ABSTRACT
In my recent Innovation in Tradition: the Halakhic-Philosophical Teachings of Rabbi Kook,1 I demonstrated that R. Kook often adduced diverse meta-halakhic materials in his responsa and rulings, to a much greater extent than other contemporary decisors (poskim). Examination of his halakhic thinking and comparison of his approach to the approaches of the central decisors of his time, reveals that unlike his colleagues, he invoked diverse considerations in the course of his halakhic decisionmaking. The present article has a more circumscribed focus, concentrating on one particular concept that compellingly reflects R. Kook’s halakhic disposition. This notion is not merely one of many ‘considerations’ invoked in the process of deliberation, nor is it presented as an ‘application’ of the law to be put into practice, but highlights a deeper, more essential stratum of his thought, a stratum that ordinarily remains concealed.
