I Am Filled with Love for God

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

I am filled with love for God. I know that what I seek, what I love, is called by no name. How can that which is greater than everything, greater than goodness, greater than quality, greater than being, be called by any name?

And I love, and I say: I love God.

The light of the Infinite One dwells within the expression of the Name, in the expression of the divine, and in all of the names and cognomens that the heart of a man teaches and expresses when his soul is lifted ever upwards.

I cannot satisfy my soul with the love that comes from chains of logic, from the search for the light of God via the world, via an existence that penetrates into the eyes.
In our soul are born divine lights—from the perspective of our spirit, many gods.
There is one true God—and higher than one, in the depth of His truth.
God is revealed, He rules over us, He conquers all of our spirits, the spirit of all existence.

Wherever there is idea, feeling, thought and will, wherever there is noble, spiritual life, the divine light rules, governs, conquers, scintillates, is magnificent, gives forth splendor and beauty, vivifies, elevates—all of it out of a clarity of the light of being. It rules—and it dies.

That rule is limited as long as it comes from the world, from being.
At times the light waxes. One desires a light that is more refined, more inward, more true, which is in its very essence more energetic.

The light overwhelms the vessel, thought overwhelms being. The structure cannot hold, the inner content is not congruent, the vessels shatter, the kings die, the gods die, their soul rises, soars to the heavens. The bodies descend to the world of separation, existence stands bare, isolated, torn away, scattered.

It contains within itself, hidden and concealed, an eternal desire for the supernal light.

The eternal love has placed within the shattered vessels its light, its sparks.
In every movement, in every content of life, in every quality is being. There is a spark, a spark of a spark, faint, exceedingly faint, the inner light, the light of the supernal God, building and setting a foundation, gathering the scattered, rectifying forever, organizing and joining together.

The eternal sovereignty is revealed from the light of the Infinite One that is within the soul. From God to the world a new light is born: the light of the radiance of the glory of the face of God.

Chadarav