Seeking Rav Kook's Glasses, to See and Welcome Redemptive Times

by Rav Tal Haimowitz, Yeshivat Maalot and Head of the Rabanan Agadta Project, yeshiva.org.il, translated by Hillel Fendel.

Everyone feels that the post-Oct. 7^th world is in upheaval. Rav Kook saw the Redemption, and we must study and analyze his writings so that we can see it as well.

HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook (1865-1935) of saintly blessed memory, the first Chief Rabbi of the modern-day Jewish yishuv in the Land of Israel, was undoubtedly the seer and shepherd of the Generation of Redemption. Not only did he pronounce already then that his times were those of atchalta deGeulah, the beginning of Redemption, but he even discerned that during this special period, there are communal guidelines and perspectives that are different than during previous periods.

The Rav explained, for instance, that according to the Holy Zohar, in the times of Ikv'ta d'Mishicha, the Footsteps of Messiah, even those who appear to be sinful on the outside are actually good in their inner selves – and the proof is their national aspirations and their dedication to the Nation of Israel. This led him to lovingly bring close those sons who had strayed from the Torah path, as opposed to the habitual approach of rebuking and rejecting them until they somehow find their way back.

So did Rav Meir Bar-Ilan write in his introduction to Rav Kook's work Chazon HaGeulah: "The light that shone in [Rav Kook's] soul was the light of salvation and Redemption… In all [his copious spiritual work], almost without exception, he had one path and one approach: to restore the Children of Israel to their Father in Heaven, and to restore the Nation of Israel to its Land…"

This principal trait of Rav Kook has practical ramifications also regarding what should be our approach to Torah study in this critical Redemptive generation, as we will now see.

The ability to anticipate processes underway in our world, and to identify historic changes and human progress, depends on whether we can take stock of the inner reality that leads creation along. As we saw in the above example, HaRav Kook noted a change underway in the souls of Israel. Despite the behavior of a very large part of those who came to the Holy Land in the Second Aliyah (the arrival of close to 40,000 Jews from 1904-1914), who came largely for socialist ideals and were often most scornful of Torah values, he studied them closely and knew that their "inner aspects" were truly good, as he explained in his Igeret Takanah (Letter 555).

Rav Kook also understood that the brazen heresy of many Jews of those times stemmed from an aspiration to an even higher level of holiness than those they had been exposed to. Their souls were actually illuminated with a great Divine light, and were not a product of brash audaciousness (Orot HaT'chiyah, p. 47).

What was the source of Rav Kook's ability to fathom the inner reality? It stemmed from his long years of deep and intense study of the inner, Kabbalistic secrets of the Torah. This study began when he was a young rabbi in Zoimel; struck with several fundamental questions, he received his community's permission to spend a month learning with the great Kabbalist sage Rav Shlomo Elyashiv, author of the famous Leshem Shvo v'Achlamah and grandfather of this generation's venerated sage R. Yosef Shalom Elyashiv.

His Focus on the Return to Zion and the Centrality of Redemption

Rav Kook's natural inclination towards the inner teachings and Kabbalist esoterics of Torah is that which brought him to so intensively call for and teach towards the concept of Israel's "return to Zion" (Psalms 126,1). He wrote that there can be no comprehension of the importance of the Land of Israel and its central importance in the Torah without delving into the secrets of Torah. He dramatically writes: "The recognition of the sanctity of the Land of Israel appears in a blurred manner [the more we] distance from understanding the secrets… and then the Exile begins to find favor" (Orot Eretz Yisrael 2).

The above is also that which brought him to so totally anticipate and long for Israel's Redemption in all its facets. This is because the Redemption is dependent upon the revelation of the inner layers of the Torah, as the Zohar itself states, and as is repeated in the Kabbalistic works afterwards. The greatest of the Arizal's students, R. Chaim Vital, in his introduction to the Arizal's Shaar HaHakdamot, found no explanation to the delay in the Redemption other than the fact that the study of the inner levels of the Torah were not being studied.

Of course, Rav Kook sought to write in a way that would be understood, as much as possible, by the general public, including even those who are not familiar with Kabbalah. (The late Chief Rabbi of Haifa, R. She'ar Yashuv Cohen, son of Rav Kook's close student the Nazir, explained as much to the Lubavitcher Rebbe during a meeting they once held.) Still, his words were certainly rooted in and directed towards the Torah's inner, hidden levels.

A New Type of Literature

Our generation has been privileged to see many students of Kabbalah and many who seek the inner understandings of Torah, in which is revealed how G-d acts in His world via His Torah and Providence. Ever since Simchat Torah of 2023, there is no one who does not sense that the entire world is in an upheaval. The Nation of Israel will never be the same as it was before the events of that day and those afterwards. From here stems the understandable and justified quest to understand what is happening beneath the surface, amidst the understanding that the outer reality is merely a thin shell of what truly is.

There is thus a new mission in the Torah study halls that identify the Redemption on the close horizon: to connect the nigleh (outer) words of Rav Kook regarding Jewish Law, Talmud, Bible and the like to the nistar (inner) layers of Torah. He himself said that he wrote nothing that lacks a source in the writings of the Arizal – and the goal now is to find these sources. A new literature is arising that will find the bonds that connect the Rav's above writings and those of and about the Kabbalah.

The pioneers of this work were certainly Rav Kook's son Rav Tzvi Yehuda and the Rav HaNazir, who found and published the Kabbalistic sources of his Kabbalah-type writings. But in recent years, this quest has taken on a broader context, and many important writers have begun to publish works whose unique objective it is to explain more deeply these sources and others of his writings in this manner. I, myself, have also been privileged to contribute my humble ideas on these matters in a new work that I am writing, entitled, "The Ari and the Ra'yah [referring to the Arizal and Rav Kook] – the Tzimtzum." Its goal is to encompass various topics of Kabbalah and faith that touch upon them, topic after topic.

But in truth, the work is very great. The source(s) must be found for all that he wrote, and he wrote very much and very profoundly. It is appropriate that just after having commemorated a century since Rav Kook founded his great Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav, many Torah scholars should dedicate themselves to delving into his deep Torah and revealing its profound secrets. Only thus can we truly see through the glasses of Rav Kook, who was able to reveal universal secrets and happily welcome the Redemption and our national salvation.