„The forgetting of the tribes' lineage is a preparation for the unity…”
„The forgetting of the tribes' lineage is a preparation for the unity of the nation. Through the memory of the division of the tribes, exile would have caused each tribe to be entirely divided and separated from the totality of the nation, and the poison of foreignness would have penetrated into the distinct and isolated parts. However, through...”
...this forgetting of the divisions, confusion and intermingling increased... But in the inner life the general soul lives, which was greatly awakened through the erasing of the particular lines... And out of the intermingled unity, full of confusion and lack of order, there emerges a repaired and ordered content of life..." (From Orot Yisrael veTechiyato, Chapter 27)
During the exile we intermingled among the nations of the world and forgot our tribal lineage, our belonging to the mother-tribe to which we belong. Indeed, this division caused us a temporary detachment from our own selfhood, from the ability to express belonging to a language, to emotions, to customs, and so forth... But together with the great sorrow, there arose a possibility for the people of Israel to work together, without tribal divisions.
Had we remained as tribes, each would have looked after his own private group, remaining in his own private portion of God and not leaving it.
The confusion created the ability for the people of Israel to work together, as a nation. The confusion gave the people of Israel the ability to survive among the nations. The power of the people of Israel as a nation is many times greater than the power of a tribe in Israel.
At times there is a sense that some try to divide us again into tribes, with new tribal names - Haredim, secular, religious, and so forth... We must resist these names and understand that the ability to create repair will come only if we understand that this division is dangerous and untrue. The true division within any community is between the righteous, the intermediate, and the wicked; this is a personal description belonging to each individual person, and such (righteous, intermediate, and wicked) we have in every artificial group (religious, secular, and Haredi) that we try to create. (The Rav also speaks of this point in the essay "Masa HaMachanot," Ma'amarei HaRe'iyah, page 76; some weeks ago I brought part of this essay.)
A good day to all!
From the community archive of Mishpetei HaRav Kook — studying Rav Kook's teachings since 2011.