[Avodah] RAYK and the end of chol

[Michael Makovi]

>  I've never learned it differently, starting with the book "Ayelet HaShachar"
>  by Rav Shachor (IIRC) and then later Orot and other books.  I'll try to get
>  sources, but when I ran this past my husband he also said that the paradigm
>  was Ayelet HaShachar  - that it comes and goes, like a jagged mountain road
>  that goes up and down.  Every single lecture I've ever heard on this theme
>  in Israel, going back to my teens had the same description - Aliyot and
>  Yeridot.
>
> R' Boublil

Rabbi Moshe Kaplan at Machon Meir spoke of a deer running around the
mountains, disappearing behind one mountain, seemingly gone for good,
before suddenly appearing on the next mountain. I think he was basing
on a Midrash or something.

My understanding of Rav Kook has been that bli safek, today is leading
up to geula, as evidenced by the mass aliyah and flowering of the
land. BUT, there are snags and problems along the way. To use R'
Boublil's example, the road definitely IS getting from point A to
point B, but no way said how smooth that route would be.

> >  Rav Kook's view of learning chol has nothing to do with Zionism.  So, please
> >  don't mix the issues.
> >
> > R' Boublil

> On this, I strongly disagree. Both depend heavily on RAYK's ability to
> see the qodesh in everything. The Or Ein Sof that is even in the chol
> (which is merely hidden qedushah, a/k/a a long curvy path).
>
> R' Micha Berger

Rav Kook's general mystical and idealistic hashkafa led separately to
his view of chol, his view of Zionism, and his other views. His
learning chol is not connected to or dependent on, his Zionism;
rather, both his chol and his Zionism are connected to a common
source.

Rav Kook's mysticism and idealism affected all his hashkafot and
penetrated them all; it'd be a general characteristic of his.

Rav Kook wrote on a LOT; in Machon Meir, just as we had a Zionism
class that never mentioned Rav Kook (at all), we had a Rav Kook class
that never mentioned Zionism (at all). We learned at his Haggadah, his
Ein Ayah (on Ein Yaakov), and other works, seeing that his hashkafa
covered far more than just Zionism.

> > Without Torah, all their Zionism had no basis - a Jew removed from
> > Torah is like a flower from water and soil, and while it can live for
> > a while, and perhaps even appear to thrive, it will eventually die.
> > Zionism without Torah has a very fleeting lifespan, before people
> > start crying that the Arabs have equal rights and we have no right to
> > the land and that we all ought to return to Europe since we want to be
> > just like them anyway, etc.
> >
> > Mikha'el Makovi

> Is this your extrapolation? As I have said before, my exposure to RAYK's
> thought slight.

It is what Rabbi Moshe Kaplan at Machon Meir said about Rav Kook,
except put (by me) into the mashal of Rabbi Isidore Epstein in Faith
of Judaism about morality without G-d (I like to conflate hashkafot).
But I am absolutely sure that the tamtzit of what I said is what Rabbi
Kaplan said - viz., Zionism without Torah cannot survive for long. Rav
Kook said (explicitly) that what resurrected our nation today (secular
Zionism) could have killed the healthy 1st/2nd Temple state. And Rav
Kook indeed did say that eventually, post-Zionism would result from
the secularism, and the seculars would cease to be Zionistic, etc.

I'll have to find a source, however. The problem is, Rabbi Kaplan is
very difficult to get a hold of, and so I might not be able to ask him
for some time.

> > However, I myself will say that the Holocaust has nothing to do
> > anything here: Rav Kook is referring to the loss and regain of
> > idealism and Torah by the Jewish people, and the Holocaust is an
> > external event not caused by the Jews. Any objection has to be that
> > the Jews are not returning to Torah as Rav Kook thought they would,
> > not that the Nazis didn't behave according to what Rav Kook said the
> > Jews would do.
> >
> > Mikha'el Makovi

> You mean, like when intermarriage outpaces kiruv by 40:1, even factoring
> in Israel?
> R' Micha

Nu? So the return to religiosity is taking longer than expected.
Surely you don't doubt that we'll all do teshuva eventually! Either
you have to agree with Rav Kook that eventually teshuva etc. will come
to the current state, or you have to say that this current state must
perforce collapse and a new one rise up in its place. But then I'd
ask, why go through all the trouble of having this state fall,
everyone do teshuva in chutz la'aretz, and then build a new state? Why
not just have everyone do teshuva in the current state and save all
the trouble? (Obviously, what will happen will happen. My point is
that the current state collapsing, teshuva in chutz, and a new state
rising up isn't any simpler or more elegant or more conceivable
hashkafically or practically, than everyone doing teshuva in the
current state.)

Mikha'el Makovi