Below are two extracts taken from the “The Chafetz Chaim” (Rabbi Moses M. Yosher, Artscroll History Series, that should highlight the relationship that existed between R’Kook and the Chofetz Chaim.
[Pg 161 – Pg 162]
Many a prominent personage in religious Jewry could give credit for his successful career and honour achievement to the influence of the Chafetz Chaim. Suffice it to mention that such a renowned figure of distinction as the first chief rabbi of the Land of Israel, Rav Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook, would relate with particular pleasure, how he agreed, under the influence of Chafetz Chaim himself, to give up his plan to go into a career in commerce and instead to prepare to become a rabbi.
It is interesting to note that Rav Kook, then a young man, as first argued with the Chafetz Chaim that peraparation for the rabbinate would prevent him from fulfilling a previous commitment. He had promised the Chafetz Chaim, at his request that a Kohen he would choose an area of study in the laws of Temple sacrifice and learn it thoroughly enough to be able to clarify these unused laws, perhaps for a time of future observance. How could he keep his promise and still study for the rabbinate? The Chafetz Chaim responded by saying that he would release him, so long as he undertook to become a rabbi.[1]
[1] The Chafetz Chaim spent a great amount of time in Torah study with the young Rav Kook at that time. Ever since then, the pious sage greatly esteemed and honoured him
[Pg 440 – 442]
An Excellent evaluation of the Chafetz Chaim as a man of halacha was given by Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen Kook (in HaHeid, Jerusalem, Tishrei 1934). He wrote:
His first creation, from which his own name was established for all time, was the sacred book Chofetz Chaim. In it he gives the laws of the prohibitions on evil tongue and slander, with all their details, in a precise, organized manner, with a marvelous and valuable introduction. It is all clear-cut, definitive halacha, set on a firm basis of sources from Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, Tosefta, Sifra, Sifre and the definitive law of the Rishonim. With all this we have his straightforward elucidation which show how he derived all his conclusions from a halachic foundation. The subject of Evil Tongue brings pain to ones moral sensibility, but he did not assuage the pain by just preaching. Rather, he set everything on a foundation of sound halacha. Only in a few instance does some expression of moral outrage escape from his heart, directed at the deformity of speech which we call Evil Tongue, common in the world, to our great sorrow.
Much later, after this sacred volume spread in halachic circles, he thought it proper to publish a book of ethics full of pure mussar, true Torah and fear of Heaven, a book that is based essentially on the moral aspect of clean speech. The book, Shmiras Halashon, is a book in which every expression reminds us of the early masters of mussar, those men of great soul, the geonim and tzaddikim for all generations.
It was the holiness of kindness, of chessed, so firmly rooted in his heart, that impelled him to write his excellent book Ahavas Chesed. It is virtually in the same format as his Chafetz Chaim, a compendium of laws, clear and pertinent, on all aspects of kindness, chesd. This, too, is a halachic work, addressing its subject in the precise mode Jewish Law.
His heart, was full of concern for the welfare of Judaism in distance places where the Jewish community was not yet as well established. With special insight, he understood the trials that immigrants to new lands had to face in assuring the preservation of their full religious life. For that reason, he published his book Nidchei Yisrael. The book is filled with specific halachas that address the condition facing emerging communities in distant land. He sought to strengthen and encourage them, and to give them the heart to overcome all obstacles and to defend with all their might the completeness of their Judaism.
His vision penetrated to what was happening to Jewish youth, expecially to young men who were conscripted into armies where they were compelled to live lives removed from all Judaism. They needed special guidance on how to maintain their Judaism even in situations of military stress and of alien yokes that would bear down on them with force. For these Jewish soldiers, he wrote Machaneh Yisrael.
All the time, he was sensitive to the need for a full Jewish life, a life of Torah and Mitzvos, This is the Jewish life that is fixed and lasting, the Jewish life that is defined in all its details in the code of law, the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim. He found that although it had been explained and elucidated and commented upon by the great scholars of each generation, who unremittingly negated themselves in the task, there were still unfulfilled needs. With the immensity of halachic detail, there were many Jews who required clarification and determination of practical halacha. For this reason, he wrote Mishnah Berurah, and the accompanying Biur Halacha, both explaining, even to the reader of mild erudition, how to live by the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim. This book, Mishna Berurah, particularly gained its place among the Jews as a definitive work whose decisions were followed everywhere, a timeless heritage for them.
When the messianic Redemption comes, speedily in our day, and the Bais HaMikdash is built anew, the entiree body of Torah law concerning holy offerings will have to be clearly and lucidly available especially for the Kohanim [who will have to minister and attend to the offerings at the Sanctuary]. That tzaddik, however saw that this field of study was utterly neglected, and so het set his mighty hand to task and wrote a major work, Likkutei Halachos, on the entire Talmudic order Kodashim… in the format of the compendium of Rav Yitzchak Alfasi on the Babylonian Talmud.
