Shabbat Parashat Yitro 5783

Igrot Hare’aya – Letters of Rav Kook: Our National Sleep – #140

Date and Place: 27 Iyar 5668 (1908), Yafo

Recipient: Rabbi Shmuel Alexandrov. Alexandrov was a yeshiva-trained scholar, who was an autodidact in languages, philosophy, and science. He was a very independent thinker who at times angered the Maskilim and at times angered traditional rabbis. He was a member of the Mizrachi movement and tried, over the years, to recruit Rav Kook to take a leadership role within that movement. This is one of many correspondences between the two on matters of Jewish philosophy.

Body: [We are in the middle of a discussion focused around the metaphor of sleep to represent the state of the nation during exile and how Rav Kook saw his period as one of the nation beginning to awaken from the sleep.]

Now, with open eyes, we will do a reckoning, one which is always going to be in our favor. The oldest of nations will awaken and jump into action, remembering its Land, strength, and honor. It will remember the flow of life it did and will share with many others; it will return to its work of reestablishing that which was destroyed.

Along with its methodical development, the nation will also have its own unique internal, lofty, and sudden shining of light. This is not along the lines of what it shares with other nations, but based on its separate essence. No other nation in the world has the pristine good of lofty light embedded in its essence and the root of its soul, as it is in Israel. There are holy people and scholarly people among the nations, but these are individuals. In contrast, the principle that there is no other “righteous nation” in the land like Israel pervades the whole nation.

Most of those Jews who have drifted far from us have done so because they are searching for the foundation of absolute justice, which cannot be found. A person may think that the fact that this cannot be found in Israel [demonstrates that it is not worthwhile to embrace the ways of Jews]. This reaction is because they do not look at the nation’s actions in light of the world as a whole. They do not realize that the lacking is not because of our inner spirit but due to a lack of means within which to act properly. We have lost the Land and the kingdom. We in fact are striving to return to the path that befits us to regain.

The scholarly individuals among our nation are often afflicted with real physical weakness, which causes emotional weakness. However, they are not imprinted with the “mud” of materialism, which causes the loss of lofty sanctity, as the spiritual people of the other nations are. For that reason, we can give new life to those with depressed hearts, and console them from the pain of the broken and tortured. However, we also possess lofty life, which is powerful and eternal.

We certainly need to increase the glow of wisdom, which is now primarily focused on understanding ourselves. We also must strengthen the neglected material side, which can weaken us in the interim period, between “sleep” and “full awakening.” New difficulties may and likely will transpire, but they will all pass and turn into good. The obstacles, which will take a great toll, will be instructive. We do not need to attach the point of life to any special matter, but we need to concentrate [on what is important].

The Land of Israel will remain the basis of everything, and Mt. Zion will be the place of light. The many movements will make an impact in every place they are active. We need to increase the center [of the community in Israel] quantitatively and qualitatively, and all good fortune will accompany that process. Scattered ideas will join and form one apparatus. This is true in the spiritual sense as in the material one. The “barren woman (Eretz Yisrael) will rejoice as her sons gather within her in joy.” Amen, may this be His will.

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