The Mystical Theologian of Religious Zionism

Born in 1865 to a rabbinic family in the Russian shtetl of Griva (now a district of the Latvian city Daugavpils), Abraham Isaac Kook studied with some of the leading rabbis of his day, while also cultivating an interest in both secular thought and in Kabbalah. In 1904, he took a position as rabbi of Jaffa in Ottoman Palestine. Kook in subsequent years developed a radical theological understanding of Zionism, the meaning of history, the mystical import of the Jewish return to Israel, and the relationship between secular and religious Jews. In a three-part conversation with Nachi Weinstein, Yehudah Mirsky delves into the twists and turns of Kook’s life and his controversial and influential ideas. (The first episode is below, the others can be found here and here. Audio, 74 minutes.)