Ha’Rav Kook: Master of the Lights

A world of chaos stands before us, all the time that we have not yet reached the “tikkun elyon”—the highest level of healing, repairing, transforming— by uniting all life forces and all their diverse tendencies. As long as each one exalts himself, claiming, I am sovereign, I and no other—there cannot be peace in our midst (Notebook 8:429). I n the early 1980s, in a sunlit cottage in Winnipeg Beach, Canada, I sat down to read from the writings of Rabbi Avraham Itzchak HaCohen Kook, TZ”L (Tzadik Zichrono Livracha—the righteous, whose memory should be a blessing), who passed away in 1935. I knew well the world of chaos. I am an Israeli-born only child of Holocaust survivors; my mother was in Auschwitz. I absorbed on the cellular level the reality that a huge darkness and evil had recently occurred in the world. For some time, and in response, I had been seeking the greatest possible light. MysearchbroughtmetoseriousstudyoftheTorahin1973,thoughIremaineddisturbed by the manifestations of parochialism in the religious world. And then I read: Allourendeavorsmustbedirectedtowarddisclosingthe“orhashalomhaclali,” the light of universal harmony, which derives not from suppressing any power, any thought, any tendency, but bringing each of them within the vast ocean of infinitelight,whereallthingsfindtheirunity,whereallisennobledandexalted, all is hallowed (Notebook 8:429). As I read, I experienced an internal expansion, an inner recognition. We must liberate ourselves from confinement within our private concerns.... This reduces us to the worst kind of smallness, and brings upon us endless physicalandspiritualdistress.Itisnecessaryforustoraiseourthoughtandwill and our basic preoccupations toward universality, to the inclusion of all, to the wholeworld,tohumankind,totheJewishpeople,toallexistence....Thefirmer ourvisionofuniversality,thegreaterjoywewillexperienceandthemorewewill merit divine illumination (OrotHaKodesh 3:147). Continuing to read, I felt my soul stirring, touched by an extraordinary consciousness whose grasp of the brokenness and wholeness of existence and the possibilities for perfection was breathtaking and clear: Tshuva-return is inspired by the yearning of all existence to be better, purer, morevigorousandonahigherplanethanitis.Withinthisyearningisahidden 26 T I K K U N W W W. T I K K U N . O R G J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 Israeli-born Rabbi Itzchak Marmorstein, MSW, has been studying and teaching the writings of Rav Kook for thirty years. His focus now is on performing Rav Kook’s poetry with jazz musicians. For CDs and booking, visit www.haorot.org. The textual translations in this piece are adapted from Rabbi B.Z. Bokser’stranslation;thepoemistranslatedbyI.Marmorstein. Ha’RavKook:MasteroftheLights by Itzchak Marmorstein Rethinking Religion Religion_1.qxd:Politics rev. 6/1/10 1:40 PM Page 26 life-forceforovercomingeveryfactorthatlimitsand weakens existence (Orot HaTshuva/Lights of Return , 6:1). Since that light-filled afternoon, I have often been inspired deeply by the writings of Rav Kook—known by some as Baal Ha’Orot, the Master of the Lights. I have dedicated my life to sharing his song with the world. His seventy-fifthYaartzeit(anniversaryofpassing)approaches (Elul 3/August 14), and it is my privilege to share with you alittleofhisstoryandsomehighlightsfromtheKookbook. Everyone in contact with Rav Kook described a similar picture. Here was a rabbi, a Cohen, with unparalleled knowledge of the breadth and depth of the entire Torah. Here was an enlightened soul whose illumination shone powerfully. Here was a fearless leader, instrumental in the process leading to the Balfour Declaration, the first Chief Rabbi of the nascent Land of Israel, whose love for all humankind was boundless. HewasrespectedandlovedbyAshkenaziandSephardi,religiousandsecular,intellectual andworker,RightandLeft.Chagallsaiduponmeetinghimthathenowknewwhatholiness is. Einstein on conferring with him in 1925 said that Rav Kook was one of the few people whounderstoodhistheoryofrelativity.HetoldEinsteinaboutpassagesinkabbalistictexts that speak of varying experiences of time in different hechalot (chambers of experience). In Jewish Mysticism, Gershon Sholem explained that Rav Kook was the “last [newest] example of productive Kabbalistic thought that I know.” The noisy opposition of a small percentage of the ultra-Orthodox Old Yishuv (Jewish residents of the land before establishment of the State of Israel) did not prevent him from boldly putting forth a vision of integration, a vision of universal peace and love: ThewholeTorah,itsmoralteachings,commandments,gooddeedsandstudies has as its objective to remove the roadblocks so that universal love should be able to spread, to extend to all...