Great Souls Have No Rest

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

Great souls have no rest from fear and depression until they reach that level for which they are destined from the essence of their nature and the root from which they are hewn: to be absorbed entirely, constantly, into the divine light, with a great radiance of a lucid consciousness and mighty desire of an exceedingly powerful will.

And whatever is lower than that does not satisfy their hunger, and does not calm their spirit.

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Such great people must leap [over levels,] in order to enter into great thoughts.

A person must recognize his inner ability, and he must know whether he has been created for great things. He should not be taken aback by the sin of pride insofar as he recognizes the level of his consciousness, and the quality of the direction of his desire. To the contrary, a person must be much more careful about an unacceptable modesty, which oppresses the soul and occludes the divine light in the spirit.

When great people rise in their consciousness, the entire world rises with them—in terms of feeling, in terms of the joined nature of all human spirits.

But in the greatest measure of all, the nature of that joined spirit is active within the Jewish people, who from the aspect of the soul possess an absolute unity.
Orot Hakodesh III, p. 216