Shabbat Parashat Shoftim 5783

Igrot Hare’aya – Letters of Rav Kook: Appeal to Buy from Religious Winery – #160 – part III

Date and Place: Yafo, 5668 (probably still 1907) 

Recipient: Rabbis in the Diaspora 

Body: [The first parts discussed weakening Diaspora support for the agricultural produce of Eretz Yisrael due to disappointment with the secularism of many of those involved.]

Everything has a time. It is Hashem’s plan to reveal an opening of hope in our days. There is a double light of salvation – spiritual and material – for Hashem’s nation living in the Holy Land and settling it. Hashem has seen His nation’s torment and has had mercy on its Land. He has returned the lost grandeur and honor to the new resettlement of the Land (i.e., the religious element of the agricultural sector is strengthening).

Recently there was a meeting of righteous people in the city of our strength, the holy city of Yerushalayim, may it be built. It was attended by the greatest scholars in Israel, the righteous and the brilliant, and also philanthropists who are full of the light of Torah and pure fear of Hashem. They devised a plan to “raise a flag in the name of Hashem” to elevate the status of the New Yishuv, instilling in it a life of the sanctity of complete belief in Hashem in purity, with a holy flame from the light of Hashem and His Torah. As soon as they began the project, Hashem already intervened on their behalf. Now we can all see the way to build our Desired Land is with the grandeur of sanctity, the light of Hashem’s Torah, and belief in Him. Thank G-d, they are building successfully.

The great, holy organization has already built and founded religious schools in a few settlements, with a reliable spirit of Hashem, with the light of the Torah of truth and fear of Hashem. Things are brightening. However, the path is still long. This organization, Shomrei Torah, should be crowned with excellent financial resources and honor so it can raise the honor of the stature of Torah and fear of Hashem on holy soil. This will return to the New Yishuv the light of its honor in the hearts of all our brethren who constitute the entire Nation of Hashem. The affinity toward the Yishuv will increase the holy connection and concrete steps to further the commercial activities relating to the holy soil and all elements connected to expanding the Jewish community of the Holy Land from year to year. Hashem has already prepared the holy organization and is happy with its actions. They have bought properties, nice gardens and orchards that produce fruits, such as oranges and almonds. They also had the pleasant opportunity to obtain a beautiful vineyard in Rechovot, with an excellent winepress to make wine and liqueur with the most complete kashrut certification with the light and fervor of the sanctity of truth. This is the proper way for righteous people to build the Desired Land through truth.

Therefore, we look to Hashem to bestow His pleasantness upon us, so that influential people in Hashem’s nation will return to loving the sanctity of the new development of the Desired Land, which increasingly gives the light of Torah and reliable sanctity. May Hashem strengthen the builders and increase their abilities to serve that which is holy to increase the Holy Land’s settlement and building. We see Hashem’s hand working to help us take root in a way of sanctity of truth, as befits the Land in which Hashem always takes interest.

We hope that the great Torah leaders and the nation’s generous people will stand behind us with all of their hearts to raise the stature of the holy organization. They can do this by buying the fine wine, reminiscent of the wine of Lebanon (see Hoshea 14:8), which whitens the sins of Israel with the merit of the sanctity of Eretz Yisrael’s Torah and the foundation of its settlement with the sanctity of Hashem, whose great Name appears on His nation and Land.

May He Who chooses the Desired Land raise a banner to and amongst the nations, and gather Israel’s dispersion from the four corners of the world, so that His flock will graze in Gilad, as in days past. May He quickly bring us His light and salvation when the redeemer comes to Zion, quickly in our days. I sign as one who is tied to hope for Zion and those who care about her, who enjoys the aura of the Land’s grandeur and anguishes over its destruction, looking forward to its light and salvation with Hashem’s spirit on His nation and Land.  

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