cantor,
Matis has debunked that legend. Let me re-quote what he said (on page 3):
You want the gedolim to admit their mistake about the medina – this operates under the assumption that they were mistaken. I forgot of course, that you know more than them. forgive me. Please, tell me who is mistaken – a man who writes about how holy mechalel shabbos soccer players are, because they buy real estate for the sake of a nationalistic entity, which in the words of rav avigdor miller, was the worst thing to ever happen to the jewish people ever(the brisker rov said the same thing), or the entire spectrum of the frum world with the exception of one man who after making the wrong decision was denounced as a rasha and an apikores, at the very elast, by pinacles of shmiras halashon and ahavas yisroel. Rav Kook had no answers to the clear proofs against zionism that the religious zionists churned out – neither do you, and neither did rabbi zimmerman, lamm, rav soleveitchik, or anyone else – did you ever learn vayoel moshe? it should take care of whatever garbage ideas about zionism or the great avodah zara called the medina that you hold above the gedolim.
I wonder what you would say if rav kook was not a zionist…perhaps then, you would take the medina over all the gedolim, after all, acccording to rabbiofberlin-ism, we dont need to listen to the gedolim, but rather we must worship the mighty and holy mind, the individual thinker, the arrogant, secular thinker who thinks for himself(based on what his desires tell him)!
Also, for the record, rav kook would never have agreed with your ideas about emunas chachamim – he also, for the record, wanted women not to vote, and had tznius standards found in hardly any kehilos today, which Im sure you disagree with, being an independent thinker, however this does not stop religious zionist amharatzim from quoting him, without followinh him on his other shitos. They then, become tremendous, irrational machmirim when it comes to things like aliyah(a secular, nationalistic idea which rapes the idea of true yishuv haaretz by instead using it as a ploy to support the medina), and irrational, illogical maikilim when it comes to tznius and women’s ‘rights’, based on, for the record, no shitos(as in, there are no shitos that women can learn gemora, and certainly, rav kook never would have allowed such a thing)
Even though he was a huge talmid chacham; so was korach, and many other poeple who were mistaken. Reb elchonon called him an apikores, the satmar rov said it was assur to read his seforim; you want to follow that shita? well, research the machlokes, if there even was one, and you will see how wrong he was; except rav kook had far more respect for the gedolim than you, especially rav zonnefeld(perhaps the most anti-zionist in the old yishuv), even after the zionism issue.
You blindly follow rav kook – do you know what he based his shitos on? I doubt it. Because any halachik notion he and the entire mizrachi establishment have thought up have been successfully defeated, easily at that. This is because the soton works on emotions mostly, and not reason, so all you have to do is put the fear of holocuasts in a jw’s heart and you’ll have him belieing in the medina(which im sure, like your fellow zionist buddies, you’d ‘die for’, right?)
The odd thing is, most religious zionists will fall into two groups:
A) those who defame universally accepted gedolim, like the brisker rov, reb ahron, rav shach, reb elchonon, and many others who were anti-zionist, especially the satmar rov zt’l. They only defame him the most because he was the only one who wrote a comprehensive sefer on zionism, based on stories which are unverifiable, as well as quotations which are either non-existant or totally misunderstood.
B) when they realize they cant defame them, either because they have some conscious and cannot bring themselves to lie or spread slander, they then begin trying to make it seem like these gedolim were in fact zionists(i once heard on arutz sheva that they claimed that the satmar rov advocated zionism for goyim..feh)
C) ‘divrei elokim chaim’–ists – people who have enough sechel to acknowledge and respect such gedolim, and who say ‘well, we disagree with their shita , and instead we follow rav kook’
C is perhaps the dumbest of all, since the basic idea of eilu veilu, is that you cannot have that concept when one claims the other is wrong. Basically, this means that if Rov A says that rov B is an apikores, that is no longer eli veilu. This idea only works when one may be followed factually, but we say the other was right, because he used torah methodology to reach his conclusion, hence, even though he was factually wrong, he is still ‘right’ in the sense that his ideas were divine.
This is best shown in the gemora which has a shita that moshiach is not coming – obvbiously, we do not hold like this, and it is factually wrong, but it is still divrei elokim chaim, because it was derived through torah methodology.
Zionism, is different. It is a secular, idolatrous(in the words of reb elchonon) movement which some people misguidedly tried to make religious(also reb elchonon, they added religion to avodah zara), with faulty proofs from the torah and a lack of answers to the clear disproofs from the torah, then if a rov comes up with a shita, which the gerrer rebbe said came from ‘rav kook’s ahavas yisroel’, which howver is incorrect, then it is no longer eilu veilu, but simply wrong.
Please, read vayoel moshe – I can almost guarantee any tainah you have is in there, or if not, it is too elementary to even be dealt with by such an advanced sefer. Also recommended is kovetz ma’amarim by reb elchonon, and michtavim uma’amarim from rav shach.