Writing Anti-Arab Literature, According to Rav Kook

Iggerot HaRa'aya 2:398, page 54

Hebrew Transcription

שצח

ב"ה, עיה"ק יפו ת"ו, י' כסלו, תרע"ב.

חביב לבבי, הרב הגדול בתורה וחכמה ויראה ד' טהורה, רב פעלים בישראל, מר מאיר ברלין שליט"א.

שלו' וברכה מארץ חמדה.

רחימאי, חוב קדוש אני מוצא לעצמי, להעיר את לב כבודו, ע"ד הסגנון של הציור "יהודה נוטר הפרדס" בגיליון מ"ד של "העברי", שמתואר שם המצב הנפשי, של האיבה להערבים, והתעוררות השומרים העברים, בדיבורים המלאים רוח רבולוציוני, מה שהוא אינו לפי שאיפתנו, ואינו נאות להמצב כלל. הקריאות "על האויב" כשהן באות באורגן עברי לעומת הערבים, אין קץ כמה ארס יכולות הן לחולל. וכמה חומר נכון הוא ביד שונאינו הרבים, הסורקים כל הגה היוצא ממנו לחטט על ידו, למען מצא עלילות פוליטיות על כלל ישראל. בטח יודע גם כבודו שיש לנו ערבים כאלה שהם קוראי עברית, וגם כותבים עברית, וכל דיבור של רגשי שנאה לעם הארץ, או איזה חשד קל של נטיה רבולוציונית, הוא נעתק מיד לתורקית ונשלח לעיר הבירה, למקומות היותר רשמיים ויותר מסוכנים לנו. וחוץ מהאויבים החיצונים יש לנו בעוה"ר, כמו שידוע, מחנה שלם של שונאים פנימים, כפריסקו וסייעתו, היודעים לעשות מדברים כאלה מטעמים להשטן. אנא ידידי, למען ד' אלקי ישראל, הבוחר בארץ חמדה, אשר החל להראות לנו ניצוצי אורה, מחסדו ואמתו, לפקוד את עם קדשו, לתת לו גדר ביהודה; אל נא תתן מקום בעתונך הנעלה לדברים כמו אלה, שתועלתם היא אפס, ונזקם גדול לאין חקר. להפך, כמה דאפשר יש לנו לתאר את המצבים הנאים של דרכי השלו' והאחוה, שאנו פוגשים בין טובי הישוב המעשיים באמת, ובין יושבי הארץ הערבים, כמובן המעולים שבהם. מפני הטרדא הנני מקצר במקום שהיה ראוי להאריך.

ברגשי כבוד וברכה נאמנה מקודש, אוהבו הנאמן בכל לב,

הק' אברהם יצחק הכהן קוק

נ. ב. עי' מגילה ז' א' שלחה להם כו'.

In the holy city of Jaffa, 10th of Kislev, 1912. 

My heart's beloved, the Rav, the giant in Torah and wisdom and fear of God in purity, great of actions in Israel, Mr. Meir Berlin shlita: 

Peace and blessing from the precious land.

Dear one. It is a holy obligation I express for myself, to awaken the heart of his honor, about character of "Judah, Guarder of the Orchard," in the journal, "HaIvri", that describes the psychological situation of the enmity toward the Arabs, and the rousing of Jewish observers, with words full of the spirit of revolutionism.

This is something not in accord with our yearning, and it is not pleasant for our situation at all. Reading "On The Enemy", when they come by the Jewish organization against the Arab, there is no end to the poison that can cause desecration.

And how much correct material is [already] in the hand of our many enemies, who examine every utterance that comes from us to write it up, to publish political libels against the Jews! Certainly his honor also knows, that there are Arabs like these who read Hebrew, and also write in Hebrew. And to the ignorant, any statement of hate, or that has even a small aspect of tendency towards revolution, will be copied down by the Turks and sent to the capital, to places more impressionable, and places more dangerous to us. 

And besides for the external enemies we have (because of our sins), as is known, there is a complete camp of inner enemies, like [David] Parisko and his supporters, who are known to do these things to feed the prosecutor.

Please, my friend, for the sake of the God of Israel, chosen in the precious land, Who has started to show us sparks of the light, from His kindness and His truth, to remember His holy nation, (cf. Ezra 9:9) to give a boundary to Judah, please don't give a place in your respectable newspaper for matters like these, for they are void of usefulness, and cause great damage, immeasurable. Just the opposite, however much we can, we should describe the pleasant situation, of the ways of peace and brotherhood, that we have had meetings, between the best of the Yeshuv who act in truth, and those who dwell in Arab lands, obviously the best of them.

Because of the burdens, I have been short where it would be appropriate to be lengthy. With feelings of honor and blessing, holy loyalty, lover of the loyal with all his heart,

Abraham Isaac Kook HaKohen

P.S. See Megillah 7a, "She sent them..." 

There seems to be two tracks of complaints in this letter. Firstly, writing about non-Jews in a way that sounds bad to gentiles is bad for the Jews on a political level, and can be dangerous. But secondly, he has several statements that sounds like they are inherently problematic to Judaism, "it is not in accord with our yearning," "it is void of usefulness," etc.

The Talmud Megillah 7a says thus:

R. Samuel b. Judah said: Esther sent to the Wise Men saying, Commemorate me for future generations. They replied, You will incite the ill will of the nations against us. She sent back reply: I am already recorded in the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia.

It seems that this is the point that Rav Kook is trying to express. The rabbis did not want to make a holiday of Purim, and didn't want Esther's book in the canon, because of how we care about the opinion of other nations.

So what is he saying? Esther was successful in her wish! How did her response undo their fears? If the fear was that this was new information of the Jewish hatred for their enemies, then her response makes sense: Everyone knows about it already.

But if the fear was that celebrating and commemorating the death of our enemies looks bad, then how does her response help?

Rashi defines it as such:

קנאה את מעוררת עלינו. שיאמרו האומות שאנו שמחים להזכיר מפלתן: כבר אני כתובה. ושם יהו רואין מה שאירע להם על ידי ישראל:

You will incite the ill will of the nations against us. That the nations will say that we are happy to mention their downfall. I am already recorded. And there they see what happened to them through the Jews.

Thus, we don't want to mention other people's downfall. We see this concept throughout Chazal, that it is not an appropriate action, from their perspective (and I believe ours as well) to celebrate the downfall of enemies. Her response, then, is that even when we don't mention it, they know about it already from their own literature.

Rav Kook seems to be saying with his postscript that the proper perspective is that only when others know of such a story, and agree with the great miracle of the saving of the Jewish people, can we celebrate it as well. Otherwise, Meir Berlin should not publish columns that denigrate the non-Jews, because this is not an appropriate thing ot do.