הרב צבי יהודה הכהן קוק

Rav Tzvi Yehuda HaKohen Kook (15 Nisan 5651/1891–14 Adar 5742/1982) was the son of Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook and rosh yeshiva of Mercaz HaRav in Yerushalayim for some thirty years. Born in Zaumel in Lita, where his father then served as rav, he was named for his mother’s father, Rav Tzvi Yehuda Rabinowitz-Teomim. The family moved to Boisk in 5656/1896; there he learned gemara with Rav Reuven Gotfreud and with Rav Binyamin Menashe Levin, though his father remained his principal rebbi all his life. When Rav Kook was called to the rabbanut of Yaffo, the family went up to Eretz Yisrael, reaching Yaffo on 28 Iyar 5664/1904 — a date he marked every year afterward. He learned in Yeshivat Torat Chaim in the Old City of Yerushalayim, drawing close to Rav Zerach Epstein, and then again at his father’s side in Yaffo, where his lifelong bond with Rav Yaakov Moshe Charlap began.

From 5668/1908 he took up what became the labor of his life: editing his father’s writings, beginning with Shabbat HaAretz on hilchot shemitah (5670/1910). In the years before the First World War he taught Torah in Halberstadt in Germany; at the war’s outbreak he was detained as a Russian subject, and on his release joined his father in Switzerland, learning with him intensively, and labored for his father’s movement Degel Yerushalayim. In 5682/1922 he married Chava Leah, daughter of the Warsaw dayan Rav Yehuda Leib Hutner; she was niftar childless in 5704/1944, and he lived alone for nearly forty years thereafter.

When his father founded Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav in 5683/1923 he served in it as menahel ruchani, saying shiurim in Tanach and emunah, and in 5686/1926 received semichah from Rav Charlap. After his father’s petirah on 3 Elul 5695/1935 he gave himself over to bringing the writings to print — the responsa Mishpat Kohen and Daat Kohen, and the sifrei machshavah Orot and Orot HaTeshuvah. On Rav Charlap’s passing in 5712/1952 he became rosh yeshiva, and under his hand the small yeshiva grew into a large Torah center that drew the youth of the land, and he became a leading spiritual guide for the religious-Zionist public. He saw his own task as the building of emunah: the gemara shiurim he left to Rav Avraham Shapira and Rav Shaul Yisraeli, while he himself taught emunah, directing talmidim, following the Vilna Gaon‘s guidance, to the Kuzari and the sefarim of the Maharal. At his word his talmidim founded the Noam school and the talmud torah Morasha, and Yeshivat Yerushalayim LeTze’irim was established with his guidance.

He was niftar on Purim, 14 Adar 5742/1982, after a long illness, and was buried on Har HaZeitim beside his father; Rav Avraham Shapira and Rav Shaul Yisraeli succeeded him at the head of Mercaz HaRav.