Luke Ford

In Marc B. Shapiro’s recent study of Rav Kook, the “newly published” and more radical ideas of the Chief Rabbi provide a clear look at how a master strategist uses theology to expand a coalition. David Pinsof’s Alliance Theory suggests that people often use “sacred” concepts to recruit allies who were previously considered rivals or outsiders. Shapiro’s book highlights four specific theological moves that function as sophisticated alliance-building tools.

Kook’s recognition of the religious significance of non-Jewish religions serves as a massive expansion of the “in-group.” By suggesting that non-Jews might have their own divine revelations, Kook lowers the cost of cooperation with the outside world. In Alliance Theory, this is a strategic signal to potential global allies that the Jewish religious project is not a zero-sum game. It reframes “the other” from a rival to be defeated into a fellow traveler with a shared, though different, divine spark. This reduces friction and builds a broader base of support for his national project.

The concept of the “valorization of the masses” represents a internal power play against the traditional religious elite. Pinsof notes that high-status individuals often use moral language to delegitimize rivals. By arguing that uneducated, pious people possess a purer morality than learned scholars, Kook essentially bypasses the rabbinic bureaucracy. He creates a direct alliance with the “masses,” signaling that their simple loyalty is more valuable than the technical expertise of the scholars who might oppose his Zionist innovations. This move strips his rivals of their primary weapon: their intellectual authority.

Kook’s category of the “unintentional heretic” is perhaps his most effective tool for managing modern conflict. In many religious systems, a heretic is a rival who must be expelled to maintain group purity. Kook rebrands them. By labeling secular Jews as “unintentional” heretics, he allows them to remain part of the coalition without requiring them to change their behavior. He signals to the secular pioneers that they are “on the team” even if they do not know it yet. This prevents a total schism and keeps the labor-force of the Zionist movement under the umbrella of his religious authority.

Finally, the abolition of animal sacrifice in the messianic age addresses a long-standing tension with modern sensibilities. Alliance Theory posits that groups must constantly update their “sacred objects” to remain attractive to high-value allies. By signaling that the future Temple ritual could evolve, Kook makes his vision of the future more palatable to the modern, liberal-leaning allies he needs. He protects the “soul” of the tradition while quietly discarding the parts that might act as a social barrier to entry for the modern world.

In David Pinsof’s “Everything is Bullshit” frame, he argues that the stated reasons for our moral or intellectual positions are often cover stories for the true goal: social coordination and the pursuit of status. Applying this to the “unintentional heretic,” Kook’s theology looks like a brilliant piece of “strategic hypocrisy.” While the stated motive is a mystical belief in the divine soul of every Jew, the hidden motive is the necessity of maintaining a unified coalition during the high-stakes birth of a nation.

By calling someone an unintentional heretic, you effectively strip them of their agency to be your enemy. If a secular pioneer says, “I hate religion,” and Kook responds, “You actually love God, you just don’t realize it yet,” Kook wins the engagement. He refuses to accept the pioneer’s signal of rivalry. In Alliance Theory, this is a way of “kidnapping” an ally. Kook forces the secularist into his coalition by redefining the secularist’s own identity. It allows the religious community to cooperate with people whose lifestyles they find abhorrent without appearing to compromise their own principles.

This creates a “bullshit” layer where everyone can pretend the conflict does not exist for the sake of the larger goal: the Land of Israel. The secularists get the religious backing they need for national legitimacy, and the religious Zionists get a physical army to build the state. The “unintentional heretic” label is the rug under which they sweep the fundamental contradictions of their alliance.

Pinsof might also argue that Kook’s valorization of the masses is a classic “prestige swap.” By claiming the uneducated have a “purer” morality, Kook is not actually trying to learn from the masses; he is using them as a weapon to signal against his high-status rivals in the rabbinic world. It is a way of saying, “Your expertise is worthless because it lacks the ‘soul’ that these simple people have.” This allows Kook to position himself as the only one who truly understands both the heights of scholarship and the depths of the common heart, making him the indispensable leader of the entire hierarchy.

In the modern Israeli rabbinate, this strategic hypocrisy has evolved into a high-stakes battle over who defines the boundaries of the Jewish “in-group.” Following Pinsof’s logic, the contemporary Chief Rabbinate uses the same tools Rav Kook developed, but often for the opposite purpose: to narrow the alliance rather than expand it. While Kook used the “unintentional heretic” frame to pull people in, current factions often use strict halakhic standards to signal their own purity to their specific sub-group, effectively “purifying” their coalition of any moderates who might compromise their status.

The tension over conversion and marriage laws in Israel today is a perfect example of Alliance Theory in action. When the rabbinical establishment insists on rigid, uncompromising standards, they are not just debating law. They are signaling to their base that they are the only reliable guardians of the “sacred object”—in this case, the genealogical purity of the Jewish people. By making the barrier to entry high, they increase the value of belonging to their specific inner circle. They use the threat of “intermarriage” or “diluted identity” to keep their allies loyal and their rivals—the Reform, Conservative, or secular movements—marginalized.

We also see the “bullshit” frame in the way political parties like Shas or United Torah Judaism interact with the secular state. They may use fiery rhetoric about the holiness of the Sabbath, but the hidden motive is often the preservation of the “subsidy alliance.” By maintaining a separate educational system and securing government funding, they ensure that their followers remain dependent on the party leadership. The religious ideology serves as the cover story that prevents their “allies” from defecting to the broader secular economy.

Rav Kook’s legacy now functions as a “floating signifier” that different groups try to claim. Hardline settlers use Kook’s “sanctity of the land” to justify their political goals, while liberal Zionists use his “baseless love” to argue for pluralism. Both sides are playing a coordination game. They invoke Kook’s prestige to signal that their specific political agenda is the one true path. They aren’t seeking Kook’s original intent as much as they are using his ghost to recruit supporters for 21st-century battles.

Marc Shapiro’s revelation of Rav Kook’s private, more radical thoughts threatens the stability of modern religious alliances by exposing the “bullshit” layer of their coordination. In Alliance Theory, a coalition stays together by rallying around a shared, often simplified, version of a sacred object or figure. Modern religious Zionism relies on a “sanctified” version of Kook—the one who loved every Jew but stayed within the bounds of traditional Orthodoxy. By showing that Kook privately entertained ideas about the abolition of sacrifices or the divine nature of other religions, Shapiro effectively sabotages the current elite’s ability to use Kook as a shield for their conservatism.

If the “hidden writings” become common knowledge, the high-status gatekeepers of the rabbinate lose their monopoly on his legacy. They can no longer easily signal that they are Kook’s “true” successors if Kook himself held views that they now label as heretical. This creates a crisis of “strategic coordination.” If the foundation of your group’s identity is built on a figure who turns out to be more radical than you are, your signals of purity start to look like signals of ignorance or stagnation. Shapiro’s work forces the modern rabbinate to either disown their founder or broaden their own coalition to include the very “progressive” ideas they currently fight against.

This also plays into the “prestige swap” between the learned elite and the masses. For decades, the rabbinic establishment told the masses what Kook meant. They used their status as scholars to gatekeep his difficult Hebrew texts. Shapiro, by making these “difficult” ideas accessible to the broader public, democratizes the prestige. He allows the “masses” to see the “bullshit” for themselves. This weakens the hierarchy because the lower-status members of the alliance can now point to the founder’s own words to challenge the leadership’s authority.

Pinsof’s theory suggests that when a cover story is blown, groups must either find a new cover story or watch their alliance fragment. The modern religious Zionist movement may face a schism where one side doubles down on a “purified” Kook—denying the radical writings—while another side uses Shapiro’s findings to launch a new, more inclusive alliance. In this battle, the truth of what Kook actually believed is less important than which group can more effectively use these new facts to recruit allies and delegitimize their rivals.

This process of re-branding a founder mirrors the Protestant Reformation or the rise of the New Hollywood directors. In each case, a new coalition uses “forgotten” or “pure” versions of a sacred text to delegitimize the current high-status gatekeepers. By pointing to the original source—whether it is the Bible or Kook’s private manuscripts—the challengers signal that the current leadership is actually a group of “pretenders” who have corrupted the original vision. This allows the challengers to claim the moral high ground while simultaneously staging a coup.

Shapiro’s work acts as the “original source” that breaks the current monopoly. When the religious establishment uses Kook to justify exclusion, challengers can now use Shapiro’s research to show that Kook himself was inclusive. This is a classic “prestige heist.” The challengers do not have to build their own authority from scratch; they simply steal the authority of the existing founder and use it against the current leaders. It turns the leadership’s primary weapon—their connection to the founder—into a liability.

In Pinsof’s frame, the “soul” of the movement becomes a prize in a game of king-of-the-hill. The group that successfully defines Rav Kook for the next generation wins the right to dictate the moral and political direction of religious Zionism. If the radical, “Shapiro-version” of Kook wins out, it will likely be because a new coalition of modern, tech-savvy, or liberal religious Jews found it to be a more effective tool for recruiting allies in the 21st century. They will use the “unintentional heretic” and “divine revelation in other religions” to build a much larger, more global alliance that the current, narrow Rabbinate cannot match.

The “bullshit” is that neither side is necessarily seeking Kook’s “true” essence for its own sake. They are seeking a version of Kook that helps them win their current social conflicts. If Kook’s radicalism helps a new group gain status and allies, they will champion it. If it threatens their current funding or social cohesion, they will ignore it. The battle over the book is really a battle over who gets to sit at the head of the table in the Jewish world.

Legal Originalism operates as a high-stakes “prestige heist” nearly identical to the theological maneuvering Marc Shapiro describes. In David Pinsof’s framework, established hierarchies—whether the Israeli Rabbinate or the liberal judicial consensus of the mid-20th century—derive their power from being the authorized interpreters of the law. They use their status to signal that their current “moral” consensus is the only valid one. Originalism functions as a strategic counter-move to delegitimize these gatekeepers by appealing to a “purer,” older source that the current elite supposedly betrayed.

The strategy relies on bypassing the living leadership to form an alliance with the “dead” founders. By claiming to channel the “original public meaning” of the Constitution, Originalists signal that the current judges are not actual authorities but are merely “activists” who have hijacked the system. This allows a rising coalition of lawyers and politicians to stage a coup against the legal establishment. They do not argue that their own preferences are better; they argue that the founders’ preferences are supreme, and they are merely the humble messengers. This is the same “strategic humility” Kook used when he claimed the “masses” were purer than the scholars. It masks a bid for power as a return to tradition.

The “bullshit” layer in Originalism is the claim of neutrality. Pinsof’s theory suggests that we choose the frameworks that best help our coalition win. Originalists do not apply their method to every single historical context; they use it most aggressively when it helps them dismantle the “sacred objects” of their rivals, such as the administrative state or specific civil rights precedents. The methodology acts as a recruitment tool. It provides a shared language for a new elite to coordinate their actions and justify their outcomes to the public. It turns a political conflict into a technical, historical one, making their power grab look like a logical necessity.

Shapiro’s work on Rav Kook does for religious Zionism what the Federalist Society did for the American judiciary. It provides the intellectual “ammunition” for a new group to claim they are the true heirs to the throne. By uncovering the “hidden” Kook, Shapiro gives the next generation of reformers a way to bypass the current rabbis. They can now say the Rabbinate is “unfaithful” to Kook’s actual, more radical vision. It is a classic move in the game of status: if you cannot win under the current rules, you find an older set of rules and claim the current leaders are cheating.

Every successful prestige heist eventually hardens into the very bureaucracy it once attacked. Alliance Theory explains this as the transition from a “recruitment phase” to a “maintenance phase.” When a movement like Originalism or a new wing of religious Zionism gains power, its goals shift. It no longer needs to disrupt the status quo; it needs to prevent its own new allies from defecting. The once-radical “hidden truths” become the new, rigid dogmas that define the borders of the in-group.

As a new elite consolidates power, they begin to use the same “gatekeeping” signals they once mocked. If a new generation of rabbis uses Shapiro’s research to take control, they will eventually stop emphasizing Kook’s “radicalism” and start emphasizing “tradition” again to protect their own status. They will find that Kook’s more difficult ideas—like the abolition of sacrifices—are inconvenient for daily governance. To maintain a stable coalition, they must simplify the message. The “unintentional heretic” becomes a formal legal category rather than a revolutionary bridge, and the “purity of the masses” becomes a sentimental slogan used to justify the leadership’s existing policies.

The “bullshit” cycle repeats because the human need for coordination never ends. Every movement creates “sacred objects” to signal loyalty, and every sacred object eventually becomes a target for a new rival. A future scholar will likely “discover” that Shapiro’s interpretation of Kook was itself a product of its time. That future scholar will claim to have found an even deeper, more “authentic” Kook that proves the Shapiro-era establishment has lost its way. This is the “everything is bullshit” frame in its purest form: the pursuit of truth is often a high-level game of musical chairs where the person left standing gets to write the history books.

The establishment survives by absorbing the language of its critics while stripping it of its disruptive power. This “recuperation” ensures that the hierarchy remains intact even as the labels change. The “Last Kings of Hollywood” became the new studio bosses they once hated. The Originalist judges became the “living” interpreters they once criticized. And the new Kookists, should they succeed, will eventually become the grey-bearded gatekeepers of the next century.

Revolutionary movements inevitably mimic their predecessors because the underlying physics of social coordination do not change. To overthrow an old regime, a movement must be lean, aggressive, and highly disruptive. It uses “purity” as a weapon to signal that the old elite is corrupt. However, once the revolution succeeds, the new winners face a different problem. They must now manage a large, diverse coalition and ensure long-term stability. This requires the same tools of hierarchy, gatekeeping, and “strategic hypocrisy” that they once attacked.

In Pinsof’s framework, the transition from rebel to ruler is a shift from an offensive to a defensive alliance. Rebels use “truth” to blow up the old coordination game. Rulers use “bullshit” to keep the new coordination game from falling apart. If a new group uses Shapiro’s radical Kook to take over the Rabbinate, they will soon find that universalism and the “unintentional heretic” frame are difficult tools for running a government or a court system. To maintain order, they will start creating new definitions, new “official” interpretations, and new ways to punish those who stray too far from the group. They become the new gatekeepers because a coalition without gates eventually ceases to exist.

This cycle explains why the “New Hollywood” directors ended up creating a system of blockbusters and franchises that was even more rigid and commercially driven than the old studio system. Their “rebellion” was a signal used to gain power; once they held the power, their incentive was to protect their investments and their status. They became the kings they sought to depose because the throne dictates the behavior of whoever sits on it. The structure of the alliance determines the actions of the leader, not the other way around.

The “everything is bullshit” frame suggests that there is no “true” end to this cycle. We do not move toward a more “authentic” society. We simply swap one set of coordination tools for another as power shifts between coalitions. The “soul” of the movement—whether it is cinema, the Constitution, or religious Zionism—is a trophy that the winners carry into the next battle. The revolutionary’s cry for “purity” is the first step toward becoming the next generation’s “corrupt” establishment.

ChatGPT says: Shapiro’s book is not merely a study of theology or historical texts. It is a coalition-analysis project. It highlights how Rav Kook’s thought laid the groundwork for a broad alliance among very different strands of Jewish life and how later interpreters (including Shapiro) serve as alliance brokers between contemporary communities that experience that heritage very differently.

1. Coalition formation through expanded membership.
Traditional Orthodox frameworks draw a strong boundary around who “counts” as legitimate believers or interpreters of Jewish law and theology. Rav Kook’s thought, as presented by Shapiro, stretches these boundaries by acknowledging religious value in other religions and describing moral worth among non-scholars. That functionally enlarges the potential alliance network beyond strict doctrinal tribes. It invites Orthodox Jews to see moral resonance outside conventional boundaries and thus expands the sphere of cultural trust rather than narrows it.

2. Bridging elites and masses.
Alliance Theory stresses the importance of connecting high-status interpretive authority with the broader public. Rav Kook’s recognition that intuitive moral insight among the masses can complement the elite’s learning does exactly that. It reduces the risk of alienation between scholarly elites and lay communities by cultivating mutual respect. This is a form of coalition work that preserves hierarchical credibility while also mobilizing wider participation from non-elite groups.

3. Reframing internal fracturing as structural integration.
Shapiro’s emphasis on Rav Kook’s dialectical approach to halakhah and secular knowledge reframes what could be seen as doctrinal fracture into integrated alliance strategies. Instead of pitting tradition against modernity, Kook’s vision allows them to cohere into a larger cultural coalition, where tradition is not weakened but renewed through engagement with broader intellectual currents. This is an alliance maneuver that de-escalates internal division and reconfigures competing claims into a shared interpretive framework.

4. Curation of authority across time and communities.
Shapiro’s own work is another layer of alliance management. He does not simply recount Kook’s ideas. He translates them for audiences outside the original historical and ideological context, especially English-speaking Orthodox readers. This is alliance work because it connects different cultural constituencies: historical thinkers, contemporary theologians, and modern audiences who may resist some traditional frameworks. His scholarly brokerage preserves credibility with academic elites while inviting lay engagement.

5. Alliance durability through negotiated flexibility.
One of the main alliance dynamics is adjustment without betrayal. Rav Kook’s willingness to reinterpret biblical literalism and ritual norms without abandoning the identity of tradition allows the system to absorb change. That flexibility reduces coalition brittleness. Shapiro’s framing of these themes promotes alliance resilience within Orthodox circles who fear dogmatic disputes but must engage modern intellectual challenges.

In short: through Pinsof’s lens, Shapiro’s book is a case study in alliance construction and stabilization. Rav Kook’s thought, as mediated by Shapiro, enlarges membership, bridges elites and masses, defuses doctrinal conflict, and negotiates tradition with modernity, all of which are the core tactics of sustained alliance work in complex cultural systems.

Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, provides a compelling subject for Alliance Theory because his life was defined by the strategic navigation of three mutually exclusive coalitions: the secular Zionists, the traditionalist Orthodox, and the universalists. David Pinsof’s framework suggests that moral and spiritual claims are often high-level strategies for recruiting allies and marginalizing rivals. In this context, Rabbi Kook’s philosophy of universal unity and ahavat chinam, or baseless love, acts as a sophisticated alliance-building mechanism.

While most of his contemporaries chose sides, Kook refused to belong to a single party. He understood that a rabbi who identifies with a specific faction signals to other groups that they are rivals. By framing the secular, anti-religious labor movement as a holy mission within a divine plan, Kook used spiritual language to pull these secular rebels into a broad religious coalition. This was a strategic expansion of the in-group. He argued that the secular pioneers provided the physical body for the nation, while the religious provided the soul. This metaphor allowed him to recruit the “heretics” as essential allies without requiring them to immediately change their behavior.

Kook also used moral signaling to defend himself against the traditionalist religious elite. Many Orthodox leaders viewed the secular Zionists as a threat to their social order. Kook countered this by claiming a higher moral ground. He argued that the “purely righteous” do not complain about heresy but instead increase faith. This framing made the criticism from his rivals look like a moral failing of narrow-mindedness rather than a legitimate defense of tradition. By defining his inclusive stance as the most authentic expression of the divine will, he signaled his value as a unique bridge between the old world and the new.

The concept of a sacred object plays a central role in this analysis. For Kook, the Land of Israel functioned as the ultimate sacred object that could unify disparate groups. He proposed that the land itself had a mystical quality that would eventually harmonize all factions. By placing the land at the center of his theology, he created a shared goal that forced secular nationalists and religious traditionalists into an alliance they would otherwise reject. This was not just a mystical belief but a way to manage a highly fractured social landscape.

ChatGPT says: Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook was a foundational architect of modern Religious Zionism and the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of British Mandate Palestine. His thought and life cannot be understood without looking at how he built and sustained alliances across very different Jewish worlds.

Kook’s structural genius was alliance building across multiple social universes that were in tension or outright conflict:

One, the secular Zionist movement that was redefining Jewish identity around nation-building. Kook embraced Zionist nationhood and theological legitimacy in ways most traditional rabbis could not. He offered a theological foundation for marrying Torah with modern nationalist labor and settlement projects. This made him a bridge between secular and religious communities, one of the rare figures in that milieu with credibility in both camps.

Two, traditional Orthodox communities who saw secular Zionism as hostile to Torah and Halakha. Most of these leaders rejected Zionist pioneers as secular renegades. Yet Kook deliberately cultivated respect toward secular leaders even while criticizing them on Halakhic grounds. He sought to embrace rather than reject those whom others wrote off, positioning himself as someone who could stabilize alliances across Orthodox and secular sectors while minimizing defections.

Three, emerging Religious Zionist groups. Kook did not simply split the difference. He created a new ideological space where holiness, nation, and humanity could be integrated into a larger vision of spiritual and national renaissance. That integration was inherently alliance work: he did not take sides in conventional splits but instead expanded the coalition triangle to include elements that had previously been enemies or strangers in the same camp.

Viewed in Alliance Theory terms, the core of Kook’s influence was coalition credibility. He was trusted enough by diverse Jewish subgroups to be listened to, but also distinct enough from any one faction to be accepted as a unifier. His writings on unconditional love among Jews and unified destiny under Torah provided cultural glue rather than narrow doctrinal enforcement.

That did not guarantee harmony. Traditional rabbis accused him of heresy; secular nationalists sometimes saw him as out of touch with politics; even within Religious Zionism later divisions emerged around how to interpret his vision. These conflicts reflect the dynamic tension in coalition work: the bigger the alliance you try to hold together, the more internal pressures and defections you face.

Kook’s historical role, from this perspective, was not simply religious leadership but fixing and stabilizing alliance credibility in a fracturing Jewish society that faced modernity, nationalism, and tradition all at once. His enduring legacy is that Religious Zionist identity today still traces back to the alliances he seeded across cultural fault lines.