[Avodah] "bo bayom"

[Saul Mashbaum]

JoshHoff at aol.com wrote:
>>
RYBS,in Al HaTeshuvah IIRC,  quoted the idea from Rav Kook in Olat
Rayah, on the tefillah of' 'Elokai ad shelo notzart ieini kedai.'
>>

In Y'mei Zicharon, p.11, in the course of a discussion of the fact
that every person has a mission in life, RYBS writes (my free
translation):


"RAY Hakohen Kook would explain the words " Elokai  ad shelo notzarti"
as follows: My God, before I was created "eini k'dai" - in countless
periods of time, in which I did not live, I could not have fulfilled
my mission in this world. You therefore waited to create me until the
generation arrived in which I would be granted the possibility to act
as Your agent in this world."

Thus a person is created at the perfect time, the unique time in
which he has the possibility to fulfill his potential of making a
positive impact on the world.

I don't see here the concept that the world could not do without the
person born, but the above is indeed a very nice thought for a bar/bat
mitzva.

It's like "Yiftach b'doro k'Shmuel b'doro" R Moshe Besdin once said on
this that just as if Yiftach had lived at the time of Shmuel, he would
not have been a leader, so too if Shmuel had lived at the time of
Yiftach,  Shmuel would not have been the leader of Klal Yisrael he
subsequently was, but rather Yiftach would have nevertheless been the
shofet in that generation. A person is born "just in time".

Saul Mashbaum