The Majority Is Good

In an essay written in 1934, months before his passing, Rav Kook explains that we are not divided between right and left, religious and secular, and the like. We are divided between the righteous, the average, and the wicked.

The righteous are those who are partners. Those who try, in the Land and in the world, to elevate the name of our state, our nation, and the Jewish tradition. To advance the people, the Torah, the Land, and our success in every way they believe in. They bear the burden, they do what they do for the state and not against it. They are partners. They want it to be good here. They have a generous eye and a good heart. And they are many, very many.

The average are the weary. Those who live the day-to-day life. They are not against the state, the Torah, and the Land, God forbid, but neither will they do too much for its success. If things are good here, they will celebrate; if things are bad here, they will flee. And everything for them is conditional - on the situation, on what people will say, on what will be. They are dependent. Average. And there are quite a few of them, but far fewer than the righteous.

And the wicked - the wicked are those who will try to destroy. To incite us against one another. To believe that division is the cure for what is happening in the state. To believe that if things get worse here, they will win. That if the nations of the world succeed in bending us, it will be good for them. The wicked cheer the world on when it harms Israel; they will write slander and evil in English about our state and our people. They do not feel themselves part of the Jewish people, of this Land, of this nation. They are trolls who want to destroy every good plot of ground. And they are few. And they hold microphones and vast, powerful amplifiers.

And it is worth remembering this - the immense number of the righteous, that those we wept over this week are their representatives in the Israel on high; the immense need to repair and improve ourselves where we are average; and the fact that the wicked are a tiny, noisy minority, whom we would do well to understand hold little real power, and that in every response to them we serve them as amplifiers. "And Your people are all righteous."