„Just as we see wickedness in the individual person or in the life of…”
„Just as we see wickedness in the individual person or in the life of human society, we find that in all its negativity and evil it has a transitory role; wickedness contains a particular boldness, a force of will and a depth of life, which are contents required to perfect through them uprightness and good. And we are confident that in the end wickedness will pass, and man will be perfected, and society will be perfected, and then everything will stand upon the foundation of good, and wickedness will be consumed, and the desire for evil, wrath, murder, coarseness, and all their branches will vanish like smoke; so it is with the world as a whole.”From Orot HaKodesh II, 478
Why is evil needed in the world? Rav Kook argues that wickedness has a most important role - the role of wickedness is the repair and perfection of the world and of society.
I think that in these days we see much wickedness and see its role - people in the media have decided to attack the religious and Haredi public, to generalize and to defame on account of bad and harsh things done by small parts of this public. The defamation and generalization are terrible and dreadful, but thank God it seems that they have a role.
I have no doubt that out of the clarification that the religious and Haredi world is undergoing following the recent affairs, the situation will turn out better, and the religious and Haredi public undergoing clarification will improve its ways and serve God out of truth and out of a truer and greater closeness.
Of course there will always be fringes that continue to provoke, to grow distant, and to desecrate God's name, but the majority will benefit from this.
And as for the wicked who write these things, whose sole aim is to fan the fire - for them let us pray that, God willing, they will return in repentance.
Happy Chanukah!
From the community archive of Mishpetei HaRav Kook — studying Rav Kook's teachings since 2011.