Parashat Shemot
„The pessimistic outlook... gives a driving force to the severing of the sexual drive from ideality... the outlook of the good... gives room for ideality to spread also over the sexual inclination.”From Shemonah Kevatzim, I 497
When a person or a culture adopts a pessimistic outlook on reality, birth itself appears almost immoral: why bring more creatures into a world perceived as evil, crooked, or hopeless. Thus life contracts into the private and comfortable present, into personal development without responsibility for building a world, and thus worlds crash. But when the view of reality is an optimistic one, one of trust in "and behold, it was very good," childbearing returns to being a delight, a mission, a profound statement of faith in life itself. This is perhaps the great wonder of our people: even in hard times, the people of Israel did not give up on the future, but continued to build life. To understand that our future will be built not in wailing and weeping, but in the courage to bring life and to build a good reality.
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From the community archive of Mishpetei HaRav Kook — studying Rav Kook's teachings since 2011.