„There is an evil inclination hidden very deep in the depths of the so…”

This is one of the sharpest and most frightening sentences Rav Kook ever wrote. At first glance it sounds almost absurd, but in the depth of the matter there is revealed here a sharp and precise psychological and faith-based diagnosis. There is within a person a yearning for absolute good, for a happiness that has no limit, and for a life of full wholeness, but when this yearning does not receive understanding and guidance, it turns into a hidden rage against limited reality, and at times even against the Holy One Himself - which makes the person querulous or sad and depressed. The root of the feeling is not false, for in truth there is within a person a divine spark and an aspiration to the infinite; the error begins when a person refuses to be one hue within a broad picture and wishes to be the whole picture. From here are born the crookedness of the mind and the darkness of thought, and at times even heresy. And the healing is in understanding the depth of the divine matter, in study and in prayer.

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