A walk through Mazkeret Batya

Rabbi Samuel Mohilever (1824-1898) - the rabbi of the Hovevei Zion

 

Rabbi Samuel Mohilever was a rabbi who lived in the Russian Empire and who moved against the tide for an orthodox rabbi of those times in being heavily involved in Zionist activities. He also encouraged secular Jewish education in addition to yeshiva education so that young people would be able to earn a living.

 

He was born in what is now Hlybokaye in Belarus and was recognized as a child prodigy in Talmudic studies. He studied in the famed Valozhyn Yeshiva and by aged 18 was ordained a rabbi after only 6 months of study. By then he was already married (as was the custom in those days). Because he did not wish to live off Torah, he went into the linen trade. However, after 4 years he relented and accepted the position of rabbinic leader of his home town. He subsequently accepted rabbinic positions in larger communities.

 

During his first year as a rabbi in Suwalki, he befriended an activist who had formed the first group of Hovevei Zion (lovers of Zion). Its movement Hibbat Zion would spread throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Although there was liberalization in Western Europe, the years 1881 to 1882 were a time of pogroms in Russia, and this led to considerable emigration from Eastern Europe (as the Russian authorities intended), primarily to America. Rabbi Mohilever travelled extensively in the Russian empire encouraging immigration to then Palestine. He joined with Leon Pinsker in consolidating the activities of the many groups of Hovevei Zion/Hibbat Zion.

 

As part of his fundraising activities, he met with Baron Edmond de Rothschild and succeeded in obtaining his support for a new settlement in Palestine. This would be called Ekron. Especially after taking up a rabbinic position in Radom, he took a leadership role in Hibbat Zion and became its honorary president.

 

His approach to Zionism was unique for that time for a religious rabbi. He was much influenced by the ideas of Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kalischer, and he believed that the Jewish people were at the beginning of redemptive and messianic times. He had no problem in working with non-religious people in pursuit of Zionist goals and was able to work amicably with the secularist Leon Pinsker, who was chairman of the organization.

 

In many respects, his ideas foreshadowed those of Rabi Avraham Kook, who was similarly influenced by the ideas of Haskalah, who also believed that he was living in redemptive and thus messianic times, and who saw non-orthodox Jews as essential partners in Jewish redemption. He thus strongly disagreed with the many orthodox rabbis of that time who wanted nothing to do with the Zionist enterprise because of its non-orthodox participation and leadership, and hence its non-messianic basis.

 

In 1890, at age 66, he made a trip to Palestine to see first-hand the activities of the Hovevei Zion. He travelled throughout the country, visiting established Jewish communities and the new Jewish settlements, including Ekron. He also participated in buying land for the new settlement of Rehovot.

 

He was the first orthodox rabbi to support the Zionist activities of Theodor Herzl, despite Herzl’s secular leaning. They communicated with each other, and Herzl regarded Rabbi Joseph Mohilever as “the first political Zionist.” Rabbi Mohileger was invited to address the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, but was unable to attend because of his age and ill health. However, he sent his grandson, Rabbi Joseph Mohilever, who read out his grandfather’s speech. This included the following messianic aspirations: “But I say that our faith and hope, as ever, so now, is that our Messiah will come and gather in all the scattered of Israel and instead of being wanderers upon the face of the earth, ever moving from place to place, we shall dwell as a nation in our own country . . . We shall be the pride and honor of all the peoples of the earth. This is our faith and hope as foretold by our prophets and seers of blessed memory.” He regarded the steps that were being taken at that century as the first steps in the messianic redemption.

 

Towards the end of his life, and following differences with the secular leadership of Hibbat Zion, Rabbi Mohileger created a new organization, Mizrachi, that was intended to be the spiritual center of the Zionist movement for orthodox Jews. Mizrachi stands for merkaz ruchani or spiritual center and was the foundation of the Religious Zionist movement. This organization was refounded in 1901 by Rabbi Jacob Reines and other disciples of Rabbi Mohilever and was part of the Zionist Organization.

 

Rabbi Mohilever was tangentially involved in the shmitta dispute that the villagers of Ekron had with the Baron and that rocked the rabbinic world in and outside Palestine. When their first shmitta year arrived, the biblically mandated rest of the land every seventh year, the villagers refused to work the land. However, the Baron insisted that they follow the ruling of Rabbi Mohilever and some other rabbis that selling the land to a non-Jew for the year was a legitimate way of working around this prohibition. The villagers followed the halachic ruling of the rabbis of Jerusalem who held that this was not halachically valid, even though shmitta at this time was considered to be ea rabbinic and not biblical decree. The Baron cut them off for the year, and they had to rely on donations for support, although the relationship was patched up after the shmitta year.