In the book “Orot" Rabbi Avraham HaCohen Kook writes:
“When there is a great war in the world, the power of Mashiach awakens. The time of the songbird has come - the weeding away of the tyrants. The evil ones are obliterated from the world, the world becomes more perfected, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our Land" (Orot, 2:1)
The singing of songbirds is a metaphor of Redemption (Shir HaShirim 2:12). Rabbi Kook continues:
“The light of Israel will appear, to establish a world whose nations are possessed of a new spirit, nations who will no longer speak emptiness, and who will no longer act contemptuously against God and against His Mashiach, against the life-light of the world, and against the perfection and belief embodied in the eternal covenant of the Torah… Then it will be known and proven that only in Him, in the God of Israel, is there salvation, and the salvation of God will surely come" (Orot, 8:2).
Certainly, after the yesterday’s giant leap forward in the Redemption of our Nation and the world, the light of God is shining ever more brightly. Perhaps at this miraculous moment, it is appropriate to recall that while religious Jews were wiping out the memory of Amalek in shul, the secular pilots of the Israel Air Forces (which comprise nearly 80 percent of all pilots) were erasing Amalek from the air. Certainly we owe them great thanks.
Purim day marks the yahrtzeit of HaRav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, Rabbi Kook’s only son and former head of Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav. While he stridently called out for the Nation’s return to Torah, he stressed that the positive contribution of secular Jews toward the building of the Nation in Zion must be acknowledged:
“Just as the stones used in building the Beit HaMikdash were not sanctified until after the building was complete, so too the building of Eretz Yisrael is accomplished by every segment of the Nation, by the righteous and the less righteous. During the construction of the Temple, ordinary workmen would enter the Holy of Holies to do their work - something that was only permitted to the High Priest on Yom Kippur once the building was complete. We build with the non-holy, with all of the complications and difficulties inherent in this, and little by little, all of the assorted problems shall vanish, and the Sanctification of Hashem shall appear in stronger and stronger light" (Like Father, Like Son, Selected Teachings of HaRav Tzvi Yehuda).