"Our Reality Is a Reality of Repentance": The Polemic between Rabbi Zvi Yehudah Kook and Rabbi Prof. Michael Zvi Nehorai

In this article I examine the polemic between Rabbi Zvi Yehudah HaCohen Kook and his student Michael Zvi Nehorai, later a professor of Jewish philosophy and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University. Nehorai called into question the rabbi's statement that salvation does not depend on repentance and is irreversible, and that "there will be no third destruction." First I review the different opinions on this subject and try to understand the rationale behind Rav Zvi Yehudah's absolutist assertions. I then review an early article by Nehorai, in which he made the same argument as his rabbi, bringing many proofs from the books of the Sages. A few years later, however, Nehorai changed his opinion and wrote trenchant, incisive criticism of Rav Zvi Yehudah and later of the religious Zionist movement. I want to understand what happened to Nehorai, who changed his mind from one extreme to the other. Finally, it is interesting to see that this polemic has not subsided, and still arises from time to time in various contexts.