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The Pioneers

שו”תCategory: philosophyThe Pioneers
asked 7 years ago

peace,
The rabbi claims that he is unable to accept Rav Kook’s claim that there is a religious interest in the awakening of the pioneers to immigrate to the Land of Israel. Maimonides, in instructing the ignorant in their dealings with the stages of prophecy, lists the first stage as those who awaken to defend the people of Israel from their enemies and cites the example of the judges upon whom the Spirit of God rested. Is there any support for Rav Kook’s theory from this?
With thanks


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מיכי Staff answered 7 years ago
In my opinion, no. The judges were people of faith and lived in a believing society.

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מיכי Staff replied 7 years ago

Y”D wrote:

Hello Rabbi,
In the context of the previous question, can the pioneers be seen as a type of Shabbos as Gershom Shalom described it? The pioneers claimed that it was not possible to establish a Jewish state while maintaining Torah and commandments, not only in the passive mental aspect of religious Jews but also from a technical perspective (work on the Sabbath, security, infrastructure maintenance, etc.). You hear this argument to this day in the context of railway work on the Sabbath, etc. They were not officially Shabbos, first of all because there are no more Shabbos Zvi and besides that secularism gave them a comfortable cover, but in fact they are secret believers who are forced by their thinking to be secular in order to maintain the Jewish state.
In this context, I think the Jewish vision also believed this. According to Benny Brown's biography, the reason that according to the Jewish vision one cannot participate in the Zionist enterprise and must retire to the deserts is his experience with the PA moshavim, which convinced him that a person's participation in the Zionist enterprise necessarily leads a person to cut corners from a halakhic perspective. Even Rabbi Kook, who was much more lenient, reached a similar rift with the religious kibbutz over milking on Shabbat. The rift was only avoided as a result of the invention of the automatic milking machine.
I think that if this is true, then according to the rabbi too, we are talking about unaware believers and not atheists.

מיכי Staff replied 7 years ago

There are major confusions here.
Shabtai Zvi was a believer who distorted the principles of faith and halakha. That is why there is such a phenomenon and interpretation regarding him. But the pioneers were not believers at all, and therefore the problem was not that they distorted the principles, but that they did not believe at all. They did not come close to each other.
And the consideration of the prophecy was only purposeful. It was a fear of what would happen and not related to the judgment of the actions and the doers themselves.

י.ד. replied 7 years ago

That is, from your perspective, "The Spirit of the Lord rested upon him" is a borrowed expression for the judge's self-awakening and not a type of prophecy from above that inspires the person to action?

מיכי Staff replied 7 years ago

It is possible. But even if the spirit comes from the ’, it does not belong in a person who does not believe and is not connected to it. Do not approach each other. And even if the ’ awakened him, it still has no religious value. I judge the person and not the ’ who awakened him.

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