of God that chose the Torah to be a light unto the world, teaching them that they must understand everything, they must be brought upon its foundation and veracity.

והעבודה בזה רבה, כי לבד מה שצריך להשכיל ענינים חדשים איך להשפיע לבני דורינו ביחוד להצעירים שפנו אל המדעים שלא ישארו נבוכים, על ידי מה שנודיעם עמקי שרשי התורה בטהרתם, שהיא נעלה מכל דבר שיוכל לגרום לה סתירה ופחיתת ערך, עוד צריך גם כן עבודה גדולה איך להכנים בלב ולהזכיר כל דברי החכמה, ביחש להתישבות אמתת האמונה בלבבות, שנאמרו עד כה מפי רבותינו הראשונים ז״ל כהרס״ג והרמב״ם והכוזרי וכיוצא בזה. ומפני שלפעמים נמצאו בדבריהם ענינים שלא יוכלו להאמר לפי מצב דרישת החכמות בימינו, יבא הבלתי מעמיק לחשוב שבביטול איזה פרטים בלתי עקרים מדבריהם, אין לםמוך עוד גם על הדברים העקרים, שהם נטועים בשרשי האמתיות וקיימים לעד לעולם.

This work is very great. Not only does one need to understand all the new things for how to influence the people of our generation, specifically the young people who have turned to the sciences so that they do not remain perplexed, by informing them of the depths of the roots of the Torah in their purity, which is above anything that could be cause to contradict it or lower its value. More than that, a lot of work is needed to figure out how to place faith into people’s hearts, and mention the words of wisdom that are connected to this which were said up to now, like the words of Rabbi Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, the Kuzari, etc. Since, sometimes there are things in their words that cannot be said according to the status of modern scholarly research, a shallow individual may come to think that because one specific thing is no longer true, we can no longer rely on any of it, on these roots of everlasting truth.

על כן צריך להביא כל דרכי ההוראה של זיכוך הדעות, והסכמתם עם הדרישות שהתבררו על פי דרכי המחקר שבדורותינו במערכה חדשה, למען ידע דורינו איך לצאת מידי כל נבוכה ולהיות שלם באמונת תורת ד׳ התמימה עם נתינת היד לכל ארחות המדעים החדשים לפרטיהם.

 Therefore, we must bring all the ways of teaching of the refining of minds, and make them consistent with things that have been made clear through the ways of research in our times, in a new campaign, so that our generation will understand how to get out of any perplexity. And then, they can be whole in their trust with the “perfect Torah of God” with a “life preserver” to all the ways of new science and all of their details.

But it isn't only through science and technology that we should use to help the people. We must use the belief system of our day. People no longer care about theological issues of God and how He works, but morality, and what is the best way for man to live. If we focus on that, people will listen, as he says in L'Nevuchei HaDor 3:

בדורינו שהדעות נסתבכו עד מאד והפילוסופיא בכלל ירדה ממעלתה אצל רבים, אין דרך רפואת הלבבות הנבוכים בא רק מבירורים של מופתים מופשטים ועניני חכמה נעלים לבדם, כי אם צריך לעשות עיקר דבר שהוא קיים לעד ולא יתכן לשום אדם בעל תכונה אנושית להכחישו, והוא היושר והצדק.

Our generation is one in which ideas have become exceedingly entangled, and philosophy in general has gone down in esteem for many people. The way of healing the hearts of the perplexed does not come only from explaining abstract axioms and very lofty matters of wisdom alone. Rather, we need to make as fundamentals things which are eternal and of which no person who has any human traits can deny; those are the ideas of morality and justice. 

היושר והצדק הוא עומק החכמה ויסודה, ורק על פיהם נוכל לבא בדין עם כל אדם, שאין לך אדם שאינו מחוייב לתן אל היושר והצדק את חוקם. על כן בתור שער להכנס לשמירת התורה ויראת די, עלינו לבאר את חיובי התורה כולם בין חובות האיברים ובין חובות הלבבות שבה, על פי חק דרישת הצדק והיושר. ולביאור זה יעזור הרבה התבוננות בטעמי תורה וביחוד הצד הלאומי שבהם.

Morality and justice are the depth of wisdom and its foundation. Only through them can we enter in a conversation with all people, for you won't find a person who doesn't [feel] obligated to give morality and justice their due. Therefore, as a gateway into following the Torah and fear of God, it is upon us to explain all obligations of the Torah in their entirety, whether they are obligations of the limbs or obligations of the heart, according to the axioms of morality and justice. And towards this explanation, it would be very helpful to contemplate the reasons of commandments, and, specifically, the nationalistic aspect of them.

כשישתלם האדם בשמירת התורה על פי ההכרה של דרישת היושר הטבעי יעלה בזה ממעלה למעלה עד שישכיל גם כן טהרת יראת די ואהבתו.

When humanity is perfected in keeping the Torah according to the recognition of the demands of natural morality, then a person will go higher and higher, until he also understands the purity of God's love and of fearing Him.

אבל כדי להניח מקום אל דרישת הצדק והיושר שנוכל לזכות על ידה את כל בני עמנו לשוב בתשובה שלמה לתורת השם ית׳ ושלימות שמירת ברית די אשר עמנו, עלינו לסקל את דרך הדרישה הטבעית מכל אבני הנגף שיכולות להמצא באופן הציורים של היושר הטבעי עם הסכמת דרכי התורה. והוא על ידי מה שנבאר יפה את המושגים שנראים כסותרים את חקי המוסר הטבעיים מפני הבנה בלתי שלמה בתורה, כמו שהשתדלו הראשונים ז״ל להתאים דרישת הפילוסופיא אל התורה בכל האפשר, כעניני ההגשמה וההתפעליות בחק השם יתעלה. על כן הרחבת טעמי תורה ומצות וההשויה וההרחבה של ארחות המוסר הטבעיות על פי דרכה של תורה, המה עקרי העבודה שעלינו לעבוד בדורינו בכתיבת ספרים המביאים לתיקון הדור.

 However, to leave room for justice and morality to motivate all the members of our people to repent with complete repentance to the Torah and God and to the perfection of their adherence to our covenant with God, we need to remove the “stones from the road”, to clear out the path of natural inquiry. We need to remove all the obstacles found in the portrayal of the co-existence of natural morality and the agreed-upon ways of the Torah. This [will be done] by that which clarifies well the concepts in the Torah which seemingly contradict natural morality because of an understanding of Torah that is imperfect, just like when our medieval sages strove to make the philosophy of the time consistent with Torah, in any way possible, just like [how they dealt with] the issues of corporeality [of God] and how God is “active”. The expansion of the reasons for Torah and the commandments, and the broadening and creating parallels between natural ethics and Torah, is the essential service we need to do for our generation; we must write books to bring about the repair of the generation.

It is all in the world of ideas. If all the leaders of Orthodox Jewry could agree to take on a project like that, to write books like that, which talk about moral system, what Judaism wants to do with the world, how we all must live lives of brotherhood, people would look at the Jews differently. I think Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has gone a long way in doing that, and others must join that bandwagon.

Rav Kook also makes a statement like this in Ain Ayah, his very first piece on Hannukah, Shabbat 21b. I will paraphrase/mostly-translate it here:

Gemara: "The wicks and oils mentioned in the Mishna - for Hannukah, Rav says you can light with them. Why? Because he holds they don't need to be relit if they go out, and their light can't be made use of."

Pure oil, that's the oil of Torah. The pure wicks which soak up the oil, that is the true nation of Israel. But God's hand still stretches over his nation so that we are not abandoned, even in our submission, He dwells within us even in our impurity.

How can a nation, even in its days of contamination in this vicious, seemingly endless exile, have the strength to keep going? This is of ultimate importance especially when we dwell among the nations, and their ideas, their wisdom, seeps in. How can we prevent our forgetting of the light of Torah that we have? After all, it is only natural that without our national homeland, we would follow after the places we live, the ideas that are popular around us. They may even be just suppositions, not exactly proven, but popular; they may just be assumptions, what people are inclined to believe.

But God's hand stretches over us, and in every generation wise Jewish leaders rise up to strengthen the Torah, with the very ideas that are foreign to it!

In reality, those ideas have no bearing on us, they are incomparable to the light of the truth of the Torah, they are unlike that eternal light of truth. Those ideas, innovative concepts borne through the minds of man, people of other nations, they are likened to a fading candle's light, which only illuminates for a short time before going out. For ideas and their assumptions change through the course of time, they are forgotten by the next generation.

But while their flame still burns, the people are drawn to them. If we don't include them into the light of our Torah, even just to give them the possibility of acceptance, people will abandon our light of Torah for the vain light of others.

God's hand will always prepare us by guaranteeing all foreign ideas have some degree of possibility within our Torah to accept them, to let the Zeitgeist be compatible within the Jewish people.

Understand, this is only a reluctant concession, a forced union between concepts whose source is foreign , and the whole of Torah, the practical commandments, the minutiae of religious life. Those concepts aren't truly drawn through the wick of Torah; though they are being used, it is a forced absorption. This is a good way to defend ourselves against the flow of time.

We must remember that these foreign ideas are not eternal, we are merely making use of them in this temporary period. "They don't need to be relit when their light goes out," for our Torah stands above the sands of time. God forbid, that we should ever want to change our Torah according to the hour, like those intellectuals want to do. For "its light cannot be made use of"! It is only as a temporary reaction to the time where we allow these popular ideas and assumptions to be matched with the Torah; it is only to prevent the storms of controversy, to strengthen the weakened hearts see these ideas which conflict with the foundations of Torah. They should not be applied to the practical aspect of Torah, the laws we live by.

That is what the Hannukah candle represents, what the victory of the Hasmoneans over the Greeks represents, their Hellenistic ideas now can be overpowered by Jewish light.

(Isaiah 28:29) "All this also comes from the Lord Almighty, whose plan is wonderful, whose wisdom is magnificent,"  to provide us a shield for the ravages of time. When the Hasmoneans were in power, the nationalistic aspect of Judaism was not of an eternal type, for God had sealed the covenant of monarchy to the house David. Although time was not yet ready for David's house, God assisted them towards the bolstering of the "the fallen Tabernacle of David" (Amos 9:11), until that wonderful time when "the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame" (Isaiah 10:17), and the throne of David will rise up, which "in Your Holy name You swore that his flame will never be extinguished..."

Rav Kook goes on about the importance of the kingdom of David, how it is intertwined with the fate of Torah, and how national self-determination will tranform the nation and let the Torah stand tall, and how this further is related to the symbolism of light and oil.

Focusing on his call for leader's to address and utilize modern research and ideas, we see here a very interesting point. Rav Kook dismisses all ideas that are not from the Torah as necessarily temporary. They are like a passing phase in the mind of humanity. Yet, knowing this fact, the leaders of each generation are still meant to use them in earnest, even if just to keep the people on track. Truth is not an issue, because the Torah can encompass any truth. It is about guiding the people.

Another thing, that perhaps Rav Kook had in mind, perhaps he didn't, is that ideas in medieval times and even in Talmudic times would also follow this pattern. What should we do with their influences and zeitgeists, for example Hippocratic medicine that was obviously made use of in the Talmud, or Aristotelian ethics that was obviously made use of in Maimonides' writing? Should we dismiss them, out with the old, in with the new? Perhaps.

But Rav Kook is very careful with this. He limits the metaphor of using oil and wicks that are not the optimal to specifically the theoretical or philosophical aspect of Judaism, but to never allow the practical commandmnets to be changed. In this, he is being a bit polemical against the Reformers and Maskilim. Just because new interpretation and innovation in philosophical outlook has been a Jewish tradition for a very long time, it can only be viewed as a temprary fix. But when you change Jewish law, it becomes permanent, and that is very damaging to the Jewish people, who rely on an unchanging Torah.

I will end off with two questions on Rav Kook: How do we distinguish what is a Torah idea, and what is an idea that is foreign to it? Secondly, what prevents us from looking to the past, and where they were willing to change Jewish law because of what they believe, and doing the same? For example, I believe Maimonides felt so strongly about rationalist philosophy that he took out many laws involving superstition. See Talmud Gittin 66a about "damaging spirirts", and how Maimonides deals with that in Hilchot Gerushin, 2:13. That was based in his "temporary" conception of Jewish law. Why can we not do the same?