Freedom

Freedom, for Rav Kook, is not doing whatever one feels like. On the contrary. Sometimes the very thing we feel like doing is the place where we are least free. A person can think he is choosing, but in truth he is drawn after an impulse, a habit, a fear, a weakness, or a momentary need. 'Freedom is found when the movements of life follow the clear recognition of the good' – that is, true freedom begins when the life within us is not extinguished, yet also not enslaved. The will lives, the body lives, joy lives, but they no longer drag the person to a low place; rather they join with the good that he truly seeks. An essential part of keeping the covenant between a person and the Holy One does not come to nullify life, nor to weaken it, but to free it from servitude to the coarse inclination, and to elevate it to the freedom of holiness.