Live-blogging the WCJS and Rav Kook
Manuscriptboy and Izgad have been doing a wonderful job of live-blogging the WCJS (World Congress of Jewish Studies) which is taking place this week in Jerusalem. Anyone who has ever been to a WCJS knows how overwhelming it can be at times. Ynet has an article (for now only in Hebrew) on one of the lectures to be given. Udi Abromovitz will be speaking about the censorship and editing of Rav Kook’s writings by his son Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook. I must admit that I was never a big fan of Rav Kook’s writings, I guess one of the main reasons is that I usually never understood what he was trying to say. The editing and censorship of Rav Kook’s writings has been spoken about before and Abromovitz does not attribute the actions of Rav Tzvi Yehudah to any malicious intent. According to him it was often driven by a desire to save his father from even more opposition and scorn from his opponents. A good place to start for a discussion about the trials and tribulations of Rav Kook’s writings is Avinoam Rosenak, “Hidden Diaries and New Discoveries: The Life and Thought of Rabbi A. I. Kook,” in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 25.3 (2007) 111-147. For some material on-line see these two abstracts from Tarbitz.