Today, the Third of Elul, is the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook. This year also marks the 100th anniversary of the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva which he founded. Thus it is a fitting occasion to explain one of Rabbi Kook’s fundamental teachings and a pillar of the yeshiva which he established to produce enlightened Torah Scholars who could shepherd the reborn Israelite Nation at the time of its National Revival in Eretz Yisrael.
Rabbi Kook wrote in a letter: “The simple, straightforward, natural, invigorating, and healthy love of the Nation, must necessarily be the driving and illuminating force in the heart of all those who truly deserve to crown themselves with the title Gedolei Yisrael – the leading Torah Scholars of the Nation” (Letters, 184).
We can ask - don’t great Torah Scholars have a love for the Nation to begin with? However, it is necessary to understand the depth and intention in Rabbi Kook’s words. For illumination we will quote freely from the book “Binyan Emunah” by Rabbi Moshe Bleicher, a longtime student at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva and former Rosh Yeshiva of the Shavei Hevron Yeshiva in the City of the Patriarchs.
Rabbi Bleicher points out that the natural love that Torah Scholars possess is Ahavat Yisrael in its private meaning. It is possible to love every Jew for the special Divine nature of his soul, for every Jew’s soul is rooted in the same Divine Source, even if he outwardly sins and denies the Torah.
But this is not the type of love about which Rabbi Kook is speaking. To Rabbi Kook, the love of the Nation means the recognition that Am Yisrael has a Clalli Soul, and at this time of the Exile’s end, this NATIONAL SOUL returns and appears as the energized, all-encompassing, living soul of the Nation in Israel, in the Nation’s down-to-earth physical valor, in its military prowess, in the building of Medinat Yisrael, and in the full content of its national life, as well as in the life of each and every individual.
The love of the Nation, in this loftier perspective, understands that the appearance of the full Name of Hashem in the world cannot come about though an individual, even if be the greatest Tzaddik, but only through the life of the entire Nation in Eretz Yisrael. Our encounter with the Unity of G-d and with the Divine Content that fills existence can only take place in its all-encompassing wholeness when these lofty values appear as the ideal, living, unifying, Clalli Soul of the whole Israelite Nation which appears on earth, only in the Land of Israel, in the life of the entire congregation, in a national format, in the rebuilding of the Nation.
The deeper and far broader learning of Emunah, which Rabbi Kook initiated in the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem, affords us with the opportunity of encountering a higher level of life, fueled by the ideal, Clalli, life force of the Nation, and enables us to align our lives with its aspirations and goals.
This new/old understanding of Torah brings about a revolution in one’s outlook on everything. Usually, the simple outlook on life finds value in the details of one’s own individual life. However, when a person has risen up to a life of true Emunah, and a true understanding of the national foundation of the Torah, in all of its depth and meaning, the details of life receive their value from the Clalli, Divine Soul of the Nation, transforming a person into a Clalli creation, at one with the entire Clal, identifying with its needs and aspirations, with the Nation of Israel as a whole, rather than being a small, private, individual who identifies, first and foremost, with his own personal needs.
Thus, all of the learning of Torah needs to be explained and illuminated in a new light – in the same “new light on Zion” which we ask for in our morning prayers. The traditional explanations of the Torah, the pilpulim, the Talmudic debate over the precise understanding of each detail and law, are not merely one detail after another, with each detail possessing a value of its own. They are all droplets from one giant, ideal, unified, Clalli, Source. There is one Unified System which is revealed and expressed in each detail of Torah, all of which come to give guidelines to existence, in order to reveal this Principle of Divine Unity in our everyday life.
This is the meaning of the blessing over Torah learning, with its national orientation, “Who chose us from all the nations,” and out from this national perspective, “and gave us His Torah,” to the Israelite Nation as a whole. The full grandeur of Torah appears through the Nation, in the united, life force of the Nation in all of its wholeness – in all of its levels: the righteous, the average person, and the wanton sinner, all together, which reaches its full expression upon the coagulation of the entire Nation in its unique Holy Land.
When the National, Clalli Soul becomes manifest in the life of the Israelite Nation, then the greatness of G-d, the Divine Life and Divine Unity, penetrate into the innermost recesses of the most concrete, down-to-earth life of the Nation , and bring about the creation of a living Nation which reveals all of these Divine Ideals in its national life. This is the greatest Sanctification of Hashem that there is.