R. Abraham Isaac Kook and the Opening Passage of “The War”

Abstract

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Ha-Cohen Kook’s essay “The War” (Ha-Milḥamah) is a text of immense importance with respect to the development of ideological militaristic writing in religious Zionism. The essay was first published in the book Orot me-Ofel (1921), edited by R. Kook’s son, Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook. In this study, I wish to distinguish the views presented in the notebooks and collected writings of R. Kook from his position as set forth in the edited essay, which bears the stamp of the editor’s interpretation. Nine of the essay’s ten passages were written during World War I, and only the first passage, which bears the theological-militant stamp, does not appear in the collections of manuscripts from which the essay was constructed. My aim is to trace how R. Zvi Yehudah edited the essay and to explore the important influence of this passage.