(IsraelNN.com) As part of the ongoing commemorations of the 73rd anniversary of the death of the saintly Rabbi A. I. HaCohen Kook, the Beit HaRav museum/educational center will sponsor a symposium on the topic of Modern-Day Teshuvah this Wednesday evening.

Speakers such as Rabbi Yaakov Filber, Michi Yosefi, and others will address the relationship between the philosophies of Rabbi Kook and Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.

Breslov Making Inroads
The Breslov philosophy has attracted many returnees to Judaism in recent years, including among religious-Zionist youth.

For those who might not be able to attend the symposium, the B'Sheva weekly newspaper asked four "panelists" to opine on the following question: "In light of the growing interest in Hassidic thought, has there been a change in the central place occupied by the philosophy of Rabbi Kook in directing the generation?"

The four thinkers who were asked to respond were:

• Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, Dean of Yeshivat Nir Kiryat Arba and one of the veteran students of Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook in Merkaz HaRav
• Rabbi Haggai Londin, lecturer in the Haifa Yeshiva Hesder, and author of 'Selected Essays in the Philosophy of Rav Kook'
• Professor of Jewish Philosophy Tamar Ross, Bar Ilan University
• Rabbi Yehuda Melamed, lecturer in Yeshivat Ramat Gan

Excerpts from their responses follow.

Rabbi Waldman:
I do not believe there has been a change in the centrality of Rabbi Kook's teachings. The fact is that in all the yeshivot, whoever wants a deep, nationalist, faith-based, greatness-in-Torah outlook - and especially one who wants to find answers to the problems of the generation, and the special events of the Redemption, with all their difficulties and complexities - the only source that relates to these issues is the philosophy of Rav Kook...

It's true that there is a certain degree of revival and awakening to various Hassidic philosophies, and there is a desire to study the "inner Torah," and to integrate joy of Torah - but all of this is found in Rav Kook's thought...

In the final analysis, Rav Kook's philosophy, with all its Torah sources upon which he drew - the Written Torah, the Oral Torah, the 'hidden Torah' [Kabbalah] - all of these represent the special revelation of the "Land of Israel Torah" in our generation.

Rav Kook was the 'soul of Teshuvah [repentance],' and the entirety of his teachings centers around that issue: World Teshuvah, National Teshuvah, Teshuvah that was created before the world was created, Teshuva that is revealed in the Redemption process, and more.  In today's generation, with all its problems, weaknesses and difficulties, we see clearly how his words are actualized. Our path today is illuminated by the Torah of Rav Kook.

Rabbi Londin:
In terms of content, Rav Kook's understanding is more correct today than ever before. He writes that the modern heresy movement is not the output of a steeled culture, but stems rather from the [contemporary] arousal of forces of science, knowledge, might, social ethics, and the like that are not expressed in the way the Torah is currently presented. Therefore, Rav Kook's solution - to reveal the full dimensions of the true depth of Torah, in order to meet the above challenges - remains the central path for service of G-d even in our generation.

The increasingly-popular Hassidic writings of the last few years, with all their importance, do not deal with these issues. They do not provide a spiritual philosophy teaching how to manage an entire society from a spiritual point of view. They rather concentrate on the individual-spiritual experience, with New-Age individualistic demands, but without a comprehensive understanding that combines Torah and life in all their expanses: community and individual, intellect and emotion, sacred and profane, religion and state.

True, it cannot be ignored that there is an increasing demand for issues of the individual, the emotional experience, and the like... There is also a technical problem in that Rabbi Kook's literary style was acceptable 100 years ago, but is foreign to most of today's readers. The Hassidic writings popular today do not suffer from these two problems...

These difficulties in Rabbi Kook's writings can be overcome by 'translating' them into lucid language - an enterprise that has already begun - and by emphasizing the areas in which Rav Kook deals with the individual, though in a manner that is connected with the community. Studying "the individual" in Rav Kook's comprehensive Torah will provide the strength of the personal experience without the estrangement from other life systems that sometimes occurs to those who study the above-mentioned writings.

Prof. Ross:
Prior to today's New Age delving into Hassidic thought and various streams that are considered richer and freer than pure Halakhic thinking, Rav Kook symbolized for many youth the vital anti-establishment alternative that would quench their spiritual thirst.

Today, this constrains Rav Kook's thought, to a certain extent, on the more conservative side; his philosophy is perceived by some as closed and reactive, compared with more 'wild winds.'

This change in understanding Rav Kook has occurred chiefly because of the cautious interpretation given his writings by those who identify themselves as his closest students and students' students. Some of these do not want to ascribe to him modern and amorphous directions that, they feel, are far from traditional Judaism and endanger its stability.

This trend is the opposite of that which was prevalent when Rav Kook arrived in Israel [1904] and began disseminating his thought in the Old Yishuv. It is also the opposite of the situation in the 1960s when Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav began expanding its circle of influence, and his thought began arousing interest even in academic circles. During those periods, Rav Kook was perceived as an original thinker, presenting a unique ideology characterizing the 'Land of Israel Torah' that was filling a lack created over the course of 2,000 years of exile. Inter alia, this ideology excelled in granting more importance to personal desires, to unrestrained creative forces, and to openness and attentiveness to the drifts of the world at large. Today, these features characterize the... new trends of thought that have arisen partially to replace it.

Rabbi Melamed:
The answer is that Rav Kook's Torah is still as vital to us as air for breath. Without him, we never would have realized that we could both adhere to G-d and also deal with matters of the profane and of nation and state. Without Rav Kook, the Divine Presence would have remained in Belz, Breslov, Vilna and Haleb, and the residents of the Land of Israel would have [been reduced to] remembering it [the Divine Presence] with longing while uttering these place-names on their lips.

It was because of Rav Kook that the Divine Presence "returned" to Zion, and now adorns with special grace and beauty the settlement enterprise, the IDF, and more. The Rav taught that dealing with matters of nation and state do not weaken us, but rather give strength - and he did not only teach this, but also revealed the depth of the soul in which these matters interconnect...

In our yeshiva in Ramat Gan - a Zionist yeshiva which has a special bond with Hassidic learning and Hassidic-style service of G-d - we often say : 'Both are the word of the living G-d, but the law is like Rav Kook.' Specifically, there are three areas in which Rav Kook's way overrides that of classic Hassidism:
* Placing Torah study, including Hassidism, in the center;
* the importance of freedom - of man and of thought - as opposed to the exaggerated 'self-nullification' that is sometimes found in Hassidism;
* and that the center is not the Tzaddik, but rather Klal Yisrael, the community of Israel.

But there are so many wonderful aspects of serving G-d that can be taken from Hassidut, and when illuminated by the thought of Rav Kook, they receive their appropriate expanses.

In short, in paraphrasal of the Talmud: The synagogues and Torah study halls of the Diaspora are destined to be established in the Land of Israel.