„...then, on the day of...”

...they would go up to Jerusalem to Rav Kook.

On Purim of a certain year, some thirty great and brilliant rabbis from across the country came to Rav Kook: from Afula, from Rosh Pina, and other places. At a certain point they sat down for the Purim feast with Rav Kook. Rav Kook sat at the head of the table, and the meal looked like a chassidic tish. Then Rav Kook said: Behold, let every rabbi seated here at the meal tell us the topic he is engaged with in these days, whether in halacha, in Gemara, or concerning the commandments dependent on the land, and let him raise before us some difficult question that has arisen in his study and upon which he is presently pondering.

And so it was: each Torah scholar raised a question that greatly troubled him, from the topic he was studying in those days, and when he finished, all thirty of those brilliant Torah scholars debated the words of the Gemara and the halacha and tried to answer him as best they could. But they did not succeed. So they went one by one, and all thirty rabbis present presented their great questions.

Then, after the thirty rabbis had fallen silent, Rav Kook took a bottle of wine and poured himself a cup. He drank one cup of wine, and after it another, and then he made an immense analysis across the entire Talmud, from which a new, brilliant principle was innovated for him. Afterward he turned to all thirty rabbis and showed them how, according to the new approach he had created in his analysis, all their questions were wondrously resolved, one after another.

When this story spread in Jerusalem, people would say: from this the wondrous and unique genius of Rav Kook is evident: how he succeeded in resolving all the questions at once, according to a brilliant principle that he innovated on the spot, while the other Torah scholars, who were great geniuses, could not resolve those questions at all.

(From the website "Or HaOrot" for the dissemination of the teachings of Rav Kook, of blessed memory.)

Shabbat Shalom and a joyous Purim!

For the recovery of Meir ben Simcha.