„If my breaking were only the breaking of an exiled people, oppressed…”
„If my breaking were only the breaking of an exiled people, oppressed and driven from its land, perhaps I would consider drops of comfort—that which I see: children building, coming at the End of Days and settling a desolate land—even though my desolations are as wide as the sea and my building is but like a small cloud, like a man's palm compared to them; even so there is a proportional value in reckoning comforts against the grief. But what shall we do when there stands before us the somber grief over the piercing of the spirit? Is this not the depth in the cup of my grief? And how can the comforts of enterprises and the building of ruins delight my soul, if within the building I see a burning fire, going on and destroying?”From Ma'amrei HaRe'iyah, Nachamu Ami
Many questions have been asked about Rav Kook's attitude toward Zionism. On the one hand, Rav Kook is known as one of the great fighters on behalf of Zionism—leading the journey of the settlements and of connection to the people. The great seer who considered the weapon guarding the land of the Land to be holy and its guardians to be holy ones. The Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel. The great supporter of the Zionist enterprise.
But on the other hand, Rav Kook had many wonderings and questions. These questions and wonderings he lays out before us in essays, as if wishing to place the storm of his soul before our eyes—that we should understand the path and not merely wave about the result. Thus in the essay that the writer A.Z.R. asked him to write about the soldiers who fell in their mission of defending the land—there Rav Kook lays out the deliberation in a eulogy for soldiers who had abandoned the way of their fathers (and his unequivocal conclusion is that they are holy, and along with this he explained the storm of his soul, which is so important. This essay is one of the most important in my eyes, because of the fact that it was not published in Rav Kook's lifetime—as if Rav Kook wanted it to be published only after his death, so that we would understand his complex character). And so too in this essay, 'Comfort, comfort My people,' in which he speaks of the piercing of the spirit—of the great sorrow that exists behind the mighty Zionist enterprise, because of the fact that its basis is not spiritual.
The answer and the comfort in which we can be partners is bound up with our role. Processes occur in every generation, and we must see ourselves as the continuation of the process—to understand that drops of comfort from the past continue to drip more and more and more, and we must examine and help them to become a great torrent.
May we be comforted, may we be comforted, our God!
From the community archive of Mishpetei HaRav Kook — studying Rav Kook's teachings since 2011.