Hello Rabbi, I remember a week's lesson you talked about Rabbi Kook's teachings and claimed that his perception of Gd is not fundamentally different from Spinoza. (Pantheism versus Pantheism). Can you explain to me exactly what you meant or refer me to where you wrote about it? And do you actually define Rabbi Kook's conception as heresy?
I do not remember. I am not knowledgeable enough in his teaching to state this. I know that there are interpretations of his doctrine that see him as a pantheist (everything is divine), and in fact a continuation of the Hasidic approach that believes that reduction is not as simple. Others try to explain subtleties in this difference, thus defining pantheism (all in divinity) versus pantheism (all divinity). This distinction is not clear to me (and I suspect neither are those who raise it). If we are part of it or its organs, then again we are back to pantheism and reduction not literally. And if the intent is that it works in us and revives us or something like that, then I do not understand what is new in this approach. Perhaps the meaning is that the relationship between him and the world is like between soul and body (like the gemara known in blessings), it may be different but in my opinion those who bring it up will not really stand behind the consequences (e.g. he chooses and thinks and not us).
