Towards the Mystical Experience of Modernity - The Making of Rav Kook, 1865-1904

An exploration of Rav Kook¿s formative years in Eastern Europe, 1865-1904.

List of contents

Introduction                                                                                           
The Work in Brief
Precis                                                                   
Mapping Rav Kook                                                                               
Many Editorial Hands                                                                             
Academic Approaches                                                                           
The Missing Early Decades in Rav Kook's
Corpus                               
Towards Expressivism and the Subject                                               
Rav Kook and the Medieval Philosophical
Tradition                             
The Early Writings                                                                                 
Self-Cultivation, Philosophical Ethics,
Mussar                                      

Chapter One: Childhood and Early Years: Between
Mitnagdism, Hasidism and Haskalah                                                                                                                     42                                                                                Rabbinic Humanism and Haskalah                                                         
Geographic and Cultural Background                                                   
Family Backgound                                                                                 
Social Changes: Haskalah's Shift from
Enlightenment to Radicalism   
Rabbinic Maskilim                                                                                 
Childhood and Early Education                                                             
Studies in Lyutsin and Smorgon and
Engagement with Haskalah         
Betrothal and Aderet                                                                               
Avraham Kook Goes to Volozhin                                                           
Marriage, Poverty and First Rabbinic
Post                                             
Literary Debut                                                                                       
'Ittur Sofrim
Loss                                                                                                          

Chapter 2: All in the Mind: The Writings of
the Zeimel Period
The Small-Town Rabbinate                                                                     
Talmudic Commentary and a Sage's
Discontents                                     
Halakhic Writings and a Touch of
Philosophy                                         
Hevesh Pe'er                                                                                             
The Primacy of the Mind in Hevesh Pe'er                                                 
Midbar Shur                                                                                               
Moshe Hayim Luzzatto                                                                             
Midbar Shur and the Pursuit of
Perfection, Jewish and Universal           
An Elegy for His First Wife                                                                       
Conclusion                                                                                                 

Chapter 3: Boisk at the Crossroads of Mussar
and Tiqqun

Unease in Zeimel and the Influence of
Eliasberg                                       
Boisk                                                                                                         
Developments in Yeshiva Culture and the
Mussar Movement                 
The Turn to Interiority as a Defining Theme
of this Period
: The Self and Tiqqun                                                       
Lithuanian Kabbalah
Pinkasim 15 & 16
"The Rustlings of My Heart": Rav
Kook and B.M. Levin                       
Conclusion                                                                                                 

Chapter 4: 'Eyn Ayah: Intellect,
Imagination, Self-Expression, Prophecy
'Eyn Ayah and Modernity's Expressivist
Turn                                           
The Work: Genre, Method and the Study of
Aggadah in Rabbinic Circles
Two Introductions to the Work                                                                   
Self-Perfection                                                                                             
Intellect, Imagination, Feeling                                                                       
Perfection of the Individual and the Whole
and the Internalization of Kabbalah                                            Strategies of Containment                                                                             
The Renewal of Prophecy and the Mission of
the Artist                               
The Emergence of Dialectic                                                                           
The Problem of Self-Love                                                                             
The Study of Aggadah and Spiritual
Individualism                                       
Concluding Remarks on Expressivism and
Subjectivity                               

Chapter 5: The Turn Towards Nationalism:
Between Ideology and Utopia, or, Ethics and Eschatology          
Jewish Nationalism in Eastern Europe                                                           
Early Mentions of Nationalism and Hints of
Apocalypse                             
First Responses to the Zionist Movement                                                       
First Response to Orthodox Anti-Zionism                                                       
Ha-Peles                                                                                                         
The First Essay: Israel's Universal
Mission                                                   
Interlude: Creation of the Mizrahi                                                                   
The Second Essay: Mobilizing Literature                                                       
The Third Essay: Ethics, History and
Eschatology                                         
Alexandrov's Response: Rav Kook and Ahad
Ha-Am                                   
'Eyn Ayah Passages on History and
Eschatology                                           
Assessing the Essays: Ideology and
Utopia                                                     

Chapter 6:¿The New Guide of the Perplexed¿ 'The
Last in Boisk': Making Sense of Heresy en Route to Zion    
To Jaffa and Palestine                                                                                       
The Second Aliyah                                                                                           
`The New Guide of the Perplexed¿
'The Last in Boisk': Heresy, Nietzsche,
Apocalypse                                       
The Journal                                                                                                       
Messiah ben Joseph                                                                                           
Expressivism and the Song of Songs                                                               
Heresy and Eschatology                                                                                     
Ethics, Jesus, Nietzsche, Qelippah                                                                   
Working with Heresy, Reworking Torah Study
and Theology                       
Leaving Boisk                                                                                                     

Conclusion                                                               

Transformations in the Land of Israel                                                               
Seven Shifts: From To-Down to Bottom-Up                                                   
Philosophy, Mysticism, Experience                                                                   
Implications for the Study of Religion:
Theology as Autobiography               
Implications for Rav Kook Studies
Berdyczewsky and Rav Kook: Between Rupture
and Dialectic                      

About the author

Yehudah Mirsky is Full Professor of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. A former US State Department official, he has written widely on religion, politics, and culture for the New York Times, the Economist, the Washington Post, and many other publications. He won the Jewish Book Council's Sami Rohr Choice Award for his earlier work, Rav Kook: Mystic in a Time of Revolution.

Summary

Jurist, mystic, poet, theologian, communal leader, and founder of the modern Chief Rabbinate, Avraham Yitzhaq Ha-Cohen Kook stands as a colossal figure of modern Jewish history and thought. This book traces his life and times in the remarkably intense Rabbinic intellectual milieu of late nineteenth-century Eastern Europe.

Additional text

“The significance of Avraham Yitzhak Ha-Cohen Kook in modern Jewish thought is generally recognized. However, he has been more lauded than understood or read. His writing is enigmatic and the limited knowledge about his early years has been a stumbling block for readers and students alike. The apparent impossibility of tracking down necessary sources and the difficulties of penetrating Rav Kook’s prose dismayed even the most dedicated of them. A magic wand was needed. This book is that wand and Yehuda Mirsky is the magician who uncovered remarkable sources on Rav Kook’s life and was able to transform opaqueness into clarity and the obscure into comprehensible. His book will be a standard starting point for anyone setting out to understand Rav Kook and his world. Readers of Towards the Mystical Experience of Modernity will find it hard to remember how they even tried to understand Rav Kook’s writing before they read this book.”
— Shaul Stampfer, Professor Emeritus, Hebrew University

Product details

• Authors: Yehudah Mirsky
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.07.2021
• EAN: 9781618119551
• ISBN: 978-1-61811-955-1
• No. of pages: 410
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Judaism; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Judaism: life and practice, Biography: religious and spiritual