Author(s): Yehudah Mirsky

Judaica

Rav Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935) was one of the most influential - and controversial - rabbis of the twentieth century. A maverick thinker, he combined strict traditionalism with an embrace of modernity and its heresies, Orthodoxy and tolerance, scholasticism and ecstasy, and passionate nationalism with profound universalism. Though little-remembered outside the Orthodox world to which he belonged, his life and teachings are essential to understanding Israeli politics, contemporary Jewish spirituality, and modern Jewish thought. This welcome biography, the first in English in 60 years, offers a full, insightful portrait of the man and his many lasting contributions. A thinker of great vision and erudition, Kook was a philosopher, mystic, poet, jurist, communal leader, and saint. He became the first chief rabbi of Jewish Palestine and the founding theologian of religious Zionism. He struggled to understand and shape his revolutionary times, and his life and writings vibrate with the deepest, defining tensions of Jewish life and thought.
In this volume, Yehudah Mirsky clears away widespread misunderstandings of Kook's complex thought and shines new light on his leadership, his personality, and his worldview.