PROPHECY AND HALAKHA: DIALECTIC IN THE META-HALAKHIC THOUGHT OF RABBI A.I. KOOK

The place of religiosity in the framework of an established religion has long troubled religious thinkers of various faiths.1 To what extent can a religious structure change in the face of a dynamic reality? What tools can it use to achieve the desired flexibility? Can a religious-normative establishment be sensitive to a new divine revelation? In other words, is there any substance to the often-invoked distinction between religiosity (to use Martin Buber’s term2) — the experiential religious and spiritual dimension, with its existential, ecstatic, individualist encounter with the divine — and the normative, institutional, and social system of religious practice, perceived as unchanging or even petrified? To what extent can prophecy break through and change the structures of normative religion?.