To Rectify an Historic Injustice (on Rav Goren)

As we approach the Day of Judgement, I would like to take this opportunity to adress a major injustice done to one of the major Rabbinic thinkers and activists in the State of Israel - Rabbi Shlomo Goronchik (Goren) (1918-1994), Chief Rabbi of the IDF from 1948-1967; of Tel Aviv from 1968-1972; and of the State of Israel from 1972-1983. Rav Goren was a highly prolific and original thinker, both in terms of halakha and general thought. He almost singlehandedly established the IDF Chief Rabbinate and helped turn it into an institution that positively affected not just religious Jews but all Jews in the army (indeed, the IDF Rabbinate's authority declined when he left).

His contribution to the subject of halakha and war, in all its aspects, is so large that it is simply impossible to mention the subject of war and religious Jewish thought without mentioning him. A highly public figure, he aroused considerable controversy (such as when he suggested blowing up the Muslim buildings on the Temple Mount) and demonstrated halakhic backbone - for instance, when he was matir the agunot of the Israeli sailors who died at sea, such as the members of the submarine Dakar. He left behind an impressive literary corpus (link includes only some his post-humously published writings) on virtually every subject regarding Jewish law and thought.

Yet, a review of the scholarly literature published in Israel on religious-Zionist thought finds almost no reference to Rav Goren. Thinkers and authorities from all ends of the religious spectrum - from the Rav Kook school to the Kibbutz Hadati and beyond, has been given due scholarly treatment. Relatively marginal figures (for their time) such as Rav Hayim Hirschenzon, as well as oppositional thinkers such as Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Eliezer Goldman have entire books and collections of essays analyzing their work and thought.

And Rav Goren? A footnote here, a short mention there, if we're lucky enough. True, he has been the subject of a popular biography and a few, very recent, articles by Dr. Aryeh Edrei of Tel Aviv University. A PhD Thesis is presently being written in Bar Ilan on the IDF Chief Rabbinate that will undoubtably discuss his contribution to the same. Still, even if we were to dig deep for scholarship and study of Rav Goren, we would still come up with a mere fraction of the attention given to others. A man who dedicated his life to the Jewish people, who was publicly involved in so many fields of thought and halakha, now seems doomed to endure the ultimate insult - that of being ignored and ultimately forgotten. I believe that those of us in the field of Jewish Studies have a moral responsibility to ensure that this does not happen. At the very least, we owe him the courtesy of acknowledgement.