The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook

About the Editor

Ben Zion Bokser was born in Lubomb, Poland in 1907, and raised in the United States. He first encountered Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook as a high school student when he was deeply moved by Rav Kook’s address to Yeshivat Rabbeinu Yitzchak Elchanan.

Throughout a career that included a half century as spiritual leader of the Forest Hills Jewish Center, Rabbi Bokser turned again and again to Rav Kook, as a beacon for his own spiritual path and writings, and in his role as a translator and popularizer of the work of the rabbi he considered his inspiration.

Rabbi Bokser’s articles in Tradition and Judaism helped introduce Rav Kook to an American audience in the 1960’s.

These were followed by Rabbi Bokser’s translations of The Lights of Penitence, The Moral Principles, Lights of Holiness, Essays, Letters, and Poems as part of the Paulist Press “Classics of Western Spirituality” series.

This, his second selection of Rav Kook’s writings, was published posthumously.

Other books by Rabbi Bokser include a biography of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus entitled, Pharisaic Judaism in Transition (1935), a study of the Maharal of Prague (Rabbi Loew ben Bezalel) entitled, From the World of the Cabbalah (1954), Judaism and Modern Man (1957), Judaism: Profile of a Faith (1963), and Judaism and the Christian Predicament (1967).

Rabbi Bokser translated and edited a prayer book for weekday, Sabbath and festival use, and one for the High Holidays.

The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook is a culmination of Rabbi Bokser’s sixty- year fascination with Rav Kook. Ben Zion Bokser was a young student when he first heard Rav Kook speak at Yeshiva University in 1924. He was immediately taken with Rav Kook and became an avid proponent of his teachings.

Newly married in 1949, Rabbi Bokser visited his new father-in-law in Jerusalem only to discover that Rav Kook’s foremost disciple, the Nazir, Rabbi David Cohen, living across the street. Rabbi Bokser befriended him, and this friendship gave him access to a direct student of Rav Kook’s. Thoughout the 60’s and 70’s, Bokser published Rav Kook’s teachings in journals such as Judaism and Tradition, introducing him to an American audience.

In 1978, Rabbi Bokser published the best-selling translation of Rav Kooks’ writings as part of the best selling Classics of Western Spirituality series of Paulist Press. Conceived as a sequel of sorts to that volume, The Essental Writings made it to press four years after Rabbi Bokser’s death.

Despite the importance of The Essental Writings—author Karen Armstrong has repeatedly cited it—the book did not remain on the market at the time of first publication due to the financial travails of the publisher.

Ben Yehuda Press is proud to reprint this volume and has added, for the first time, indices of topics and citations.