Shabbat Parashat Behar Bechukotai 5785

Igrot Hare’aya – Letters of Rav Kook: Excitement over a Friend’s New Newspaper – #319

Recipient and Background: Rav Meir Berlin (Bar Ilan). Rav Berlin, the youngest child of Rav Kook’s rosh yeshiva at Volozhin, the Netziv, and brother of Rav Chaim Berlin, Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem with whom Rav Kook recently shared several correspondences. Rav Meir Berlin had begun, while still living in Europe, to be involved in communal affairs as an activist, and later a leader, of the religious Zionist movement’s Mizrachi organization. At this time, he was in the midst of founding a newspaper about Jewish national life from a religious perspective, “Ha’ivri.” Rav Kook, who was fifteen years older than Rav Berlin, knew the latter as a child in Volozhin, when Rav Kook was a student as a young man.

Body: I am at this moment visiting the pleasant moshava Rechovot, may it be built firmly. I am totally enchanted with the hope and consolation Hashem provides, as I see with my eyes the increasing adornment of what was previously our desired but desolate Land, as our brethren, who are scattered in exile, slowly return to it.

My heart widens as I see the dwellings of peaceful people, the pleasant orchards, with impressive grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates, which grow from the clumps of earth of our nation’s Land. [On the other hand,] my kidneys pain me over the national soul, which comes from a holy pristine source, from the well of its life, the light of Hashem, i.e., the laws of the Torah of life and His holy word. This national soul (i.e., the most devoted to Hashem) is sleeping and sits off to the side (i.e., does not take part in the development of the Land) because those who have left the path of life (i.e., are not religious) and forget Hashem, and those who are most aligned with Hashem feel like foreigners to each other. Because of this and that, those with the greatest proclivity for blessed activity and wonderful characteristics will not be able to reveal their grandeur in a way that will be appreciated by large parts of our nation, who require reawakening at this time in the most significant meaning of the term, a reawakening of truth with all its splendor.

My dear friend, your dear letter, was like lightning from the sky, with the plans you sent me for the newspaper, “Ha’ivri” (The Hebrew). I read it, and my spirit was filled with life. The vitality of my earlier days, and the dew of your childhood flashed before my eyes, together with the image of the storehouse of a life of sanctity and love, which the brilliant man of Israel, our mentor, your father zt”l, represented. He possessed the living national soul from its holy source.

To the extent that my weak hand will be able to be helpful, I am prepared, without making an oath, to serve the holy organization, who are founding and expanding the newspaper. They are unique individuals of unblemished minds. I am happily ready for whatever you will ask of me, because we have kindred spirits.

May you, my dear one, be strong and bold, along with all the special people who partner with you. With a bold spirit, raise the banner of the light of Hashem over His nation and His lot, before the eyes of all of Bnei Yisrael, who are thirsting to see things that are full of life and staying power, things that come from the source of the living wellspring that is connected to the living soul of Hashem, which is found in the chosen nation. It presents itself with a crown of grandeur and splendor from the depths of the reliable emotions and clear light and wisdom.

I am looking forward with a yearning of the heart for the realization of your holy, beloved project and for the expansion of your steps on the path of life with the help of Hashem’s powerful “right hand.”

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