Living in the Land of Israel part 4

The Zionist call for a mass return to the Holy Land, was firmly rejected by nearly every European rabbi. To be sure, there were communities of Jews living in the Land since time immemorial, surviving mostly on charity provided by their brethren in the Diaspora. This was the core of the present day Hareidi community, which predated Zionism by several centuries. One rabbi who did support Herzl was Rabbi Yitzchak Yaacov Reines (1839-1915). He made no claims of a a religious, halachic need to live in Zion. In fact, he was enthusiastic about a British proposal to give the Jews Uganda. He believed that Jewish life in Europe was nearing its end. Jews needed somewhere to go. He supported Herzl, despite the latter's secularism. He founded a religious faction within the Zionist movement called "Mizrachi". "Mizrach" means "East", but this was also a contraction of the words "Merkaz Ruchani"; a spiritual center. He managed to temper, and even defeat, some of the proposals of factions that sought the total obliteration of Torah from Jewish life. A second, and  more far  reaching figure to come on the scene, was Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935). He believed that the secular, vehemently anti religious Zionist leaders were actually responding to a deep religious calling, that they themselves did not understand. Yes, he believed that it was a mitzvah to live in the Land. But beyond that, he believed that the Redemption had begun, and every Jew was called upon to come to the Land in order to help the Redemption along to greater and higher stages.Those who remain in the Diaspora are betraying the call of history. He is often painted as the ultimate inclusive, all-loving rabbi., This is primarily the result of a massive editing job by one of his students in the 1950s. His original, unedited works spoke of temporary tolerance, but wrote of a religious popular coup to follow independence. He also spoke with great revulsion about the Zionist leadership. However, he felt it necessary to work with them, in order to bring about the full Redemption. He actually developed a doctrine, previously unknown in Judaism, that we had entered an era of Great Mercy (Rachamim Rabbim), in which the observance of mitzvot was of only secondary importance. This concept is very close to the Pauline idea of Grace.  He was a hardliner on conversion, urging rabbis to avoid participation, as every sin of the new convert was on the heads of the rabbis who converted him. He immigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1904. He spent World War I in Europe, accepting a rabbinic position in London. He returned to the Holy Land in 1919, where he occupied several major rabbinic positions, and opened his own Yeshivah. His many writings spanned the areas of halachah, philosophy and Kabbalah. but the persistent themes in his writings were the uniqueness of the Jewish people, and G-d's imminent redemption of His people and His Land, already underway. Many of his rabbinic colleagues were scandalized by his ideas. The illustrious Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnefeld (1848-1932) remarked "Rav Kook's great love of Zion, has taken him out of his mind, and away from the mind of his Creator". Rav Kook worked tirelessly within the Zionist communal structures for recognition of a religious meaning to Jewish life. This is especially evident in his hard-fought battle for the establishment of an official Chief Rabbinate for the Jewish community, with rabbis in every town working under its aegis. He died well before the independence of Israel, but virtually all government rabbis ever since have been his students and student's students. They are the backbone of religious Zionism ever since. His supporters see in these efforts his great foresight in keeping the country Jewish. His detractors see this as a fig leaf for an essentially anti-Torah and anti-G-d political entity. Some see him as almost a Prophet. Some see him as delusional. Where one stands on this question, will greatly influence his approach to the "obligation" of aliyah, to a country where fully one-third of the people, seek the annihilation of the Torah way of life, and in extreme cases, the annihilation of Torah observant people. (A bumper sticker often seen during my last years in Israel read "Dros kol dos, hashmed kol chared"; run over every Orthodox person, destroy every ultra-Orthodox person) But the followers of Rav Kook's ideology insist that these are all stages in the Redemption that must not be interfered with or opposed. A student of a student of Rav Kook, very prominent in Israel today, said that the Palestinian Authority and its soldiers must be given great respect, as they exist by virtue of an agreement with the State, and are therefore part of the process of Redemption... Each side in this debate sees the other side as completely delusional, blind to the reality of what is happening. May HaShem enlighten us!