In 1982 Rav Kahane nursed the project of starting the Yeshivah Of The Jewish Idea. Why? Because Jews, including the frum religious ones, lost the Jewish Idea during our 2000 year Exile & failed to understand & act when G-d & Holy Torah commanded.
Unlike most fakes who call themselves "rabbonim" but in reality are stupid fools with nothing relevant to say, Rav Kahane, ZT"L, was a Man of Ideas, a great Jewish Prophet.
One could see in his face & in his body gestures how ideas pained him.
Very few people had brains & courage to understand what Rav Kahane was talking about.
Here is the Shiur that presents Jewish Idea in simple words. Especially important for religious Jews. Idea may look small & even silly, but when projected over the whole Torah Judaism it can set you to understand it all:
Underground in the bunker, discipline was tough.
We were under lots of pressure from ShaBaK, army, cops & even from the establishment right-wingers who mocked "the crazies in the bunker". We had to be on alert, to prevent infiltrations, arrests & provocations. We were criminals: staying unauthorized in a closed military zone against the orders of the israeli army.
We were the center of resistance of Yamit. Among the thousands of young Jew who took over this israeli town in Sinai in December 1981, bunker was preparing to fight to the end.
When final battle broke out in mid-April 1982, only Bunker Kiddush Hashem stood as the monument among the ruins of Yamit. A dozen of us, led by Yehuda Richter, almost died there. But we, a handful of young guys, some as young as 17, and three girls, Barbara Peres, Tamar Yonah & Batsheva Goldstein, stopped retreat from Sinai for 48 hours.
Yes, a dozen of young Jews stopped Camp David treachery, sponsored by Jimmy, the President of the United States, approved by the U.S. State Dept., all of West Europe, Egypt & enforced by israeli army & police.
Inside the bunker was a guard in charge of exit/entry, sanitary order, food preparation. Outside, on the roof, was another guard, armed with lead pipe & molotovs, who acted as a lookout for anyone suspicious entering our secluded 'shehunah'/hood & roads all the way toward the center of Yamit & around the 1967 War Heroes Monument.
Huge armored door was welded shut. One could crawl inside through the small armor door 2x3 feet.
Concrete walls were 'decorated' with rolls of barbed wire & long metal pipes with barbed wire rolls on one end to repel an invasion. On the long stick were hanging individual gas masks used if we get attacked with tear gas. Standing along the wall were water containers & cans of food if we would be under siege by the egyptian army.
Guards changed every 4 hours or so. List was prepared by Commander (now Rav) Yehuda Richter. Rav Yehuda was 21 or 22 at that time.
We had to be prepared for battle 24/7 & had to have patience to wait until it starts. Not everyone had mental strength to take pressure: one guy got kicked out & one left on his own.
Torah shuirim were a part of daily schedule to keep minds occupied & disciplined.
Rav Kahane, ZT'L, was sharing that idea with us, to start a Kach Yeshiva that he called "Yeshivat HaRaayon HaYehudi" or Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea, to prepare the future Jewish leaders in the mold of King David, scholars & warriors at the same time.
So here we were sitting on the overturned buckets & few old metal chairs, around the door placed on a 'blokim'/cement blocks that was our table. Rav was sitting in the middle of us, and here he starts his shiur, one of the first lessons of the new yeshiva.
" Once upon a time, hundred or so years ago, in tzarist Russia, one young man got his semicha & been sent to a small shul in one of the Russian cities. Shul like any other shul, but the congregation had a strange minhag/custom: for 'Shmone Esrei' everybody would turn around facing the back wall, with their backs toward the Aron HaKodesh.
New rabbi was puzzled. Nobody knew the reason why they had to do it. But people insisted that that's the way their fathers prayed & they will not abandon this important cherished minhag.
Rabbi asked all the rabbonim in the city but nobody could give the reason behind this minhag.
Months went by... until rabbi met one old man. When he heard rabbi's question, he started laughing hard. And the old man told rabbi a story.
'Your synagogue had been started by 'kantonists'. They were little Jewish boys, often orphans, who were 'chapped'/kidnapped off the streets as 8-12 year olds & taken to Tzar's Army. From the age of 18, they served 25 years as soldiers & discharged as middle-aged man. Needless to say, few that survived & kept their Yihadut, returned to the area where they grew up as children. But after all these years, all their relatives were either dead or had forgotten them. Community looked at them with suspicion. Worse, these old soldiers, torn from their people for so many years, remembered very little of Jewish customs. Some didn't know how to pray & some barely remembered the alef-beis. But kantonists got together & built their own shul, so that others will not scorn or make fun of them. They had a shaliyah tzibur, a cantor who prayed with them. But silent prayer, the Shmoneh Esrey, they wrote in the large letters on the back wall, turned around & read it silently. Years passed by... old kantonists passed away. Their children attended cheder & learned siddur. Back wall got painted over & over. But the old minhag would not die out.'
Here, Rav Kahane continued, is a very important drasha for all of us. It is commanded to build a 'gader'/a fence around the Law. Thus, there are hukkim di-rabbonan & minhagim. But behind each and every minhag, there is a reason. Some people just perform ritual without a thought, automatically, like robots. That is wrong. We must learn an idea behind each and every mitzvah. Because Torah Judaism is an Idea. This Idea we must learn."
And that is the shuir on why Rav Kahane, ZT'L, wanted to name his Yeshiva - Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea.