As we explained yesterday, there is no reason to believe Rabbi Kook thought the Three Oaths still applied, even in his day. (I don’t know where else Rabbi Kook addressed this question explicitly, if at all, but the whole thrust of his work and life is clear.)
Yet here is Rabbi Yirmiyahu Cohen recruiting even Rabbi Kook himself into the opposite camp in his book, “I Will Await Him” p. 250-251, all based on this one, single, singularly impossible passage (the Audacity of Hopelessness?):
(This scan was sent in by one of our anonymous anti-Zionist readers. I didn’t read before or after.)
Of course, even without the Arab threats, every State (or other autonomous grouping of people) requires an army, and this is unmistakable.
It is all the more ludicrous to think the permissibility of defending the Jewish people in our time utterly hinges on this question (even ignoring the Steipler’s differentiation between before and after the fait accompli of a State). Some degree of self-defense is permitted and obligatory even without full independence, אכמ”ל.
Rabbi Kook actually supported the establishment of pre-state self-defense militias (and used near-identical phrasing here and there). The borrowed verse “Not by might and not by power” means we recognize Hashem acting, occasionally even through the veil of obligatory human effort (ד’ דברים צריכין חיזוק), whether it be in earning a livelihood or defending our lives. We may continue acting with Bitachon in Hashem and continue “awaiting” the full and complete redemption, both public and private.
Why didn’t Rabbi Cohen ask a scholar or two before publishing this in a book? (I haven’t read his book.) More importantly, could the rest of his work be no less shoddy and irresponsible?
Rabbi Cohen himself seems aware of the vicious opposition Rabbi Kook aroused on the part of anti-Zionist Jews. I mean, bringing Rabbi Kook in support of wild anti-Zionist quietism is almost like Dominican meshumad Pablo Cursediani bringing “proof” from various Midrashim in support of Osso Ha’ish, Midrashim authored by those who in real life rejected the man and his movement…
Again, find the true background of Rabbi Kook’s words here.