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Podcast: New Books in Biography & Memoir
Episode: Marc Shapiro, "Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook" (Littman Library, 2025)
Description: Rav Kook’s Vision: Halakhah, Secular Knowledge, and the Renewal of Judaism.
Those of us who know something about Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook’s life and philosophy know about his being stuck outside of the Land of Israel during WWI, being the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, and his encouragement of the secular Zionists who turned swamps into vegetation. But not many of us have analyzed the personal notebooks that the Rav left, commonly known as Shemonah Kevatzim (eight collections).
Recently, I had the privilege of sitting down with Professor Marc B. S...