Rav Kook – Everthing is Rising: Mystic in a Time of Revolution (Jewish Lives)

Readable, accessible but manages to capture the high level of Rav Kook's thinking and outlook during one of the most turbulent times in Jewish history before and after the founding of the modern State of Israel. The author clearly conveys the struggle's of Rav Kook's soul as he grappled with the seeming struggle between Orthodoxy and modernity. His view of it all being part of the dawning of Moshiach is very much relevant today and for all time. I highly recommend this book. I have the Kindle version which is convenient as you can read it on your phone, tablet or computer.

A good biography (even though the author has some strange negative subtext - not uncommon for an academic) of a wonderful person. Rav Kook was a very optimistic mystic who presented a religious philosophy that is hard to follow as it expresses belief in the goodness of man. His love of people, his religion AND his land was great and even if one cannot follow all the precepts, they are there to learn from and to wonder at. He was a very rare person with a great message and that does come through in this book.

For those of us who cannot cut through Rav Cooke's Hebrew, and who want to get an unbiased sense of the man, this is book is a must-read. (I refuse to disrespect the rabbi by using the awful spelling 'kook.') The only readers who may not like it are die-hard Rav Cooke adherents.There are two reasons for the missing star. There is little, if any, discussion of the rabbi's inter-action with his flock, surely an important side of a spiritual leader. One is tempted to think that Rav Cooke "loved mankind, but people not so much." I do not believe that that was the case.The second reason for the missing star is a certain animus towards the ultra-Orthodox that I detect in the author. Other antagonists of the rabbi get at least a somewhat sympathetic treatment; they do not. This is not only unfair, but anti-intellectual.

This fantastic book about a fantastic theologian deserves to be 10 times as large. Rabbi Mirsky has delivered a biography of more than a man. He has opened the vista on a great number of religious philosophers that are buried in Judaic obscurity. This book is slow reading and demands a working knowledge of some of the subject matter of which Mirsky writes. No matter, the Internet will provide definitions and descriptions. But its not a fast read. You'll have to think and wonder; read and re-read. This is a story about a man among his kind that takes theology in to the far reaches of human cosmos. Kook was an intellectial giant of his time. A Stephen Hawking of Judaica; not easy to understand but very much worth trying to comprehend. And, because this is the first book (hopefully not the last) about a world hidden in its own cloisters it will surely create more questions than it answers. It will, if nothing else, get you to think and think it new and exciting new ways!

An excellent, well-researched biography of one of the most influential ravs of his era.I highly recommend this splendid book to anybody interested in the early history ofthe Eretz as well as anyone with a philosophical turn of mind.