Spinoza, Rav Kook, and Pantheism

Pantheism, the view that holds the physical world and God to be one and the same, goes against Monotheism, Torah, and Judaism. There was a time when great Rabbis such as Maimonides, Ibn Ezra Saadia Gaon etc, would decry Pantheism, and at least agree with the Karaites on this issue. However, due to the forgery known as the Zohar, and further “revelations” to false prophets and dreamers known as “kabbalists”, the trajectory of rabbinic Orthodoxy has entered the world of idol worship and pantheism. They sometimes try to muddy the water, by calling it “panentheism”, which is like saying being gay and monogamous is forbidden, but having a gay orgy is a mitzvah.

I have already shown that the evil man posing as a “rabbi”, Aryeh Kaplan, was an explicit pantheist and a deplorable heretic. http://tanakhemet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/aryeh-kaplan-blasphemer.html

However, greater people, who were known for their righteousness and good deeds, and love of Israel, have sadly been seduced by the evil of the Kabbalah, and the lies of the idolaters. The rabbis on the one hand preach the 13 principles of faith of Maimonides, whilst on the other they deny them.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who is the closest thing to a Tzaddik that Orthodoxy has produced, was nevertheless a purveyor of “panentheism”. The rationalist writer, R. Shlomo Moshe Scheinman, who passionately fights idolatry within Orthodoxy, quotes the tragic-coming statements of our would be tzaddik, Rav Kook:

“I will not hide the fact that Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook who founded Mercaz HaRav Kook Yeshiva  in 5684 (1924), considered both "the monotheistic view" as well as the "Monotheistic outlook that leans towards Pantheism, when it is refined from its dross" as Kosher [Orot Hakodesh volume 2 pages 399, 400]. And seemingly he himself, held more or less in accordance with the view of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin {Rabbi Tzuriel brought a proof to this (Kvatzim, Kovetz 1, Piska 65)}. Now perhaps Rabbi Kook gave validity to the "second outlook" that I recounted, for many of his legal rulings clearly have Kabbala and Agada integrated within them, which is a method that deviates from the classic Ashkenazic responsa [ thus wrote Rabbi Neriya Gutel in a general  appraisal of Rabbi Kook's rulings]. Now one should note that also Rabbi Kook admits [in his article in Orot Hakodesh] that the viewpoint that is more famous in Israel is the monotheistic viewpoint. And elsewhere Rabbi Kook strongly hints that the "Monotheistic outlook that leans towards Pantheism", just became accepted by a community of significance in Israel after the time of the apostate, Spinoza. For behold, Rabbi Kook wrote regarding Spinoza:

Within an inner layer of his thought there is a fundamental principal that after much refining enters into the camp. RMBM"N (someone said here this is an abbreviation, for Mendolsohn) began the process but did not complete his rectification, However the Baal Shem Tov refined him without knowing who he is refining... however the process was not completed"...

source - http://www.vilnagaon.org/monotheism.htm

Kook is being quoted as supporting Spinozan pan-en-theism, after it is refined. The refinement is not of any use, just like making an idol of a calf with refined gold doesn't make it any more kosher.

In a sense, the springboard into pantheism and idolatry, which is what Kabbalah teaches, was only a matter of time. The rabbinic departure from the Torah could not contain itself to stick to specific sins of Lo Tosiphu for example. Nor could the appetite for new fictions be satisfied even by the Talmud and midrashim. Eventually, new books, such as the Zohar, and new revelations would enter the fray. The number of monotheistic rabbis today is very few, since the majority have been baptised into the Kabbalah. It is also dangerous to express monotheism, as the saintly Rabbi Yosef Kapach tragically learned as a child, when fanatic Rabbis murdered his father and betrayed him into the hands of Muslims, to be raised as a Muslim!