Reply To: Herzog’s column

I thought you didn’t care what others believe? Looks like you do when it’s not about Hashem, but rather about a controversial rabbinic figure.

I’ve seen enough of rabbi kook’s works and his talmidim to know that he copied and pasted European nationalism, popular at his time, with judaism – he made no secret of his involvement in secular philosophy. Orot is full of the nation/land/language philosophy. He’s the father of the idea. He wrote that the secular apikorsim are holier than the frum(sic) because they are building up the land.

“One who reads his books has no need for zionism”. Well, maybe his halacha seforim – maybe.

I asked you if you can quote one religious zionist source who said that the only thing that makes you a jew fully, is Torah. That we are a nation because of the Torah alone. You went on a beautiful ad-hominem attack without quoting a single source, or sefer to the contrary, and just said that it’s all made up and that *really* everyone agrees to rav saadya gaon.

When rabbi hershel shechter said Jewish lives need to he sacrificed because the state is the “lifeblood” of the nation and that sometimes you need to cut a limb off to save the body, was that not casting the jewish people as a nation by virtue of something other than torah? When eliezer melamed uses the arbitrary traditionalist israeli as a benchmark for conversion status, is that not saying that you can be a jew without torah, as long as you believe in the “umah”?