‘Master of Wars, Sower of Righteousness’: The Impact of the Great War upon Rav Kook
by Bezalel Naor
INTRODUCTION
World War One (”the Great War”), which left Rav Kook stranded in Europe, first in St. Gallen, Switzerland, and later in London, England, left a profound impact on the Rav’s thought. An important cluster of writings from that period form the section “Ha-Milhamah” (The War) in his seminal work Orot. In this essay, we will see Rav Kook active on three fronts during those war years: practical engagement with a Jewish fighting force (the first in millennia of exile); composition of a modern kabbalistic work; and finally, laying the theoretical halakhic groundwork for a democratic state of Israel.
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ACTIVIST
In Rav Kook’s seminal work, Orot (1920), we find this intriguing statement:
Nationalism grows strong; self-awareness increases. [Knesset Yisrael] already knows that she has a land, a language, a literature. That she has an army, she began to recognize in this world war.[1]
The world war that the Rav referred to was clearly World War One, but to which “army” was he referring? Though not yet an independent fighting force, there emerged in World War One, under the auspices of the British Army, a contingent of Jewish volunteers known as the Jewish Legion (in Hebrew, “Ha-Gedud ha-‘Ivri”).[2] They were tasked with liberating Erets Yisrael from the Ottoman Turks. Their military chaplain, Reverend Leib Eizik Falk (1889-1957) was an erstwhile disciple of Rav Kook from the days that he served as Rabbi of Bausk, Latvia.
Rav Kook penned several letters to Falk, explaining urgent matters of Halakhah regarding kashrut, Shabbat, and shaving, and offering guidance concerning the future of this fighting force.[3] The Rav blessed the Legion, “bearers of the banner of the beginning of the sprouting of our salvation.”[4] He visited the Legion’s army base in Plymouth, England, accompanied by the Rebbetzin and his personal secretary, Rabbi Shim‘on Glitzenstein, a Habad Hasid.[5] The Rav’s purpose in his visit was to extend words of encouragement. In a follow-up letter, the Rav inquired how many humashim and tallitot the soldiers would require.[6]
LITURGIST
Years later, on Hanukkah 5686 (December 17, 1925), the flag of the Jewish Legion would be placed for safekeeping in the historic Hurvah Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem. At the official presentation ceremony, Rav Kook offered both a prayer of his own composition and a sermon. Both have been preserved.[7]
The prayer reads:
Rock of Israel, shield of our salvation forever and ever,
with thanks we greet You,
bearing with us the esteemed flag,
a remembrance of the strength of the salvation of Your right hand,
when the Holy Land was conquered by the British Army,
accompanied by a legion of our sons,
who donned a spirit of courage
on the day of battle and war,
and Your right hand and Your arm fortified them,
to see victory and the majesty of might,
and their eyes saw in the distance the day of their people’s salvation
and the redemption of their holy land,
their ancestral inheritance from eternity.
The memory of this flag is sacred to us,
bound as it is with holy thoughts
and the divine flame of pure souls,
those who fell in this holy war,
the seal of whose blood
will be engraved for eternity as a memory of the holy martyrs;
and their soul will be bound in the bond of life
with the Lord of hosts, Master of all souls.
And those living among us,
add days to their days,
O King who desires life;
and may all the straight-hearted see together
the Lord’s salvation of His people and His inheritance,
and (with) the blessing of peace for all the kingdoms of the earth.
Amen and Amen.[8]
HOMILIST
The prayer was followed by a derashah (sermon) in which the Rav expounded on the symbolism of the flags of the tribes of Israel in the Torah and Midrash.[9] The sermon was a delicate balancing act between the particularistic, nationalist aspirations of the Jewish People and a cosmopolitan, universalistic outlook whereby the various nations are likened to the bands of a spiritual spectrum.[10] One is tempted to attribute Rav Kook’s universalism to the watchful eyes of the British mandatory officials present in the audience that day, but other writings of Rav Kook bear out that this was indeed the Rav’s authentic outlook.[11]
KABBALIST
Provided with this historical context, we are now in a better position to unlock one of the mysteries of Rav Kook’s kabbalistic work, Resh Millin, which appeared around this time (London, 1917). Resh Millin is Rav Kook’s independent midrash on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
In the afterword, wherein the author justifies issuing an esoteric tract at this time of global calamity, Rav Kook waxes extremely poetic:
When the world proceeds normally, when life is without pogroms and riots, one’s lofty thought can subsist on observations of life’s movements, on societal life, and on the theories associated with them—i.e., the contents of revealed wisdom and talent—and one is assured that this wealth will enrich one’s inner resources.
This is not the case at a time when life falls into pits dark with evil and chaos. Then the revealed world reels; its orders are confounded. If one will derive spiritual sustenance only from the revealed side, terrible impoverishment awaits one, to rob one of all one’s simple faith.
Then, in order to maintain one’s stand, there will come the age of burning thirst for the hidden content, for the inner observations that transcend the revealed surface of life, that have not been touched by the world’s upheaval. And from this source of life, one “will draw water with joy” [Isaiah 12:3], moistening the dry bones of the revealed spiritual world left in such a shaken state by the derangement of life.
For this reason, the present writer felt pressured to record his thoughts concerning the midrash of the letters at precisely this time.[12]
Throughout this enchanted work, the bellicose backdrop of London under bombardment is never far from the writer’s consciousness. (There abound stories of the Rav’s and Rebbetzin’s acts of heroism in London’s bomb shelters.) Thus, in connection with the letter zayin, which has the meaning of “arms” or “weaponry,” the Rav quotes from the Morning Prayer, “Master of wars, sower of righteousness.”[13]
The impingement of war on the Rav’s consciousness is the best explanation for the curious passage in the preamble to Resh Millin:
The thoughts which precede all the letters always hover within us internally. We must bare our true courage, the leonine (arieliyut) that is in our midst, in order to be constantly aware of the character of the inconceivable conceptions.[14]
In a letter to Rabbi Shemariah Menashe Hakohen Adler of London, who penned a lengthy commentary to Resh Millin, Rav Kook shared all of the kabbalistic teaching that informed his neologism of “arieliyut.”[15]
The Rav takes us on a whirlwind tour of divine names and gematriyot (alphanumerical equivalences). Aryeh (lion) has the numerical value of 216, which it shares with gevurah (stern judgment). But 216 is also 3 times 72, the gematria of hesed (love).[16]
The upshot is that on high, there is a convergence of the two attributes of love (hesed) and stern judgment (gevurah).[17] “And man, being a copy of the divine, his might resides in the mystery of his soul … then he is ‘righteous, secure as a young lion’ [Proverbs 28:1].”[18]
HALAKHIST
Until now we have discussed Rav Kook’s roles of homilist and kabbalist. It should be noted that in his capacity as halakhist, it was his landmark decision that serves as the basis for conferring upon the Prime Minister of Israel the status of a “melekh” (monarch)[19] with the power to declare a milhemet mitsvah (compulsory war) in national self-defense.[20] Apropos of the present conflict, there is lively discussion in the halakhic literature whether the commandment of providing the enemy with an escape route is restricted to a milhemet ha-reshut (optional war) or extends as well to a milhemet mitsvah.[21]
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We conclude (as did Rav Kook) with the words of the Morning Prayer:
“Master of wars, sowing righteousness, sprouting salvation.”
[1] Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, Orot, Ha-Milhamah (The War), chap. 7. In the bilingual edition translated by Bezalel Naor (Maggid: Jerusalem, 2022), p. 139. Italics mine (BN).
[2] Orot, p. 465, n. 77. Officially, they were designated the 40th Royal Fusiliers. Colloquially, they were known as “The First Judeans.” Prime movers in the formation of the Jewish Legion were Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor. Exiles from Erets Yisrael, David Ben Gurion and Yitzhak Ben Zvi fought in the 40th.
[3] Iggerot ha-Rayah (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1965), vol. 3, pp. 136-138 (Letter 859).
[4] Ibid., p. 134 (Letter 854).
[5] Ibid., pp. 135-136 (Letter 857). See also Ari Yitzhak Shvat (Chwat), “Derashat Harav Kook zt”l ‘al hashivut ha-degel ha-‘Ivri/ha-Yisraeli,” p. 14.
[6] Iggerot ha-Rayah, vol. 3, pp. 141-142 (Letter 864).
[7] Yael Levin-Katz, “Tefillot ara‘iyot le-RAYH Kook” (Ephemeral Payers of Rav Kook), Akdamut 9 (Tammuz, 5760 [2000]), pp. 56-58 (“Prayer upon the Transfer of the Flag of the 40th Fusiliers to Jerusalem”); Ari Yitzhak Shvat (Chwat), “Derashat Harav Kook zt”l ‘al hashivut ha-degel ha-‘Ivri/ha-Yisraeli” (The Sermon of Rav Kook on the Importance of the Hebrew/Israeli Flag), archived at Asif, pp. 1-15. (Includes facsimile of Rav Kook’s manuscript on p. 2.)
[8] Levin, pp. 57-58. The English translation is my own (BN).
[9] Cf. Abraham Isaac Kook, Midbar Shur (Jerusalem: Makhon RZYH Kook, 5759 [1999]), Ha-Derush ha-Shelishi, pp. 24-30. The sermon (delivered in Zeimel, Lithuania) was adapted by Bezalel Naor, In the Desert a Vision (Spring Valley, NY; Orot, 2002), Bamidbar, pp. 119-124.
[10] Shvat (Chwat), p. 13.
[11] See “The Universalism of Rav Kook” in Bezalel Naor, Navigating Worlds (New York, NY: Kodesh, 2021), pp. 341-349.
[12] Resh Millin (London, 1917), pp. 136-137.
[13] Ibid., p. 43 (Ha-Tagin). Cf. the conclusion to Orot, Ha-Milhamah, chap. 1 (p. 131).
[14] Ibid., p. 1.
[15] Iggerot ha-Rayah, vol. 3, p. 207 (Letter 896).
[16] Ibid. There is a divine name of seventy-two elements culled from the three verses of Exodus 14:19-21. As each of the seventy-two elements consists of three letters, this yields a grand total of two hundred and sixteen, the gematria of aryeh. See Rashi, Sukkah 45a, s.v. Ani vahu.
[17] One is reminded of the teaching of the hidden righteous man, Rabbi Moshe Ya‘akov Rabikov (“The Shoemaker”), an early adherent of Rav Kook in the Jaffa era. In a kabbalistic vein, Rabinkov wrote (concerning the kohen mashu’ah milhamah, who addresses the troops before they go to battle), that at the time of war against the enemy, by his very presence, the kohen—an embodiment of the attribute of love (hesed)—communicates to us the overarching principles of love and peace. The manuscript leaf of Rabikov’s commentary to Parashat Shofetim was recently offered at auction.
[18] Iggerot ha-Rayah, loc. cit.
The comment of Rabbi Menahem Mendel of Shklov to the verse in Proverbs is quite apropos.
I heard from one of those who stood in the presence of my master, teacher and rabbi, the Gaon [of Vilna], of blessed memory:
The Zohar (II, 143a) asks how the righteous can be sure of their righteousness. The Zohar responds that it is for this reason that the righteous are likened precisely to a kefir, a young lion. [The Gaon explained] that the righteous rely upon the merit of the forefathers (zekhut avot), just as the young lion trusts in the fact that he is of the lion species. For this reason, the other wild beasts, though they be stronger than the lion whelp, fear him. So the righteous trusts in the merit of his fathers who were righteous.
(Mishlei ‘im Be’ur ha-Gra, ed. Moshe Phillip [Petah Tikvah, 1985], Proverbs 28:1 [p. 303, n. 1])
[19] Avraham Yitzhak Hakohen Kook, Mishpat Kohen, no. 144 (datelined “19 Tevet, 5676 [1916], St. Gallen”), responsum to Rabbi Zalman Pines, pp. 337-338; Shelomo Yosef Zevin, Le-’Or ha-Halakhah, “Ha-Milhamah,” chap. 1, p. 16. Rabbi Zevin points out that Rav Kook was preceded in this approach by Nahmanides in his conclusion to his glosses to Maimonides’ Sefer ha-Mitsvot. See Sefer ha-Mitsvot le-ha-Rambam ‘im Hasagot ha-Ramban, ed. C.B. Chavel (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1981), p. 409. And see Eliezer Yehudah Waldenberg, Hilkhot Medinah, Part One (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1952), pp. 175-178.
[20] Maimonides, MT, Hil. Melakhim 5:1; Zevin, pp. 12-13.
[21] See Maimonides, MT, Hil. Melakhim 6:7; Nahmanides, Positive Commandment 5; anonymous, Sefer ha-Hinukh, commandment 527; Joseph Babad, Minhat Hinukh (at end of work, commenting on Nahmanides’ positive commandment 5); Meir Simhah Kohen, Meshekh Hokhmah, Numbers 31:7, s.v. Vayyitsbe’u; Joseph Rosen of Rogatchov, glosses to Solomon ibn Gabirol, Azharot, ed. David Abraham (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 2004), Zohar ha-Raki‘a, par. 73 (p. 277); Waldenberg, Hilkhot Medinah, Part Two (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1953), 5:7 (“Laying Siege”), pp. 179-182.
This essay appeared in the recently published anthology, Praying for the Defenders of Our Destiny: The Mi Sheberach for IDF Soldiers, ed. Aviad Cohen and Menachem Butler (Cambridge, Mass., 2023), pp. 457-465.