Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook

Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook was one of the major Torah personalities of the early 20th century and an influential leader in both Lithuania and the land of Israel. A master of many facets of Jewish literature, he wrote halakhic and aggadic works, philosophical and mystical tracts, responsa, and commentaries. His voluminous correspondence also covers a wide range of topics. In 1904, he moved to the land of Israel to serve as the chief rabbi of Jaffa. He organized a famous tour of leading rabbis of the Old Yishuv to see firsthand the developing communities of the pioneers of the New Yishuv. He also strongly promoted Jewish return to agriculture, giving further halakhic support to an earlier ruling allowing Jews to work the land in the sabbatical year as long as it was sold to non-Jews for that year. In 1914, he travelled to Europe to attend the world Agudat Yisrael convention and was stranded there when World War I broke out. He spent the war in Switzerland and England and had a great impact upon the Jewish communities in those places. Upon his return to the land of Israel after the war, in 1917, he was appointed rabbi of Jerusalem and, in 1921, the first chief rabbi of the land of Israel. He also founded the yeshiva known today as Merkaz Harav to train a new cadre of scholars who would be conversant in prevalent cultural modes, capable of explicating Jewish practice, and teaching in a manner that would speak to the young, nationalist, passionate, but religiously disassociated pioneers.