Igrot Hare’aya – Letters of Rav Kook: Seeking the Return of Religious Aliya – part I

#159 – part I

Date and Place: 5667 (1907), Yafo

Recipient: Rabbis in the Diaspora. We have only the first section of the letter, and it is unclear what Rav Kook was advocating. Perhaps it was to increase religious aliya; perhaps it was funding for projects in Eretz Yisrael to strengthen the religious community. In any case, the beauty of the letter’s sentiment and style of writing are too engaging to skip over.

Body: It is my holy obligation to point out and try to inspire all the pure hearts of those who fear and care about Hashem’s Name, whose hearts are touched by Him and think of Hashem and Yerushalayim and are connected with heart and soul to the holy belief in and love of the Land that is desired by Bnei Yisrael and Hashem. We, survivors of the sword, have been drawn individually to come to the place where we have complete lives. Hashem’s Hand enabled us to extricate ourselves from impure soil; He brought us to the sanctity of the Land about whose needs Hashem always inquires, the Holy Land, may it be built soon.

We see and know that the time has come to have mercy on Jerusalem (see Tehillim 102:14). We are witnesses who have seen with our own eyes and can testify for the whole Nation of Hashem that the blossoming of the time of liberation has arrived to build Zion and its ruins. This is occurring, as the flock of members of His nation have gathered in Eretz Yisrael from the four corners of the earth to show love for the holy stones and see grace in the Coveted Land’s soil.

At first, the divine plan was carried out by righteous individuals, the previous generation’s holiest and loftiest people, who lit the holy flame of the love of the Holy Land in the hearts of Hashem’s nation. Their efforts were responsible for the gathering of individuals, survivors of our nation’s travails, turning parts of the abandoned Land into a Garden of Eden.

A large, distinguished influx of representative groups of the entirety of the nation has steadily increased Jewish settlement in the Holy Land. In our time, Hashem is clearly turning towards us with an interest in bringing salvation and mercy. Many difficulties and tragedies, with waves of turbulent seas and blow after blow that the House of Israel absorbed from nations that rose up to swallow, destroy, and consume the House of Jacob in any way possible. All of these matters together inspire all in whose heart “Hashem’s soul” lives, to forcefully call out and fill his hands with activity for holy action for Hashem, and act to strengthen Bnei Yisrael’s emerging hold on the Holy Land, using all possible energies to bring salvation to Mt. Zion and the beginning of the flowering of the horn of salvation and the blossoming of liberation.

It is very distressing that the involvement of the holiest people has decreased over time. In past generations, the generation’s most righteous (likely referring to the Vilna Gaon and the Chatam Sofer, among others), whose sanctity and “fire” are the foundation of the world, were spiritually fully invested in the sanctity of building the Holy Land. It was the strength of the great sparks of light, which the loftiest holy men instilled in the hearts of the holy nation, that brought about the building of the Holy Land, as we see and rejoice in the results.

However, in recent times, one by one, the affection for the building of the Holy Land recedes in the truly great and holy rabbis, whether greatness is measured in Torah scholarship, fear of Heaven, sanctity, and understanding of kabblistic matters. To the contrary, the holy building of the Land, which is a clear source of eternal life, for the holy nation and the whole world, is increasingly in the hands of those with a lack of wisdom and weak actions. In the process, the great grandeur of the Desired Land is being trampled due to our sins, and its aura and splendor is significantly diminished.