A Beit Shemesh Magistrates Court judge has issued an urgent temporary injunction preventing the sale of a handwritten manuscript by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Israel's first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi. The manuscript had been scheduled for auction at the Nakdimon auction house with an estimated price of 200,000 dollars.

The injunction was granted following a request by the Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook Institute, which claims the manuscript, known as notebook 13, was unlawfully taken from its possession about 20 years ago. The notebook contains 374 densely written pages documenting Rabbi Kook's early years in Israel beginning in 1904.

According to the institute, the rabbi's heirs entrusted the notebook to it for research and publication. After a printed edition was released in 2004, the manuscript was placed in storage at the institute's Jerusalem offices and was only recently discovered missing when it appeared advertised for sale online. The court has scheduled a hearing to examine the ownership claims and has barred any transfer or action involving the manuscript until a decision is reached.