In the footsteps of Kook
The national-religious camp embraced Zionism before there even was Zionism. Rabbi Shmuel Mohilever shared the leadership of the Hovevei Zion movement with Leon Pinsker. Mohilevers colleague, Yitzhak Yaacov Reines, worked in close cooperation with Theodor Herzl. Immediately after its inception, the chief rabbinate was headed by the incomparable Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the man who eulogized the avowedly secular Herzl upon his death and who saw the light among the early pioneers of the kibbutzim, favorably comparing them to Messiah ben Joseph.
A number of chief rabbis admirably and ably succeeded Kook, but as the years went by the secular public lost interest in the institution.
Even the employees of the rabbinate were skeptical of the kosher certificates that they themselves issued. The haredi, ultra-Orthodox spirit has evicted the Jewish nation from the temple. The haredi spirit spelled trouble for the Israeli citizen who needed to undergo conversion to Judaism, or an Israeli woman whose life was ransacked as a result of divorce proceedings.
The rabbinate disengaged from Zionism.
Now, however, there appears to be good news on the horizon. Rabbi David Stav, the founder and chairman of the Tzohar rabbinical organization, will submit his candidacy for the position of chief rabbi in the elections that are scheduled to be held in a few months.
Tzohar scored a significant achievement when it forced the haredi establishment to recognize its chief municipal rabbis as fit to authorize marriages; this in an effort to ease the hardships placed before young couples.
While Rabbi Stav espouses a decidedly Orthodox worldview, this champion of Kook offers a fresh attitude that includes supporting prenuptial agreements, issuing kosher certificates, and closely inspecting all cases involving conversions. It is an approach that is in synch with the oft-stated plea: Let us live in this land.
The Zionist parties, from Shelly Yachimovich on the left and Naftali Bennet on the right, will support him.
An overwhelming majority of the Likud, which will appoint the secular representatives in the key body that will determine the election of the rabbinate, will also support him. If Netanyahu declares his preference for Stav over the haredi candidate from Modiin, Stav will win his rightful post, and the rabbinate will re-acquire the spirit of Kook and find a warm place in the national-religious camp.
Stav may very well bring the rabbinate out of its years-long coma.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו