I Will Speak with My Heart

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

I will speak with my heart, and my spirit will seek, it will seek and it will find, it will seek with the lamp of Hashem, which is the human soul. And [God’s] thought of Israel, which preceded everything else, will illumine with the ultimate strength the source of all the letters of the Torah.

“Behold, a nation like a young lion will stand and like a lion will arise.”

“Behold I shall open your graves and take you up from your graves with me, and bring you to the land of Israel.”

“‘And I will place my spirit upon you and give you life’—in the past, I gave you Torah, in the future I will give you life.’”

The soul of Israel, the source of Torah, will find itself. And when it finds its essence, all of the letters of the Torah will gleam before it with their beautiful radiance of life, and they shall be called by a new name, a new name that the mouth of Hashem will designate.

From the brilliance of the sight of the salvation of the whole, the light of the individual— which has nothing besides that which is in the whole—will shine.

“And the survivor in Zion and the remnant in Jerusalem will be called holy, each one who is written for life in Jerusalem.”

Chadarav, p. 188

An Assumed Honor

            I will not, for the sake of an assumed honor, abandon my yearning for the secrets of Torah.

            The knowledge of Hashem, the God of truth, constantly raises me, even when I am in the house of my sojourning, in the land of my wandering, in exile and in lowliness—which is the greatest atonement, which grants atonement for everything, and which is therefore very bitter, depressing the spirit.

            Even though the coarseness of the lowly physical does not allow a person to feel properly, nevertheless there is a sense of an inner smallness, lowliness and the abandoning of a haughty spirit, the donning of humility and purity, and the desire for repentance.

            I will place my refuge in Hashem God. And the yearning for our return to our holy land, to dwell in the courtyards of Hashem, to gaze upon His pleasantness, lift me up and give me life.

            And Hashem will give me a tongue of learning. He will lift up my spirit and purify my mind and heart and all of my plans, and reveal to me the light of the inner being of my soul.

            And from the holy land He will send His help, and a ray of light will shine for me from the heights, the very highest mountain, from the holy and from Zion, the house of our desires selah.

            And I must strengthen myself in my Mighty One. “My spirit has desired in the shadow of Your hand to know all the mystery of Your secret.”

            If I am very lowly, if my will is weak, if I have been taken captive in the hands of lusts and weaknesses, behold, Hashem helps me, Hashem is among those who support my spirit.

            I will not fear and I will not be afraid. I will not be abashed and I will not be shamed. The Torah of truth will lift me up. I will exalt the name of Hashem in song. In the midst of the masses I will praise Him.

            Chadarav, pp. 105-107

 

It Breaks Walls of Bronze

 by Avraham Yitzchak Kook

          Our soul is great, strong and mighty. It breaks walls of bronze, it bursts mountains and hills. It is infinitely broad, it must spread out. It is impossible for it to shrink.

            Over all our twelve million Jewish souls on all their levels, in all their ascents and descents, on all the hills that they have climbed and in all the valleys into which they have descended, in all the heights of the city where they stand at the very pinnacle, in all the burrows where they hid from the oppression of disgrace and shame, toil and affliction, in all of them, in all of them our soul spreads, it embraces them all, it revives and encourages them all, it returns them all to the site of the house of our life.

            “Who are these that fly like a cloud and like doves to their cotes” (Isaiah 60:8).

            Chadarav, p. 190

 

Who Are These That Fly

  by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

         Our soul is great, strong and mighty. It breaks walls of bronze, it bursts mountains and hills. It is infinitely broad, it must spread out. It is impossible for it to shrink.

            Over all our twelve million Jewish souls on all their levels, in all their ascents and descents, on all the hills upon they have ascended and in all the valleys into which they have descended, in all the heights of the city where they stand at the very pinnacle, in all the burrows where they hid from the oppression of disgrace and shame, toil and affliction, in all of them, in all of them our soul spreads, it embraces them all, it revives and encourages them all, it returns them all to the site of the house of our life.

            “Who are these that fly like a cloud and like doves to their cotes” (Isaiah 60:8).

            Chadarav, p. 190

We Yearn to be Filled with Greatness

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

Our goal is always directed not only to be redeemed from the narrow straits, not only to be healed of wounds and to be saved from sicknesses, not only to emerge from the conditions of poverty and from the dark of blindness—no!
A thirst to [do away with the] negative in itself depresses the spirit and does not give satisfaction to life.
It is not for this that we were brought into being by the Creator, He who is good and does good, the compassionate Father, the Source of all lovingkindness, all love and all compassion.
Rather, we yearn to be filled with greatness, great contentment in the soul, a fresh life filled with illumination in every corners to which we turn, Eden and infinite pleasure in every breath that we breathe, a never-sufficient youthfulness from the Source of the life of all worlds.
You, only You, Hashem—I seek Your greatness, I hope for it and I aspire to it.
And we come to the land of Israel, and we hope for deliverance, and we long for the redemption of the soul—but not to be saved from the chains of exile, not to escape the deformities of its sufferings that cause us to wear away.
No! Infinitely more than that—[we come] for the sake of revealing all of the light, for the sake of causing the streams of eternal life to flow from the Source of the holy of holies, from the Source of Israel, from the Source of [Israel’s] supernal soul, from the Source of that delightful love, [which comes from] the Rock of Ages, Who illumines for us with rays of glory a lovely land, the holy land, the land of life and the land of light.
“My soul longs and indeed expires for the courtyards of Hashem, my heart and my flesh will sing to the living God.”
How fortunate we are, we are blessed and fortunate with an eternal happiness and an exalted eternity.
“Fortunate are you Israel, who is like you, a nation saved by Hashem.”
Fortunate are you, [nation of] Israel, fortunate are you, fortunate are you.
Chadarav, 200-201

“How Miniscule are Your Works, Hashem!”

 by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

          In the worldly fields of knowledge about our sensory environment, we see that just as it is correct to say, “How great are Your works, Hashem,” so also should we exclaim in astonishment, “How miniscule are Your works, Hashem!”

            Yes, just as we are filled with wonder at the great astronomical lights, at the vast distances filled with wondrous stars, and marvelous forces of nature, so also are we struck with wonder when we look at the depth of creation on the microscopic level, at the details of the limbs of the smallest living creatures, of the fineness of matter and the most sensitive forces in the most inaccessible planes.

            Then, with a full knowledge of these two opposite poles, of such great size and such smallness, the picture of the universe is filled in a person’s heart in its proper dimension.

            And the same applies to the Torah.

            The totality of supernal concepts within Torah, in its general principles, in its supernal paths of justice and in its exalted spiritual wisdom show us the Torah’s complete world of greatness, its general concepts that are like the stars of the sky.

            But it is precisely from that elevated perspective that we must realize that just as we find great wealth in those great principles, so also will he find mountains upon mountains, masses of original and precious insights in its every jot and title, in its every smallest detail. The precise definitions and the breadth developed in every branch grow into all the details of its leaves and shoots, to an immeasurable degree.

            So then, even a person who very much tends to enjoy the greatness of mind that comes from contemplating expansive ideas will find it pleasant to engage in Torah for its own sake in the very finest of details.

            Then he will succeed in attaining both the great and the small. “A great thing—that is the study of the mystical chariot; a small thing—those are the halachic discussions of Abaye and Rava.”

            Orot Hatorah 3:8

In a Life That Encompasses All Being

     by Rav Avraham Yitchak Kook

 

      Fearing God and keeping God’s commandments in an incomplete life that appears only to the gross, corporeal eye can pave a path for itself with “commandments as though humanly taught,” with limited human reason.

            But in a life that encompasses all being, a life whose boundaries are as broad as the breadth of all existence, whose images are so rich and heaped in their measure that even the heights of heaven cannot contain them, there is nowhere to turn except to the law and divine commandant.

            The source of might cannot be more or less than the fear of God, living and fresh, as it proceeds to sprinkle the dew of revival upon areas of activity in [this very] life—“guard His commandments”—for a person must as an entirety be educated and guided so that he will fit into all of existence and [connect] to its Source.

            It is not possible to found an educational system [solely] on behalf of one spark of a human being, on behalf of one drop [that comes] from his sea of life. Rather, every individual must reach the heights to which he yearns, every person in his entirety with all of his worth, with his life filled with everything in the physical and everything in the spiritual, all of temporal life and all of eternal life—the entire person, he, only he, can absorb into himself a complete and acceptable solution to the riddle of the world and life, which so greatly stings and hurts.

            There is nothing useful in a doubting stubbornness that bitterly says that it will set meaningless conditions upon which to build its pillars so as to [understand] God and His world, [a stance] that stubbornly demands to find comfort, a solution, precisely in this small flash of the life of the senses, of the circumscribed flesh and spirit, in this temporary life that passes like a fleeting shadow.

            That is not the way. [It is true that] the [incomplete] part is important and worthy, the flesh is refined and beloved, and the spirit awakens and arises.

            But all of these attain their greatness, their radiance, [only] when they yearn radiantly [as they face] the center of the course of their being, which is given prominence only because it has been carved out in a divine manner, only [because it derives] from the divine source that the holy people of the world—the champions of supernal ethics, the lions of justice and truth, the kings of faith and simple-heartedness, the rulers of life and conquerors of death, who ride the heights of existence—with their intellect and feeling, with a mighty spirit that is the holy of holies, which peals before them like a bell, in the thunder of their might that transcends all boundaries of time and place free themselves and the entire world together with them from narrow obligations and constrained boundaries.

            And with that, it is precisely they who make a basis for the eden of life and its pleasantness. It is precisely they who know how to place a limit and a tempo upon everything positive and everything negative, upon every delight of the body and soul, upon all that is lovely to the eye and heart.

            It is precisely they who carve out justice—they are the princes of the world who lodge in the shadow of the Almighty.

            It is precisely they who teach man the [true] content of his life, [it is they] who rule over their [evil] inclination, who consider the universal reckoning, and whose counsel is faithful for every individual.

            Orot Hakodesh III, pp. 8-9

A Fire Burns Within Me

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

            And as for the fact that I yearn for mystical secrets—does that have in it anything of hypocrisy of falsehood?

            Rather, a fire burns within me in longing for the hidden. And if I had not limited the natural tendency of my spirit to turn to different paths, then I would truly rise, and my visionary power would grow stronger and rise for the good of all who yearn for feeling and thought in the world.

            Chadarav, p. 102

It Has Come to Pave a Path

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

If the evil inclination every day rises up with new, empty ways, I will know that it has come to pave a path upon which to raise all the days to the light of supernal life.

“Blessed be Hashem every day.” “And it was that when she spoke to Yosef every day, he did not listen to her.”

Chadarav, pp. 162-163.

 

An Accounting with My Spirit

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

I must make an accounting with my spirit: why do I specifically desire spiritual matters and godly concepts?
If I would find within myself that this is due to arrogance or due to a desire to escape the responsibilities of this-worldly engagements, I would need to restrain myself and crush my exalted yearning.
But when it grows clear to me—from the past to this moment—that my spiritual yearning is a true yearning, and that if I fail to fulfill it I do not gain anything in any other matters, I am bound to guard this task that the God of spirits has apportioned to me and soar (in thought and feeling) in the chambers of the spirit and supernal conceptions of holiness, as far as I am able.
And although I grow very weary and dismayed when I sense the weight of my sins, and at times as well the impossibility of rising from the depths and the chasms of errors, which surround me like water the entire day, I can only hope for the mercy of heaven.
“Hashem is God, and He has illumined me; and my God enlightens my darkness.”
Chadarav, pp. 100-102