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may get lost in smallness and descend from the very mountain settle them, as the prophet Yirmiyahu called out to the people
they climbed. of Israel: “Return, O virgin of Israel, return to these, your cities”
This is why the challenge hidden in the second part of the verse (Yirmiyahu 31:20). For the founders of Jewish settlement in
is so great: “and who shall stand in His holy place?” For this, Yehudah and Shomron, the Zionist idea does not stem from the
not only the precious qualities of “he who has clean hands and need to find a safe haven for the Jewish people, as Theodor Herzl
a pure heart” are needed, but also the third trait listed in the and Max Nordau argued, nor from the desire to rebel against the
Psalm: “who has not taken My name in vain, and has not sworn old world and to build a new society in Israel, as so many from
deceitfully,” someone who not only promises but knows how to the second and third Aliyot imagined they would do.
fulfill, with sacrifice and diligence. The settlement movement was led from the very beginning by
From this perspective, we can say confidently that after forty the students of the great “seer”, Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen
years of climbing the mountain, the stability and strength of Kook and his son, Rav Tzvi Yehudah, who continued his path.
the settlement movement is no longer in doubt. No sane person Before the eyes of all those who climbed the mountain were
can any longer claim that this movement is a passing episode the powerful and penetrating words of Rav Kook in his letter to
of some crazy settlers who jump frantically from hill to valley the leaders of Mizrachi almost 100 years ago. In this letter, Rav
and who will ultimately come down from the mountain and Kook strongly rejected the saying that prevailed in the Zionist
return to their homes. movement of the time, that “Zionism has nothing to do with
religion”. In its place, he wrote that “the source of Zionism is the
In many ways, the settlers of Yehudah and Shomron are Tanach” – that only the Tanach gives deeper meaning to Zionism.
continuing the legacy of the great early pioneers of Zionist
history, before and and after the founding of the State, who More than this, Rav Kook strongly rejected belief in Zionism as a
settled the Galil and the Negev, on mountains, lowlands and safe haven for Jews: “The desire of a hated nation to find a safe
valleys. Many of the tests these earlier generations had to haven from its pursuers is not enough to infuse this extraordinary
overcome are being repeated in the settlement of today: the movement with life. A holy nation and the segulah of all peoples,
physical difficulties, the security dangers, the societal challenges, the lion cub of Judah has awoken from its long slumber and is
the struggle with government institutions, and more. But there returning to its inheritance, ‘to the pride of Ya’akov whom He
are also significant differences, some due to the passage of time, loves’ (Tehillim 47:5)”.
but the most important of which go to the heart of the issues. This great spirit beats in the heart of those who climb the
The Jewish settlers of Yehudah and Shomron have been defined, mountain and is the inner point that gives life to the settlement
through all the years, by a great faith in the word of G-d, who has movement, even as it has grown tenfold and many of its newer
returned the captives of His people and returned His children settlers know little of Rav Kook’s words.
to their borders. Its founders saw the Six-Day War as a critical It is worth noting that settling the Land with an outlook of
part of the process of our return to the Land and felt deeply that Biblical faith did not begin with Gush Emunim in the wake of
the redemption of Yehudah and Shomron in the war obligated the Six-Day War but rather is rooted in the accomplishments
them to act. Not to abandon these lands to our enemies but to of the early Religious Zionists, such as the religious kibbutzim

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