Orot, Inc. together with Ramhal Institute, Jerusalem, just released this new work by Bezalel Naor, Shod Melakhim, a collection of studies in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah. 176 pages. Hebrew. Contains tribute to Rabbi Joshua Hoffman zt”l.
Available from Orot, Inc. (USA) or Ramhal Institute (Israel).
Orot, Inc. together with Ramhal Institute, Jerusalem, just released this new work by Bezalel Naor, Shod Melakhim, a collection of studies in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah. 176 pages. Hebrew. Contains tribute to Rabbi Joshua Hoffman zt”l.
Available from Orot, Inc. (USA) or Ramhal Institute (Israel).
Bezalel Naor, “Rav Kook and Emmanuel Levinas on the “Non-Existence” of God, ” Richard Sugarman, “Questioning Levinas,” Asher Don Rabinowitz, “The Medical Aspects of Zara’at,” R. Shelomo Zalman of Kopyst, “The Curtains of the Tabernacle,” Eliyahu Zini, “A Rift in the Unity? / The Relation of Torah to the Sciences,” Shlomo Katz, “Rahav and Yehosua / Imagination and Intellect,” Shabtai Teicher, “On the Two Stages of Redemption,” Joshua Hoffman, “Rav Kook’s Mission to America,” Bezalel Naor, “Rav Kook’s Role in the Rebirth of Aggadah,” Rav A.Y. HaKohen Kook, “The Lion in the Cage” (Poem), Rivkah Hannah Beila Einhorn (Roberta Chester), “Isaac Luria” (Poem). 120 pp.
The discipline of Kabbalah is generally subdivided into kabbalah ma’asit, practical or applied kabbalah, and kabbalah ‘iyyunit, theoretical kabbalah. In the popular imagination, the kabbalist is a practitioner of the magical arts. However, there is another sort of kabbalist whose way of relating to and interpreting the world is based on a profound system of thought.
Such a comprehensive, all-encompassing thought evidences itself in the spiritual diaries of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (1865-1935). Gershom Scholem, Professor of Jewish Mysticism at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, wrote: “Rabbi Kook’s great work… is a veritable theologia mystica of Judaism equally distinguished by its originality and the richness of its author’s mind. It is the last example of productive kabbalistic thought of which I know.”
Mahol la-Tsaddikim/Dance Circle for the Righteous explores the divine design in the creation of the universe. Although Maimonides (Guide of the Perplexed) shied away from this conversation, deeming the question illegitimate, the Kabbalists produced not one, but two responses to the question: a philosophic approach which centers on God’s ultimate goodness (Luzzatto), and a mythic approach which pivots on God’s “self-actualization,” as it were (Zohar, Luria). The departure point of our book is a fundamental mahloket or controversy between Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto (Ramhal), on the one hand, and Rabbi Pinhas Elijah Hurwitz (Sefer ha-Berit) and the great Habad thinker Rabbi Eizik of Homel, on the other.
“Inyanah shel ha-Hasidut” (“The Matter of Hasidism”)
by Rabbi Bezalel Naor
In this groundbreaking essay, the author presents Beshtian or East European Hasidism as an attempt to reintroduce the charismatic or prophetic dimension to Jewish life. The optic is very much that of Rav Kook, although the author’s perspective is also influenced by the historiography of Rav Kook’s fellow kabbalist, Rabbi Pinhas Hakohen Lintop of Birzh, Lithuania. The reader will also note some common ground shared with Rabbi Kalonymos Kalmish Shapira of Piaseczna (known as the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto). The departure point for the entire discussion is a pithy remark by Rabbi Shelomo Zalman Schneerson, Rebbe of Kopyst, at the Simhat Beit ha-Sho’evah, Sukkot of 1890. (Rav Kook’s maternal grandfather was a Kopyster Hasid.)
The endnotes contain fascinating discussions:
Did Hasidism intend prophecy for the masses?
How the Vilna Gaon democratized ru’ah ha-kodesh (divine inspiration).
What was the mystical practice of the Ba‘al Shem Tov?
The clairvoyance of the Mezritcher Maggid.
Hasidism, Romanticism and the Enlightenment.
Rabbi Isaac Hutner’s allusion to the Letters of Rav Kook.
Clarification of Maimonides’ position on Prophecy and Halakhah.
The relation of the Kotzker Rebbe to the Vilna Gaon.