Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 6: Expendable
Contemporary Anti-Semitism

The Writing on the Wall

And yet, by the onset of the 20^th century, the Jews had grown so far from their intended vocation that, by and large, they became either utterly preoccupied with meticulous observation of the practical commandments, forgetting or rejecting their internal meaning, or fully absorbed in worldly, material desires, forgetting or rejecting their irrevocable vocation. At a time when egotism spiked to levels that threatened world peace, neither avenue was desirable, and some of the nation’s great spiritual leaders began to warn that time was of the essence, that we had to wake up to our mission and carry it out before calamity unfolded.

The great scholar humanist, and Kabbalist, Rav Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook, desperately tried to alert the Jews to the growing anti-Semitism. He warned them that no country would be safe for them, and that Israel was the only secure option. In retrospect, the content of his premonition is alarming, giving us a glimpse into the depth of such people’s clarity of vision.

The treatise in which he entreated with the Jews to come to Israel was called, “The Great Call for the Land of Israel.” Note not only his plea, but also his warning regarding the Jews’ possible future in their homelands: “Come to the land of Israel, delightful brothers, come to the land of Israel. Save your souls, the souls of your generations, and the soul of our entire nation. Save it from desolation and oblivion; save it from decay and degradation; save it from all the uncleanness and wickedness, from every trouble and plight that might befall it in all the countries of the nations without exception.

“‘Come to the land of Israel!’ We shall call out with a loud and terrible voice, with the sound of thunder and a great voice, a voice that stirs storm and quakes the heaven and the earth, a voice that tears every wall in the heart. Run for your lives and come to the land of Israel. The voice of the Lord is calling us, His hand is stretched out to us, His spirit is in our hearts, and He assembles us, encourages us, and compels us all to call out loud with a terrible and mighty voice: ‘Our brothers, children of Israel, dear beloved brothers, come to the land of Israel. Assemble one by one, wait not for formal words and orders; wait not for permits from renowned ones. Do what you can, flee and gather, come to the land of Israel. Pave the way for our beloved and oppressed nation. Show it that its way is paved already, stretched out before it. It must not rest; it has nothing to demand; it has not many ways and routes. There is one way before it, and this is the one it shall march; it is the one it must march, specifically to the land of Israel.’”[i]

The Rav Kook was not alone in his concern. In Poland, a brilliant young dayan (Orthodox judge) in Warsaw—at the time the biggest and most prominent Jewish community in Europe—Rav Yehuda Ashlag, who later became a renowned commentator on The Book of Zohar, did not settle for publicly announcing that all Jews must flee Europe. He arranged for the purchase of 300 wooden shacks from Sweden and a place for them to be erected in the Land of Israel (which was then called “Palestine”).

Alas, his plan was thwarted by opposition from leaders of the Jewish congregation in Poland. The tragic consequence of Ashlag’s failure to bring his fellow Jews with him was that of all the Jews who contemplated coming with Ashlag, only Ashlag and his family eventually emigrated. The rest of the families remained in Poland and perished in the Holocaust.[ii]

Both the Rav Kook and Rav Ashlag (Baal HaSulam) expressed how they perceived the rise of Nazism to power, and specifically Hitler. Keep in mind that Rav Kook died in 1935, four years before World War II even broke out. Below are Rav Kook’s edited words (to make them more reader friendly, due to the length of the text and its antiquated style), followed by the words of Baal HaSulam.

The prophet predicted a great Shofar of redemption. [A Shofar is a ram’s horn used for festive blowing, but it also represents a clarion.] We pray specifically for the blowing of a great Shofar. There are several degrees in a Shofar of redemption—a great Shofar, a medium Shofar, and a small Shofar. The Shofar of the Messiah is considered the Shofar of Rosh Hashanah [Hebrew New Year’s Eve]. The Halachah [Jewish law] distinguishes between three degrees in the Shofar of Rosh Hashanah: 1) A Shofar of Rosh Hashanah that is made of a ram’s horn; 2) In retrospect, all Shofars are kosher; 3) A Shofar from an impure beast, as well as a Shofar from beasts of idol-worship of a non-kosher gentile. However, if one has blown such a Shofar, one has done one’s duty.

It is permitted to blow any Shofar, kosher or not, as long as one does not bless over it, and the degrees explained in the law of the Shofar of Rosh Hashanah coincide with the degrees of the Shofar of redemption.

Yet, what is a Shofar of redemption? By the term, “Messiah’s Shofar,” we refer to the awakening and thrust that causes the revival and redemption of the people of Israel. It is this awakening that assembles the lost and the rejected, and brings them to the mountain of holiness in Jerusalem.

Throughout the generations, there have been those in Israel who felt the awakening that stems from the desire to do God’s will, which is Israel’s complete redemption [bringing all of Israel to the quality of bestowal]. This is the fine and great Shofar, the people’s desire to be redeemed.

Sometimes the desire dwindles and the zeal for sublime notions of holiness is not as fervent. However, the healthy human nature remains, and sets off a simple desire in the nation to establish its rule in its land. That natural desire is the ordinary, medium Shofar, which is present everywhere. That, too, is still a kosher Shofar.

However, there is a third degree to the Shofar of the Messiah, which is nonetheless comparable to the Rosh Hashanah Shofar: it is the small, non-kosher Shofar, which is blown only if a kosher Shofar cannot be found.

Thus, if the zeal for holiness and yearning for redemption that derives from it have all but vanished, and if the natural national desire for a national life has diminished, too, and no kosher Shofar is found by which to blow, the enemies of Israel come and blow into our ears for our redemption. They force us to heed the Shofar’s voice; they warn and rattle in our ears, and give us no rest in exile.

[This part is quoted in full.] “Thus, the Shofar of a foul beast becomes the Messiah’s Shofar. Amalek, Petlura [anti-Semitic Ukrainian leader], Hitler, and so forth, awaken for redemption. One who did not hear the voice of the first Shofar, or the voice of the second … for his ears were blocked, will hear the voice of the impure Shofar, the foul [non-kosher] one. He will hear against his will. …While there is redemption in that whip, as well, in the plight of the Jews, one must not bless over such a Shofar.[iii]

Baal HaSulam, too, made several references to Nazism, including how he believed it could be overturned. In his words, “It is impossible to bring down Nazism unless by a religion of altruism.”[iv] Note that when Baal HaSulam speaks of “religion of altruism,” he does not mean that we should perform certain rituals or observe particular conducts. Rather, by “religion of altruism” he means that one has changed one’s nature into that of altruism. At the same time, people will choose whether or not to stay in their formal denominations, regardless of this transformation.

Baal HaSulam also disputes the notion that Nazi Germany was a once-in-history event. It may have been the first, but he believed that unless we do what we must, it will not be the last. In his words, “It turns out that people mistakenly think that Nazism is only an offshoot of Germany … all the nations are equal in that, and it is utterly futile to hope that the Nazis will perish with the victory of The Allies, for tomorrow the Anglo-Saxons will embrace Nazism…”[v]

In light of the spike in anti-Semitism worldwide, it would be wise to seriously consider the words of these wise men. After all, we can evidently see that anti-Semitism has not vanished, nor has Nazism or the call to do away with the Jews.

[i] Rav Yitzhak HaCohen Kook (the Raiah), Essays of the Raaiah, vol. 2, “The Great Call for the Land of Israel,” 323.

[ii] Aaron Soresky, “The ADMOR, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Ashlag ZATZUKAL—Baal HaSulam: 30^th Anniversary of His Departure,” Hamodia, 9, Tishrey, TASHMAV (September 24, 1985).

[iii] Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook (Raaiah), Essays of the Raaiah, vol. 1, pp 268-269.

[iv] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Writings of the Last Generation” (Ashlag Research Institute, Israel, 2009), 853.

[v] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Writings of the Last Generation” (Ashlag Research Institute, Israel, 2009), 841.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 6: Expendable
Contemporary Anti-Semitism

In Chapter 1, we said that Abraham discovered that human nature’s inherent egotism is on a constant trend of expansion. The method he devised was not intended to curb that egotism because he knew this was impossible, as man was created to receive boundlessly. His only question, therefore, was how to receive that intended bounty. Abraham discovered a method where, by studying and striving to unite, people rose to a new level of perception. Here, they acquired the nature of the Creator—benevolence—and could therefore receive that boundless pleasure without becoming overindulgent and dangerous to themselves or the environment.

The exodus from Egypt and the formation of the nation of Israel marked a five-century stage of formation. During that time, Israel went from being a group made of family and students into an entire nation whose goal was to attain the Creator.

While attempting to rise to the highest spiritual level, the Hebrews never retreated from their original intention to offer their perceptions to the whole of humanity. This was to be their contribution to the nations, the “light” they were meant to give to them. Through the generations, that gift of “light” is what the nations have been trying to receive from the Jews, and the lack thereof has been the cause of our afflictions by the nations.

In the prologue to his book, A History of the Jews, Christian historian and novelist, Paul Johnson, eloquently describes the questions that drove Abraham to his discoveries, the same questions that drive humanity to this day. Johnson portrays his reverence for the Jews’ ability to discover the answers to those questions, live by their consequent laws, and their efforts to teach them to others. In his words, “The book gave me the chance to reconsider objectively, in the light of a study covering nearly 4,000 years, the most intractable of all human questions: what are we on earth for? Is history merely a series of events whose sum is meaningless? Is there no fundamental moral difference between the history of the human race and the history, say, of ants? Or is there a providential plan of which we are, however humbly, the agents? No people has ever insisted more firmly than the Jews that history has a purpose and humanity a destiny. At a very early stage in their collective existence they believed they had detected a divine scheme for the human race, of which their own society was to be a pilot. They worked out their role in immense detail. They clung to it with heroic persistence in the face of savage suffering. Many of them believe it still. Others transmuted it into Promethean endeavors to raise our condition by purely human means. The Jewish vision became the prototype for many similar grand designs for humanity, both divine and man-made. The Jews, therefore, stand right at the centre of the perennial attempt to give human life the dignity of a purpose.”[i]

[i] Paul Johnson, (Christian historian), A History of the Jews (New York, First Perennial Library, 1988), 2

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 5: Pariahs
The Roots of Anti-Semitism

The World’s Medics

Imagine you have found a series of exercises that heal cancer and prevent it from ever returning. Imagine you had told the world about it, as did Abraham in Babylon, but you were rejected because the exercises were monotonous and tiring, and no one really felt unwell.

Now imagine that years later, billions of people around the world have cancer. They vaguely remember that you said you had a cure, and in their desperation they turn to you, begging you to save their lives. But you have forgotten all about it. You know the cure exists, you know that many people said it was a powerful remedy (Segula), but since you feel strong and healthy, you see no reason why you should relearn those exercises, much less teach them to billions of people. Can you imagine how the world would feel about you, what people would think, and what they would do?

This is precisely where we Jews stand in relation to the world. The world is beginning to feel unwell, and people are beginning to search for a way out of their plight. They know we are the chosen people, and that we are the ones meant to bring redemption. People may not know that redemption entails changing their nature to bestowal, but they know that redemption is desirable.

Such verses from the New Testament as “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews,”[i] and “What advantage has the Jew? …Great in every way. First of all, they were entrusted with the oracles of God,”[ii] are only two of countless mentions of the Jews’ unique position and role, as depicted in Christian writings. When we do not carry out our mission, we inadvertently draw toward us anger and hatred, which translate into what we now regard as anti-Semitism.

That we are different and unique is documented in history, in the pages of our scriptures, in those of Christianity and Islam, and in the writings of myriad scholars and statespersons. Below are a few of the countless excerpts from well-known individuals expressing their views on the uniqueness of Jews:

Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the UK during World War II: “Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.”[iii]

Lyman Abbott, an American Congregationalist theologian, editor, and author: “When sometimes our own unchristian prejudices flame out against the Jewish people, let us remember that all that we have and all that we are we owe, under God, to what Judaism gave us.”[iv]

Huston Smith, a religious studies professor in the United States, author of The World’s Religions, which has sold more than two million copies: “There is a striking point that runs through Jewish history as a whole. Western civilization was born in the Middle East, and the Jews were at its crossroads. In the heyday of Rome, the Jews were close to the Empire’s center. When power shifted eastward, the Jewish center was in Babylon; when it skipped to Spain, there again were the Jews. When in the Middle Ages the center of civilization moved into Central Europe, the Jews were waiting for it in Germany and Poland. The rise of the United States to the leading world power found Judaism focused there. And now, today, when the pendulum seems to be swinging back toward the Old World and the East rises to renewed importance, there again are the Jews in Israel…”[v]

Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist, author of Anna Karenina: “What is the Jew?…What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed, persecuted, burned, and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and to flourish. What is this Jew whom they have never succeeded in enticing with all the enticements in the world, whose oppressors and persecutors only suggested that he deny (and disown) his religion and cast aside the faithfulness of his ancestors?!

“The Jew is the symbol of eternity. …He is the one who for so long had guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear. The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity.”[vi]

Indeed we are the symbol of eternity, as Tolstoy said, because the Creator’s quality of benevolence is in our “spiritual genes.” And yet, we will not be left in peace until, as in the example with the cancer and the healing exercise, we consciously elevate ourselves to the spiritual level and raise the whole of humanity immediately thereafter.

As has been stated and quoted above, now is the time of the general correction. At such a time, events become inclusive, global. Such was the case with World War I, and even more so with World War II, the atrocities of which are embedded in our collective memory to remind us who we are, and what we are meant to accomplish.

To avoid such cataclysms in the future, we need to take a closer look at some suggestions and statements given prior to, and following the Holocaust. The next chapter will highlight those statements and their pertinence to our lives today. Once we know what has been said, we will be able to appreciate what we need to do to help ourselves and help the world.

[i] New Testament, John 4:22

[ii] New Testament, Romans 3:1-2

[iii] Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews (UK, Simon & Schuster, 2007), 38.

[iv] A Book of Jewish Thoughts, ed. J. H. Hertz (Oxford University Press, 1920), 131

[v] Professor Huston Smith, The Religions of Man (New York: HarperCollins, 1989).

[vi] Leo Tolstoy, “What is the Jew?” quoted in The Final Resolution, p 189, printed in Jewish World periodical, 1908.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 5: Pariahs
The Roots of Anti-Semitism

Two Ways—One Blissful, One Painful

The state of complete redemption—the attainment of the Creator by all of humanity—is mandatory. Baal HaSulam says that there are two ways by which we can achieve it: the way of Torah, when we voluntarily adopt the law of bestowal as our way of life, or the way of suffering, whereby reality compels us to nevertheless adopt the Law of Bestowal as our way of life.[i]

As compulsory as the words of those two contemporary sages may sound, they rest on a sound basis. The Talmud writes, “Rabbi Eliezer says, ‘If Israel repent, they are redeemed. If not, they are not redeemed.’ Rabbi Yehoshua said to him, ‘If they do not repent, they are not redeemed, but the Lord will set up over them a king whose decrees are as harsh as Haman’s, Israel will repent, and He will reform them.’”[ii]

Even that momentous occasion at the foot of Mount Sinai, when we collectively received the Torah with a spectacular audio-visual show, was apparently not as joyous or as festive as has been described. The Talmud tells us that the circumstances were such that there was not much else we could do other than receive it. In today’s terminology, we would say that the Creator gave us an offer we could not refuse: “It is written, ‘And they stood at the bottom of the mountain.’ Rav Dimi Bar Hama said that it means that the Lord had forced the mountain over Israel like a vault, and said unto them: ‘If you accept the Torah [Law of Bestowal], very well, but if not, there will it be your grave.’”[iii]

Indeed, no one said that it is easy having the primogeniture. But the Jews, the descendants of Abraham’s clan, are just that. They were the first to attain the purpose of Creation; hence, it is naturally up to them to lead the way for the rest of humanity. As long as we avoid that undertaking, we will encounter rejection by all the nations.

[i] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom” (Ashlag Research Institute, Israel, 2009), 420.

[ii] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Sanhedrin, 97b.

[iii] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Avodah Zarah [Idolatry], 2b.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 5: Pariahs
The Roots of Anti-Semitism

Symbols of an Inner Clash

One may argue whether or not the Bible, the Old Testament, is a genuine historic documentation of events. But the great sages of Israel throughout the ages had no concern for the historic relevance of the Bible. Rather, they viewed it as an allegory that depicts internal, spiritual processes that one experiences along the path of correction. To them, Nimrod, king of Babylon, represents meridah [Hebrew: rebellion], defiance against the quality of bestowal, the Creator; Pharaoh stands for the epitome of the evil inclination, and so does Haman, albeit at a later stage in one’s spiritual development.

This is why RASHI interprets the Babylonian Talmud as follows: “His name was Nimrod for he himrid [incited] the whole world against the Lord.”[i]

Regarding Pharaoh, Maimonides explains affectionately, “You should know, my son, that Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is in fact the evil inclination.”[ii] Similarly, Elimelech of Lizhensk, author of Noam Elimelech (The Pleasantness of Elimelech), simply wrote, “…Pharaoh, who is called ‘the evil inclination.’”[iii]

Rabbi Jacob Joseph Katz added depth to the distinction regarding Pharaoh. He explained that the words, “Pharaoh had let the people go” (Exodus 13:17), designate the stage in one’s spiritual development when a person breaks free from the evil inclination’s heavy shackles. In his words, “‘And when Pharaoh had let the people go’—when one’s organs exit the authority of the evil inclination, as during the exodus from Egypt, they came out of the forty-nine gates of Tuma’a [impurity, egotism] toward sanctity [bestowal].”[iv]

Within the same book, Rabbi Katz adds his insights regarding Haman: “Haman’s instruction to make a gallows fifty cubits high is the counsel of the evil inclination.”[v] Similarly, Rabbi Jonathan Eibshitz writes in his book Yaarot Devash [Honeycombs] of “Haman, who is the evil inclination…”[vi]

More recently, Kabbalists and Jewish scholars began to feel that time was of the essence and that the Age of Correction was nearing. They began to add implicit, and sometimes explicit calls to action to their words. Thus, Rav Yehuda Ashlag, sensing that the application of the correction method was urgently needed, made a direct link between overcoming the evil inclination and the way it must be achieved today—through unity. In an essay titled, “There Is a Certain People,” Baal HaSulam tells us, “‘There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples.’ Haman said that in his view, we [Haman’s people] will succeed in destroying the Jews because they are separated from one another, so our strength against them will certainly prevail, because this [separation among them] causes separation between man and God.”[vii] That is, the egoism of the Jews separates them from the quality of bestowal, the Creator, so the strength of the ego, the evil inclination, “will certainly prevail.” “This is why,” continues Baal HaSulam, “Mordecai went to correct that flaw, as it is explained in the verse, ‘The Jews gathered…’ to gather themselves together, and to stand up for their lives. This means that they had saved themselves by uniting.”[viii]

We can therefore conclude that whether or not Nimrod, Pharaoh, Balak, Balaam, or Haman actually existed is of lesser importance. What is important is that the traits portrayed by these characters exist within us, and the Bible only allegorically narrates the stages by which we can overcome them.

When we prevail over these qualities of egotism, we are rewarded with redemption—the quality of bestowal, the equivalence of form with the Creator. And because the Creator desires to do good to us, once we have corrected these traits within us, they will haunt us no more, since we have been redeemed from egotism and acquired His quality of bestowal.

If any of these examples of egotism lived today, we would certainly categorize them as anti-Semites of the worst kind. To that effect, the Rav Kook made a forbidding (and true) prediction while drawing a direct link between modern anti-Semites and biblical ones. In a rather unorthodox statement he writes, “Amalek, Petlura [Ukrainian leader suspected of being anti-Semitic], Hitler, and so forth, awaken for redemption. One who did not hear the voice of the first Shofar [a symbol of a call for redemption], or the voice of the second … for his ears were blocked, will hear the voice of the impure Shofar, the foul [non-kosher] one. He will hear against his will.”[ix]

[i] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Hulin, p 89a.

[ii] Maimonides, The Writings of Rambam [Maimonides], “The Ethics of the Rambam to His Son, Rabbi Abraham.”

[iii] Elimelech of Lizhensk, Noam Elimelech (The Pleasantness of Elimelech), Parashat Beshalach [Portion, “When Pharaoh Sent”].

[iv] Rabbi Jacob Joseph Katz, Toldot Yaakov Yosef [The Generations of Jacob Joseph], BeShalach [When Pharaoh Sent], item 1.

[v] Rabbi Katz, Toldot Yaakov Yosef [The Generations of Jacob Joseph], Acharei [After the Death], item 1.

[vi] Jonathan ben Natan Netah Eibshitz, Yaarot Devash [Honeycombs], Part 2, Treatise no. 10.

[vii] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag, Shamati [I Heard], essay no. 144, “There Is a Certain People” (Canada, Laitman Kabbalah Publishers, 2009), 300.

[viii] ibid.

[ix] Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook (Raaiah), Essays of the Raaiah, vol. 1, pp 268-269.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 5: Pariahs
The Roots of Anti-Semitism

Throughout history, never has a nation been more persecuted than the Jews. Throughout history, never has a nation survived every single persecution and emerged stronger every time.

The apparent indestructibility of the Jews raised many questions, albeit more among non-Jews than among Jews, as the Jews were too preoccupied with survival. Renowned German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, expressed his bewilderment over the Jews’ tenacity in his book, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre [Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship]: “Every Jew, no matter how insignificant, is engaged in some decisive and immediate pursuit of a goal… It is the most perpetual people on earth.”[i]

Similar to Goethe, Cambridge professor, T.R. Glover, underlines the conundrum of Jewish existence in The Ancient World: “No ancient people have had a stranger history than the Jews. …The history of no ancient people should be so valuable, if we could only recover it and understand it. …Stranger still, the ancient religion of the Jews survives when all the religions of every ancient race of the pre-Christian world have disappeared … The great matter is not ‘What happened?’ but ‘Why did it happen?’ Why does Judaism live?”[ii]

Likewise, Ernest van den Haag, professor of Jurisprudence and Public Policy at Fordham University, wrote, “In a world where Jews are only a tiny percentage of the population, what is the secret of the disproportionate importance the Jews have had in the history of Western culture?”[iii]

The French mathematician, physicist, inventor, and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, was fascinated with the Jewish people’s antiquity. In his book, Pensees, he wrote, “This people are not eminent solely by their antiquity, but are also singular by their duration, which has always continued from their origin till now. For, whereas the nations of Greece and of Italy, of Lacedaemon, of Athens and of Rome, and others who came long after, have long since perished, these ever remain, and in spite of the endeavors of many powerful kings who have a hundred times tried to destroy them, …they have nevertheless been preserved.”[iv]

Indeed, as countless renowned individuals throughout the ages have noted, the Jews cannot be annihilated. The Jews have a mission to fulfill, and until they do, Nature, God, the Creator, Yahweh, or however you may choose to call Him, will not let it happen. And yet, as long as Jews continue to avoid assuming their intended task, they certainly can, have been, and will be tortured and slaughtered almost to extinction. To unearth the roots of the Jewish Via Dolorosa through history, we need to journey back in time to the onset of Creation.

In Chapter 2 we noted that the Creator has but one desire—to do good to His creations, namely us humans. But because we currently have no perception of Him, we cannot receive from Him.

When we want to give a present to a friend, we approach that friend and give it. There must be contact between the giver and the receiver. Just so, for Him to give to us, the Creator and Creation must connect. And upon connection, as we quoted Baal HaSulam, “One feels the wonderful benefit contained in the Thought of Creation, which is to delight His creatures with His full, good, and generous hand. Because of the abundance of benefit that one attains, wondrous love appears between a person and the Creator, incessantly pouring upon one by the very routes and channels through which natural love appears. However, all this comes to a person from the moment one attains and onwards.”[v]

This, we said in Chapter 2, arouses the need for “equivalence of form,” that is, to be like the Creator, having a nature of giving. Regrettably, the vast majority of us have no desire for it; we vehemently resent giving unless we have some underlying profit, an ulterior motive to do so. RASHI, the great commentator on the Bible, wrote that the verse, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21), means that “As soon as one is shaken out of his mother’s womb, He [the Creator] plants in him the evil inclination,” which, as said in Chapter 3, is egotism, the desire to receive for ourselves.

Therefore, considering that the Creator is benevolent and that we are the opposite, the clash between man and God seems inevitable. How can we ever attain Him if He has made us inherently opposite from Him? The remedy to egotism lies in what we described earlier as “the point in the heart.” That thirst to understand what life is about, and what makes the world go around (and it is not money), is the yearning that enabled Adam, Abraham and his progeny, Moses, and the entire nation that arose out of the pariahs from Babylon, to develop a correction method that turns the evil inclination into goodness.

[i] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Berlin (Germany), Johann Friedrich Unger, 1795-1796), 359.

[ii] Glover, The Ancient World, 184-191.

[iii] Ernest van den Haag, The Jewish Mystique (US, Stein & Day, 1977), 13.

[iv] Blaise Pascal, Pensees, trans. W.F. Trotter, Introduction by T.S. Eliot (Benediction Books, 2011), 205.

[v] Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot (The Study of the Ten Sefirot), Part 1, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sephirot,” 31.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 4: A Nation on a Mission
The Role of the Jewish People

Adam—The First Man, The Collective Soul

The ARI explains that in truth, we are all parts of a single soul, known to Kabbalists as Adam HaRishon (the first man), and to most other folks as Adam. The exile, says the ARI, occurred as a continuation of the correction process. In Shaar HaPsukim [Gate to the Verses], he wrote, “Adam HaRishon [Adam] included all the souls and included all the worlds. When he sinned, all those souls fell from him into the Klipot [shells, forms of egotism], which divide into seventy nations. Israel must exile there, in each and every nation, and gather the lilies of the holy souls that had scattered among those thorns, as our sages wrote in Midrash Rabah, ‘Why were Israel exiled among the nations? To add foreigners to themselves.’”[i]

In that regard, The NATZIV of Volojin wrote, “Its beginning was on Mount Ebal … but they completed this exalted matter only through exile and dispersion.”[ii]

It is with good reason that exile is necessary in order to complete the correction of the Jews, and thereafter the entire world. We previously said that when Abraham offered the correction method to his fellow Babylonians, they rejected it because they were too busy being self-indulgent and egotistical. And yet, if we are all parts of one collective soul, as the ARI pointed out, eventually all of us will have to achieve correction, by which we will discover the Creator and become like Him. This is the benefit, as described in Chapter 2, that He intended to give humankind.

Thus, Abraham’s correction was only the beginning of the process, certainly not its end. In a long and elaborate essay titled, “And They Built Store-Cities,” Baal HaSulam writes, “We must also understand what Abraham the Patriarch asked, ‘Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it’ (Genesis 15:8)? What did the Creator reply? It is written, ‘And He said unto Abram: Know of a surety that your seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs.’”[iii] Baal HaSulam explains that with this reply, the Creator promises Abraham that all the people will achieve correction through the mingling of the corrected nation—Israel—with the uncorrected nations—in this case represented by Egypt.

Surprisingly, in reply to his question, the Creator promises Abraham exile. And not only that, writes Baal HaSulam, Abraham “…accepted it as a guarantee on the inheritance of the land.”[iv] Indeed, Abraham knew that a mingling of the desires—represented by the different nations of the world—was necessary in order to complete the correction of humanity. Considering that each of the nations represents a part of Adam’s soul, it is necessary for every part of the soul to be introduced to the correction method, and for that part of the soul to eventually adopt it. This is why Israel had to be exiled and spread throughout the world.

As part of the expansion of the correction process in humanity, Abraham went into exile in Egypt, where his tribe had grown into a nation. And when the Israeli nation exiled after the ruin of the First and Second Temples, it introduced the correction method to the entire world.

Although the method has clearly not been adopted by the rest of humanity, it has nevertheless planted the tenets we already mentioned, tenets that form a common basis upon which to begin the correction process as soon as people begin to seek it.

In “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee],” Baal HaSulam details the process by which the Israeli nation corrects itself first, so as to convey the correction to the rest of the nations. In his words, “Rabbi Elazar, son of Rashbi (Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai), clarifies this concept of Arvut even further. It is not enough for him that all of Israel are responsible for one another, but the whole world is included in that Arvut. …Everyone admits that to begin with, it is enough to start with one nation for the observance of the Torah [law of bestowal] for the beginning of the correction of the world. It was impossible to begin with all the nations at once, as they said that the Creator went with the Torah to every nation and tongue, and they did not want to receive it. In other words, they were immersed in … self-love … until it was impossible to conceive in those days to even ask if they agreed to retire from self-love.

“…But the end of the correction of the world will be only by bringing all the people in the world under His work, as it is written, ‘And the Lord shall be King over all the earth; in that day shall the Lord be One, and His name one’ (Zechariah, 14:9) … ‘And all the nations shall flow on to him’ (Isaiah, 2:2).

“But the role of Israel toward the rest of the world resembles the role of our Holy Fathers toward the Israeli nation. Just as the righteousness of our fathers helped us develop and cleanse to become worthy of receiving the Torah [law of bestowal] … it is upon the Israeli nation to qualify itself and all the people of the world through Torah and Mitzvot [corrections of the egotism], to develop until they take upon themselves that sublime work of love of others, which is the ladder to the purpose of Creation, being Dvekut [similarity/equivalence of form] with Him.”[v]

Likewise, in his essay, “A Handmaid that Is Heir to Her Mistress,” Baal HaSulam writes, “The people of Israel, which has been chosen as an operator of the general purpose and correction … contains the preparation required for growing and developing until it moves the nations of the worlds, too, to achieve the common goal.”[vi]

Baal HaSulam and his son, the Rabash, may have been the latest Kabbalists to state that Israel’s role in the world is to bring the correction method to the rest of the nations, but they were certainly not the first. Countless rabbis, Kabbalists, and scholars dating back almost to the ruin of the Second Temple, have stated similarly.

Thus, Midrash Rabah states that “Israel bring light to the world,”[vii] and the Babylonian Talmud added, “The Creator acted with righteousness toward Israel, having dispersed them among the nations.”[viii] Rabbi Yehuda Altar, the ADMOR of Gur wrote, “Any exile into which the children of Israel enter is only to elicit holy sparks within the nations [similar to Baal HaSulam’s above-quoted words]. The children of Israel are guarantors in that they received the Torah in order to correct the whole world, the nations, too.”[ix]

Similarly, Rabbi Hillel Tzaitlin writes, “If Israel is the one true redeemer of the entire world, it must be fit for that redemption. Israel must first redeem its own soul, the sanctity of its soul, the sanctity of its Shechina [Divinity]. …For that purpose, I wish to establish with this book the ‘unity of Israel’ … If founded, the unification of individuals will be for the purpose of internal ascension and an invocation for corrections for all the ills of the nation and the world.”[x]

I would like to conclude this chapter with a few more of Baal HaSulam’s words, who in a few paragraphs detailed the purpose of Creation, humanity’s entitlement to it, and Israel’s role in achieving it. In his words: “Why was the Torah given to the Israeli nation without the participation of all the nations of the world? In truth, the purpose of Creation applies to the entire human race, none excluded. However, because of the lowliness of the nature of Creation [being egotistical] and its power over people, it was impossible for people to understand, determine, and agree to rise above it. They did not demonstrate the desire to relinquish self-love and come to equivalence of form, which is adhesion with His attributes, as our sages said, ‘As He is merciful, be you merciful, as well.’

“Thus, because of their ancestral merit [the examples set by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob], Israel succeeded … and became qualified and sentenced themselves to a scale of merit [corrected themselves to become like the Creator]. Each and every member of the nation agreed to love his fellow man [which is how they achieved the correction].

“…However, the Israeli nation was to be a ‘transition,’ meaning that to the extent that Israel cleanse themselves by keeping the Torah [laws of bestowal], they pass their power on to the rest of the nations. And when the rest of the nations also sentence themselves to a scale of merit [correcting themselves by relinquishing egotism], the Messiah [final correction] will be revealed. This is because the role of the Messiah is not only to qualify Israel to the ultimate goal of adhesion with Him, but to teach the ways of God [bestowal] to all the nations, as it is written, ‘And all nations will flow onto Him.’”[xi]

[i] The Holy ARI, Eight Gates, Shaar HaPsukim [Gate to Verses], Parashat Shemot [Portion, Exodus].

[ii] Rabbi Naphtali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (The NATZIV of Volojin), Haamek Davar [Delve Deep in the Matter] about Devarim [Deuteronomy], Chapter 27:5.

[iii] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Essays of Shamati [I Heard],” essay no. 86, “And They Built Store-Cities” (Ashlag Research Institute, Israel, 2009), 591.

[iv] ibid.

[v] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee]” (Ashlag Research Institute: Israel, 2009), 393.

[vi] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Handmaid that Is Heir to Her Mistress” (Ashlag Research Institute, Israel, 2009), 454.

[vii] Midrash Rabah, “Song of Songs,” Parasha no. 4, 2^nd paragraph.’

[viii] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Pesachim, p 87b.

[ix] Yehuda Leib Arie Altar (ADMOR of Gur), Sefat Emet [Language of Truth], Parashat Yitro [Portion, Jethro], TARLAZ (1876).

[x] Hillel Tzaitlin, The Book of a Few (Jerusalem, 1979), 5.

[xi] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love of God and the Love of Man” (Ashlag Research Institute, Israel, 2009), 486.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 4: A Nation on a Mission
The Role of the Jewish People

 The Legacy of the Jews

The Jews that remained in Babylon after the ruin of the First Temple developed a flourishing community that spread throughout the Persian Empire. Later, when the Second Temple was ruined and the Romans conquered the land of Israel, the Jewish people lost its sovereignty over the land.

But the conquest of the Jewish people introduced the world to two tenets that were to become the basis of all three predominant, aptly named “Abrahamic” religions: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and “monotheism,” meaning that there is only one God, one force governing the world. These notions are paramount to the success of the correction of humanity because when understood correctly, the former defines the mode by which we will achieve correction—through loving others, and not kin, but our neighbors, meaning strangers. The latter defines the essence of our attainment once we are corrected—the singular force of reality.

Accordingly, Professor T.R. Glover from Cambridge University wrote in The Ancient World, “It is strange that the living religions of the world all build on religious ideas derived from the Jews.”[i] Likewise, Herman Rauschning, a German Conservative Revolutionary who briefly joined the Nazis before breaking up with them, wrote in The Beast from the Abyss: “Judaism, nevertheless … is an inalienable component of our Christian Western civilization, the eternal ‘call to Sinai’ against which humanity again and again rebels.”[ii]

The exile of the Jewish people from the Land of Israel was a long process by which Jews, and therefore Jewish values, were gradually absorbed by their host nations. Yosef Ben Matityahu, better known as Josephus Flavius, the Romano-Jewish historian, describes the expulsion of the Jews by the Romans at the beginning of the exile. In The Wars of the Jews, Flavius writes, “And as he remembered that the twelfth legion had given way to the Jews, under Cestius their general, he expelled them out of all Syria, for they had lain formerly at Raphanea, and sent them away to a place called Meletine, near Euphrates, which is in the limits of Armenia and Cappadocia.”[iii]

In Chapter 3, Flavius elaborates, “For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all the habitable earth among its inhabitants, so it is very much intermingled with Syria by reason of its neighborhood, and had the greatest multitudes in Antioch by reason of the largeness of the city, wherein the kings, after Antiochus, had afforded them a habitation with the most undisturbed tranquility.”[iv]

Today, narrates author Yaakov (Jacob) Leschzinsky in The Jewish Dispersion, the Jews have spread the world over, and at a surprising pace. “When we scan the diaspora of Jewry over the entire globe and throughout the entire civilized world,” he writes, “we are surprised to see that this nation, which is almost the most ancient in the world, is in truth the youngest in terms of the land under its feet and the sky above its head. Because of the relentless persecutions and forced expulsions, most Jews are but recent newcomers to their respective lands of residence. Ninety percent of the Jewish people have lived in their new homes for no more than fifty or sixty years! (The Jews) are dispersed over 100 lands on all five continents.”[v]

Interestingly, their mingling with other nations is precisely what was required to complete Moses’ corrections. While it is true that, as long as Israel was apart from other nations, the above-mentioned tenets at the heart of Judaism could not be tainted, it is also true that the Jews had much to gain from their exile among the nations. This is why the Book of Psalms (106:35) tells us that the Jews were exiled to “Mingle themselves with the nations and learn their works.”

[i] Terrot Reavely (T.R.) Glover, The Ancient World (US: Penguin Books, 1944), 184-191.

[ii] Herman Rauschning, The Beast From the Abyss (UK: W. Heinemann, 1941), 155-56.

[iii] Josephus Flavius, The Wars of the Jews, Chapter 1, translated by William Whiston in The Works of Flavius Josephus (UK: Armstrong and Plaskitt AND Plaskitt & Co., 1835), 564

[iv] William Whiston, The Works of Flavius Josephus, 565.

[v] Yaakov (Jacob) Leschzinsky, The Jewish Dispersion (Israel, World Zionist Organization, 1961), 9.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 4: A Nation on a Mission
The Role of the Jewish People

 Mix ‘n Mingle

And yet, how is the correction to flow unto the nations? If the nation of Israel corrects itself, how will that affect any of the other nations?

When Abraham first discovered the Creator, he described it to whomever would listen, and those who joined him became the first corrected people. Those people then went to Egypt and finally emerged from it in much greater numbers, an entire nation. That nation received the Law of Correction, namely the Torah, and corrected itself. In the First Temple, the Jewish nation achieved its highest level of connection with the Creator, as demonstrated in the previous chapter. From there, the nation began to decline until its people were exiled to Babel. When they returned to the Land of Israel, the majority of the Jewish nation chose to stay in the diaspora and gradual assimilation commenced.

Indeed, this is how the passing on of the message began. When people who were once corrected—who had transcended self-interest and discovered the Creator—mingled with those who had never had such thoughts, those noble ideas began to spread within the host society, and help instigate more humane thoughts in people’s minds. While those were not corrected thoughts deriving from minds that had transcended egotism, the notions of universalism and humanism nevertheless began to take hold in people’s minds.

Indeed, during the Renaissance, several renowned scholars maintained that the Greeks had adopted at least some of their concepts from the Jews, in this case specifically from Kabbalah. Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522), for example, the political counselor to the Chancellor, wrote in De Arte Cabbalistica (On the Art of Kabbalah): “Nevertheless, his [Pythagoras’] preeminence derived not from the Greeks, but again from the Jews. …He himself was the first to convert the name Kabbalah, unknown to the Greeks, into the Greek name philosophy.”[i]

In 1918, a French pastor, Charles Wagner, was quoted as having written, “None of the resplendent names in history—Egypt, Athens, Rome—can compare in eternal grandeur with Jerusalem. For Israel has given to mankind the category of holiness. Israel alone has known the thirst for social justice, and that inner saintliness which is the source of justice.”[ii]

More recently, Christian historian, Paul Johnson, wrote in A History of the Jews: “The Jewish impact on humanity has been protean. In antiquity they were the great innovators in religion and morals. In the Dark Ages and early medieval Europe they were still an advanced people transmitting scarce knowledge and technology. Gradually they were pushed from the van and fell behind; by the end of the eighteenth century they were seen as a bedraggled and obscurantist rearguard in the march of civilized humanity. But then came an astonishing second burst of creativity. Breaking out of the ghettos, they once more transformed human thinking, this time in the secular sphere. Much of the mental furniture of the modern world too is of Jewish fabrication.”[iii]

Similarly, In The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels, author Thomas Cahill, former director of religious publishing at Doubleday, describes the Jews’ contribution to the world, which, in his view, began during the exile in Babylon. “The Jews started it all,” he writes, “and by ‘it’ I mean so many of the things we care about, the underlying values that make all of us, Jew and Gentile, believer and aethiest, tick. Without the Jews, we would see the world through different eyes, hear with different ears, even feel with different feelings … We would think with a different mind, interpret all our experiences differently, draw different conclusions from the things that befall us. And we would set a different course for our lives.”[iv]

Interestingly, some renowned Jewish leaders also wrote about the spreading (and spoiling) of Jewish wisdom after the ruin of the First Temple. Rabbi Shmuel Bernstein of Sochatchov, for example, wrote, “The Greeks had the wisdom of philosophy, which originated from the writings of King Solomon that have come to their possession after the ruin of the First Temple. However, they were spoiled by them with subtractions, additions, and substitutions until false views mingled with them. And yet, the wisdom itself is good, but parts of the bad have mingled with it.”[v]

Baal HaSulam wrote similarly in “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: “Sages of Kabbalah observe philosophic theology and complain that they have stolen the upper shell of their wisdom, which Plato and his Greek predecessors had acquired while studying with the disciples of the prophets in Israel. They have stolen basic elements from the wisdom of Israel and wore a cloak that is not theirs.”[vi]

[i] Johannes Reuchlin, De Arte Cabbalistica (Hagenau, Germany: Tomas Anshelm, March, 1517), 126.

[ii] Source: A Book of Jewish Thoughts, ed. J. H. Hertz (London: Oxford University Press, 1920), 134.

[iii] Paul Johnson, (Christian historian), A History of the Jews (New York: First Perennial Library, 1988), 585-6.

[iv] Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels (New York: Nan A. Talese/Anchor Books (imprints of Doubleday), 1998), 3.

[v] Rabbi Shmuel Bornstein, Shem MiShmuel [A Name Out of Samuel], Miketz [At the End], TARPA (1921).

[vi] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy” (Ashlag Research Institute: Israel, 2009), 38.

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Like A Bundle of Reeds, Why Unity and Mutual Guarantee Are Today’s Call of the Hour, Michael Laitman, Ph.D.

Chapter 4: A Nation on a Mission
The Role of the Jewish People

“Abraham was awarded the blessing of being as the stars of the heaven, Isaac, the blessing of the sand, and Jacob, as the dust of the earth, for the children of Israel were created to correct the whole of Creation.”
Yehuda Leib Arie Altar (ADMOR of Gur),
Sefat Emet [Language of Truth], Bamidbar [Numbers].

At the end of the previous chapter we asked, “If everything is all right, why is there so much wrong with the world?” and “If life’s fundamental law can be known to all, how come so few know it, especially now that we are we at a loss as to how to handle the multiple crises engulfing human society?” We said that to answer those questions, we need to understand how the knowledge of the law spreads, and how Jews are related to its spreading.

You may recall that in the Introduction, we established that once Abraham discovered that a single force was leading the world, he rushed to tell his countryfolk about his discovery. He posed no preconditions; he wished to share his newfound knowledge with everyone. Alas, neither his king, Nimrod, nor the people were ready to accept the notion that life’s governing force is one of bestowal, and that their goal in life, as we said in Chapter 1, is to reveal it through being similar, or even equal to it. The Babylonians of Abraham’s time were too preoccupied with building their tower and attempting to defy the laws of Nature.

As Abraham wandered through what is now the Near and Middle East on his way to Canaan, he gathered into his tent, and tenet, all who were able to comprehend his notions and commit to self-transformation from egotism to bestowal. Those people later became the nation of Israel, named so after the desire to reach straight for the Creator.

And yet, life’s four levels—still, vegetative, animate, and speaking—are a constant. They must be actualized to the fullest, and all those who physically belong to the speaking level must eventually achieve it spiritually, as well. The fact that not all Babylonians were ready to commit to changing themselves at Abraham’s time changes nothing in terms of the final purpose for which the human race exists. Hence, those who were ready and willing to commit became the “guardians” of the knowledge, entrusted with keeping and nurturing it for posterity.

In his essay, “The Arvut (mutual guarantee),” Baal HaSulam wrote, “[The Creator said] ‘You shall be My Segula [remedy/virtue] from among all peoples.’ This means that you will be My remedy, and sparks of purification and cleansing of the body shall pass through you onto all the peoples and the nations of the world. The nations of the world are not yet ready for it, and I need at least one nation to start with now, so it will be as a remedy for all the nations.”[i]

This quote, coupled with the words of Rabbi Altar, quoted in the beginning of this chapter, “The children of Israel were created to correct the whole of Creation,” and joined with the quotations below in this chapter, leaves little doubt as to the view of Jewish spiritual leaders throughout the ages regarding the role for which Jews exist in the world.

When Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt, he intended first and foremost to pass on to them the law he had learned himself, the law that Abraham had learned before him. His aim was to finish, or at least advance the mission that Abraham had started generations prior. Rav Moshe Chaim Lozzatto, the great Ramchal, wrote about it, “Moses wished to complete the correction of the world at that time. This is why he took the mixed multitude [self-centered people, without corrected desires], as he thought that thus would be the correction of the world that will be done at the end of correction … However, he did not succeed because of the corruptions that occurred along the way.”[ii] Despite the difficulties, writes Rabbi Isaac Wildman, “That was Moses’ prayer and blessing to the generation of the desert, that they would be the beginning of the correction of the world.”[iii]

Yet, the world had no wish for correction. The nations were not ready to relinquish self-love and embrace altruism—giving—as their prime quality. So in the meantime, the Israeli nation kept “polishing up” its own correction in wait for the rest of the nations to be ready and willing. In the words of Ramchal, “You should know … that Creation as a whole will not be completed until the whole of the chosen nation is arranged in the right order, completed in all its decorations, with the Shechina [Divinity] adhered to it. Consequently, the world will reach the complete state. …We must come to a state where the nation is fully complemented in all the required conditions, and the whole of Creation receives its completeness, and then the world will be established permanently in the corrected state.”[iv]

It follows that the Israeli nation serves as a channel by which correction, namely the quality of bestowal, should reach its intended recipients: the nations of the world. In his eloquent, florid style, Rav Kook details how he sees the role of the Jews regarding the rest of the nations. “As Israel’s vocation, being the nation of the Lord, is present, complete, apparent, lasting, and active in the world, it is a valid testimony for the world for all posterity to complement the form of the human race, to keep its characteristics, and to elevate it through the rungs of sanctity appropriate for it … which the Lord determined. And since our own vocation is ever standing, accompanying the vocation of the whole of Nature—whose law is to complete all creations and bring them to the apex of perfection—we must guard it devoutly for the life of us all, which is kept within it, and for the whole of humanity and its moral development, whose fate depends on the fate of our existence.”[v]

As shown in the Introduction to this book, the Rav Kook even goes so far as to say, “The genuine movement of the Israeli soul at its grandest is expressed only by its sacred, eternal force, which flows within its spirit. It is that which has made it, is making it, and will make it still a nation that stands as a light unto nations.”[vi]

In his book, Ein Ayah [A Hawk’s Eye], Rav Kook adds further: “Within Israel is a hidden sanctity of elevating the value of life itself through the Divinity that is present in Israel. The national soul of the Assembly of Israel aspires for the most sublime and exalted, to act in life by the most exalted and Godly value, by that same value that will make no person capable of asking, ‘What is the purpose of such a life?’ having seen the glory and sublimity of its pleasantness and magnificence. With utter completeness will it be completed within the house of Israel, and from it, it will radiate to the earth and to the whole world, ‘for a covenant of the people, for a light of the nations.’”[vii]

Similarly, Rabbi Naphtali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (known as “The NATZIV of Volojin”) wrote, “Isaiah the prophet said, ‘I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations,’ that is, to correct the covenant, which is the faith, for every nation. They will be casting off the faith in idols and will believe in one God. Indeed, the covenant with Abraham our Father had been signed on that matter.”[viii]

[i] Rav Yehuda Leib HaLevi Ashlag (Baal HaSulam), The Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut [Mutual Guarantee],” item 28 (Ashlag Research Institute, Israel, 2009), 397.

[ii] Rav Moshe Chaim Lozzatto (Ramchal), The Commentary of Ramchal on the Torah, BaMidbar [Numbers].

[iii] Yitzhak Isaac Hever Wildman, Beit Olamim [A House Everlasting] (Warsaw, 1889), 130a.

[iv] Rav Moshe Chaim Lozzatto (Ramchal), Essay of the Tenets, (Oybervisha (Felsövisó) Romania, 1928), 15. Online source: http://www.hebrewbooks.org/33059

[v] Rav Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook (Raaiah) (appeared in HaPeles, a rabbinical magazine, Berlin, Germany, 1901) (A. The Vocation of Israel and Its Nationality, Chapter 1, p 26).

[vi] HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, Letters of the RAAIAH 3, 194-195.

[vii] Rav Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook (Raaiah), Ein Ayah [A Hawk’s Eye], Shabbat 1, p 188.

[viii] Rabbi Naphtali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin (The NATZIV of Volojin), Haamek Davar [Delve Deep in the Matter] about Devarim [Deuteronomy], Chapter 27:5.

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