R. Shmuel Mohiliver and R. Yitzhak Yaakov Reines: Two Types of Religious Zionism

A typology presents ideal concrete types, and probing their personality and character enables the creation of general patterns. The study of the personality thus grants access to the depth of an idea not only in abstract terms but also in its function as a guide to, and a source of, an ethos. Furthermore, the personality construct plays a significant role in the understanding of historical processes because many events are ascribed or tied to the centrality of a specific individual. The study of typology is especially linked to Eduard Spranger (1882–1963), who claimed that ideal types convey conscious structures. In his view, we can impart significance to actions and behaviors only in relation to the agent’s set of values. In his writings, Spranger presented six ideal types. What is the meaning of a typology when discussing a movement such as religious Zionism? In this article, I attempt to trace an ideological portrait of two types that, in my estimate, created through their personality and their endeavor the ideological pattern that has accompanied religious Zionism and the religious-Zionist idea throughout this movement’s existence. I set up these two thinkers and entrepreneurs as pure types, even though no such types exist in reality. I present the pure types as founded on dominant features although, again, well aware that there are no pure features in the concrete world. Besides describing the characteristic features of the two types, I will argue that the interaction between the patterns they established facilitates understanding of several historical events. These patterns at times continue one another but, mainly, they confront one another. To illustrate their course, I will relate to two historical episodes where these personality patterns come forth, one that took place a few years after R. Reines’ death and the other about fifty years later or more, whose implications are felt up to this day.