Shabbat Parashat Emor 5784

Igrot Hare’aya – Letters of Rav Kook: Torah Literature Published by an Old Friend – #217

Date and Place:  11 Menachem Av, 5669, Rechovot

Recipient: Rav Nisan Rabin, a childhood friend of Rav Kook.

Body: I am living in Eretz Yisrael and am presently spending time in the moshava of Rechovot, as I do every year during the harvest season of grapes, which are such lovely vineyards of the holy soil. I just read with bliss and was filled with satisfaction and joy of the heart, your valued present, the dear and pleasant book of your honored, brilliant father, my dear friend (Rav Moshe Yitzchak Rabin, a dayan in Ponevitch). You are so fortunate to have merited to be a son who brings honor to his father, especially in this great matter of spreading throughout the world the Torah thoughts of the pure heart and holy spirit of your father, the beloved, righteous scholar. Thank you so much for the great delight you brought me. May you merit to publish all of the writings of your father, whom I know to be of sound reason and deep intellect, which went along with his great diligence and the pure fear of Heaven that lit up his heart. This joined wonderfully with his love of truth, sharp intellect, broad knowledge, and righteous humility. All of these are a sure guarantee that his works are dear and the benefit to those who learn his Torah will be great. When many delve into them, knowledge will grow.

I also want to praise you for your pamphlet that you sent me (not yet published), which you wrote in a unique style. May you, my beloved, take this accomplishment and all matters of sound logic, which is based on the underpinnings of pure belief, and written in a style that can penetrate the heart of a certain segment of our generation’s young people, who are fainting due to [spiritual] thirst, and make sure that it is made available. It would be terrible to withhold the spirit of Hashem that it engenders. Whenever Hashem awakens one’s heart, whatever he can accomplish, whomever he can save, whichever hearts he can improve, whether many or few, the magnitude of the obligation is too great to express. [It would be enough] to just weaken the stench in the suffocating air of ignorant, chutzpa-full materialism, which is actually increasing specifically before its imminent demise.

It is proper for a writer of your great skill to insert into his theses the pure ideas of the idea of national awareness in its holy and truthful root. This would enable many hearts to be filled with a love of the Holy Land and the holy belief in the resurrection of Hashem’s nation in its Land. This is especially true at a time like this, when the movement of life and the flow of political and spiritual life indicate deep signs of Hashem’s imminent redemption of His nation, the glittering of the horn of Israel from the holy mountains. This finds expression in the beginning of the children’s return to their borders, and the elevation of the spirit of the nation to the heights of the holy mountains. When this reality enters the fabric of all of the thoughts that flood the world about questions of time and life, it gives all of them strength, a glow, a flash of sanctity, and the splendor of honor.

At this time, it is not just a matter of prophetic visions; matters are progressing and occurring. It is the obligation of all of us to not stand off in the distance, but to work with Hashem, each according to his abilities. Most importantly, it is an obligation of every talented writer who has the spirit of Hashem within him [to write]. I hope that you will succeed in this way, having a charm accompany your writing. May all who help you publish for the welfare of the masses of the dispersed nation of Hashem, which is under spiritual attack even more than physical attack [be blessed]. You should share the holy, lofty thought of the reawakening of the nation on holy soil. It is now its time to appear with many lights from different directions.  

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