Q&A: The Honor of Rabbi Kook
The Honor of Rabbi Kook.
Question
I read in the book what you brought about Rabbi Kook’s composition.
Apparently, testing it with a text generator empties Rabbi Kook’s wisdom and words of their content, and presents his writings as a jumble of nonsense that can be interpreted and made to sound however anyone wants.
One could argue that the wisdom is tremendous and deep, and that it just can’t be discerned.
But that sounds unreasonable and dishonest to me. And not correct.
So apparently there is no escaping the conclusion that Rabbi Kook was speaking beside the point?
I’m really trying to understand the necessary conclusion.
Thank you very much.
Answer
Absolutely not. My claim is that our understanding of his words is largely arbitrary, and therefore in many cases we have no way of knowing how wise he was. But he certainly does sound like he was very wise—not because of his philosophical texts, but because of various testimonies and his responsa. There are certain passages, less flowery and poetic, where one can understand the argument clearly, and perhaps from them one can also get an impression of his wisdom.
Discussion on Answer
No, that definitely does not mean that. It means that we do not necessarily understand what he wrote. He may have meant deep and beautiful things.
Come on, really?!
Maybe he had divine inspiration?!
Why wouldn’t I understand?!
Tell me, are you even reading what I write, or am I just wasting the keyboard?
I wrote very clearly, in a way that cannot be understood differently: his wording is poetic, and therefore can be understood in several ways. It is hard to know what he means, even though it is possible that he wrote sensible and profound things. Is everyone who writes in an ambiguous or problematic style possessed of divine inspiration? Is divine inspiration the only reason someone might be unable to understand a text?
With God’s help, 19 Tevet 5782
To E.R. — greetings,
The fact that a text remains meaningful even if the order of its words or letters is changed does not prove anything.
For example, Jacob’s blessing can also be read as: “For Your salvation I have hoped, O Lord,” and also “I have hoped, O Lord, for Your salvation,” and also “For Your salvation, O Lord, I have hoped,” also “I have hoped for Your salvation, O Lord,” also “O Lord, I have hoped for Your salvation,” and also “O Lord, for Your salvation I have hoped.” All the possible combinations are meaningful.
And likewise, if we change the order of the letters in “Elchanan Rhein,” we could get “Lachanai Arnan,” or say “La’aran,” or “Paper for Hanana” (in modern Hebrew: tissue for the nose 🙂 since in Arabic “hanana” means a runny nose) — at least three meaningful combinations.
So what is the difficulty if Rabbi Kook’s writings too can produce a meaningful combination under a different order?
Best regards, General Mitsubishush
Okay. I understood the answer. I agree.
I didn’t say that ambiguous wording is divine inspiration; it just sounded like a charitable reading of vague speech. And I was speaking sarcastically.
And as for me, when there is ambiguous language and talented people cannot identify its content, I tend to think that there is not something important hidden there.
I understood (from you) that there are other places where it is proven that he was a great man. Accepted.
Thank you very much.
With God’s help, 20 Tevet 5782
For those who struggle to understand Rabbi Kook’s writings, here is a helpful piece of advice I heard (about 40 years ago) in a lesson by Rabbi Tzvi Tau, may he live long: look carefully at the last line of the paragraph, and from it one can understand the central idea that Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook wanted to express in that paragraph.
Best regards, Shraga Kopel Feitelovsky-Naveh
Okay.
But in the passages where it’s impossible to identify the real text out of the four, that means he wrote nonsense. Or just unclear things that sound good.