Soon after Israeli troops entered the Old City of Jerusalem, an army jeep was sent to the Kerem Abraham Quarter of the modern city to take Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook and Rabbi David Cohen to the liberated Western Wall.
Among the paratroopers who conquered the Old City were students of the Rabbi Kook Yeshiva, and they wanted their teachers to be among the first to pilgrimage to the last remnant of the Temple.
Rabbi David Cohen, who is known as the “Nazir” has observed a vow for over five decades not to cut his beard and hair and to abstain from the partaking of wine, strong drinks and food derived from animals. He fasts often, seldom leaving his home, which is also his study and place of prayer. He almost never leaves Jerusalem, the last time having been seven years ago to attend the “Brith” of the youngest child of his son-in-law, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the brilliant and brave Chief Chaplain of the Israel Defense Force. On Sabbaths, holidays and throughout the whole month of Elul, the Nazir envelopes himself in silence.
On being called to the newly liberated “wall” Rabbi Cohen asked three men to absolve him from his self-imposed prohibition and after having been pronounced free to do so, climbed into a waiting jeep.
The Nazir’s son, Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, told me that some time before World War I, when his father left Russia for Germany, he visited the sainted Hafetz Hayim, who had been his teacher in his youth. The Hafetz Hayim knew Rabbi Cohen’s family well for the latter’s grandfather and brother-in-;aw had served as rabbis of Radin, the Hafetz Hayim’s hometown. The Hafetz Hayum asked Cohen about the well being of his family and then remarked:
“Both our families are of priestly stock. We are Kohanim The time has come that we dedicate ourselves to the study of the laws pertaining to the sacrificial services in the Temple. In former generations, the prayer ‘May our eyes behold Thy return in mercy to Zion’– was just a prayer. Now we live on the threshold of the fulfillment of this hope.”
Last week when I visited the Nazir in his home, I asked him whether on his first pilgrimage to the liberated “wall”– now again in Jewish hands after almost two thousand years in captivity– he had though of these words of the Hafetz Hayyim .
He looked at me with his mild, blue eyes. “When one stands at the ‘Wall” one does not think. One just feels,” he replied.
“Would he tell me something of his feelings at the ‘Wall”? I continued to ask.
He was overcome with emotion. He opened his mouth, but could not speak. He seemed to struggle to express himself, but the words eluded him “I cannot talk. No, I cannot talk,” he murmured.
The conversation trailed off to other topics, but eventually he came back to my question, though I had not repeated it.
“When you stand at the ‘Wall’, you do not think, you do not reflect, you do not ponder, you just feel!” he said slowly. “You feel that you are attached to holiness. You feel that G-d, the people of Israel and the Land of Israel are one.”
The Nazir was born in a townlet near Vilna. He was educated at the Yeshiva of the Hafetz Hayyim in Radin and at the Yeshivas of Volozhin and Slobodka. Only at the age of 17 did he begin to acquire a general education. At classes in Kovno he shared the school bench with boys much younger than his age. Later he studied at Vilna and subsequently enrolled at the Academy for Jewish Studies in Petersburg.
At the Academy, Zalman Rubashov (Shazar), who is now president of Israel was one of his closest colleagues. Both left Russia to study in Germany. Cohen studied in Freiburg, and later, after the outbreak of World War I, at the University of Basle, Switzerland. In Basle he conducted a Talmud class at the local Beth Hamidrash, lectured on Jewish philosophy in student circles and was chairman of the Association of Jewish students.
It was while he was a university student that he embarked on his ascetic way of life in order to shatter the fetters of earthly desires which bar man’s soul from soaring of the spirit.
During World War I, Rabbi Abraham Yitzchak Kook, then rabbi of Jaffa, was stranded in Switzerland. Cohen had heard much of the man and his ideas and longed to meet him. Finally late in the summer of 1915, he visited him at his home in St. Gallen. Before going to see Rav Kook, he purified himself by immersing in the waters of the Rhine near Basle.
The first conversation proved to be a disappointment to Rabbi Cohen He talked with Rabbi Kook about Greek philosophy and did not derive the satisfaction he had expected. Remaining over night at the rabbi’s home, he could find no sleep His soul was restless. At dawn he heard from the room above, Rabbi Kook chanting the pre-morning prayers. He was carried away by the sweetness of the Nigun and the fervor of the rabbi’s devotion. Whatever still separated him from Rabbi Kook melted away. He knew that he had found what he sought: A master. He became an ardent follower and disciple of Rabbi Kook.
In 1922, Rabbi Kook, by then Chief Rabbi of Palestine, invited Rabbi Cohen to come to Jerusalem. There he joined the faculty of the Yeshiva Rabbi Kook had established in the holy City. The Yeshiva strove to realize Rabbi Kook’s idea: To merge the old with the new, to combine traditional learning and piety with the spirit of the modern pioneers. many of the Yeshiva’s students played leading roles in the rebuilding of the country and in the struggle for Jewish statehood. Rabbi Cohen, as one of the principal teachers of the institution contributed immeasurably to the molding of the character of the students. Over the years, he has also become the great interpreter and editor of Rabbi Kook’s philosophical-mystical writings. The Nazir spends his days in study and mediation. His ascetic face, adorned by a crown of silvery locks and a white beard radiate spirituality. His talk flows slowly, gently.
I attended one of his classes at his home. After the students left. I remained to talk with him in private. When I rose to take leave, he said:
By the law of the Torah, we are not allowed to relinquish the territories we have liberated. The land has been promised to us by G-d and we dare not forsake it. Tell American Jews not to wait and not to delay, but to come now to settle en masse and fill our country.”
The Jewish Press Friday, Sept. 27, 1967