exile and redemption in the thought of isaac …traditionarchive.org/news/originals/volume 26/no....

Rivka Horwitz

Rivka Horwitz is Professor of Jewish thought at Ben-GurianUniversity in Be' er Sheva and editor of Iyyunimbe-Mishnato shel ¥ìtshak Breuer.

EXILE AND REDEMPTION IN THETHOUGHT OF ISAAC BREUER

i. BREUER AND ROSENZWEIG

The prominent literary critic Baruch Kurzweil saw in Isaac Breuer, withwhom he was personally well acquainted, one of the most significantJewish thinkers of the modern period. Kurzweil respected Breuer's

unqualified loyalty to the world of his forefathers as well as his protractedstruggle against the dangers of the modern world. Perhaps due to his ownneed to build his personal world, Kurzweil repeatedly drew attention inhis essays to the ideological similarity between Franz Rosenzweig andBreuerl with regard to their emphasis upon the eternal, the Exile, and themetahistorical, which he saw as the antithesis to temporality, modernnationalism, and history and historicism.2

Kurzweil once wrote:3 "Both Rosenzweig and Isaac Breuer,between whom there are interesting points of similarity, despite theirdifferences, well understood the dangers inherent in modern national-ism." In fact, one who encounters Breuer only through reading Kurz-

weil's descriptions will never suspect that one encounters in this thinkerintense longing for the imminent messianic redemption of the Jewishpeople, and that his thought is rooted in the profound feeling that theredemptive era has already begun. We would know from Kurzweil noth-ing of Breuer's great love for the Land of Israel and its rebuilding, nor ofhis interest in Qabbala and mysticism. Breuer often said, followingNahmanides,4 that "the presence of the people of Israel among the nationsis itself the Exile of the Shekhina"!

Thus, in studying Breuer's thought, one aspect-that involvingExile-may be understood through comparison with Rosenzweig and

Kurzweil, while another aspect, that involving redemption, must be stud-ied in terms of another personality, namely, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.

Kurzweil shares both Breuer's and Rosenzweig's opposition to theidea of change of values; in their opinion, 20th-century Judaism mustTRAITION, 26(2), Winter 1992 ~ 1992 Rabbinical Council of America 77

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continue the path of Israel of Old, anchored in the traditional life of theTorah. They share the ideas of the election of the Jewish people, thatJudaism in the 20th century is rooted in classical Rabbinic Judaism, andthat the Jews are the people of God who have a unique history.s Theseideas stand in sharp contrast to secular Zionist thinkers such as, forexample, Jacob Klatzkin, who argues that a fundamental re-evaluation ofvalues has taken place since the Emancipation, and that there is placetoday for Jews who have nothing in common with Judaism apart fromtheir relation to Jewish nationalism. Without realizing it, it would seemthat Breuer, Rosenzweig and Kurzweil held certain basic ideas in com-mon, similar to those expressed both by Samson Raphael Hirsch and theReform thinkers of the 19th century, who found it salutary that the Jewishpeople does not live a political life. This view is not an old one; itoriginated in the separation of religion and state that began in the 18th and19th centuries, and the corresponding change in the status of Jewry inWestern Europe during this period. As a consequence, 19th-century

thinkers, and in their wake, Breuer, Rosenzweig and KurzweIl, arrived atthe strengthening of their ahistorical, apolitical world-view, speaking inthe name of passivity and exchanging a real-political view for a utopianone. Kurzweil, who loathed both history and historicism, found supportfor his own ideas in the writings of these thinkers.

Isaac Breuer6 (1883-1946)-whom the present author had the privi-lege of knowing well during the last six years of his life-was thegrandson of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and the son of Rabbi SolomonBreuer; the founder of the yeshivah in Frankfurt-am-Main; an attorney byprofession; a writer and the author of works of philosophy as well as ofnovels; a successful public speaker; an expert on Kant; a lover of youthand of life; but, first and foremost, one who directed all of his passion andenergy towards the study of Torah, Talmud and all Jewish religiousliterature. He believed that the Torah is the eternal basis upon whichJudaism stands, and argued that one must long to consecrate all of one'sefforts towards strengthening the Torah in the hearts of the Jewish people.If there were, among the interpreters of Judaism in the West in the 19thcentury, those thinkers who sought to base all of Judaism upon an externalidea-speaking, for example, of ethical monotheism as the eternal basisof Judaism from which all else derives-Breuer argued that the eternalbasis of Judaism, from Sinai to the End of Days, was Torah, in the broadhalakhic and legal sense of the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.

But Breuer and Rosenzweig disagreed in their understanding ofTorah.7 While Rosenzweig was a liberal, Breuer made strenuous efforts toobserve the mitsvot meticulously, out of a sense of obedience and heartfeltyearning, struggling over a minor mitsvah as over a major one, anddemanding the same of others. The sharpness of pedagogic tone and thepolemic manner in which Breuer presented his ideas to liberal students or

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non-observant Zionists were well known; nevertheless, he revealed greatwarmth and philosophic respect towards Rosenzweig, although he knewwell that the latter's approach to Halakhah differed in principle from hisown. This warmth may not be explained simply on the basis of the factthat everyone in Frankfurt of the 1920's knew that Rosenzweig wasreturning towards Judaism and its tradition, and that he was afflicted witha fatal paralysis; we must add that Breuer, who is usually portrayed aszealous on behalf the Torah, occasionally moderated his path. In 1924,Rosenzweig sent Breuer a copy of his book, The Star of Redemption. Thelatter replied in a document which may be very surprising to those whoare unfamiliar with Breuer's more moderate side. He wrote:8

Dear Dr. Rosenzweig, may you live long:I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to you for The Star of Redemption. I

read the book over the course of several weeks, and can well say that these wereelevated hours for me. Already from the introduction, I was much excited by yourclassical rejection of the philosophy of "the AlL." Your portrayals of ancientreligion and of that of Muhammed were among the best I have ever read on thosesubjects. Your theory of aesthetics is excellent as well, and fits into your systemwithout any diffculty.

Your portrayal of Judaism is incomparably better than anything else that hasbeen written in recent years in those circles known as nationalistic (Buber). Even ifI do not personally think that your portrayal of Talmudic Judaism-the Judaism ofthe Hoshen Mishpat9-was suffciently comprehensive, while the holidays and theliturgy, which certainly do not encompass all of Judaism, were treated in asomewhat one-sided manner, one finds in your particulars a profound understandingwhich is in harmony with our tradition, such that I shall always feel indebted to theauthor. There are a number of places in the book which wil make every Jewishheart tremble.

Respectfully yours,

Dr. Isaac Breuer.

Just as Breuer treated Rosenzweig as an exception, agreeing withhim not only on the eternity of Israel, so did Rosenzweig behave towardsBreuer, agreeing on more than their common approach to Zionism.Despite their affliation with opposing camps, there was an underlyingempathy between these two personalities, which brought about a greatdeal of mutual understanding. In 1928, in one of the last essays he wasever to write, Rosenzweig again dealt with Breuer's thought. 10 In thecourse of a discussion of the distinction between dogmatic faith andcontent which encompasses the entirety of man, he states that "the hereticcan become a believer, while the orthodox can become a skeptic. Graetz'nationalistic approach to Jewish history may stem from faith, whileBreuer's legalistic outlook upon history may derive from lack of faith."But he goes on to add in parentheses an extremely significant comment:"I use the term 'outlook' advisedly, because I believe that Breuer's trueapproach is more faithful than his outlook." Rosenzweig felt Breuer'swholeheartedness and sincerity underneath the polemical and legalistic

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surface. This affrmative and insightful approach is further expressed inRosenzweig's reply to Breuer of March 28, 1924, which reads as

follows: 11

Dear Doctor,I was quite pleased to receive your letter. Only a short while before, I had

reread an old letter from the front which my mother had sent me, and realized that afew weeks before I began my work, "The Star,"12 (i.e., in 1918), I had read yourbook concerning the Jewish problem (Judenproblem),13 with which I expressedstrong agreement in a number of my letters. Afterwards, I read your bookMesyiasspuren14 (The Signs of Messiah) and your two novels;15 and it is only yourlatest book which I have not yet seen. The novels greatly excited me, because itseemed to me that you yourself sensed the problema tics of your position and,

without ignoring the diffculties, nevertheless continued to adhere to it,6It is true that the description of Judaism in "The Star" does not deal at length

with the halakhah, for two reasons--ne substantive and one personaL. The substan-

tive reason is that, as I wished to treat Judaism and Christianity in the third part in aparallel fashion, I needed to depict both of them to some extent from outside. Thesociological method used in both descriptions followed from this, as well as myrefusal to use two different points of departure, which would only be understood byone who is himself either Jewish or Christian-in the former the halakhah, in thelatter dogma. (Indeed, some Christians have rightly criticized me that I did notspeak about dogma at sufficient length.) It is understandable that I was unable todescribe dogma at greater length, but while I could have described the halakhah ingreater detail than I did, I refrained from doing so in order not to give undueadvantage to one side over the other in this battle of equal weapons. The personalreason is that, at the time I wrote this, I only knew it (i.e., the halakhah) veryslightly, and even now could have only been able to describe it in the broadestterms. When I concluded the writing of "The Star," I thought in my heart that atthis point I had before me many years of study and a life of teaching and study, andthat perhaps at the end, in myoId age, I might write another book, which would dealwith halakhah.

Again, my thanks for your letter, with all my heart,Franz Rosenzweig.

A central point of similarity between Breuer and Rosenzweig is theirunderstanding of Jewish being. Both believe that the Jews occupy aunique place in world history; both believe that the other nations live bythe sword, and that the state will never be able to lay down its sword; andboth hold a negative and pessimistic attitude towards politics, wars, andall those things in which statesmen are obliged to engage. The people ofIsrael, which is the eternal people and the people of peace, 17 must be

strangers to the state and therefore alien to the power games of worldhistory. Both Breuer and Rosenzweig are pessimistic in regard to worldhistory, which seems to them arational (in this they were both very closeto the approach of Schopenhauer, whom they much admired). Throughouthis life, Breuer displayed a lively interest in history, an area in which hewas widely read. Rosenzweig specialized in the nineteenth century, writ-ing a two-volume work, Hegel und der Staat (Hegel and the State). But, in

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essence, their writings reflect a theological approach to history, such ascan be found elsewhere in Christian or Jewish writings (such as theKuzari): History is understood as a realm of conflict, in which there arerepeated wars. Even modern nationalist movements do not appear in apositive light in their writings. In Der neue Kusari (The New Kuzari),Breuer wrote: "Is nationalism a means of value? One cannot expel theSatan by means of Beelzebub; nationalism is drenched in the blood ofhumanity. Human history appears as an insanity, with its continual wars,the enslavement of the weak by the strong, its infinite suffering andlimited joy. . . ." 18 In one of his letters, Rosenzweig states that "the shipknown as nationalism does not penetrate suffciently to the depths to sailupon the ocean of eternity." 19 In his view, this power is granted only toreligion. Judaism, Christianity and Paganism are thus the eternal contentsof history. Both Breuer and Rosenzweig therefore denied nationalism asone of the principal forces of our time, and insisted that the world requiredGod and His intervention to be saved. According to them, religion is thetrue power in the world. Therefore, history must become metahistory, andthis metahistory, this remnant, is the people of IsraeL.

According to Breuer,20 God created man "in His image," "with

clear mind and free wil," but because man ate from the tree which was"a temptation to the eye," the Divine Presence departed and went into

exile, thereby disturbing the complete harmony between man's will andGod's will. At the point at which Man was expelled from the Garden ofEden, the history of human exile began, and "the cherubs are still therewith an avenging sword," but it was man who chose tools of war whichgave mankind neither peace nor calmness. The technological innovationof smelting gave man the push towards human domination. According toBreuer, there were two Falls, two rebellions, at the beginning of humanhistory, the original rebellion of Adam, which brought about the departureof the Shekhinah, and the rebellion of the generation of the Tower ofBabel, which brought about the division of mankind and the divinizationof the individual ego.

In Breuer's thought, the Jewish people as an historical entity wasbrought into the world by God as a "protest" against the path of worldhistory and as a means of influencing it. Therefore, its history cannot beunderstood in isolation from universal world history. Indeed, Judaism

itself requires that one attempt to move the world towards redemption.Breuer and Rosenzweig both thought that the world is incomplete as

it is, and must be perfected by means of cooperation between God and thepeople of IsraeL. Rosenzweig also arrived at this idea through the writingsof Schelling, who spoke about the fact that the world, which wouldotherwise be destroyed because of man's sins, can only be saved throughGod's mercies. In Rosenzweig's view, God created the world, revealsHimself in it, and will assist in its redemption. Schelling also speaks about

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Creation, Revelation, and Redemption: the world, which is in danger oftotal separation from God, acquires a new meaning through the existenceof the Jewish people. In this universal theological consciousness, the

existence of the Jewish people acquires a special significance: the peopleof Israel are the chosen people, the people who received the Torah. Theyare unlike any other nation; they are" a unique nation on the earth. "21 InRosenzweig's formulation, the Jewish people do not exist through attach-ment to the soil, but must be a blood community. Their life is not basedupon evolution, which characterizes the life of the other nations. Whilethe other nations exist on the basis of power, "the unique nation does notknow war" -thus wrote Rosenzweig in 1919. It does not develop in anorganic way, but waits and wanders patiently because of its awareness ofits special task.22 In fact, this problem is a highly paradoxical one-thenations, whose lives are full of turbulence and vitality, die and disappearfrom the earth, while the Jewish nation, whose life is static, exists forever.

Both Breuer and Rosenzweig spoke of the need for cooperationbetween God and man in the redemption of the world-a variation of thewidely-accepted Lurianic idea of tikkun but with this difference: Rosen-zweig expounded what was essentially a doctrine of inwardness-animportant conception in his thought, and possibly also in his way of life.He wanted the Jew, first of all, to internalize his Judaism and live as a Jewin his inwardness, far away from the tumult of the external world. Breuer,on the other hand, did not draw such a clear-cut differentiation betweenthe external and the internal. For him, Judaism was a national law whichdemanded the activity of the Jew in the world. This difference was adecisive one, which relates as well to their respective understandings ofhistory and of metahistory. For Rosenzweig, metahistory is totally outsideof the historical framework, while for Breuer this is not so: to him, thereare points of contact between history and metahistory. However, it seemsto me that Breuer's thought also contains hints of an understanding of

Jewish history which is outside of the framework of time, along with hisclear statements that Jewish history is the history of righteousness, as

opposed to world history, which is the history of power and strength,between which there exists a certain confrontation. Breuer also thoughtthat Jewish history enriches world history and, unlike Rosenzweig, didnot see the Jews as figures isolated within themselves in world history.23Breuer argues that Judaism gave Western culture not only its monotheisticfaith but also-and again we hear the jurist in him speaking-the con-cepts of justice and righteousness.24 Breuer is nevertheless pessimistic

with regard to the rule of law among the nations. The legal systems of thenations of the world are weak; the world is the domain of hunters and thehunted.25 At the time of the French Revolution there arose a new hope foran international law which would unite mankind-but this hope was soondashed. Breuer envisages a time at which God will judge among thenations and all will listen to His voice.

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Both Breuer and Rosenzweig agree that the secret of the existence ofthe Jewish people is different from that of any other nation. The existenceof the Jewish people is opposed to all historical law; otherwise, how canone explain the existence of a people in exile over a period of thousandsof years? They both believed that, despite external similarities betweenthe Jewish people and the nations of the world, they are qualitativelydifferent. In one of his letters, Rosenzweig explains the differencebetween the Jew and the nations of the world by means of the followingparable: a village cantor once had to appear in court and explain to thejudge what a shofar was. The cantor found it diffcult to explain to thejudge, and became entangled in a long and convoluted explanation, untilin the end he blurted that the shofar was a trumpet. The judge asked him:If so, why didn't you say so in the beginning? The cantor replied: Becausenevertheless a shofar is not a trumpet. The same is true of the differencebetween Israel and the other nations.

According to Breuer,26 the history of the Jews in exile is miraculousand metahistorical: it is the greatest of all the ancient miracles. This fact isunparalleled in world history; the historian who wishes to write a historyof the world must, according to Breuer,27 divide world history into two

unequal portions: one containing only Jewish history, which is a verysmall part, separate from the rest of world history, the other including allthe other peoples of the world. Breuer compares the Jews to a bush whichburns but is not consumed. One must contemplate it with openness;otherwise, one will not see the miracle and will try to interpret theexistence of the Jewish people in terms of natural and rational rules,sociological and psychological categories, etc. On this point, Breuer

continues the thought of Hirsch, who also held that Jewish existence in theworld was anomalous to all simple rational laws of causality; it can onlybe explained if we see in it proof of the existence of God. Breuer writes inhis Neue Kusari:28 "The voice of this metahistorical miracle echoes in theworld no less than the voice heard at Sinai." This is the voice whichbegan to be heard at Sinai and has not ceased to this very day.

But for neither Rosenzweig nor Breuer are the Jews merely anabstract entity. Both see the Jewish people as flesh and blood, but at thesame time as a chosen people-the people of God; Rosenzweig opens his

discussion of the Jewish people with the words, "Blessed is He whoplanted eternal life in our midst." Already in 1910 Breuer began to refer tothe Jewish people as a "nation," 29 and to emphasize the Halakhah as thenational constitution of the people of Torah. Abraham was called upon byGod to establish a people and a state, as in the words "and I will make ofyou a great nation"-not a philosophical school or even a religion!Breuer stresses the motif of the people and of nationhood: Abraham is thefather of the Jewish nation, not the father of the monotheistic philosophy.He also thinks that antisemitism exists because of national reasons: the

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wandering Jew-Ahasuerus, as he is called in the Christian tradition-is afigure who represents a people "different from every other people."Breuer does not associate antisemitism particularly with Christianity, butsees its origins in Pharaoh and Haman, who opposed a Jewish people whodiffered from every other people.30

In the book Weltwende,31 published after his death, Breuer discussesthe family as the primary cell of Jewish culture. On this point, it differstotally from Christianity, which extols celibacy. Marriage, wife and chil-dren are the source of strength of Jewish national life; upon them thecommunity is built up, and, from communities, the people as a whole.Breuer presents Abraham as an example of family life and of the com-mandments transmitted, by means of education, from father to son.Breuer and Rosenzweig offer simIlar answers to the question as to whythe Jewish people stays alive, although Rosenzweig stresses the anti-Hegelian element and argues that the Jews have remained alive becausethey sacrificed earthly happiness, living like strangers on the earth unlikethe other families of the earth. This answer is opposed to the view of the19th-century sages and scholars, and is perhaps based upon that ofSamson Raphael Hirsch. It is therefore not surprising that Rosenzweigasked Ernst Simon32 and Eugen Mayer33 to teach the Nineteen Letters inthe Freies jüdisches Lehrhaus in Frankfurt under his direction (and per-haps it was those same elements in Rosenzweig which also attractedKurzweil). Breuer, on the other hand, stresses more the preservative

element of the Halakhah, a point on which Rosenzweig certainly agreed,albeit one less central to his thought. It is astonishing to see that in mattersof Torah and of Jewish law, Rosenzweig says things very close in spirit tothat of Breuer. Rosenzweig compares the Torah to the constitution of thenations of the world, arguing that the laws of the nations are subject tochange-the nations live by revolutions, so that their laws are based upontransient realities, new laws being made while the force of old laws aresimultaneously negated. No such developments occur in the constitutionof the Jewish nation.34 Rosenzweig thinks35 that time is frozen for theJewish people, who remain fixed between a past to which one may notadd and a future which cannot be moved. Time, therefore, has ceased tochange; custom and law become one unit. The Torah frees the peoplefrom temporality and the historicity of life; the Jewish people does notcount its years according to the memory of any event or the years of reignof a legislator, but from the creation of the world. Rosenzweig sees asymbolic meaning here. He believes that thc Jew has transferred nation-ality, language, law and custom from the circle of life to the sphere ofholiness.36 Our lives are no longer rooted in any external thing, but withinourselves. This extreme view does not square with Breuer's view; theydiffer from one another particularly in their understanding of the connec-tion between the Jewish people and its land.

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Rosenzweig writes that37 "the peoples of the world. . . sink theirroots into the night of the earth . . . from the lastingness of earth theyconclude that they themselves will last." The love of the soil constitutes adanger. Rosenzweig was not a Zionist and did not even imagine thepossibility that the land in which he lived would turn against and destroyits Jewish inhabitants. For him, the danger was elsewhere, namely, thatthe soil, rather than the host country, might be "treacherous." As hewished to stress the concept of Exile, he said that the Jews have very longmemories, which began with the wanderings of Abraham and his aban-donment of his father's house. The Jews became a nation in the Exile ofEgypt, and later, in the Babylonian Exile, the character of the Jewishpeople was shaped. The Land of Israel serves as a focus for the longingsof the people: the Jew lives in the Land, and the Land is the Land of God.To be a Jew means to wander in an exile bereft of earthly roots. His wordsremind us of Chagall's well-known pictures of the wandering Jew. Rosen-zweig compares the Jew to a star; they are the people of God, who wanderabout in the world like rootless somnambulists. The Land of Israel lies atthe center of these longings! The difference between Rosenzweig andBreuer with regard to all these questions is a profound one. In all ofRosenzweig's writings, there are no expressions of religious longings forthe ideal Biblical past, when the people of Israel lived on its own soil, andthe tribes went up to the Temple three times a year-on Passover, Shavuotand Sukkot. Nor is there any expressed yearning for the land in which theprophets lived, and where-and only where-Jewish wholeness wasrealized. For him, it is possible to attain Jewish wholeness in the Exile.Nor did he see any religious significance in the actual ingathering of theexiles, even if he did see38 the exile as a bridge between past and future,and believed that a day will come when Jerusalem will become a house ofprayer for all the nations. But he did not see the hints of Redemption inthe darkness of his own time, and thought that his task was to be a realist,and to worry about education and the revival of Judaism in the Diaspora.

If Breuer's thought resembled Rosenzweig's on the question ofgalut, it differed from it with regard to his understanding of Redemption,as he already perceived the first indications of redemption appearing in hisown generation. We find expressions of this approach in his interpretationof the Chapter of Rebuke in Leviticus 26.39 It says there: "If you walk inmy ways and observe my commandments and do them, then I wil sendthe rain of your land in its time, and the earth will yield forth its fruit."This chapter is also important to Breuer because of the central role playedby earthly joy and goodness in his thought. In light of this, it is charac-teristic for him to quote the Mishnah (Ma 'aser Sheni 5:13): "We havedone what You have commanded us; even You do that which You havepromised us. 'Look forth from Your holy habitation, from the heavens,and bless Your people Israel' (Deut. 26:15)-with sons and daughters and

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with the birth of animals, 'as you have promised to our fathers, a landflowing with milk and honey' -to give taste in the fruits. "40 Leviticus 26stresses the national "we" and the fact that all Israelites are responsiblefor one another. Breuer places the Jewish collectivity in the center,believing that the Reform movement, which set up the individual as thehighest value (such as Hermann Cohen, the great liberal, who saw inEzekiel's words, "each man shall die for his own sins," the pinnacle ofJudaism), was mistaken.41 Unlike the liberals, Breuer demanded theabsolute obedience of the Jewish people to the Halakhah, the law of thepeople of the Torah. He coined the phrases "the Torah-nation" and "theTorah state" as a jurist who was sensitive to these aspects, and did notseem to be aware that he was introducing a new terminology and a newline of thought. 42

According to Leviticus 26, observance of the mitsvot and obedienceto God bring blessing upon the Jewish people. The Sages already wrestledwith this interpretation when they saw it contradicted by reality andrealized that there are righteous men who suffer. N ahmanides thought thatthe blessing referred to in this verse was a hidden miracle.43 Rosenzweig,who loved freedom in the fulfillment of the mitsvot, wrote against thedisciplined approach of Frankfurt Orthodoxy in his Star of Redemption, asfollows:

44

A rabbinic legend spins a tale of a river in a distant land, a river so pious that itsupposedly halted its flow on the Sabbath. If but this river flowed through Frankfortinstead of the Main River-no doubt all Jewry there would strictly observe theSabbath. But God does not deal in such signs. Apparently he dreads the inevitableconsequence: that in that case precisely those least free, those most fearful andmiserable, would become the most "pious." Evidently God wants for his own onlythose who are free.

Thus, according to Rosenzweig, as also according to Kierkegaard, Godconceals His ways and even misleads man.

II. BREUER, RABBI KOOK AND THE VISION OFNATIONAL REDEMPTION

Breuer disagreed with Rosenzweig on this point, accepting the literalmeaning of the Biblical chapter-that the righteous man is always

rewarded; i.e., that the fulfillment of the mitsvot bring in their wakereward and blessing, and that the eternity of the Jewish people is depend-ent upon them. On many occasions, Breuer stressed that our eternity isconnected with the observance of mitsvot, while the Exile which we havebeen suffering for thousands of years is a punishment from God. In thewords of the Rebuke, the sufferings of Exile were decreed by DivineProvidence: "And I shall scatter you among the nations" (Lev. 26:33).

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This exile diminished the Jewish image as well: it is written in the Torahthat not only were we exiled from our land, but that the Shekhinah and theTorah are themselves in Exile. Outside of their own land, the Jews areunable to live a complete life of Torah, but are dominated by foreignnations. Even in the choicest host-country, we are still in Exile. Breuer'slongings to establish a Torah state in the Land of Israel, in which we canobey the Torah and take upon ourselves the kingship of the Divine Kingof Kings, follows from this. His words resemble those of N ahmanides. 45

Moreover, Breuer also took note of the fact that, according to Leviticus26, not only were the people punished, but, in a mythic sense, the landitself. The soil of the Land of Israel, as it were, sinned and was madedesolate, as in the verses, "Your land shall be desolate" and "the land willbe abandoned" (vv. 33, 43). Thus, a profound connection exists betweenthe people and its land, further proof of which appears in the words ofcomfort following the Rebuke concerning the connection between theredemption of Israel and the redemption of the soil, as it is said, "and Ishall even remember my covenant with their father Abraham, and I shallremember the land" (v. 42)-that is to say, redemption of one is impos-sible without a corresponding redemption of the other.46

It is perhaps paradoxical that this rebuke, which in many synagoguesis read in an undertone, and which N ahmanides saw as referring to thedestruction of the first Temple,47 was transformed by Breuer into animportant message of consolation! This chapter is also extensively citedin his philosophical work, Der neue Kusari. Unlike the accepted view, hesees in it a message from the Torah to our own days; these words ofrebuke seem to him to be words of prophecy to his own generation.Thousands of years have passed since the time that these words, which fitsubsequent events in Jewish history, were written, yet they reminded

Breuer of all the events undergone by the Jewish people in the MiddleAges. This chapter also assists our theological understanding of history.The Exile did not befall us because of natural factors, i.e., because thenations were stronger than us. Moreover, in the early 1930's, when Breuerwas still living in Frankfurt, he delved deeply into verse 33 of thischapter:48 '" And your land shall be desolate, and your cities shall bedestroyed.' The Land of Israel is your land, it always belongs to you, andeven the cities of the land of Israel are always your cities." Breuer arguesthat the eternal Jew, who has been wandering for hundreds of years in thewilderness of the nations, is more rooted in his land than any other nation!The host-countries in which the Jews dwell in Exile are always "thecountry of your enemies." Unlike Rosenzweig, who thought it an errorfor a Jew to strike roots in any soil, Breuer believed that the Jew haddeeper roots in the earth than any other person. He writes49 that the words"the Land of Israel" are the sweetest melody to one's ears. It is the placein which all hopes of closeness to God and of the unification of the

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Shekhinah are realized, while outside of the Land there is antisemitismand one is always in "the land of one's enemies." Breuer anticipates thatthe hatred for the Jew in the land of his enemies will continue until theentire people will be gathered in its land in the time of the Redemption.

As we have said, in the chapter of Rebuke the people and the landmust receive their punishment: "And I will make the land desolate"(v. 32). Breuer writes that the stagnation and desolation of the land and thedispersion of the Jewish people are the two signs that left their impressionupon the time of the Exile. We all know that this prophecy of the Torahwas fulfilled as written both with regard to the Land and with regard to thepeople. The Land of Israel remained desolate for hundreds of years; a landwhich from earliest times had been destined, due to its unique geographi-cal position, to serve a function of economic and cultural meeting amongthe lands of Europe, Asia and Africa, was subject to hundreds of years ofstagnation. So long as our ancestors were in exile, it lay desolate. Rashi, inhis commentary to the above verse, "and I will make the land desolate,"writes, "And this was a good sign to Israel, that their enemies not findpleasure in their land, that it be desolate from its inhabitants."

In 1267, Nahmanides came to the Land of IsraeL. He also saw as ablessing the fact that our enemies were unable to successfully settle theland. In his commentary to this chapter (26:15), this author, who wasparticularly beloved to Breuer, writes:50 "'And your enemies shall bemade desolate there' (v. 43) is a good tiding, informing all of the exilesthat our land does not receive our enemies, and this too is an indication tous that one cannot find anywhere else throughout the world a land whichis as good and plentiful and which has once been inhabited, which isdesolate like it. For since we have left it, it has not received any otherpeople or language, and all of them attempt to settle it and they are notsuccessfuL. "

Breuer, who differed from Hirsch in his yearning for the Land ofIsrael, nevertheless found a basis for his own view in his grandfather'scommentary to this chapter. On the verse, "And your land shall bedesolate" (v. 33), Hirsch writes, "You are without your land, and the landwithout you-neither of you shall enjoy prosperity apart from oneanother.51 The question of the curse of desolation, which is among God'sdeeds, was taken seriously by Hirsch. When Brill came to him to requestsupport for establishing a settlement in Ekron, Hirsch asked him52whether there was not still a curse over the land.

In 1934 Breucr rcturned inspired from the Land of Israel, and said::"3

What I wish to tell you today, as an eyewitness, is the following: One who goestoday to the Land of Israel sees before him a land in which the sound of the hammerand mallet is heard from one end of the land to the other; a land in whose cities thereis uninterrupted building, and house springs up next to house, and one housetouches another, and they make new streets, while the hands engaged in these labors

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are almost exclusively Jewish. And if one leaves the city for the agriculturalsettlements, where a few years ago there was only sand, he wil see today fruitfulfields and large gardens, so beautiful that I cannot describe it, as I wish to remainwithin the realm of the concrete. It says (Lev. 26:32),54 "And I wil make the landdesolate. . . ." I no longer found this desolation. What is occurring before our eyesis without comparison in history. The Land of Israel is entering a new historicalperiod, whose end-results cannot even be imagined. How powerful and striking wasthe impression made upon me by the appearance of the Land when I descendedfrom the ship on the shore of Haifa, when I recognized-in a manner whichafterwards grew on me from day to day-that the curse which had fallen over thisland was removed from it in our day, and that the Land of Israel had started toawake as if from an enchanted sleep, and new life was felt everywhere.

Breuer's words are similar to those of Rabbi Kook, whom he went tovisit in Haifa in 1934, along with the well-known artist Hermann Struck,who was among the leaders of the Mizrachi movement. 55 Rabbi Kooknoted the connection between the ingathering of the exiles, the rebuildingof the land, and redemption in these words:56 "Yes, the beginning of theRedemption is certainly appearing before us. However, this beginning hasnot started today, but from the time that the revealed end began to appear,that the fruit of Israel began to grow branches, and to bear fruit to theJewish people, which is to come soon."

Breuer apparently came to appreciate Rabbi Kook very much. LikeRabbi Kook, he realized the greatness of the hour, and shared the feelingthat, literally before their eyes, great historical events were taking place:571) the Balfour Declaration, under which the Land of Israel was turnedover to the custody of the League of Nations under the authority ofinternational law, expressed for the first time the idea of brotherhood andgood will among nations and of future peace between one nation andanother and between man and his fellow; 2) the League of Nationsmandate for Palestine was given to Great Britain, the greatest of empires,to protect it and direct it in such a manner that both the natives of the landand the Jews would receive their just rights; and 3) the beginnings ofJewish aliyah to the land to build it up.

Breuer repeatedly asked Agudat Yisrael whether the Balfour Decla-ration was not an act of God. The latter remained silent. 58 In his ownwritings, Breuer made restrained use of messianic language, speakingabout the "great historical process," "of great value and great results,"occurring before their eyes. He used such phrases as: "the Rebuilder ofJerusalem"; "Who is about to build Jerusalem anew"; "God shall rebuildJerusalem, the outcasts of Israel He will gather"; "There is danger thatwe will miss the hour"; "I am the Lord, in My time I will hasten it";"Hear and listen there in Zion, and in Jerusalem the sun has risen. "59 Heenvisioned that, if there were a large immigration of pious, Orthodox Jewsto the Land of Israel, and that if even a portion of the 250,000 Jews thenliving in the yishuv (in 1934) would return to the ways of the Torah, while

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abroad there were even more millions, the way would be paved forbuilding the Torah-State.

In contrast to Herzl's vision of a "Jewish state," Breuer hoped thatthe Land of Israel would become a Torah-State, gathering to it all thosewho were loyal to the Torah. However, he did not realize that by this hewas abandoning reality and becoming a visionary, thinking that secular-ism would disappear from one day to the next. The Torah-State is aMessianic vision, a point which he did not feeL. Breuer's thought,

anchored in political reality, jumped from reality to Messianic visionwithout his being aware of it. The sudden transition from reality to trans-reality is also characteristic of the thought of Rabbi Kook, and it may bethat the resemblance between Breuer and Kook will assist us to under-stand his world-view.

Most of our information concerning the connection between Breuerand Rabbi Kook derives from the eulogy published by Breuer in themonthly journal Nahalat Tsevi, one year after they met in Haifa.6° BothRabbi Kook and Isaac Breuer, each in their own way, rejected secularZionism. Rabbi Kook complained about Herzl's comment at the FirstZionist Congress that" Zionism has nothing in common with religion. "61Is it possible, said Rabbi Kook, for there to be Zionism without religion?Breuer was similarly enraged by Weizmann's comment that he wished theLand of Israel to be Jewish in the same sense in which England is English,as if being Jewish were a political matter.62 However, while Breuer

conducted a total war against Zionism and said that, so long as Zionismdoes not recognize the Torah as unqualifiedly obligating it, it remainsoutside of the camp63-like Jeremiah, he was "a man of argument anddispute to the whole land" (Jer. 15: 10)-Rabbi Kook was a man of broadspirit and knew how to follow the paths of pleasantness and love, evenwith regard to the "sinners," whom he loved and wished to draw closer tothe Torah. He developed a dialectic philosophy that evil is necessary forthe good.

Unlike Rabbi Kook, Breuer did not idealize the figure of the haluts(secular pioneer). He distinguished between the good ones, who observedmitsvot, and those who did not observe mitsvot.64 In the Neue Kusari65

(1934), he polemically asked by what right the secular Zionist justified hisclaim against the Arab for his wish to build his own future in the Land ofIsrael? In the final analysis, the meaning of the Land of Israel for theJewish people may only be explained in terms of God's universalprogram-an interpretation which is rejected by the secularist Jew. Brcucithought that Zionism was a small organ within the great body of theJewish people who are loyal to the teachings of their fathers, whom hesaw in the image of Agudat Yisrael. On his visit to the Land of Israel andduring the period he lived there, beginning in 1936, he was astonished toencounter a new kind of Jew66-the Hebrew worker, both agricultural and

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urban, an energetic, stubborn type, filled with zealous self-awareness,

dedicated heart and soul to the building of the land and to "social

justice." This new Jew hated religion, which seemed to him an opium forthe masses; he hated the galut, the Torah of galut, and the God of thegalut. Breuer saw that the first generation of Zionists believed in Marx,but the second generation no longer believed in anything.

Despite his fundamentalist approach, based upon Leviticus 26, thatthe righteous person is rewarded and the evil one punished, Breuer

recognized in secular Zionism an instrument of Divine Providence, andacknowledged that the paths of Jewish history are not as simple as theywould seem. Like Rabbi Kook, he also believed that Zionism was apassing secular manifestation. Both anticipated that the day was not faroff when the Torah would again be strengthened from within the people.They saw that Zionism had not succeeded in uprooting the Torah from theJewish heart. Breuer relates67 that among the founders of Tel Aviv therewere those who dreamt that there would never be a single mezuza on aJewish door in their city. And yet, during his visit to Tel Aviv in 1934, hesaw the strength of the Sabbath in that city. On Friday night, the GreatSynagogue was filled to overflowing, not only with old people, but alsowith workers and youth, who came out of an inner compulsion. Breuerfelt more strongly than did Rabbi Kook the emptiness and decline ofsecular Zionism, and that it was to be short-lived. Nearly fifty years havepassed since then, and today we indeed see that the majority of aliyah toIsrael is religious, that some of the secular youth seek a path towardsJewish religion, and that many secular educators admit to the diffcultiesentailed in secular Zionist education.

The situation in the Land of Israel both attracted and frightenedBreuer. Both as the grandson of Rabbi Hirsch and as a zealot in his ownright, he tended towards creating separations within the Jewish people.One may assume that in all innocence he thought that, just as in the 19thcentury Hirsch had succeeded in strengthening Judaism by means ofseparation, he could also, by channeling Agudat Yisrael into building upthe land while continuing its bitter attacks upon Zionism, weaken thelatter and "create facts" which would in his opinion yield positive results.Moreover, it was difficult for Breuer to understand how it was thatZionism could fit into the messianic plan of God. What a paradox! Therewere those who asked: What is the meaning of the fact that those Jewswho were loyal to the Torah for thousands of years refuse to fulfill thecommandments when they return to their Land in our generation?

In his article, Breuer cites Rabbi Kook's68 well-known commentsconcerning the secularists, in which he remarked that, during the servicein the Temple, there was a clear distinction drawn among the variousregions-the courtyard, the holy place, and the holy of holies-with clearlimits as to where each portion of the people-the priests, the Levites, and

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the Israelites-were allowed to enter. But when the Temple was underconstruction, even simple workers could enter the Holy of Holies. Headded that the same holds true today, when we are building the ThirdTemple; during the time of building there are no divisions between thereligious and the secularists. Often in the course of conversation (accord-ing to Breuer's report), Rabbi Kook told Breuer that one ought not bringto the land those divisions which existed in Frankfurt at the time of

Hirsch. According to Kook, Hirsch was correct in his time, when he waspioneering-but the mitsvah of building up the land is a mitsvah of theTorah. Breuer asked Rabbi Kook if one ought not struggle against theVa 'ad ha-Le'umi. Rabbi Kook answered that the Va 'ad ha-Le'umi assistsin the construction of the land, and that even if a thousand rabbis were tosay otherwise, he would not agree to wage war against that mitsvah of theTorah.69

Rabbi Kook said that one who creates divisions not only loses thisworld, but also the World to Come.7° According to Kook's dialecticthinking, the soul is healthier among the so-called "posh' im (sinners)"-i.e., the halutsim-than among the "yere'im (God-fearers)-i.e., theOrthodox extreme. The building of the land is seen as corresponding tothe level of nefesh (animative soul), i.e., the physical realm, from whichone ascends to the levels of ruah and neshamah (spirit).71 Rabbi Kooktold Breuer, "You ought to help me!" Hen complained that the "God-fearers" did not understand the messianic character of the times; theyopposed the building of the Land, even though the "sound of the bell"was already echoing throughout the world, a call which the "free-thinkers" heard and understood. He saw the non-believers, whom headmired, as more upright people. Even in the Land of Israel, according toRabbi Kook, one must develop all of the hidden powers of the J ewIshpeople, and the Torah will find its way to ascend via this abundance ofpowers.

The Mizrachi always seemed to Breuer too weak and compromising,a point on which Rabbi Kook agreed. These people, who supposedly

represented Israel of Old, agreed to participate in an organization whosedeclared goals were secular; they did not struggle morning and evening onbehalf of the Torah, but accepted the portions allotted them by a coalitionagreement. That year, 1935, the question of the educational systems wasunder discussion in the Zionist Congress, and it was suggested that 10% ofthe children be educated in the socialist system, 65% in the generalsystem, and the remainder in Mizrachi. Breuer was infuriated thatMizrachi agreed to accept its allotted portion under this scheme withouteven raising its voice in protest against the fact that 75% of all Jewishchildren were to be educated without Torah studies. He added that it wasfortunate that Rabbi Kook had already died and been spared this anguish.Breuer had a kind of zealousness close to that of Rabbi Hayyim

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Sonnenfeld-a figure also respected by Rabbi Kook. It is known thatRabbi Kook founded a party more orthodox than Mizrachi, called DegelYerushalayim, but the idea failed in its initial stages.73 Breuer and RabbiKook discussed Agudat Yisrael as a political vehicle for their ideas;Breuer wished to strengthen and expand it. Breuer discussed who ought tobe included in Agudat Yisrael in order to broaden it. Rabbi Kook told himthat he himself had been among the founders of Agudat Yisrael inPalestine, but the internal politics of the organization repelled him,although he still belonged to its "Council of Contemporary Sages"(Mo'etset Hakhmei ha-Zeman, the forerunner of the contemporaryMo'etset Gedolei ha-Torah).74

Among other ideas, Rabbi Kook proposed to Breuer that he found anindependent world organization of those loyal to the Torah. Breuer, whowished to strengthen the Torah forces outside of the Va'ad ha-Le'umi,suggested that Rabbi Kook fight on behalf of the Torah from within, whilehe do so from outside. Breuer thought that Rabbi Kook was not a typicalAgudat Yisrael figure and did not have the power to achieve his end.75

But was Breuer a typical Agudah type, and did he have the power

necessary for his aims? Rabbi Kook complained to Breuer that he wasvery isolated and lacked a circle of ideological companions. Breuer, in hisautobiography, Mein Weg (My Path),76 relates that he had only one friendwho shared his own Agudist-nationalist path, Dr. Shlomo Ehrmann. Hewrote: "My Agudaism, that is, my nationalism, demands the active entryof the nation into history, while strictly preserving its metahistorical

character." But who in Agudat Israel was interested in that?Like Rabbi Kook, but unlike Agudat Yisrael, Breuer was in favor of

young people joining the Haganah or the Army. He wanted the Jewishpeople to become one which developed all of its capabilities under therule of Torah and within its framework.77 He wanted there to be great menof Torah and God-fearingness, and Torah students who every day woulddevote time to studying Torah, while involved in the midst of life-

agriculturists, industrialists, tradesmen, academicians, workers, artisans-all of them ready to give their lives for God and His Torah, to protect thenational horne through "prayer, gifts and war. "78 One should also notethat in 1946 Breuer testified before the committee of the United Nations insupport of the creation of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel.79 After theHolocaust, Breuer made his peace with Zionism,80 perhaps because he

saw that its vision of creating a Torah state could not easily be realizedafter the destruction of European Jewry, and perhaps because he believedin the great importance of international law. Thus, despite everything thathe said against Zionism, he supported a Jewish state.

But even earlier, perhaps Breuer was not as distant from the dialec-tics of Rabbi Kook as would seem at first. Though he did not develop aphilosophy that from evil there must develop the good, he displayed great

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23. Star, p. 298; cf. "Spirit and Epochs in Jewish History," Naharayim, pp. 59-69 (German original:Kleiners Schriften (Berlin, 1937), pp. 12-25). Incidentally, the term "metahistory" appears inBreuer, but not in Rosenzweig.

24. "The Two Shepherd's Staffs," (Heb.), in Tsiyyunei Derekh, revised ed. (Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 92,93 and 98. The German original, "Die zwei Hirtenstäbe," based on a lecture delivered in Zurichin 1926, is published in his book Programm oder Testament (Frankfurt, 1929).

25. Moriyyah, p. 53.26. Moriyyah, p. 95.27. Der neue Kusari, p. 82.28. Der neue Kusari, p. 89. One finds a number of Midrashic-Kabbalistic motifs in Breuer, such as in

the areas of galut and ge'ulah, the subject of the exile of the world from the sin of Adam, theexile of the nations of the world, and the exile of the Torah; and in the latter the motif of theuninterrupted voice of Jewish history, stronger than the revelation of Mt. Sinai, which alsocontinues through the generations. On the Kabbalistic motif of the Torah as a continuous process,see G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays (New York, 1972), p. 298.Scholem's quotation there is from the SheLaH, who was known well to Breuer. i wil discuss theconnection between Breuer and Kabbalah at length elsewhere. On Breuer's interest in Kabbalah,see Scholem, ibid., p. 333. Naphtali H. Sonn, "Isaac Breuer-Philosoph des gesetzestreuen

Judentums," Fuldaer Geschichtsblätter 56 (1980), pp. 218-235, relates Breuer's interest inScholem's book, Major Trends. Breuer did not accept Scholem's approach, but was happy that byits assistance he was able to penetrate into Kabbalah. On Breuer, Kant and the Kabbalah, see myarticle, "Revelation and the Bible according to Twentieth Century Philosophy," in JewishSpirituality. II (History of World Spirituality. 15. (New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1986)).

29. See "Torah, Law and Nation" (Heb.), in Tsiyyunei Derekh, op. cit., esp. pp. 36ff.; German:"Lehre, Gesetz und Nation," in Israelit 45-46 (1910), pp. 51ff.; and Der neue Kusari, p. 104. Theidea that Abraham was called to establish a nation, and not a religion, also appears in Hirsch inhis commentary to the Torah, at the beginning of Parashat Lekh Lekha (Gen. 12).

30. Weltwende (written in 1938; published, Jerusalem, 1979), p. 64.31. Ibid., p. 82.

32. Rosenzweig, Briefe, op. cit. (n. 11), II: 799.33. Eugen Mayer wanted to teach Herzl's diary, while Rosenzweig asked him to choose a more

theological, less Zionistic subject, such as Nineteen Letters (Iggerot Tsafon). The letter is fromthe end of 1922; see Rosenzweig, Briefe II: 873.

34. The Star of Redemption, p. 276.

35. Ibid., p. 302.

36. Ibid., pp. 304-305.37. Ibid., p. 299.

38. Ibid., pp. 403-404.39. Der neue Kusari, pp. 65 ff.40. Nahali'el, p. 302.

41. "Torah, Law and Nation," op. cit., p. 36. The subject appears in the polemic between Rosen-zweig and Rosenstock-Huessy; the latter argued against the modern conception of religion as aprivate matter, and Rosenzweig seems to have accepted his view. See: E. Rosenstock-Huessy,Judaism Despite Christianity (University, Ala., 1969), pp. 94f. Kurzweil also discusses this topicin relation to Breuer, LeNokhah haMevukhah, p. 118.

42. Rabbi Mordecai Breuer, in his article, "Nation and State in the Thought of Isaac Breuer" (Heb.),in Ge'ula uMedina, haKinus haShenati leMahshava Yehudit (Jerusalem, 1979), relates that therabbi of Ponevezh opposed the term "Torah-nation" because it has no source in the writings ofthe rishonim. See p. 310.

43. Perush haTorah leRabbi Moshe ben Nahman, with notes by Rabbi C. B. Chavel (Jerusalem,1960), II: 184.

44. The Star of Redemption, p. 266.

45. See below, note 51.46. Moriyyah, p. 190.47. Ramban 'al haTorah, op. cit., II: 188.48. Der neue Kusari, p. 73.49. Ibid., p. 74.

50. Ramban al ha-Torah, II: 190.51. S. R. Hirsch's commentary to Lev. 26:3 (London, 1963), p. 782. Hirsch says that, by virtue of the

mitsvot, God wil raise the land above political and physical dilemmas of the rest of the world. On

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v. 9: "your children (wil) thrive and grow up spiritually and morally to be reproductions of you.

. . . Your moral worth wil not diminish with the increase of your population" (p. 784); "Theever-increasing number of the inhabitants wil be matched by the fruitfulness of the land"(p. 785). On v. 11: "I wil give My Sanctuary, the expression of My Presence on earth, in themidst of your national community" (ibid.). On v. 12: ". . . wil i also be intimately near to theindividual families and members of your nation" (ibid.). On v. 33, he says, "You without theland, and the land without you, neither, when separated, wil avoid desolation" (p. 799), which isreminiscent of Herzl's saying about a people without a land wishing to return to a land without apeople.

52. Mordecai Breuer, in his essay, "Chapters in the Life of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch" (Heb.),HaMa 'ayan II (1956), p. 49, quotes the following letter from Hirsch: "Yesterday Mr. Bril ofMaintz, the editor, came to visit me to interest me in the Palestine question. I expressed myhesitations to him based upon the Chapter of Rebuke, as this land has long not been a land of milkand honey but has, for the most part, been desolate."

53. "Address on Eretz Yisrael" (below: "Address,") which is among the best things he ever wrote;in Tsiyyunei Derekh (op. cit., n. 25), pp. 109-128; see p. 110 for this quote. First published inGerman as "Erez Jisroel" in Nach'lath Z'wi 4 (1933-34), pp. 165-185.

54. Ibid., p. 110.

55. Breuer spent two weeks in Israel on his first visit, mostly in Jerusalem, close to Rabbi HayyimSonnenfeld. On his second visit he toured the country. What is remarkable is that he went to seethe Mizrachi leader Hermann Struck. The latter knew that Rabbi Kook was in Haifa restingbecause of his ilness, and took Breuer to see him.

56. Iggerot ha-Re'iyah (Jerusalem, 1965), II: 135.

57. These ideas are repeated by Breuer in various formulations. He also greatly admired Herzl

generally, and liked the statement that "a people without a land seeks a land without a people,"which pertains to the subject under discussion. The source of the subject cited here is in his"Address," op. cit., pp. 110ff.

58. See also the beautiful essay by Mordecai Breuer, "My Father z.l." (Heb.), ha-Ma 'ayan 23(1983), pp. 6-7. In Der neue Kusari, Breuer expressed the hope that Agudat Yisrael wouldestablish the Torah-State in the Land of Israel; see p. 428. In Moriyyah (1944), he expresses hisdisappointment with the Agudah: "the Torah people did not understand the (meaning of) thePalestine Update" (p. 191). On p. 215, he openly challenges them: "Tell us whether the Mandateis a task sent by God or the work of the Satan. . . and I have not received an answer." Breuer'sdescription of the messianic idea in Agudat Yisrael differs from that of Gershon Bakon, "Da' atTorah and the Pangs of Messiah" (Heb.), Tarbiz 52 (1983), pp. 497-508. Bakon thought thatAgudat Yisrael favored the settlement of Palestine.

59. "Address," pp. 125-127. Breuer also called the Second World War a "messianic war" (p. 222).

On pp. 226 and 229, he explains the messianic character of this war, and sees our own generationas having a messianic task. See there also pp. 232ff.

60. Dr. Isaac Breuer, "Oberrabbiner Kook s. a.," Nachlat Z'wi, Eine Monatsscrift für JudentumLehre und tat, VoL. V (1934-35), pp. 301-311. (The Hebrew version of this eulogy is to bepublished in the forthcoming issue of Ha-Ma'ayan.)

61. For example, Iggerot ha-Re'iyah II: 164. Rabbi Kook asked the Mizrachi leader, Rabbi Meir Bar-Ilan, to struggle against this "shameful" statement.

62. Neue Kusari, pp. 49 and 163.

63. "Torah, Law and Nation," in Tsiyyunei Derekh, p. 37; in Neue Kusari, p. 163, Breuer states thatZionism is simply either foolishness or treachery.

64. A comparative study of the attempts to draw a sharp separation between the good and the wickedin the Judean Desert Sect and in Neturei Karta appears in Y. Liebes, "The Edah ha-Haredit inJerusalem and the Judean Desert Sect" (Heb.), Mehkerei Yerushalayim be-Mahshevet Yisrael 3

(1982), pp. 137-152; compare also Neue Kusari, p. 219.65. Neue Kusari, p. 163.66. Moriyyah, p. 193.67. "Address," op. cit., p. 119.68. Quoted in Nach'lath Z'wi from Menahem Ussishkin's eulogy of Rabbi Kook at the 19th Zionist

Congress.69. Nach'lath Z'wi, ibid., p. 308. Incidentally, Breuer and Kook conversed with one another in

Hebrew and, as related there, this was not the only meeting between the two.70. Ibid., p. 308.

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71. Ibid. These ideas appear at greater length in Grot, pp. 84-85, where he states that the nefesh ishealthier among the "sinners" and the ruah among the God-fearers.

72. Ibid.73. This attempt was made at the end of the First World War; see Zvi Yaron (Singer), Mishnato she!

ha-Rav Kook (Jerusalem, 1974), pp. 259ff.74. On Agudat Yisrael and Rabbi Kook, see also Yaron, ibid., p. 258.75. Nach'lath Z'wi, op. cit., p. 309.76. "A Chapter from an Autobiography," extant in German ms. (Mein Weg). This chapter was

published in memorial to Dr. Shlomo Ehrmann Ha-Ma 'ayan VI, pp. 46-8.77. Moriyyah, p. 238.78. Paraphrase of Rashi on Genesis 32:9.

79. See Lewinger's book, op. cit., pp. 22ff.80. See: Rivka Hoiwitz, "An Unsuccessful Attempt at a Theocracy for Eretz Yisrael," Tradition 15

(1975), p. 207. Breuer died prior to the creation of the State of IsraeL.81. Moriyyah, pp. 72-73.

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