From the Well of Kindness: Teachings of Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

"In truth, all darkness is merely diminished light" (Orot Hakodesh II, p. 455) .This profoundly optimistic statement can serve as the summation of the teachings of a remarkable thinker of the twentieth century, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook (1865-1935) , first Chief Rabbi of the holy land, was a Talmudic genius, a communal leader, a saintly personality, an impassioned visionary, a fighter for social justice, a poet and-most of all-a mystic. He was also a deeply original thinker, the breadth, inclusive spirit and transcendent ecstasy of whose teachings embrace the entirety of creation. Rav Kook's teachings are exalted, piercing and universal. "From the well of kindness," he proclaims, "your love for humanity must burst forth-not as an arbitrary obligation, for then it would lose the most clear aspect of its brilliance, but as a powerful movement of the spirit within you."Rav Kook was a poet of the soul and a spokesperson for a complete human spirit that embraces contradiction, that reconciles the poles of this-worldly and other-worldly experience. His writings celebrate the union of legalism and poetry, particularism and universalism, faith hidden in atheism and atheism hidden in faith, the spirit revealed from the flesh, and beauty revealed through ugliness.Rav Kook's writings are the gifts of a universal teacher. Although he is principally known to the English-speaking world for his teachings on repentance and Zionism, he was a polymath who addressed every possible topic, and always brilliantly: poetry and war, divine immanence and evolution, social justice and aesthetics. All of these caught his attention and were refracted through his ever-searching mind and soaring soul.Rav Kook sang of universal creativity, of an unceasing fecundity that is the natural song of all being.He championed the poetic and creative spirit within each individual. "Every time our heart beats with a true expression of spirituality," he wrote, "every time a new and exalted thought is born, we hear the likeness of a Godly angel's voice at the doors of our soul asking that we allow him entry so that he may appear to us in the totality of his beauty."Ultimately, Rav Kook's robust message is one of life and growth, hope and optimism. "Death is a false phenomenon," he taught, and "to the degree that the quantity of movement toward wholeness grows, evil decreases and goodness is revealed."In an era searching for guideposts, access to Rav Kook's formulations can provide a valuable resource. Note: There is an overlap of material with "Eight Journals: A Sampler."