Messianism, Lecture 10

Table of Contents

• The move from messianism to cult-like sectarianism and Har HaMor
• Statements about women and the controversies around figures identified with the line
• The personal leader model and charisma that cannot be challenged
• Fundamentalism: principles that are not subject to critical examination
• Intellectual closure, the study order of Rabbi Kook’s writings, and the feeling of “entering holiness”
• The figure of Rabbi Kook: greatness alongside the possibility of error and excessive glorification
• The three students of Rabbi Kook and their study houses, and the legitimacy of disciples
• A total bubble: “there is no outside” and “everything is with us”
• Learning strengths, self-sacrifice, and an inferiority complex
• Esoteric language and obligatory jargon
• Distorted presentation of facts, demonization, and “the New Israel Fund”
• “Faith” instead of “Jewish thought,” and translating all thinkers into one language
• “The generation’s greatest in faith” and reversing the criterion of greatness
• Collective language, labeling instead of argument, and the question “whose student is he?”
• Using titles like “our master the Rabbi of blessed memory” as a tactic of closed discourse
• Censorship of Rabbi Kook’s writings and sealing off texts
• Bottomless seriousness, rejection of common sense, and the “deeper perspective”
• A hierarchical-military structure, “arms,” and sending emissaries outward
• The megalomania of “the order of saving the world” and fear of the outside
• The attitude toward academia and the humanities, and other yeshivot as “illegitimate”
• Mercaz and Har HaMor

Summary

General Overview

The speaker presents the shift from a discussion of messianism to a discussion of cult-like sectarianism, and argues that in a broad sense a “messianic” phenomenon in a religious-Torah context connects to cultic phenomena. He ties this mainly to Har HaMor and the circles around it, brings examples of controversies surrounding statements by Rabbi Tau and figures identified with that line, and describes a set of characteristics that in his view create a closed bubble with charismatic leadership, fundamentalism, esoteric language, censorship, hierarchy, and outreach through “emissaries.” Alongside the criticism, he acknowledges unusual learning strengths and real self-sacrifice for Torah study, and argues that those strengths are accompanied by ambivalence, an inferiority complex vis-à-vis the Haredi world, and a whole system of rationalizations that smooths over contradictions and neutralizes criticism.

The move from messianism to cult-like sectarianism and Har HaMor

The speaker says that the discussion of cult-like sectarianism is a natural continuation of the discussion of messianism, because a messianic phenomenon in the Jewish context resembles a cultic phenomenon in the general sense. He argues that Har HaMor and the circles around it have characteristics that resemble a cult, and mentions a post he wrote, “What does Har HaMor have to do with Chabad,” which drew fierce opposition even from his friends, whereas he sees it as a factual description of accumulated elements. He says he does not know enough to determine whether it “crosses the threshold” into being an actual cult, but he describes the overall picture as problematic and adds that he has heard there is “a lot more material” from people who know it from the inside.

Statements about women and controversies around figures identified with the line

The speaker describes rumors and stories about things Rabbi Tau said regarding women, including a statement about girls who “don’t knit kippot” and the attribution of an inability to understand “spiritual matters” because of the nature of their creation. He describes Rabbi Tau as a complicated type: on the one hand, “an intelligent man” with broad education, according to people whose judgment he trusts, and on the other hand, someone with “extreme outbursts” that seem to him disconnected from reality. He describes the public agitation around every such “outburst” and argues that the storms happen because, for those circles, he is an authority and a leader, even when they distance themselves from him.

The personal leader model and charisma that cannot be challenged

The speaker defines a central characteristic of messianic and cult-like movements as a leader whom no one can challenge, someone with an “extraordinary cosmic understanding” that places him beyond criticism. He describes a situation in which a member of the group cannot say, “Wait a second, who says so?” or “Here he was wrong,” because the leader’s words are perceived as coming from some higher source, something like a revelation of Elijah, even if they do not actually use that term. He compares this to political legends about Lenin, where “all of modern physics” is supposedly hidden in his words, in order to describe a mechanism of attributing total knowledge to the leader.

Fundamentalism: principles that are not subject to critical examination

The speaker argues that the basic principles are not open to criticism, and gives as an example Rabbi Klener, who said that if the State of Israel were destroyed, he would “take off his kippah.” He presents a view according to which, if Rabbi Kook or Rabbi Tau said that the State of Israel is “the beginning of the flowering of our redemption,” then if that claim falls apart, the whole theological structure collapses with it, to the point of formulations like, “That would mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not exist.” He presents this as a “straight” position willing to put its conclusions on the table, but also as evidence of a fundamentalist attitude that refuses to allow for the possibility of human error even in great rabbis.

Intellectual closure, the study order of Rabbi Kook’s writings, and the feeling of “entering holiness”

The speaker describes a closed attitude toward books and ideas from outside, and brings an anecdote about Rabbi Barzilai’s response to his book Two Carts, asking whether it was “a holy book” or “a secular book.” He says this is especially surprising when it comes from students of Rabbi Kook, who, in his words, emphasized gathering sparks and broad learning, and even dreamed of a yeshiva with a broader curriculum than what was standard. He describes graded rules for studying Rabbi Kook’s writings, such as a prohibition on first-year students studying Orot HaKodesh, with permission granted only at later stages, and argues that this is less pedagogical caution than a tactic for creating an atmosphere of entering something “larger than life” that requires the mediation of “outstanding disciples.”

The figure of Rabbi Kook: greatness alongside the possibility of error and excessive glorification

The speaker says Rabbi Kook was “a giant Jew” and an extraordinary personality, someone everyone who encountered came away awed by, but he stresses that he was also “a flesh-and-blood human being” who could make mistakes and even “said foolish things” and “did foolish things” from time to time. He opposes turning Rabbi Kook into a mystical figure who cannot be described in human terms, and cites something he heard about there being no biography because “no book can contain him,” in order to criticize that kind of glorification. He argues that there are no secrets that cannot be explained to eighteen-year-olds, and that dividing the writings into those that are “really deep” as opposed to others serves to create hierarchy and an artificial aura of holiness around the act of mediation.

The three students of Rabbi Kook and their study houses, and the legitimacy of disciples

The speaker presents a division he heard in the name of Rabbi Amital, according to which Rabbi Kook had three central students: the Nazir, Rabbi Harlap, and Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, and each one established a different study house. He describes the line of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda as leading to Mercaz and later to Har HaMor, Rabbi Harlap as connected to the Haredi world, and the Nazir as more connected to academia because of his involvement in philosophy and his broader ties. He argues that the students of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda—meaning Rabbi Tau and his circle—do not really recognize other study houses as legitimate disciples of Rabbi Kook, and present things as if “all of Rabbi Kook’s students are sitting in Har HaMor,” creating a bubble that erases the legitimacy of other paths.

A total bubble: “there is no outside” and “everything is with us”

The speaker describes two sides of the same coin: an attempt to show that there is nothing outside the bubble, and at the same time that everything is already inside it. He argues that in this discourse, whatever others say is either from the “other side” or just a repetition of what “our rabbis” already said, and that Rabbi Tau’s books are seen as one complete system that explains “everything that moves in reality.” He describes a mechanism of rationalizations and continuations that smooth over contradictions between different volumes of Emunat Iteinu, and recalls an experience in Yeruham where buying aliyot in the synagogue came with commitments to study volumes of LeEmunat Iteinu, until he sarcastically said, “Does anyone here also want to study Torah?”—which offended people.

Learning strengths, self-sacrifice, and an inferiority complex

The speaker acknowledges unique learning strengths in Har HaMor and real self-sacrifice for years of study, and argues that this produces a layer of Torah scholars at certain ages that is disproportionately weighty relative to their share in the population. He says that on the one hand there is discomfort with Rabbi Tau’s statements, but on the other hand he remains a central authority who must be reckoned with, creating ambivalence and even a kind of “split personality” in relation to him. He argues that by completely Haredi learning standards they stand out, but compared to strong Haredi yeshivot there is a deep inferiority complex, and that gap also feeds dependence on leadership.

Esoteric language and obligatory jargon

The speaker argues that things are described in esoteric terminology that belongs only to them, with lofty spiritual concepts, some taken from Rabbi Kook, which have become obligatory jargon and a kind of “color system” for painting reality. He mentions Yehuda Yifrach, who wrote about Rabbi Klener and about a “private dictionary of terms” for studying Rabbi Kook, including terms he supposedly “invented,” and says it takes time to enter that language. He says a closed language may also have some possible benefit, because someone outside may immediately translate things into his own language and see absurdity or wickedness, while in the original context the intention may be different. Still, he presents the very existence of such a language as an indication of building a bubble in which “all the explanations” are inside.

Distorted presentation of facts, demonization, and “the New Israel Fund”

The speaker argues that closure and uniformity lead to an unbalanced presentation of facts, and gives as an example an “obsession” with “the New Israel Fund,” to the point that every event gets attributed to it. He says one can believe in conspiracies, in European money, or in Christian involvement, and still proportion and substantive judgment are required based on the practical issue in the decision, not according to the “demons” supposedly behind it. He connects this to a tendency to explain events through metaphysical forces rather than through the actions themselves, and argues that sometimes opposition arises because the source of a decision is attributed to an enemy, not because of a substantive argument.

“Faith” instead of “Jewish thought,” and translating all thinkers into one language

The speaker argues that in these circles they do not study “Jewish thought” but “faith,” and explains that “faith” means translating everything that exists into the language of Har HaMor. He describes studying Maimonides, the Kuzari, and others through the mediation of Rabbi Tau, so that “Maimonides says all of Rabbi Kook’s things in his own language,” and argues that this blurs disputes and distinct conceptual worlds. He sets academia up as the opposite model, where the attempt is not to translate and harmonize everything, but to study each thinker “from within himself,” even if that sometimes creates too many disputes. He explains that the yeshiva-faith model allows everything to be seen as one continuous chain of transmission, to the point of “Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Rabbi Kook.”

“The generation’s greatest in faith” and reversing the criterion of greatness

The speaker argues that Rabbi Tau is not seen as great in Jewish law in the classical sense, but in this line he becomes the leader as “the generation’s greatest in faith.” He says that once the charisma in matters of faith is accepted, complementary legends develop about his greatness in other fields as well, similar to legends about Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, and he presents this as a cult-like mechanism for constructing authority. He also criticizes the reverse assumption—that if a person is a Torah scholar in Jewish law, that gives him absolute authority in current affairs—and argues that here the process works in the opposite direction: authority in faith gives rise afterward to attributed universal knowledge.

Collective language, labeling instead of argument, and the question “whose student is he?”

The speaker argues that the language is collective: “we believe” and “it has been received by us,” not “I think,” because truth is understood as something transmitted, not as a personal position. He gives the example of the disputes around Rabbi Sherlo and the claims that he “did not serve real Torah scholars,” and argues that this label functions as a substitute for substantive discussion and neutralizes anyone who is not considered fit to participate in the discourse. He ties this to the broader claim that the question “from which womb did these pearls emerge” matters more than whether the claims are actually correct, and describes a view according to which someone who studied not “faith” but “Jewish thought” is not an equal partner in the conversation.

Using titles like “our master the Rabbi of blessed memory” as a tactic of closed discourse

The speaker describes the deliberate use of titles such as “our master the Rabbi of blessed memory” or simply “the Rabbi of blessed memory,” without mentioning a name, not only as internal language but also toward outsiders, in order to signal belonging to a closed group and leave anyone who does not understand outside the circle. He compares this to the distinction between “the Rabbi” and “ha-rav” in connection with Rabbi Lichtenstein, but argues that with Rabbi Lichtenstein this was not used as propaganda before an audience that would not know what was meant, whereas here it becomes a tool for establishing “the Jewish discourse” as exclusive and shutting out other languages.

Censorship of Rabbi Kook’s writings and sealing off texts

The speaker describes “brutal” censorship of Rabbi Kook’s writings, including struggles around publishing To the Perplexed of the Generation and “underground” passages that might sound sympathetic to Christianity or to other sensitive ideas. He argues that the internal logic is that if something appears in Rabbi Kook’s writings it is “immediately binding,” and therefore when there is a problematic passage, the solution is not criticism but omission and concealment. He also describes struggles around Orot HaKodesh versus Shemonah Kevatzim, and argues that there is resistance to giving people free access to the writings, including the Nazir’s writings as well, with restrictions in the Ari Fich Institute and in the hands of families and institutions.

Bottomless seriousness, rejection of common sense, and the “deeper perspective”

The speaker argues that everything receives a serious and cosmic treatment, with no room for anything merely ordinary or prosaic, and that the whole mode of conduct is so ideological that “common sense” becomes almost a dirty word, identified with the evil inclination and with the mentality of householders. He describes a constant demand for a “deeper perspective” that runs against a simple understanding of reality, and presents this as part of dependence on spiritual charisma: if things could stand up to critical thought, there would be no need for mediators and authority.

A hierarchical-military structure, “arms,” and sending emissaries outward

The speaker describes a hierarchical mode of operation resembling a military chain of command, in which the leadership sees “forces of darkness” and transmits truth to an inner circle, from which representatives go out to explain “the Torah view” to the masses. He mentions jokes such as “Eliza is the military arm of Har HaMor” and describes circles of yeshivot and institutions that spread the message outward, with the “inside” feeding the world while the outside does not enter inward. He describes strict discipline to the point of a kind of “court martial” for anyone who deviates, and gives the example of Rabbi Chananel Etrog, who got a harsh reaction and had to retract after daring to disagree with Rabbi Tau.

The megalomania of “the order of saving the world” and fear of the outside

The speaker describes a megalomaniacal sense of mission according to which they are “the only ones standing against the whole world,” and the whole world depends on their “redeeming Torah,” using imagery that he himself connects to “Harry Potter” and the forces of darkness. He links this also to a general yeshiva ethos of “Were it not for My covenant day and night, I would not have established the laws of heaven and earth,” but argues that for them this is not a joke but a constant conception of an ongoing “order of saving the world.” He describes a deep fear of what happens outside and the assumption that only someone who has gone through the proper “vaccinations” can go out without being harmed, while going out is meant to illuminate others, not to be exposed to alternatives.

The attitude toward academia and the humanities, and other yeshivot as “illegitimate”

The speaker argues that there is a categorical disqualification of university study in fields that compete with Torah, such as the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), Talmud, and Jewish thought, while physics and mathematics are seen as more tolerable. He presents this as the opposite of Rabbi Kook’s own outlook, which wanted to “bring in academia too,” with specific criticism rather than sweeping rejection, and explains that the problem is that the outside offers an alternative and therefore “does not know its place.” He adds that similarly there is disdain for yeshivot that do not see themselves as part of the line, and a description of other rabbis as not being “real Torah scholars,” while the attitude toward the Haredi world is ambivalent: “mistaken in outlook,” alongside a learning-based inferiority complex.

Mercaz and Har HaMor

The speaker says he does not know enough about Mercaz’s attitude toward Har HaMor, but he estimates that in Mercaz there is a great deal of esteem and even a kind of self-effacement among students toward Har HaMor, as part of their still being within a world that attributes exclusivity to Rabbi Kook’s disciples—just “in different doses.” He adds that Mercaz is in many ways “a Haredi yeshiva” in Lithuanian style, and ends by stopping the discussion at that point.

Last time I started talking a bit about—I moved from the discussion of messianism to a discussion of sectarianism. I said that these phenomena are—is it the same topic? Yes, no, it’s a continuation of the same topic. At first I didn’t think so, but afterward I saw that it actually does connect. Because what we call, in the Jewish, religious, Torah context—I don’t know what to call it—a messianic phenomenon, in the broader context is more connected to what people call a sectarian phenomenon. Meaning a sect, sects. And then I said there are certain parts, yes, Har HaMor and its daughters, that have all kinds of characteristics that are reminiscent of that. It was quite a week for Har HaMor, at the great institution. It was an interesting week. Rabbi Tao—you didn’t read this week? What was it? What was the decree? Something he said about women. Oh, you have to go in, go online. I didn’t hear. You have to read what he said. It was huge. And your wife didn’t—your wife wasn’t happy? No, but that’s Rami from Eli, from Eli. Yes, no, but he’s a great devotee of… Yes, he’s in Eli now, he’s a teacher in Eli. The Hardalim are going crazy. Listen, I heard it, I’m telling you. What, what did he say? Women are less calm, in a not… what? And that’s basically it. No, no, he says it in a lesson. This whole Talmudic text talks about women. The whole Talmudic text is full of this. I didn’t see the Talmudic text. I went into the study hall and the girls were knitting kippot, so they told me: how do you allow girls to knit kippot? I said: that’s what they’re good at; understanding—they won’t understand. No, no, he said: a girl who doesn’t knit a kippah, I don’t accept her. A girl who doesn’t knit during class—after all, there’s no chance she’ll understand. She doesn’t understand spirituality, she doesn’t understand this. Women can’t. By their created nature. They don’t even have the intuition to hear this. Listen, interesting. Fine. The truth is he’s quite a… I don’t know him personally; we met once, but no… he’s already, you know, a complicated type. Meaning, I know from various people whom I give credit to that he’s an intelligent man. Meaning he’s an intelligent man and has a broad education, meaning he… They told me they threw him out of the yeshiva. And on the other hand, a lot of times he has these very extreme outbursts, meaning something that’s completely disconnected, some kind of unclear phenomenon. Eli doesn’t get off the headlines. It wasn’t in the yeshiva, it was outside the yeshiva. What difference does it make? He’s the big thing there. He’s the serious one in Eli. He also taught in Yeruham. Yes, he also taught אצלנו when I was in Yeruham. Bnei Sadan, from a management standpoint, is the serious one, but in terms of spirituality he’s the spiritual one? Yes. Fine. My grandchildren won’t be in Eli. When they ask you, then… They won’t ask me; I’ll gather information on them. I’ll tell them without their asking me. Fine. In any case, the claim—what I was basically claiming—is that there are certain sectarian phenomena, and I’m expressing myself relatively cautiously: phenomena characteristic of sects. Again, I don’t know whether it crosses the threshold, and what threshold has to be crossed in order to really be considered a sect. People were terribly outraged by that post I wrote; people came back to me afterward shocked—even friends of mine. Which post? On the site—it was on the site. What do Har HaMor and Chabad have to do with each other, something like that, yes. So even friends of mine from the kollel at Bar-Ilan came to me kind of shocked. But honestly, in my view, it’s a completely factual description of the matter. All in all, I just gathered elements, and I’m not even familiar enough. Some told me: you simply don’t know enough; if you knew, we have much more material. Meaning, the rabbis—meaning the people who are there, yes, exactly. So truly, I don’t know these people well enough, and they also don’t interest me enough for me to do research on them. But there’s a collection of characteristics here that—I don’t know—it seems problematic to me. So I spoke about the first few last time. I spoke about the personal leader, Rabbi Tao, and we talked a bit about that, about messianic movements where there’s usually a leader. I don’t know if there has to be one, but usually there’s some leader whom you can’t challenge, and he has some kind of exalted cosmic understanding such that we can’t grasp how he perceives things, some kind of statements that place him beyond criticism. Meaning, you can’t contend with what he says because what he says comes straight from Elijah’s revelation. Now they don’t say… Elijah’s revelation, never mind, but some sort of understanding or spiritual charisma that—it’s illegitimate to contend with. Meaning, you as one of the people in the sect, yes, one of the people in the group, can’t say, wait a second, who says so? I don’t think like him, or it doesn’t seem right to me, it seems to me he made a mistake here. It seems to me that’s not something you can say there. It seems to me—again, I’m saying this cautiously because I don’t know this group well enough—but I know a little. I spoke about how with Lenin too, after all, they found all of modern physics and everything was basically hidden in the letter-skipping in his words. Meaning, there are these things where the person who understands everything—both what he studied and what he didn’t study—he understands everything. Meaning, all sorts of legends, of course, about how he understands every field and knows everything. They didn’t hit him on the head when he was born. Yes, on that, yes. A second thing, which is connected to this, and of course the characteristics are connected to each other, many of them: this fundamentalism that says you can’t test the principles, meaning the principles are not subject to critical examination. The basic principles—I mentioned Rabbi Kalner in that connection—who said that if the State of Israel is destroyed, then he’ll take off his kippah. Meaning, that can’t happen. Meaning, if our master the Rabbi said, of blessed memory—Rabbi Kook, never mind—or whoever it was, or Rabbi Tao said, may he live a long life, that the State of Israel is the beginning of the flowering of our redemption, then if one of his words falls to the ground, that means the Holy One, blessed be He, does not exist. Meaning, there’s a statement here that on the one hand is straightforward, or at least willing to put the conclusions on the table as opposed to many others, but on the other hand it means there’s a kind of sectarian attitude here, a fundamentalist attitude. So what, Rabbi Tao can’t be wrong? Or even Rabbi Kook? He can’t be wrong? Fine, he was a wise, intelligent, righteous Jew, highly worthy of admiration. His understanding of reality, in my opinion, remains very much open to question—both Rabbi Kook’s and Rabbi Tao’s—but fine, you can argue; you think he understood reality. But can’t he have been mistaken? What, he’s not human? There’s something problematic here. Closedness—I spoke about that, about openness to other ideas, about your reading things, yes. So I mentioned that he taught in our yeshiva, Rabbi Kalner, in Yeruham. There was another one with him who has since passed away, Rabbi Barzilai, Yehuda Barzilai. He died young; it was a tragedy. Both of them taught in Mitzpe Ramon, the hesder yeshiva of what’s called “the line,” and in that way in Yeruham too, so they also gave lessons for us. And when my book, “The Two Carts,” came out, Rabbi Barzilai spoke with the guys in the yeshiva and said: what is this book? Is it a holy book? Is it a secular book? Some kind of thing like that. Now when that comes from someone who defines himself as a clear disciple of Rabbi Kook, it’s especially surprising. Rabbi Kook was the one who said that in every place one can gather the sparks, and there’s truth in everything, and one has to listen to everything and learn everything. The curriculum for the yeshiva that he envisioned, that he dreamed of, was much broader than a standard yeshiva. And today they make pilpulim about the fact that they didn’t set up a teachers’ institute there. Now I say again: there’s a certain logic to that, I don’t reject it by the way, this distinction. But when it comes from them, it’s strange. Why? Because—and I’ll explain this later, I’ll talk about it later—there’s always a way to fit the statements of our master the Rabbi of blessed memory, who never made a mistake, to the path of our current master the Rabbi, may he live a long life, yes, who also never makes mistakes, and therefore his policy always fits what he said. Hey, it doesn’t fit? Fine, we have excuses: it was intended for righteous people, it was intended for other times, it was intended for those who already finished yeshiva and only afterward. There are all sorts of explanations. You have to enter holiness slowly, into academia slowly, not all at once, not when you’re young. Even Rabbi Kook’s writings, by the way, there are rules for how to study them by levels. Meaning, in first year you don’t study—you don’t study “Lights of Holiness”; you only study, I don’t remember what, something, “Lights of Revival,” I don’t know, one of the “Lights,” I don’t know which. And in second year, third year—meaning, before that it’s forbidden, you can’t, because these are things that… Now again, with all due respect, fine, you can study it. There’s nothing there that is… and if someone explains it to you, then you’ll understand. Meaning it’s not… and if you sit in a group then you’ll understand too. What, a first-year student can’t understand it? What secrets are there there? True, you can say these are interesting things, smart things, deep things. But what is this caution—that in first year you won’t study this but only that? In my view this has nothing to do with caution at all. It’s part of the attempt to create an atmosphere that you’re entering something larger than life. It’s a kind of tactic. So they have to map it out for you: look, in first year this is forbidden, in second year this is permitted, in third year this is permitted, and when you get to fifth, sixth, seventh year, I don’t know which, then you can storm into holiness, yes, then you can enter the truly deep writings. I don’t think there are truly deep and not truly deep things there. There are beautiful things; Rabbi Kook was a giant Jew. I’m not trying to diminish Rabbi Kook’s greatness. I’m only saying that you don’t need to turn it into, I don’t know what, these mystical things and all that. There aren’t things there that can’t be explained to eighteen- or nineteen-year-olds. There was some rabbi in first year in the joint program or wherever, I don’t know, who told me it’s no accident that no autobiography was written about Rabbi Kook because there is no book that can contain… What is this, some kind of Trinity? Holy Trinity? You don’t need to contain him, any more than you need to contain anyone else. No, listen, the truth is he really was a giant Jew. Meaning, I’m not one of his disciples, I don’t feel connected to him, he’s not my cup of tea in many respects. In many other respects, yes. Again, he was a giant Jew without any doubt. Anyone who encountered him from whatever direction—whether from the Haredi direction, from the Gerrer Rebbe who was on the visit of the delegation from Europe of Agudath Israel, or from Yeshayahu Leibowitz even, and anyone who met him—came away astonished at that personality. Meaning, evidently it was an extraordinary personality. I’m far from denying that, that’s clear. But fine, he was a flesh-and-blood human being who could also make mistakes and probably sometimes said nonsense and did foolish things sometimes, and that’s fine. You can criticize him, and you can study him also at age eighteen and also at age fifteen. Explain a bit. Look, you don’t have to recommend it—you can say, look, there’s an order to things, fine, there are recommendations for how to do it better or less well; didactics, didactics, that’s fine. But there the feeling is that this is entering holiness, like once a year on Yom Kippur. Meaning, you can’t… these are things that are not within reach of a mortal human being except through the mediation of Rabbi Kalner and Rabbi I-don’t-know, all those people, the clear disciples who mediate the Torah of our master Rabbi Kook. Now someone once told me that Rabbi Kook had three disciples: there was Rabbi—not the Nazir—Rabbi Charlap and his son Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, yes, and each of them essentially established a different kind of study hall. Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda—that’s Mercaz, and later Har HaMor, yes. Rabbi Charlap—that’s Haredim. The old Haredim, because once there wasn’t such a distinction; Rabbi Kook also was Haredi by definition as he defined himself, meaning “I’m called Haredi.” They also called themselves Haredi. It wasn’t as distinct as it is today. There were Haredim who were with Rabbi Kook and Haredim who were against Rabbi Kook, meaning with Rabbi Sonnenfeld and so on. So that’s Rabbi Charlap, who really was a Haredi rabbi, and I think also his family, at least part of it, and certainly his students, are part of the Haredi world today. And by the way, Rabbi Amital was a student of Rabbi Charlap. And the Nazir—basically that’s academia. Meaning, those who study him, because he has all kinds of references to literature, philosophy, and things of that kind—he dealt with things… Isn’t Rabbi Goren his son-in-law? What? Yes, yes. No, I’m talking about the school of thought he established. Rabbi Goren has no students, meaning Rabbi Goren didn’t establish a school of thought—here are a thousand students of Rabbi Goren. Those who study the Nazir, those who deal with these things, that’s usually in academia. Meaning, Dov Schwartz deals with this quite a bit, and I’m also considered half-academia, never mind; I too dealt with it a bit. Doesn’t Rabbi Shilat count? He was a member of his household. Maybe also, I don’t know, perhaps yes. Perhaps yes, but I don’t know whether on this map he occupies some fourth niche. I’m not sure. Maybe. I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable. Someone once told me this; it’s not mine. He told me that you really see there are three. Now… I heard this from Rabbi Amital. What? I heard this division from Rabbi Amital. Ah, then maybe he even said it in his name. It seems to me Rabbi Sherlo once told me this, I think, because Rabbi Sherlo argued that Rabbi Amital—I think once I spoke with him and he told me this—I think Rabbi Amital is actually a student of Rabbi Charlap. So everyone says he’s not a student of Rabbi Kook, he’s something else, because he’s also connected to Rabbi Lichtenstein, which is Rabbi Soloveitchik. From their perspective that’s a mixture of unlike with unlike. So he said: what do you mean? He’s a student of Rabbi Kook exactly like they are, just not through Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda but through Rabbi Charlap, which is indeed a different shade, and Rabbi Amital took it in a different direction. Okay, so there are basically three. Now the point is that Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda’s students—Rabbi Tao and so on—do not recognize this. Rabbi Charlap, fine, he was there and everything’s fine, no one will question him because he was a close student of Rabbi Kook, a colleague-student of Rabbi Kook, and all that. But they don’t recognize another school of thought as something legitimate, as legitimate students of Rabbi Kook. There’s no such thing. Meaning, all the students of Rabbi Kook sit in Har HaMor. Meaning, in the discourse accepted there, there is no something else. Meaning, they don’t recognize the existence of other things. It’s a kind of bubble-building. And I also spoke about that bubble: on the one hand they try to show that there’s nothing outside them, and on the other hand everything is found within them, which are two sides of the same coin. Meaning, our rebbes know how to explain everything that happens in reality; there’s no need to resort to anything else. Anything anyone else says is either from the side of impurity or else he’s just repeating what our rebbes say. Meaning, there’s no need to resort to anything. Rabbi Tao’s writings contain explanations for everything that moves in reality. Meaning, it’s all one ordered doctrine, he explains everything: exactly how it happens and what the meaning of the processes is. And that’s fine in principle; you’re allowed to propose a theory of everything. Yes, some of the best physicists searched for such things. But the feeling is that they found it; they didn’t search. Meaning, he isn’t searching—he hands them the explanation for every phenomenon and where it’s located on the map. And the further it gets from the explanation that should have been, then there are more and more excuses. Then out comes “In the Faith of Our Time” 578, explaining why in “In the Faith of Our Time” 571 it seemed that there wouldn’t be disengagement; so that’s clear because it’s actually an explanation, never mind—all kinds of things of that type. Again, I don’t know these books well enough, so I sometimes feel a bit uncomfortable talking about them. Once in Yeruham too, when I studied in Yeruham, there was—I think it was on Shabbat Zakhor—they had honors there, and each one bought an aliyah with pages of Talmudic text or, never mind, with commitments of what he would study in the coming year until the next Shabbat Zakhor. They started there: this one would do “In the Faith of Our Time” I, and that one “In the Faith of Our Time” III. I said to them: tell me, does anyone here also want to study Torah? The guys there were terribly insulted. Meaning, all kinds of… the feeling is that there is some kind of… I think I spoke about this once. What? Yes, in Yeruham, in Yeruham, certainly, yes. And I assume that’s still how it is today, by the way. And in several other places that I think would surprise you. Because there is some kind of… and it always amazed me; I always looked at it very strangely. Meaning, on the one hand they distance themselves from Rabbi Tao’s approach, from his expressions, from all kinds of different statements of his. After all, Rabbi Levinstein is a very stately figure, very much… but specifically not in the sense of opposing Rabbi Tao’s outbursts. He’s stately, but not consensual—post-consensual. Yes. That’s another one of the contradictions for which they have thousands of excuses, yes, how it fits with stateliness, the attack against stateliness. Where stateliness harms stateliness, then it’s something else, and then it’s not stateliness; stateliness is when they say what I say. Meaning, there are always these kinds of explanations. So the point is that together with this distancing, there’s some kind of very deep inferiority complex in many places—partly justified, I have to say. Meaning, there are intensities in Har HaMor that I think don’t exist anywhere else—study intensities. I’m not speaking now about intensities… Like in the Haredi world? Yes, right, exactly the same idea. There are extraordinary intensities there: people who devote themselves body and soul to learning over many years. That doesn’t exist in many of the other yeshivot. You’re always looking for yourself some career, something, and that’s it; you don’t just keep sitting and learning for years. And naturally, say, the layer of Torah scholars in their thirties and forties who have already spent several years in yeshiva—the weight of Har HaMor graduates is greater than their overall share in the population, and also the levels they often reach—not that there aren’t, again, always in various places—but generally speaking, it’s worthy of appreciation. These are people who sacrifice themselves; you can’t take away what they have. And that creates a kind of inferiority complex, such that obviously everything Rabbi Tao says requires a response. Meaning, even if he’s basically our leader, then true, we don’t agree, but still… and then you say, so what if he said it, so what. And there were such storms in the yeshiva when he said something, I don’t know, about the Reform and this one—not important, every time he had a different outburst. I said to them: okay, so some Jew in Jerusalem said something—what, everyone’s in an uproar? Everyone’s in an uproar because from their point of view he really is their leader, or one of their leaders, a kind of authority, yes, some kind of authority from their perspective. So people are a bit torn. On the one hand they don’t identify with everything he says, but on the other hand it’s clear to them that he’s “our generation’s nasi,” in the language of Chabad, some sort of attitude of that kind. There’s an ambivalence here that stems—and I spoke about this last time—from facts. But by their standards, because their standards are completely Haredi. Meaning, by their standards they really can’t compete with good Haredi yeshivot. Other yeshivot set a different standard, so they’re not trying to compete by those standards. But yes, by those standards they absolutely do stand out, and they have… you can’t take away what they have. And therefore it creates a sort of torn feeling, a kind of split personality, meaning how to relate to this phenomenon. Now maybe a few more characteristics, additional characteristics I still haven’t discussed. I spoke about the excuses: every time something is found that doesn’t fit, there are explanations and all kinds of… yes, I mentioned the Communist book about Lenin, that they say all of physics was found in Lenin and all these things. The principles come from some upper mystical source. It doesn’t have to be Elijah’s revelation. They don’t say Rabbi Tao has Elijah’s revelation, but some kind of spiritual charisma, that he has some special connection there, he understands things from the furnace of creation that others do not understand. And the things do not have to stand the test of common sense, the test of critical thought—that’s the whole idea. If they did stand that test, then there’d be no need for the spiritual charisma. Precisely because you’re saying things that on their face seem unreasonable or illogical—fine, study, grow, be like Rabbi Tao, then you too will understand. Meaning, you prevent a real confrontation, an intellectual critique of the matter. Things are described in terminology and language that belong only to them. They have this whole collection of expressions, some of them appear in Rabbi Kook, most of them I think appear in Rabbi Kook’s writings, but all kinds of Rabbi Kook terms have become the building blocks of a language, a language uniquely theirs. When they speak, they have their own language, exactly how they relate to various things. And it seems as though they have their own color system with which to paint reality. Everything is within that language, and when you try to translate it into ordinary language, I don’t know to what extent these concepts really have distinct meaning. Yehuda Yifrach wrote—he mentioned Rabbi Kalner’s words this week, that he studied with him—and indeed he has his own private glossary for studying Rabbi Kook, which takes time; someone who starts out and doesn’t know it, it takes time to get into it, because he simply invented terms of his own. Interesting. Where did he write that? Yehuda Yifrach wrote about Rabbi Kalner. So the language is esoteric language, lofty spiritual concepts, sparks and this and that. It’s taken somewhat from Rabbi Kook, but they turned it into obligatory jargon. Meaning, they turned those expressions into something through which one speaks. By the way, that really does open the door to all kinds of excuses when these sorts of statements come out and the public doesn’t really understand what this is doing here. By the way, sometimes maybe it’s even true, since I’m outside that study hall, so I’m willing to give them credit that sometimes it really is true. Because sometimes you really don’t understand the context in which things are said, and the language and terminology in which things are said, and you immediately translate it into your own language and then it comes out absurd or wicked or I don’t know exactly what, whereas originally perhaps the intention really was a bit different. But it’s an indication—it’s an indication that you’re speaking in some closed language. That’s part of the attempt to create the bubble that says: all the explanations and all the meaning you’ll get here. Meaning, there is no outside. We are not in interaction with the outside. Meaning, outside there are our ambassadors who come to bring the message from inside to people. I’ll get in a moment to the military hierarchy that characterizes their activity. But the outside won’t come inside. The inside will go out, and for them the inside is clearly the yeshiva, Har HaMor, and it nourishes the whole world all the way to the Comanche tribes in who knows where. Meaning, everyone lives because of the redeeming Torah studied in Har HaMor, and now they just need their Chabad-style emissaries to go out and teach “Lights of Holiness” to the Indians. Very often this closedness—or this uniformity—leads to presenting facts in a distorted way. Meaning, you get a very unbalanced picture. So I already mentioned this obsession with the New Israel Fund. I’m far from being one of its greatest admirers, but on the other hand the attitude there is simply insane. Meaning, there is no action on earth that isn’t the New Israel Fund. Meaning, when the education minister makes some decision about, I don’t know, teaching the Hebrew Bible in this way or that way—it’s the New Israel Fund. When… everything. So I say: okay, I understand, they have schemes, they have European money, maybe there’s even some Christian involvement there—everything may be true. Fine. But there’s such a thing as proportion, okay? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Fight it, put it on the table. But these demons standing behind concrete events—that’s part of the attitude, and here it connects to Religious Zionism, where I said they discuss events through the metaphysical forces that generate them and not through what they actually do. You can oppose the education minister’s decision and say it’s harmful, it’s not right, it’s very bad, I oppose it. But sometimes the impression is that you oppose it because it comes from the New Israel Fund, not because there’s something problematic in the conduct itself. And forget it—why is that important? Just say what you think. For example, with them they don’t study Jewish thought, and it’s not Jewish philosophy, and not “worldview” in the Haredi sense, but faith / belief. That too is some kind of expression. Now what is faith / belief? Faith / belief means translating everything that moves into the language of Har HaMor. That’s called faith / belief. Meaning, they study faith / belief. Now there is no Jewish thought. Meaning, when they study Maimonides, they study Maimonides mediated through Rabbi Tao. Meaning, he explains to them how Maimonides is really saying all of Rabbi Kook’s things in his own language. It’s translation. It’s a process of translation. And the Kuzari, and never mind, all of them. In the end—I mentioned this memorial volume for Rabbi Ra’anan, “Storehouses of the Ancients,” where there were Rabbi Charlap and Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, I think, I don’t remember who—meaning, from their perspective Moses received Torah at Sinai and handed it to Rabbi Kook. That’s more or less the chain of transmission. And if there was someone in the middle that you can’t ignore—Maimonides and these Jews, who after all in the halakhic world are the building blocks—then you translate them. And that is what is called studying faith / belief. Meaning, studying faith / belief is first and foremost Rabbi Kook’s writings and “In the Faith of Our Time” and so on. First and foremost. But if you study something else, you translate it into Rabbi Kook’s language or Har HaMor’s language, and similarly reality is translated into that language. And this blurs the fact that there is a dispute between Maimonides and the Kuzari—or, I’m not expert enough to know—but even if there was a dispute, it would be interpreted within the… It’s not a dispute where Maimonides thought like Rabbi Kook and the Kuzari was against Rabbi Kook, or vice versa. It’s not like that. Rather, within Rabbi Kook’s system there is a Maimonidean shade and a Kuzari shade. Again, I’m not sufficiently familiar to determine this with certainty, but that is a very clear impression from what I do know. Meaning, that’s more or less what happens there. I don’t study faith / belief or anything of the sort, so I can’t say this from firsthand knowledge, but I hear it from people. Today, when you talk to people—not only in Har HaMor, by the way—go to Yeruham: they don’t study Jewish thought, they study faith / belief. And that’s not just an expression. It’s not just wording. There’s something there. I’m not saying they study it exactly like in Har HaMor, but there is some expression there that colors things with that color, some affinity to that mode of thinking. Meaning, is this a semantic issue? Not exactly, because when you’re not speaking in a university setting you don’t say Jewish thought or Dutch thought, fine. But when you study it, you study faith / belief, because you’re a Jew, you study faith / belief. But the term faith / belief as it is interpreted or used there is directed against the Jewish thought of the university, not against gentiles and not against anything else. It’s an alternative to Jewish thought; it’s not an alternative to, I don’t know, physics. Meaning, faith / belief means not Jewish thought. Because what happens in academia? In academia—and again, sometimes I also criticize them—but fine, what do they do there in academia? It’s the absolute antithesis. In academia they try not to translate anything into anything. I study Maimonides from within himself, I study the Kuzari from within itself, and on the contrary, many times they create disputes even where there are none, because from their standpoint each thing stands on its own. They don’t harmonize things. Unlike yeshiva conceptions, say also in Jewish law. In Jewish law too, for example, academic Talmudic research studies each passage on its own, and another passage it won’t reconcile with this one. It will explain that these are two periods, two people, two schools, never mind, two editors of whatever it is, anonymous editors and non-anonymous ones, and all kinds of things of that type. The same thing happens in Jewish thought. Now in Jewish thought, in my opinion, it’s also more justified than in the Talmudic text, but never mind—the conception is that you study different thinkers, each one established his own doctrine, and of course they have disputes and that’s all fine. But that also obviously presents things in such a way that it’s pretty clear this is an invention—and we talked once about the fact that it’s an invention of the thinkers themselves: Maimonides, the Kuzari, the Maharal, Rabbi Tzadok, never mind, all of them. Because you see these are completely different conceptual worlds, totally different forms of thought, very polar disputes between these people, so it’s not likely that it all came down from Sinai and this is just a tradition passed down to us with a bit of commentary, commentary. It doesn’t look like that. The alternative is to study faith / belief. What is faith / belief? It’s to take all these people, fit them into one mold within the same conceptual world, and then obviously Moses received Torah at Sinai and handed it to Rabbi Kook—through Maimonides, through this one, fine—but that is really one doctrine that came down from Sinai. And it’s all from Sinai; it’s not innovations of anybody that came along in the middle. By the way, the whole flourishing of studying Jewish thought as part of Torah study—which wasn’t accepted until fifty years ago, or even less—is inspired by Rabbi Kook and Mercaz HaRav, even though today they oppose many things done in that context. But that’s the source. Rabbi Tao is not known—though of course legends about him circulate—but he is not known as the greatest of Torah scholars in the classical sense, meaning in Jewish law. How did he become such a leader? I don’t know. There it’s called “the greatest of the generation in faith / belief.” They have a term for that too: “the greatest of the generation in faith / belief.” Once there was “the greatest of the generation”—that’s the greatest of the generation, you know, he knows, he’s wise. By the way, that’s the opposite mistake: the fact that someone is a Torah scholar still doesn’t mean he says sensible things in current contexts, contemporary contexts, and in all kinds of worldly matters. With them it works the other way around: he’s the greatest of the generation in faith / belief, he has some sort of spiritual charisma. Afterward legends also develop that he is really one of the greatest Torah scholars in Jewish law as well. You can also see this with Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, also with Rabbi Tao. I don’t know, I never checked them; maybe it’s also true. But these legends are legends that develop later. More important than that, studying faith / belief—the concept of faith / belief comes to serve as an antithesis to everything going on around it, including the study of the books we’ve spoken about, of Maimonides and the Kuzari and Maharal. Because faith / belief means coloring all those books with our color, basically converting them. That’s what is called studying faith / belief. Sometimes it’s translation—yes, it’s translation. There is this dispute between Maimonides and the Ra’avad in the laws of reciting the Shema, where Maimonides says one may recite the Shema in any language, provided one pronounces it carefully, something like that. So the Ra’avad asks: in any language? That’s translation. All languages are translations, and who is there that can be exact about every translation? About every interpretation, something like that. Who can be exact about an interpretation? What is there to be exact about in interpretations? An interpretation is an interpretation; it’s not the text itself. In the text itself you can be exact—that’s what the Holy One, blessed be He, wrote. Interpretations—fine, what is there to be exact about in interpretations? Or to be exact about letters when you recite the Shema in English. What holiness is there if you didn’t pronounce the G-H? Meaning, it matters a little. So yes, Maimonides probably understood that in Hebrew too that’s the case. The Nazir, by the way, speaks about this. The Nazir was an academic. The Nazir did not color everything with that color; he didn’t study faith / belief, even though today they study him as one of the knights of faith / belief. But the Nazir studied Jewish thought. Therefore I say that the academics who study Jewish thought are basically, in a certain sense, the Nazir’s study hall. You can see it: he brings sources, he brings contexts, he doesn’t… he shows that there are disputes in these things. He shows that Maimonides—what does “shows” mean? It’s obvious—that Maimonides disagreed with Nachmanides and with several other medieval authorities (Rishonim) about the meaning of the holy tongue, which from the Mercaz perspective is almost heresy. Meaning, there he was the clear disciple of Rabbi Kook. Yes, but Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda was also a clear disciple of Rabbi Kook. And with them they very much do not accept him in that way. They don’t really study what he wrote all that much, but yes, he too is part of the pantheon, the Nazir—but without entering details. Meaning, he’s not part of the canon that everyone has to study, or that anyone thinks… I don’t think they study him there, certainly not in a systematic way. And if they do, then again it’s in translation into a faith-language. Now beyond that, the language is usually collective language. Meaning, “we believe that such-and-such,” and “it is our tradition that such-and-such.” Not “I think.” There’s no such thing as “I think.” Meaning, would someone there giving a lesson say, “I think such-and-such”? What do you mean, you think? Moses received Torah at Sinai and handed it to Rabbi Kalner. Meaning, the question is what the Holy One, blessed be He, said at Sinai; it’s not a question of what you think. Therefore it’s “we believe” or “we think”; yes, it fits what we think. Everything is this kind of collective language, because there is nothing else. There is what is right and what is not right. Now this is so opposite to what Rabbi Kook talks about, but even for that there are conversions, because Rabbi Kook talks about there being truths also in distant places and in every place there is a point that one can… I’ll show you it also appears in Kierkegaard, or in Maimonides, or also… The intention is that in every place there is a true point, not that I’m willing to examine someone who doesn’t say what I say because there’s a certain aspect he may hit upon. No, no: it all undergoes translations. This translation of faith / belief is very interesting, because they have to remain attached to Rabbi Kook, because he is their teacher and master and everything came from there. Now, in a great many matters he said the complete opposite of what they do, think, and say—completely, absolutely. And everything goes through translation, meaning in studying faith / belief even that goes through translation. Meaning, everything gets reconciled; everything is translated, everything is fine. By the way, Rabbi Tao is of course allowed to read everything, because he’s already… it’s like the Hasidic rebbe, meaning he knows how to make all the rectifications on all things. But ordinary people—first year, third year, ninth year—then for them it’s “do not ascend by steps to My altar.” He has a general education. What? Rabbi Tao. Yes, yes, obviously, obviously, and that’s agreed on by them. Therefore he… because for him it’s permitted. Meaning, because he is in that position. It’s like the Hasidic rebbe who was permitted to do what the Hasidim were forbidden to do. Meaning, Rabbi Kook remains only for Rabbi Tao, and not for all the… I mean, there are degrees to this. I assume Rabbi Kalner is also allowed, but you know… But it’s Rabbi Tao’s line and not Rabbi… from their perspective. From their perspective, the one who remained the true rabbi, the true students of the Rabbi… this is what Rabbi Sherlo then told me: what do you mean, I’m a student of Rabbi Kook exactly like they are. But it doesn’t interest me whether you’re students of Rabbi Kook, so I don’t really enter into that argument. I don’t care whether I’m a student of Rabbi Kook or not. I learned things from him, I learned things from others—what difference does it make whether I’m a student of Rabbi Kook or not? But there are people for whom it matters, so he said: I’m a student of Rabbi Kook no less than they are. I think we once also spoke about how he was attacked over a book he published, Rabbi Sherlo, and they attacked him by saying he had not served genuine Torah scholars, that he had not… he’s not from this study hall at all, so how does he write a book about it, what does he understand at all. Not only that, he also had not served genuine Torah scholars. There was someone in Shavei Hevron who also wrote against Rabbi Sherlo—this was years ago, I think—that he had not served genuine Torah scholars, and what is he anyway—is he even a rabbi? He’s not a rabbi at all. That’s the approach of the “little rabbis” of Rabbi Avraham Shapira; he basically opened this whole thing that everyone is “little rabbis.” So… but he was speaking more in the halakhic context, I think, and they translated it into a worldview context. So he said to them: so what, Rabbi Lichtenstein is not a genuine Torah scholar? And Rabbi Soloveitchik, his father-in-law and teacher, is not a genuine Torah scholar? So all kinds of discourse developed there, but in the end he said: yes, but besides that I’m also a student of Rabbi Kook through Rabbi Amital and not through Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, so what’s the problem? Or through Rabbi Charlap and not through Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, so why am I not a student of the Rabbi? So again, the discourse there is: no, he is not a student of Rabbi Kook, because there are no students of Rabbi Kook except for our bubble. And by the way, part of this problem—it reflects a problem. In itself it’s not the problem; it reflects a problem, because the very question whether you’re a student of Rabbi Kook or not, in my opinion, that’s where the problem begins. So he’s not a student of Rabbi Kook—so what? Then he’s a student of Rabbi Soloveitchik, or not a student of anyone, he’s an autodidact—check his words on their own merits. What do you care whose student he is? And again, this is some sort of approach that is again a kind of sectarian characteristic: the question is where did these pearls come from, from whose belly did these pearls emerge—not whether they are pearls or not, but from which belly they came. But there’s also this thing where the rabbi says sometimes it’s the students’ mistake—you understand the language, how things are conducted, the secret of apprenticeship. The stupid claim was that you don’t understand how this mindset works. But again I say: then present arguments. Say this argument is incorrect because such-and-such. But instead of presenting arguments, you say he didn’t serve genuine Torah scholars. That’s not substantive. If you have arguments, present them and we’ll discuss them. He has… he speaks a different language from theirs, that’s clear. But he said: fine, so what? I speak a different language. I’m not anyone’s student, and I have a certain language, another language, okay, and you disagree—say why you disagree. This labeling is a substitute for substantive discussion. And why? Deliberately. They’re not willing to discuss matters substantively with someone who isn’t one of them. He is not an equal partner in some round-table discourse. We are not willing to sit with him. He isn’t part of the thing. He’s simply not part of the redeeming Torah. Meaning, he didn’t study faith / belief, he studied Jewish thought—heaven forbid—so he is not really a partner in the inner discourse. Yes, I once saw that—there was maybe you heard, on Hoshana Rabbah אצל… So he gave a lesson there. Yaakov? No, no, his brother, Yaakov. So he said there: “But the Rabbi of blessed memory said such-and-such,” without saying who “the Rabbi of blessed memory” was. So everyone kind of whispered: that’s Rabbi Shmuel. So everyone was whispering, who is “the Rabbi of blessed memory,” who is “the Rabbi of blessed memory,” and then I thought to myself: “the Rabbi of blessed memory” is an instance. Yes, yes, the one who studied in Ponevezh. No, but it’s a rhetorical trick. He knew no one knew who “the Rabbi of blessed memory” was. But it’s as if to say: I belong to that same closed group connected to the Rabbi of blessed memory, and anyone who doesn’t understand that—it’s not even worth explaining it to him. Meaning, he simply isn’t… so it’s like “our master the Rabbi of blessed memory” in Har HaMor, and that’s why it reminded me of this. Meaning, you have to say the name without saying the name, namely “the Rabbi of blessed memory.” It’s terribly important. Now if you’re in an internal forum, fine, because everyone knows whom we mean—“the Rabbi of blessed memory” means Rabbi Kook—I can understand that. But no, they also have some interest, outwardly, in saying “our master the Rabbi of blessed memory,” period. Now who is “the Rabbi of blessed memory”? There are all kinds of rabbis of blessed memory one could think of. But no—it’s supposed to convey to you the message that you’re not even supposed to have any doubt who “the Rabbi of blessed memory” is when I use that term. I also heard expressions regarding students from the school of Rabbi Soloveitchik—the rabbi there too. With Rabbi Lichtenstein it was often the difference between “the Rav” and “the Rabbi.” “The Rav” was Rabbi Soloveitchik and “the Rabbi” was Rabbi Kook; it seems to me that’s how it worked with him. Everyone calls “the rabbi” whoever… No, I understand. Therefore I say: if it’s internal discourse, no problem. But when Rabbi Lichtenstein spoke with students, he didn’t say “the Rabbi of blessed memory”; I promise you he didn’t. He said Rabbi Soloveitchik, because he understands that one has to explain whom one means. That’s perfectly fine, that he sees him as his teacher and says “that’s the Rav,” no problem, and all your students know where it comes from too. But there it has become a kind of propaganda device. Meaning, it’s not only internal discourse. Fine, you speak in your language, that’s okay. But when the language becomes sacred, when everyone who hears you must belong here, otherwise you have nothing to say to him if he doesn’t belong to the right milieu—then obviously you speak to him as though it’s internal discourse. They don’t perceive it as internal discourse; it’s the Jewish discourse. I call it internal discourse because there’s also other discourse—there’s this study hall, there’s another study hall, each has its own language. For them, though—for them it isn’t internal discourse, it’s the Jewish discourse, meaning the discourse of faith / belief. They study faith / belief. Yes, it’s a way to neutralize subversive messages. Censorship of Rabbi Kook’s writings—of course the greatest censors are, naturally, the people of Har HaMor, who censor at every step. Look, we studied here for one year “For the Perplexed of the Generation,” and there I spoke about this a bit, that there was a world war over it. Now meanwhile the book has come out. No, no, the authorized edition by Rahmani the traitor—the late Rabbi Rahmani. No, it didn’t come out. I got permission from him to study from the file. So they fought against him—from within Mercaz HaRav. I don’t know exactly where he’s located there on the map, but he’s close to the whole thing; he’s not someone distant. But he was honest enough—even did a doctorate in Jewish thought, heaven forbid, at the university. And in the university, by the way, you’re not allowed to study—not Jewish thought, not Talmud, not Bible, nothing. Physics yes, mathematics yes, for someone who can’t manage to study Torah—but not things that compete, nothing. It’s all simply heresy, all invalid; there’s nothing there. Categorically, completely. Whereas Rabbi Kook, of course, was exactly the opposite. He wanted to bring in academia too; he wanted everything. With criticism—one should be critical, that’s not a problem—but not sweeping criticism. So where was I, yes, censorship, the censorship they do on the books. There the censorship is brutal. I saw—I made the comparison between the book that came out, when they had already seen that the manuscript was leaking out, so they put out some censored manuscript with all kinds of sections omitted, because it’s not yet fit for the young flock. Only Rabbi Tao can understand the sublime secrets in those censored passages. And there he speaks about Christianity and all kinds of other matters in a way that can sound sympathetic, or all kinds of ideas—in short, rather subversive ideas. And similarly regarding all kinds of things, “Lights of Holiness” versus the “Eight Notebooks,” all kinds of world wars about censoring the Rabbi’s writings. The Nazir did it. What? It was the Nazir in his editing. Yes, the Nazir. He himself was also an editor. He influenced the editing; he wasn’t a censor. But there apparently were there—at least those are the claims, I haven’t checked them—also considerations of censorship. And when the “Eight Notebooks” came out, there too there was a war against publishing Rabbi Kook’s “Eight Notebooks.” And why? Because there are all kinds of passages there that did not pass into the public domain through censorship. They are simply not willing to let people access the writings. Also the Nazir’s writings, by the way. They’re not willing. The writings are sealed, and there are major struggles over getting access to them, reaching them. Aren’t the Nazir’s writings in the family’s possession? They are in possession—at the Ari Fish Institute, I think; most of them are there—and not everyone can access them. And even if you can, you can’t publish, you can’t… Today it’s a bit more open, someone told me, because once they asked me to do some work there and I ended up not going, but I know there were all kinds of struggles. Now why does it bother you? It’s written there. If it says nonsense there, then say you disagree. What—or if not? No, there’s no such thing. Because with Rabbi Kook, if something is written, it immediately obligates. Meaning, so what do you do? You censor. What do you mean? That way everything is fine. So our master the Rabbi of blessed memory speaks through the mouth of our master the Rabbi, may he live a long life, and everything is fine. Meaning, everything is straightened out. Every single thing in the world. Seriousness, for example—which might sound like a positive characteristic. Every single thing in the world is treated with abyssal seriousness. Meaning, there is nothing in the world that happens by chance, of course. Everything is the result of cosmic processes. Meaning, nothing happens just because it happened, because someone did this or something did otherwise. But beyond that, every single thing is so serious, every single thing gets close scrutiny and interpretation and they examine whether it’s correct and fits the ideology or doesn’t fit the ideology. Now ostensibly that’s something worthy of praise. You relate seriously to your life, to how you behave. But my feeling is that life still includes plain, ordinary, prosaic elements that you just live, and that’s fine. You don’t need to explain why you chose to eat this roll or that roll at breakfast. Fine, maybe I’m exaggerating, but I mean on the level of principle: okay, this means such-and-such and that means such-and-such. What? This abyssal seriousness, where everything is in some holy fire, that too is a kind of sectarian characteristic. Very ideological conduct. Common sense is of course a dirty word, and the evil inclination. “Torah wisdom” has become the opposite of ordinary people’s wisdom. Wherever there is common sense, that’s immediately the evil inclination. It probably isn’t right if it’s common sense, just as Maimonides writes that there are those who dislike giving reasons for the commandments, because then it makes the Holy One, blessed be He, human. And it’s the same thing. If you explain these things in the language of common sense, then what have we done? Faith / belief is supposed to show that the whole business is not as ordinary people see it, not as the regular person interprets it. We are the only ones who truly understand what’s going on here. So it has to be against common sense, in a certain sense. The translation is not a translation into common sense; the opposite: it’s a translation of common sense into their crooked sense. Meaning, how to show that everything really fits the crooked sense. Those are the translations they make. Now the view of reality is always, of course, “a deep gaze.” Because if you just look at reality as it is, then you don’t understand it. You always have to look with a deep gaze. Now there are those who can understand it and those who cannot, because they are ordinary people. There is the military structure—I mentioned the military structure; I see this is taking me a long time. The military structure is basically this: there are the leaders of the sect, who see all the forces of darkness around, yes, here I’ve moved into the language of Harry Potter because it really reminded me of that—and this is what people were so insulted by in these passages. They see all the forces of darkness and they truly understand what’s going on here. Now they explain to the people around them, to the inner circle—it is built in a military hierarchy. They explain to the people around them what the truth is. And those people, those among them who have sufficiently filled their bellies with Talmudic texts and halakhic decisors—of course Talmudic texts and halakhic decisors, the white Talmudic text, Talmudic texts and halakhic decisors—go outward and explain it to the masses. That’s how it works. So for example the jokes are that Elisha is the military arm of Har HaMor. Yes, that’s the joke, that… But it’s a joke with a lot of truth in it. What? Shavei Hevron. Shavei Hevron even, although Shavei Hevron isn’t a women’s seminary, it’s a yeshiva. But Elisha is a women’s seminary—that’s really a military arm. But yes, Shavei Hevron is in a more internal circle, and still external of course. And there are these circles, and the truth bubbles up from inside outward. And then there are representatives who go out to explain to the public what “Torah wisdom” says about everything happening here. So from time to time there are these conferences where people come. Such ridiculous megalomanias, such megalomanias, where explanations on behalf of the heads of the sect—those certified by them—go out through platform nine and three-quarters, as is known, because only through there can one go out in a kosher way and not be contaminated by the impurity of foreign lands according to the method of “a cloud and a tower,” and then they are qualified to give the true, authentic explanations, with the deep gaze, of what is really happening. Not what you really think is happening—that’s nonsense, it’s all persecutions by the New Israel Fund. And some kind of megalomania that we are the only ones standing against the whole world. Meaning, the world sits on us. In a certain sense, that’s a bit like the Jewish ethos generally, that the world stands on Torah, because otherwise—how does it go? “The laws of heaven and earth I would not have established.” “Were it not for My covenant day and night,” yes exactly, “the laws of heaven and earth I would not have established.” Meaning, if they stop studying Torah, then there’s the order of saving the world. You know after the Shavuot night watch? Everyone goes to sleep, the world will be destroyed, nobody is studying Torah. There is this in yeshivot, but there it’s clear they say it jokingly. In yeshivot they say: there’s the order of saving the world. Those who are strong stay to study after the prayer service, stay awake after prayers and study until noon when other people wake up, in order to keep the world standing. Okay, so with them the conception is that it’s always like that: they are in the order of saving the world, because they are the only ones doing the redeeming Torah. I’d explain to them that on Shavuot, during the hours in New York, while they sleep, people there are studying. Yes. External wisdoms—we don’t deal with such things. They are terribly afraid of what goes on in the world of the muggles, yes, outside. Meaning, what things happen there. Only people who are qualified and have undergone the proper inoculations can go outside and not be harmed and not be damaged, and on the contrary, to illuminate all the lights that need illuminating for all the muggles outside. Everyone else is of course the Messiah’s donkey. In that sense, Sefi Rachlevsky’s book—which pinned it on Rabbi Kook, in my opinion not very justly—“The Messiah’s Donkey,” yes, the book that stirred so much uproar. But it describes very accurately the Har HaMor conception: that everyone is basically the Messiah’s burden-bearers. I remember Rabbi Blumentzweig being so insulted when once a messenger came from Rabbi Tao telling them to go out to a demonstration against—I don’t remember—one of the Torah decrees, I don’t remember what, conscription, Supreme Court, I don’t remember, something like that. There was some kind of… Why aren’t you going out to demonstrate? he asked Rabbi Blumentzweig. And he understood why not; he was only asking angrily like that—I remember speaking about it. Meaning because they’re not… they sit and study Torah to sustain the world. The military arm is what needs to go out to demonstrate, because there are the people who actualize; they need to go into the field and act according to the leadership’s instructions. There is a very, very hierarchical structure there. By the way, Rabbi Hanan’el Eterog, who is the head of Yeshivat Shavei Hevron, once dared to come out against something—I don’t remember anymore—that Rabbi Tao said. He was smacked down and got down on all fours and returned to his kennel and apologized and this and that, because otherwise they would have boycotted him and put him outside the camp and that’s it. He dared to say something where he thought differently; I don’t even remember on what issue. There’s no such thing. Meaning, the military discipline—you immediately get a court-martial if you don’t know your place. You belong to the circle between the yeshivot—the yeshiva that is the world central yeshiva—yes, out of this megalomania of Har HaMor. No, obviously. I’m saying their appropriation is megalomaniacal. Rabbi Kook didn’t speak about it like that. Rabbi Kook spoke of it as a hope, as a utopia. They speak of it as metaphysics. Meaning, the yeshiva—if it won’t be, for Rabbi Kook this was the vision of establishing this yeshiva. They see themselves as such that if they are not here, no one will be. And therefore clearly there are circles: the surrounding yeshivot, the higher yeshivot around—Beit El, I don’t know, Shavei Hevron, although Beit El is more central—but they see the surrounding higher yeshivot as the first circle, after that the hesder yeshivot, after that the preparatory academies, and in the end the guys who teach in the high-school yeshivot, who are all emissaries of the yeshiva, and there are quite a few of them by the way. And therefore their influence in the high schools is far beyond their proportion in the population, because there are quite a lot of educators who come from this study hall. So this hierarchical conception is also some kind of… they see themselves as a kind of army. A bit like Chabad too, where Chabad talks about the army of God and mitzvah tanks and so on. It’s not just expressions. There’s something here that is the real conception. Recognition of what is good outside is only when the outside knows its place. Therefore when the outside threatens and presents an alternative—absolutely not, it will be Har HaMor. That’s why I said humanities and all these things at the university—heaven forbid to mention it. No Har HaMor graduate would dare go there. Unless he is looked upon as excommunicated. Meaning, it’s not… going to university is a different matter if it’s physics or mathematics or things of that kind. Now I’m certainly not suspect as one of the greatest devotees of the humanities, but this apocalyptic disqualification is problematic. Why? Because the outside doesn’t know its place. Meaning, it offers an alternative. Even other yeshivot are illegitimate, because other yeshivot that do not see themselves as vassals of Har HaMor are not yeshivot. Those aren’t genuine Torah scholars; they’re toy Torah scholars. Meaning, they don’t really belong to the army. What is their attitude to the whole world of Haredi yeshivot, Lithuanian and so on? They are mistaken in worldview, mistaken in worldview, toward whom they have a very deep inferiority complex in the learning context. In worldview—but they are the continuation of Volozhin Yeshiva, of Rabbi Kook. They handed it to Rabbi Kook. I explained again—you’re missing the Ethics of the Fathers. Meaning, you have an early version of Ethics of the Fathers. And the attitude toward Mercaz? Huh? Toward Mercaz. Mercaz I don’t know well enough, but you know, that’s part of the matter. Mercaz became a Haredi yeshiva in their view. And there’s a lot of truth in that by the way. In many respects Mercaz is a Haredi yeshiva. Regular Haredi, Haredi in the Lithuanian sense. How in Mercaz do they view Har HaMor? I don’t know enough to tell you, although I have a son who studied there and is somewhat connected, but I don’t know enough. I think there is in Mercaz great appreciation for Har HaMor, and since they are still students of Rabbi Kook and still somewhat inside this world that only we are Rabbi Kook’s students and not others, that exists in Mercaz too, just in different doses, with a different megalomania. So there is some appreciation, or some kind of deference, toward Har HaMor. There’s something like that. In Mercaz there’s deference toward Har HaMor? The students, I’m speaking now, yes. The teachers maybe too, but I don’t know. But certainly this I know—I’ve spoken with people. Fine, I’ll stop here.