Orot, Inc. was founded in 1990 by Rabbi Bezalel Naor to disseminate the teachings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook (1865-1935), first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Erets Israel. Rav Kook is considered one of the greatest Jewish thinkers and mystics of all time.
This is the author’s second collection of Rav Kook’s writings. (The first was entitled, The Spiritual Revolution of Rav Kook [2018].)
The book is divided into two parts: Individual Spirituality and Collective Spirituality. The division was inspired by something that Rav Kook himself wrote in one of his journals:
There is a type of Tsaddik/Righteous Person who shouldn’t leave the spiritual feelings of one’s heart. Such a person doesn’t need to look outside of one’s private realm.
However, there is another type of Tsaddik who is involved with all the different aspects of the world. Such a person looks at heaven as well as earth, from the beginning of the world to the end.
And then there sometimes exists a great Tsaddik who includes both of these values. At times, this person doesn’t look outside of one’s private realm, while at other times, one’s eyes look at everything. “Lift up your eyes and see … to the north and south, to the east and west” (Bereshit 13:14).[1]
In his Introduction, the author makes an astute sociological observation:
For many years, the books published about Rav Kook in Hebrew were focused mainly on the collective spirituality within Rav Kook’s writings. For example, there are countless books that talk about the importance of dedicating oneself to the Jewish people, of making Aliyah to Israel, and being a part of something greater than oneself.
On the other hand, in the last ten to twenty years there has been a resurgence and renewed interest among Israeli youth who want to focus more on the individual spirituality within Rav Kook’s writings. Today, there are many books in Hebrew that focus on what Rav Kook says about psychology, the power of the individual soul, meditation, prayer, poetry and creativity.
According to Rav Kook, the ultimate goal of a person should be to dedicate oneself to both of these paths: individual spirituality and collective spirituality.
(The Spiritual Wisdom of Rav Kook, pp. 26-27)
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I am reminded of what I wrote a half century ago in my analysis of Orot ha-Teshuvah (Lights of Return), entitled, “Zedonot na‘asot ke-zakhuyot be-mishnato shel Harav Kuk.” (The manuscript of the essay was read and given the “thumbs up” by none other than Rav Tsevi Yehudah Kook zt”l, the compiler of Orot ha-Teshuvah.)
I subdivided the material into two headings: Return to Oneself (Teshuvah el ‘atsmo) and Return to the World (Teshuvah el ha-‘Olam). I maintained that in Rav Kook’s understanding, the more one dives into the depths of one’s individual being, the more expansive grows one’s worldliness. I likened this paradox to a Mobius strip. In the edition of my essay that was anthologized in ‘Ofer ha-Ayyalim (1994), the editor, Dani Koch, was kind enough to provide in a footnote an illustration of a Mobius strip with accompanying explanation.
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An entry from a journal of Rav Ya‘akov Moshe Harlap, Rav Kook’s preeminent disciple, may offer further insight into the two types of tsaddikim. While the disciple’s lines were written in an autobiographical vein, I believe that they describe no less aptly the master. Writes Rav Harlap:
There are two general types in the world. One who lives a private life (perati), except that many people are nourished by that individuality. And so [in that sense] the person is universal (kelali). However, there is a universalist (kelali) who is nourished by universalism (kelaliyut).
The first type, though many need them, are essentially private. They can exist without the many, though the many cannot exist without them.
But the second type are universalist in every aspect. They need the community and the community needs them …
Unlike the former, the latter have no particular school (shitah). In the case of the former, even if their school becomes accepted by the masses, it is nevertheless but a particular school. It does not include all the parties and all the schools.
Not so the latter. Since their nourishment is from the collective, all the directions of the collective are represented in their interior. They are like a mirror of the collective. For this reason, all are drawn to them. All the schools and all the parties find in them what they are searching for. These [collectivists] do not restrict themselves to what already exists in the world, but [encompass] even that which has not yet come into the world. All is absorbed by them …
I know in my soul that I am one of the latter.[2]
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Let us conclude with an anecdote.
“When Rav Kook would pronounce the words, Knesset Yisrael (Ecclesia Israel), his entire being would become excited. It was as if Rav Kook had placed his entire essence, all the longings of his soul into these words” (Rav Yitzhak Hutner).[3]
There is more to this story. In Jerusalem there resided a moreh hora’ah (halakhist) of the first rung known as the Tepliker Rov. A scion of the Chernobyl hasidic dynasty, Rav Shimshon Aharon Polonsky hailed from Teplyk, Ukraine. In the 1920s Rav Polonsky arrived in Jerusalem, where he was universally acclaimed on account of his unmatched mastery of halakhah. It was he who mentored the great Jerusalem halakhists of the next generation, Rav Shelomo Zalman Auerbach and Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv. Though the Tepliker managed to stay above politics, belonging to neither Rav Kook’s camp nor that of his opponent Rav Sonnenfeld, he had the utmost respect for Rav Kook. On Sunday morning, he would press those who had attended Rav Kook’s talk at Se‘udah Shelishit (the Third Meal of the Sabbath) the day before: “Nu, zog shoin iber di Knesses-Yisroel Torah!” “Tell over already the Knesset Yisrael Torah.” Upon hearing a recap of Rav Kook’s Torah, the Tepliker’s eyes would twinkle and he would be overwhelmed.[4]
[1] Rav Avraham Yitzhak Hakohen Kook, Shemonah Kevatsim (Eight Journals) 1:306.
[2] Rav Ya‘akov Moshe Harlap, ed. Hayyim Yehudah Ephraim Zaks, Amarot Tehorot (Jerusalem, 2002), pp. 16-17. The editor informs us that the entry in the journal is from the year 1908, Rav Harlap’s twenty-sixth year. By that time, Rav Harlap was profoundly influenced by Rav Kook. The passage from the first of the Eight Journals of Rav Kook, which served our author, Rabbi Schwartz, as a springboard, is from the decade 1904-1914, making the two pieces of master and disciple roughly contemporaneous. Rav Kook and Rav Harlap were thinking along the same lines of differentiating between individualists and collectivists.
[3] The Spiritual Wisdom of Rav Kook, p. 295, quoting Rav Hutner, as told to Rav Moshe Tsevi Neriyah, Bisdeh ha-RAYaH. See also Rav Moshe Tsevi Neriyah, Likkutei ha-RAYaH (Tel-Aviv, 1990), footnote to p. 185.
[4] Likkutei ha-RAYaH, p. 185.