Question

Hi Michi,
In the electronic magazine “On the Left Side,” I read an article by Dr. Yitzhak Chayotman, an innovative architect who is also deeply involved in Jewish thought. In this article he addresses the roots of Religious Zionism, and among other things he compares Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook with his son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook:

In studying Kookism, one must distinguish between the father, Abraham Isaac Kook, and the son, Zvi Yehuda Kook—between the spiritual giant who stood head and shoulders above all the thinkers of Zionism, and the pathetic son who narrowed the entire vision down to “fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). In the Rabbi’s house I saw two pictures facing one another, of the father and the son, one like an angel of God and the other deeply wrinkled and looking like an antisemitic caricature. On the father’s universal vision, see:

Here he added a link to a long article by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, which for me was very interesting because it shed light on things I simply hadn’t known before, and there were points he elaborated on.
One of the things that caught my attention was Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook’s distinction between nefesh, ruach, and neshamah.
At the time I shared with you my criticism of the rabbi’s statement about the difference between the soul of a Jew and the soul of a gentile.
Well, in this article the matter is explained more clearly, but there is not even the slightest comfort in that.
I’m raising this topic because, among other things, it is the foundation of the rabbi’s view of Zionism as the beginning of redemption.
More than once in my dialogue with you I’ve brought up this issue, which is very hard for me.
I’m not sure whether you know the following case: a short time after the Six-Day War, a commander of a terrorist cell named William Nasser was captured in Jerusalem. His mother was Jewish!
So according to Jewish law, this young scholar was also a perfectly kosher Jew!…
Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook didn’t invent anything new here; he merely consolidated older ideas, and since they were old—that is, practiced by the medieval authorities—they have halakhic validity.
From here I leap to phlogiston, which was invented in order to explain chemical reactions on the basis of ignorance. It seems to me that this is exactly what the Sages did with the Jewish soul, which made it easier for them to explain various negative phenomena that happen to Jews, without there being any ability to prove the soul’s existence.
If not for the fact that Kookian theology affects, in various ways, the totality of the State of Israel’s existence, I could ignore the phlogiston assumption—ah no, I meant of course the soul assumption…
Now let’s move on to mundane matters: tomorrow I’m supposed to meet again with the engineer about my idea.
I decided that despite the difficulties I would try to calculate for myself the engine power required for the expected operation, and the results are embarrassing: that is, either I don’t know how to calculate it [I’m allowed not to know!], or although I managed to convince 3 engineers that the idea is possible—still, it isn’t practical. Too bad, but not terrible.
Or [I think I may already have shared this thought with you] a lot of engineers will tear their hair out [those who still have any…] in astonishment—how did we not think of this idea.
So meanwhile, all the best to you.