The Holy Delight of the Divine

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

I must draw down the holy delight of the divine, contemplative cleaving [to God] on everything that I learn, do, pray and speak. The revealed halachic matters will become enriched, filled with a vitality of pleasantness of supernal holiness, a lucid awareness shall penetrate so as to understand, learn intellectually and feel how all of the complex paths of the depths of halachah come from the same sweet and pleasant wellspring from which all holy delights and all sweet radiances of the most refined matters flow.

Chadarav, p. 133

Earthiness

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

Earthiness, and all insights based upon the senses, and all desires that have a connection to and a relationship with them, provide the substance from which afterwards comes into realization that spiritual might with which we ally ourselves in the supernal structures, in regard to the heavenly insights and desires that shine within us.

But if we rise higher than the plateau appropriate for our [ability to] apprehend, we slip off [this] earthly basis. And [then] all of those efforts whose foundation is in the physical basis are lost to us—[efforts that,] when transformed into spiritual mixtures, place within us the spark of the flame of spiritual life [in such a way] that we are cast upward and weakened. And [then] spiritual power, its brightness and its clarity, with the precision of its desire and the strength of its spirit, are lost to us.

Wretched, we are then immersed in the great sea of spirituality, which storms upon us with its multitudinous waves. And the boat upon which we had been sitting is shattered and sunken to the depths in the storm of great waves.

And there are two pathways to being saved.

One is to rush to the shore, and in order to do so to take hold of some fragment of the boat until we find relief and rescue, until we meet up with a rescue boat or a new boat sailing upon the great sea, which will be prepared to take us on board. [This corresponds to] new horizons of service, knowledge, logic and activities, connected to those same great thoughts and ideals that have already been absorbed into us.

[The second way is] to rise so [high] to the height of the elevation of the supernal spirit, to the point of the establishment of an independent and fundamental nature of true citizenship in the heavenly world, to become one of the fish of the sea, like one of the great sea creatures, one of the regular dwellers of the sea, so that then the great light of life of mighty spirituality transforms the entire physical world into a great treasury of the spirit, and everything is aligned together with the counsel of peace.

**

At times the spirit grows too penetrating, and goes into too much depth.

In knowledge, it analyzes details too much, and in moral correction it oppresses the heart too much, it causes too much trembling and casts too much bitterness.

Then we heal it with external visions and we make use of the superficiality of the mundane, and the light of joy within it, in a proper balance.

And then the depth and penetration are again illumined and healthy in a rectified fashion, from which come the qualities of the illumination of the face and the joy of the heart, which constantly accompany every quality of a perfected spirituality.

Orot Hakodesh III, pp. 103-104

I Will Go On Eating Oranges, I Said

by Yaacov Dovid Shulman

I will go on eating oranges, I said,
I will collect shards of tires on the highways,
I will stanch running noses,
I will collect desolate socks,
I will survey the vistas of littered floors
And hills,
Comprehensively, as though I had forgotten the flute,
The gaming parlor, the ululations,
The sharp sparkle of the pre-dawn wind.

The Light of the Life of Elijah Rising

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

Behold, I see with my own eyes the light of the life of Elijah rising. His power on behalf of his God grows ever more revealed.

The holiness within nature breaks through its boundaries. It proceeds powerfully to unite with the holiness that transcends nature, with the holiness that wars against nature.

We fought against nature and we emerged victorious. Nature had damaged us, dislodged our thighbone, but the sun has shone to heal us of our lameness.

Judaism of the past, from Egypt until now, is one long war against nature, against the nature of the world, against the nature of humanity as a whole—even against the nature of the [Jewish] nation, and against the nature of every individual.

We fought against nature in order to conquer it, in order to crush it within its house.

It is subjugated before us. The worlds grow ever more perfected. In the essence of the depth of nature, a great demand arises for holiness and purity, for a refinement of the soul and purification of life.

Elijah comes to proclaim peace, and within the inner soul of the nation a current of life of nature breaks forth, and comes ever closer to holiness.

The remembrance of the exodus from Egypt grows transformed into a memory of the exodus from the subjugation of nations, which grows ever closer to completion.

And all of us are in the process of coming closer to nature. And it approaches us, increasingly subdued before us, as its demands grow ever more attuned to our exalted demands, [which come] from the source of holiness.

The young generation, which demands its land, its language, its freedom and its honor, its literature and its might, its possession and its feelings—[all these things] flow via the stream of nature, whose inner being is filled with holy fire.

Chadarav, p. 201

Enveloped in God

by R. Nachman of Breslov

There are some people who do not have a proper belief. They say that the world has to exist. What a poor and confused consciousness they have. They think that they have proofs for this from the way the world works—heaven forbid!

But really “their mouths say empty things” (cf. Job 34:16). Really, the whole world and everything in it don't necessarily have to exist.

God is the only Necessary Being. All the universes, however, with everything in them don’t necessarily have to be. God created them out of nothing. It was totally up to Him whether or not to create them. So the whole world and everything in it didn’t have to exist.

So why do people think that the world must necessarily be—heaven forbid, heaven forfend! This is why: because really, now that the souls of Israel have been emanated and drawn down, the world must necessarily be.

Why? Because the whole world and everything in it were only created for Israel (as is well-known; see Vayikra Rabbah 36; also Rashi at the beginning of Breishit). “Israel rules the world.”

Now, after the souls of Israel have been emanated and created, there is no doubt that (if you could say such a thing) God has to create and maintain the world. That is why He emanated the souls of Israel: to create all the universes for them.

But when the souls of Israel themselves were being emanated, they themselves together with all the worlds that depend on them didn’t necessarily have to exist. God could have either emanated and created them or not created them. But once the Holy One, blessed be He, decided to emanate the souls of Israel, then the entire world became something that has to be. Once the souls of Israel were emanated, then God (so to speak) had to make the world—that was why He had emanated their souls: so that all the universes would be created for them and they would rule over everything.

Understand this well.

This is the source of the error of the non-believers, who say that the world has to be (heaven forbid). Really, however, only God has to be. All things don=t necessarily have to exist.

The main reason that God created the entire universe for Israel was so that Israel would do His will, and come back and cling to their root—meaning, that they would come back and be enveloped in God, who is the Necessary Being. That’s why everything was created.

So when Israel does God's will and are enveloped into their source—the Necessary Being—then the entire world (which was created for them) is enveloped into the Necessary Being too. That is the reason it was created. Only because of that does God have to (in a manner of speaking) create and maintain all the worlds: for Israel, so that they will do His will.

So when they do God’s will, that the world is enveloped into the plane of being necessary. The more they do God's will, the more are they enveloped with all the universes that depend on them into the Necessary Being. By doing God's will, they come back and are enveloped into Him, Who is a Necessary Being. Then all the worlds, which are dependent on their spirit, are absorbed into the One whose Being must be.

How can you reach this? How can you be absorbed into your root? How can you go back and be enveloped in God’s Oneness (Whose Being must be)?

You can only do that by becoming as nothing, by wiping your own being away until you are enveloped in God’s Oneness.

And so how do you become as nothing? You can achieve that only through hitbodedut: you separate mitboded yourself and talk things out to God, you wipe away all bad desires and traits. Finally, you wipe away all of your physical being and are enveloped in your root.

The essence of hitbodedut is in the night, when everyone is at rest from the trammel of this world. During the day, people’s running after this world prevent and disturb a person from clinging to and from being absorbed into God. Even if you yourself aren’t taken up with this, since other people are pursuing empty things of this world, it is difficult to come to such a state of self-dissolving.

Also, this hitbodedut has to be in set-aside place—which is to say, outside town, where a person is all alone, where there are no passers-by, because a place where people travel during the day, people who are pursuing this world (even though right now they aren’t there) also disturbs the hitbodedut, so that a person can’t dissolve himself and be enveloped into God.

So: you have to go out by yourself at night to a lone place, a place that people don't traverse, isolate yourself there and turn your heart and mind away from all the dealings of this world, and make everything as nothing, until you really comes to becoming as nothing.

That is to say, at first pray a great deal and speak out a great deal in hitbodedut at night in an isolated spot until you dissolve away one thing—i.e., you dissolve away a particular trait and desire. Then engage in a great deal more hitbodedut, until you wipe away another trait and desire.

Practice this hitbodedut for a long time, at that time of night, at that place, until you wipe away everything.

And then, something will still remain of you. So wipe that away too—until nothing at all remains of you.

Likutei Moharan 42

The Clear Thought of the Torah of the Land of Israel

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

Not only aggadah is illumined by the light of the clear thought of the Torah of the land of Israel, but halachah as well—explanatory principles, analysis of halachic decisions, the roots of various [halachic] approaches and their general understanding as rooted in the depths of a life of spirit and action.

And [this refers] not only to the Torah in its scholarly sense, to that which is to be found within the four cubits of halachah, but to an illumination of all life, all of which is dependent upon a wealth of thought.

With the depth of the coming spiritual renaissance of the Torah of the land of Israel, the boundaries and iron curtains between topics, between fields, will diminish. The entire spiritual world will be surveyed at a [single] glance in the atmosphere of the souls of the land of life.

The glory of life of the enchanting mysteries, the flash of complex debate and the encouragement of the revival of the Congregation of Israel upon holy ground, the clarification of halachot and the broadening of vision and song, a desire for excellent diligence and a desire for physical development—all of these and their like (which outside the land of Israel, and which in accordance with the way of the world before the days of revival that stand behind our wall have been judged to be distant from each other and contradicting each other) stand for us now to be bound together in a collection of a connection and true bond. And each supports the other: broadening and deepening each other, expanding and perfecting each other.

Orot Hatorah 13:4

With All of the Singers

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

I desire with a complete yearning and desire to engage in the service of Hashem, a supernal holy worship, completely beyond any law of nature. I wish to put into all of nature the desiring light of the yearning, which is a holy of holies, for the divine ideal.

I unite with the entire Chapter of Song, with all of the singers—indeed, within all being—who rise in song and are elevated in song, and give glory and splendor to the beauty of the Life of worlds, blessed be He and blessed be His name.

Chadarav, pp. 143-144