Jerusalem, Israel - July 17, 2018 - The RCA Israel Region held a Yom Iyun on Rav Avraham Yitzhak Ha-Cohen Kook, z"l, in partnership with the Center for Religious Affairs in the Diaspora of the World Zionist Organisation in Jerusalem, Israel, at the Jewish Agency Building.  

Rav Kook served as the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine. He was born in Latvia in 1865, educated in the Volzhin Yeshiva, and died in Jerusalem in 1935.

Introductory remarks were given by Rabbi Yechiel Wasserman, Head of the Center for Religious Affairs in the Diaspora.

Rabbi Dr. Yehudah Mirsky, spoke on "Rav Kook on the Meaning of Machloket: Multiple Perspectives in Thought and Action.” As a young yeshiva student in Israel, coming from the United States, Mirsky began his remarks mentioning how it took time to get used to people mentioning "The Rav" and meaning Rav Kook and not Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik, z"l

Rav Kook wrote in Eyn Ayah to Tractate Berakhot, "Peace is not uniformity, but the resolution of genuine disagreement...peace is the unification of all opposites." In his journal entries published in Orot, Rav Kook, z"l, states, "The sacred, the nation, humanity - these are the three central demands which all life, ours and that of every man in whatever form, are composed of...The necessary synthesis of these three great demands must take place in every group which hopes for a future."

Rabbi David Samson, elaborated on “Rav Kook’s Legacy in Today’s Dati Leumi World: Who Carries the Mantle.” Rav Kook, z"l, was a young Rav in Jaffo in 1905. Publishing his view that a healthy body and exercise were important, as well as studying, was not taken well in the yeshiva world of Yerushalayim.  Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva began with 6 students, grew slowly, and today has hundreds of talmidim whose influence is spreading in various yeshivos and throughout Israel.

Former RCA President Rabbi Shlomo Hochberg of Jamaica Estates, NY, was honored to give the dvar Torah during lunch.

Rabbi Reuven Tradburks served as organizer for Israel Region RCA  event.