The Pain of Aspiration
„The great sages suffer much inwardly in their souls, because they thirst for a perfection that is beyond human capacity. And the end of such pains is to be transformed into a source of delight and eternal life.”From Notebook of Pages III, 36
We all know the trap of perfectionism, the ailments it brings and the falls that stem from the desire for an impossible perfection. Rav Kook himself warned against excessive gravity, which robs a person of his joy of life. But within his words here a further depth is revealed: there is a pain that is not sickness but rather a source of life, a pain of thirst, of a soul that seeks to touch a truth beyond human capacity. The great question is where the boundary lies: when does the desire for perfection become a personal trap, and when does it become a lever for the world. It seems the answer lies in the direction of the aspiration. When a person turns inward, seeking perfection in order to soothe his inner lack of self-worth, then this pain will gnaw at him. But when he thirsts for a truth that is not his alone, when he seeks to elevate society, the world, humanity, then that very same pain becomes a source of delight, an infinite wellspring of life.
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From the community archive of Mishpetei HaRav Kook — studying Rav Kook's teachings since 2011.