Descent for the Sake of Ascent

One of our great mistakes is to think that every descent proves that everything is regressing. The reality is the opposite. Life does not advance in a straight line. It has ascents and descents, expansion and contraction, wakefulness and sleep, breathing in and breathing out. Like the moon that wanes and then fills, like the sea that recedes and then returns with force, so too the whole world passes through states that appear from the outside as opposites, but in their depth are part of a single movement of life. Therefore even a great descent, both in a private person and certainly in a whole world, is often an inner gathering. A deep breath before a new movement. Rav Kook's great faith does not ignore the falls – it simply refuses to fix them as the existing state. The world does not stand still, and its movement, every movement, is part of its vitality and advancement.