The Prophetic Halakhah

In Ha-halakhah ha-nevu’it , the author traces the halakhic philosophy of Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook, one of the preeminent Jewish thinkers of modern times. Rabbi Kook was called upon to offer his opinions on the raging issues of the day within the Jewish world—enlightenment, secularization, and the Zionist movement—and his influence on Israeli public life was and remains enormous. His complex, poetically formulated pronouncements resonated with the community and gave rise to varied, sometimes contradictory interpretations. Although regarded as philosophically daring and a source of intellectual ferment, he is also recalled as a stringent halakhist. Not surprisingly, most of the literature on Rabbi Kook thus far has concentrated on his thought and has tended to disregard his halakhic rulings.
This book is the first to examine the full extent of Rabbi Kook’s philosophical and halakhic writings, taking account of all the contradictions and tensions they embody. At the same time, it illustrates the linkage among halakhah, aggadah, and prophecy. The study shows that there can be no halakhah without aggadah; that every ruling is illuminated by an underlying philosophy.
To elucidate Rabbi Kook’s halakhic writings, the book introduces the reader to the areas of his thinking and philosophy that encompass human thought in general as well as the hidden recesses of Jewish literature in all its forms: aggadah and halakhah; poetry and legal decisions; esoteric and exoteric teachings. Against that comprehensive background, the meta-halakhic principles that underlie his halakhic rulings clearly emerge.
Rabbi Kook’s jurisprudence touches on the realm of prophecy, and his journals—extensively cited in this book—convey his prophetic sensibility. The sense of prophecy is tied to the experience of the return to the Land of Israel, and it plays a central role in understanding his halakhic writings. The book examines the problematic interplay between prophecy and halakhah in general and Rabbi Kook’s prophetic-halakhic world in particular, along with its wealth of implications.