[Avodah] Im ANi Latzmi Ma ani

[Rich, Joel]

I found the following of great interest especially as it parallels some
of R' Amital's writings.
KT
Joel Rich
Ha-Rav Shlomo Aviner 

Rav Kook's approach -vs- focus on the individual

[From "Be-Ahavah U-Be-Emunah - Parashat Acharei Mot 5768 - Translated by
Rafael Blumberg]


Question: Perhaps, with our generation being so focused on the
individual, Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook's approach, which focused on the
good of the group at large, has become outdated? Perhaps he's no longer
so relevant and Chabad or Breslav (which focus more on the betterment of
the individual) are better? The fact is that those two groups are
winning over the youth. 


Answer: Your analysis is correct except for one detail: It applies not
just in this generation but throughout all the generations. People have
always been more interested in themselves. They've always had an
exaggerated self-love, and they've always had an evil impulse which
said, "Me! Me!" I am not against self-love. After all it says, "Love
your neighbor as yourself" (Vayikra 19:18). That's a sign that you've
got to love yourself, too. Yet I'm talking about exaggerated self-love. 


What has changed, however, is that this proclivity has become a central
ideal, replacing the ideal of extricating oneself from egocentrism.
Indeed, during the past 200-300 years, the individualist bent has been
becoming stronger in the West, and we are being dragged along, like a
tail, as we proclaim, "I set MYSELF before me always." We forget that
there is only One Being who can truly say "I", and that is G-d, and we
are supposed to respond to Him, "Here we are!" 

 

Obviously, it isn't so that Rav Kook only focused on the group. Only
people who haven't learned his writings make this claim. Rav Kook was
not just interested in the group, and not just interested in the
individual, but in the Torah, which is concerned with them both, for
each needs the other. Or, more precisely, as Rav Kook's son, Rav Tzvi
Yehudah put it, "the individual, from within the group and for the sake
of the group". See Mesillat Yesharim at the end of Chapter 19. 


Individualistic worship of a divinity existed before Avraham. Idolatry
is likewise individualistic, and similar to the contemporary language of
the New Age, flowing out of the pagan Far East, which makes reference to
"the god within me". Avraham represents the focus on the group. His
worship constitutes an enormous step upward. Slowly we ascended from the
private altars to the universal Beit Ha-Mikdash. Whoever talks now about
individualism in worship is regressing to the primitivism of before
Avraham. 


The truth is that the Exile involved a focus on the individual as well.
Mine is mine and yours is yours. Even its spirituality was private, with
people thinking, "My place in Heaven is mine alone (see Rav Kook's Orot
111). My worship is mine alone. My emotions are mine alone." Yet that
approach represents sickness, not health, a band-aid, not an ideal
approach. The Master of the Universe decided that we should be returning
to the concern with the aggregate. Out of that concern, we have done
many things: building up the Land, the return to Zion, the establishment
of a Jewish State, and especially our army, the epitome of concern for
the public good. When there is the brotherhood of fighters, the one is
ready to die for the other. 


We are becoming more and more concerned with the general fate. Some
explain our Sages' utterance that "the son of David will not come until
money disappears from pockets" (Sanhedrin 97a) as meaning, "until focus
on the individual ceases." How very fortunate we are that we have come
back from the concern for the individual! 
How forlorn the western world - and those amongst us who ape it - for
being so focused on the individual. Things there are so bad that people
don't get married, let alone stay married. Marriage is likewise man's
main way of extricating himself from focus on the individual.  

 

Indeed, it is seemingly a pleasant thing to be focused on oneself. The
ancient Greeks have a legend about a fellow named Narcissus who stared
at his reflection in the water, and he was so enchanted by it that he
couldn't take his eyes off it. Ultimately he put down roots and became a
flower - the narcissus. Freud created from this an emotional prototype,
the narcissist, who finds all his satisfaction from preoccupation with
himself. By contrast, our holy Sages told about a boy who came to fill a
pitcher of water from a spring. His evil impulse took hold of him and
showed him his beautiful hair, seeking to deprive him of the World to
Come. He immediately took on the vow of a Nazir so that at the end of
the month he would cut all his hair off (Nedarim 9b). 


Indeed, focusing on the public good is harder than focusing on one's own
needs, as Rav Kook taught, "True, public-welfare-oriented Torah
observance is much harder than individual-focused observance" (Ma'amarei
HaRe'iyah, page 174). Yet such is the unique divine service of the
Jewish People. Therefore, "a person must constantly extricate himself
from his individualistic mindset which fills his whole being, rendering
him totally preoccupied with his individual fate. Such is the opposite
of the way of G-d, imprinted on the Assembly of Israel...When a person
focuses constantly and totally on his own interests and welfare that
counts as 'following the ways of the Amorites'. It is not Jewish, and we
are better off viewing it as something forbidden and out of bounds "
(Ein Aya, Shabbat 2, 127-128). 


"When we were in our Land, and the Temple stood, it was our center, our
place of unity, hence private altars were forbidden, even though they
could have served as a means of Jews uniting in smaller groups. Yet that
desire by a small group would bring separation from the larger center,
and the nation's unity would be nullified. Only from that national unity
can G-d's ultimate will be realized." (Ein Aya, Berachot 1, 76).

THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE 
ADDRESSEE.  IT MAY CONTAIN PRIVILEGED OR CONFIDENTIAL 
INFORMATION THAT IS EXEMPT FROM DISCLOSURE.  Dissemination, 
distribution or copying of this message by anyone other than the addressee is 
strictly prohibited.  If you received this message in error, please notify us 
immediately by replying: "Received in error" and delete the message.  
Thank you.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20080428/178a5c8c/attachment-0001.htm>