Make Israel Great Again - National Repentance Based on Rav Kook's Teachings by Rabbi Dov Kidron

[Music] okay without any further ado I've known the rough since I moved to the neighborhood and been very impressed besides the fact that he gives the DAF yo me in English also in Hebrew thirsty blockin and the English at a bash and I don't know what what he saw in me but whenever he wasn't able to give this year he asked me to give it which was a critical vote to the rough so he outstanding okay in terms of personality and character I don't even have to go into but he is the great grand nephew of cook and tonight's concept let's make Israel great again make is real great again based on teachings overcooked so being the grant great-grandnephew but that's not all he does he's also working in one of the researchers at the research for a lava and waka hourua based on the teachings and vision of Ruth Cooke so I think to hear what he has to say is not only authentic but very apropos for this time of year but any further ado good evening actually when rabbi Austin asked me to speak tonight he told me that there's a series of the shield in about chuga chuga how does a rule before what China so love cook in his book about what that you were and in his book he speaks about the concept of not just Shiva for the individual but actually the entire world is in the process of Java from the time of the sale of Adam Adam the purpose of the world is to repent to get back to that high level that Adam was on when he was created and specifically we the Jewish nation have to do not just a 12 of every individual but sugar of the nation and I found I think that if we look at the health of Herzl where was the visionary of the State of Israel he's recognizing the visionary of the State of Israel I think in him we can find the roots of the children that we as a nation in the State of Israel came and should and will do what puzzled me about he'll tell was I found some kind of a contradiction within him on one side you can see here it says there was a quote of what he said just before he died he died at a very young age and it says that he was diagnosed with a heart issue a day before his death one day before his death he told Reverend a William heckler who everyone naturally was says great Palestine for me I gave my heart blood for my people and Herzl indeed was devotedly his last year's he he did he gave everything he had he did everything for the Jewish people for the to have a Jewish state that was his dream that was his vision and he sacrificed everything he had for there on the other side in his personal life his relationship with Judaism was not that that great for example he he had one son and he refused to circumcise that one son yet if nowadays you we look at the Jews now in Israel it's close to 100 percent of Jews that circumcise their son those who do not do it are considered the very extremists so how come such a person if that if he did it on purpose that he didn't circumcise his son it was a very extremely anti religious as we would say today so what made him care so much for the Jewish people I found it some puzzling what what's what's going on here in in his personality also yet apparently he had another idea what bothered him mainly was anti-semitism that's what bothered helps him so he had an idea in his diary it says there's a quote here from his diary and it say it says about two years ago I wanted to solve the question of the Jews with the help of no less than the Catholic Church and what was his idea I wanted to assure myself firstly the help of the princes of the church in Austria and to obtain through them and interview with the Pope and he wanted to say to the Pope help us against the anti-semites and I am creating a great movement among the Jews who will guess freely and nicely to Christianity and that that's what I thought I mean you can expect that from person who doesn't care about Judaism so what's wrong about becoming Christians and solve the problem get rid of Judaism in the you have no anti-semitism that's what he thought and even described in his diary what was his dream how how what will be the ceremony of the Jews that we'll all March together - to the church and proudly will say we are now converting to Christianity and that's solve all the problems of the Jews in the world that was his dream so if that was his the knowledge of Judaism which is basically zero so why would he care about so much about the Jewish people and the devoted and sacrifice his life for them that's an I couldn't understand this so we'll get to the answer but before that I would like to present the vision of Rothko which came to complete her tells vision for the State of Israel Herzl vision was eventually he realized that the converting to Christianity is not the solution so he promoted the the Zionist Congress and he promoted the idea of having a stay for the Jews but his motivation his only motivation was anti-semitism that was his problem he wanted to solve the problem anti-semitism to have one state at least on earth where Jews can live proudly without being bothered by anti-semitism eyes of cook wrote a paragraph in one of his books over and I think that this paragraph actually is talking to a Nelson it might have been written after Hertz of death but it is responding to her toes dream and he says I'll say in Hebrew in English enemy deny her or shall I tell you Angela tongue says just to have a state that alone is not the supreme happiness of men and we have to understand that this love cook wrote this decades before the State of Israel was stabbed at a time that Jews could only dream about having a state we were all scattered all over the the world in the Diaspora in exile and they spoke of course about the Zionist move sinus movement started then but already then have cooked realized that the dream of Herzl they have a stay is a great dream but it's not enough it might be the first level but it's not the ultimate goal of us as a Jewish people they have a stayed alone is good but it's not the highest level of happiness for the Jewish people he says this can be said about a standard state which is not much more than a big responsibility establishment which says in the Hebrew a regular state is no more than a brat after I get the laugh and I when I read this I thought actually that if we look at the stage we have nowadays all over the world is there any positive anything positive in the purpose of any state as far as I know all states the purpose of every state is to I mean why do people have a stake what's the purpose of having a state the purpose is to avoid negative so avoid negative to let people but you say that the purpose of the state is to let people live freely and happily and they do whatever they want that means you want them to avoid corrosion to avoid the violence to avoid the negative things so obviously from right there you have to have a state then police have an army to have an order have something that will prevent chaos that's the purpose of this play but there is no other state with a positive goal something to strive for besides letting people live and do whatever they want he says regular States doctor purpose to avoid the negative but he says mashenka it's not so Medina she be so that ideally the state which is fundamentally idealistic as the Jewish state should be shikaku we are Viator a talking ID alia eternal in the world spits in the high language is even in Hebrew it's not so simple to understand but anyway says that the State of Israel is not just a regular state not just any state the purpose of the State of Israel is not just to avoid the negative the bottom line the purpose of the State of Israel is to be hashem echad one guard in one name which is truly the highest happiness that's of kooks vision as a which comes to complete Herzl vision first take the State of Israel not just so so I think with if you can want to summarize so far we can say that person's vision for the state was we need a state in order to avoid negative to avoid anti-semitism to let the Jews live freely and happily without any disturbances now Cook is saying that's good but it's not enough we need to have a state for a positive purpose to do kiddush Hashem to sanctify God's name in the world and now the question is how exactly or first of all what's the source what is of kooks source that that's the purpose of the Jewish state everything I've cooked wrong in his books has a story he did not invent anything from his own we analyze the sources and of course that to contemporary can conclusions but what's his source and what's the what exactly does it mean to have such a positive state so I think that the source is actually was said by Hashem just before he came to give us the Torah when a shame came to give us the Torah the last state when he says to mashella Benny was that I'm giving you the Torah and then he says they attend to you agree you shall be for me mum letter to our name the guy Kadosh a kingdom of servant Cranham here means servants not priests but when Kadosh an holy nation it sounds like this is the purpose of the Torah the Torah was given natural not just for individuals to keep the Mossad as an individual but the purpose is to have a an entire state an entire nation that keeps the Torah as a nation and not just as individuals and I think that has to do with this process I mentioned in the beginning but the Shyvana the repentance of not just the individual but a nation of a state which also can repent and get back to the track it should go to and the spoiler for example explains that related crime in the grated or a kingdom of servants and holy nation means that this Jewish state should instruct all mankind to call all of them in the name of the Lord and to serve him as one as Israel will be in the future so that should be the purpose of the Jewish state not to understand it a little bit better I think another concept of Rights is that everything we find in an individual we also find in the cloud in the in the nation an individual person has a soul so he says the nation the Jewish nation is a soul there's the soul of the Jewish nation and everything that happens to an individual could happen to the to the nation as a whole as a nation so in order to understand what exactly it means to have to be a holy nation so we should first understand what does it mean to be a holy individual what is this term holiness which is not so frequently used nowadays in common usage but what exactly does it mean to be a holy person the Torah mentions it a few times in Parishad ashamed Jim - you should be holy the attempter shimla location what exactly does it mean so I think that this concept his concept of being a holy person and and truly a holy nation is the tourist solution for the most fundamental the most fundamental philosophical problem that mankind ever encountered and all religions try to solve this problem and none of them were successful so far and the Torah gives us the solution for this most basic fundamental problem the problem is what here where the quote of Allah high that describes this problem he says the Ashla holida you should know yeah gosh mute it Nagila Hebrew alchemy that materialism will oppose the spiritual connection you tell me to make good as you mind more than the resistance between fire and water this is the most fundamental problem of mankind which most people do not even realize that exists but this is the problem what's the problem the problem is that every person has two parts within him there's the material the physical part and the spiritual part the body and the soul the problem is that each one of these parts want something opposite and the other the soul later ever quote from a commentary to safely Reserve and Suleiman he explains that the will of the body is to receive for itself the body desires to receive when when a baby is born the baby all it knows is just to receive the baby needs to eat needs to be dressed it's warm it does not get give anything to anyone else no England as a person grows up so then he gets a soul and this the soul wants to give and that's the the opposite problem here that the body wants to receive the soul wants to give and each one despises the other the soul does not enjoy receiving materialistic things the soul despises it the body does not enjoy giving materialistic things the body despises it so how can a person get along with these two contradicting forces that exist within him and if we actually were able to to look at the person's life in slow motion we were able to see that it's actually every each and every small and each and every small thing a person does and I talk about just I talk about significant things not mundane things that you pass by but anything significant is either either gives pleasure to the soul or gives pleasure pleasure to the body but it can't be both I mean there could be a combination of both but but there's the dominant thing could be either the solar the body for example I will tell you a story about I have the second cousin of mine who has a very amazing organization if he teaches Israeli students about Zionism and Judaism the secular students that know nothing about it so he told me when it went once to South America to a house of a wealthy person and that person gave this organ is a donated please organization gave him a check eighteen thousand dollars so we told him thank you she says you thanked me you know you know what a pleasure I have to give you this check it showed him in is the bookshelf it says you see I ever had actual pizza with the very nice sacrifices you know how much I paid for this but least I paid double this amount and it says when I bought this I gotta I was happy about it but but now when I give you this check I know that goes for the right purpose I'm so happy you can't imagine now this happiness of giving something this pleasure a person has when you give something when he knows it goes to the right purpose this is not a pleasure of the body it's a pleasure of the soul the soul feels happy to do its task in the world to do the purpose the right thing to give what he has to do other pleasures are pleasures of the body so the body does not want to give that back if you ask the body the body wants more money to keep for himself until the physical pleasure so there are two contradicting forces within a person all the religions of the world tried to overcome this problem but they couldn't for example Christianity how come Catholic priests do not get married why did they have this prohibition because they wanted to solve this problem how can you have the physical thing and a spiritual thing physical is easy to one side the spiritual to the other side so they said ok let's just avoid physicality but we all know what he's doing in the private room so that's not the solution how come Muslims do not drink wine there's a provision in Islam to drink wine why is that so because they saw that wine is something too physical for them so where they said let's avoid it but it's not the solution the solution is not to avoid physicality the solution is what the Torah says and the Torah gives us the solution and that's what's called holiness and to understand this more precisely let's see what the I mean the Rambam air just actually explained the problem which it just said now basically what the Rambam says is that without this mitzvot without this commandment of the Torah to be holy a person could technically fulfill all the commandments of the Torah a person could be could appear like a ultra-orthodox person and yet be a villain in a vowel should that talk because it says even though the Torah gave us some guidelines of what is it that a person should do what are the things that a person is supposed to refrain from the Torah gave us this Mitzvah but it's not just about tacit a person could fulfill all the mitzvot that attracted refrain from all the prohibitions that are prohibit and yet be completely physical I can tell you a story about just now my my wife is dealing with the family law so she has a case right now of a couple that lived in a black and the husband after like a lady person is like ultra-orthodox but the wife knows that he is not his medicine actually he's a real villain that this in this story is he goes out with women with men whatever goes to puts Lannisters whatever he wants but then now this coupled him to the rabbinical court and the husband appeared there like with the city with a suit like a crazy person so she says the the wife that said to the by any of the judges is the first time I've seen that sit sit he never was safe from the appeal appears like this Heidi person outside but the inside is is the evil person is a wicked person so a person can actually keep all the laws of the Torah and still be wicked how come because the Torah does not prohibit you to eat kosher food there's not privy get to marry many wives as you want seek the though all indulge yourself in all physical pleasures and officially that appears to be okay that's why the Torah gave us the mitzvah of the Shem to you that a person should know without this mitzvah all the rest of the myths that are just technical guidelines which we have to do not really influence the person so when the way to practice it is as for example the tool says here he says that the purpose that well the way of a Jew should live is ultimately the whole machine neighbor lemma saying anything one enjoys in this world lawyers have been line after one should not have the intention for his own pleasure ll ever data belittle a rather to the service of his creator that's the thing not to avoid physical pleasures but when you take anything physical from the world you should take it because your body needs it but you should have the intention for the sake of the service of your Creator and this is the solution for this for this contradiction between the two contradicting forces within the person because as we will see just now the soul wants to give the body wants to receive so if you receive and give you live in a contradiction you can again if a person wants to be consistent it's impossible but if when you receive you receive in order to give so as well soon see that reception is considered an act of giving and and if you do it completely so that all your life you're consistent you're just giving when you take something physical from this world if you have the right intention when you take it the right intention that you take it for the service of your Creator you're not really receiving you're actually giving and of course when your soul give you're also giving so that's that's the solution another thing about this is that when the body wants to receive so that receiving is being passive when the soul wants to give giving means that you're active and and that's a big difference you can't always tell the difference but many many parents are worried when their children are sitting too long and watching TV after maybe nowadays it's not just TV it's there's computers there's other things but the problem that they say is that they sit too much and they're passing the two passes but I think if we look deeper into it it's not just the fact that they sit that's been tested and person to be sitting and be very active talking can demonstrate right Stephen Hawking he sits all the time but is pretty active might be too active person some things but but the fact that a person sits does not masters necessarily indicate that is passive being passive or active is something within your soul and it's all about giving or receiving so if you sit in the study Torah for example you're actually active you're not fasting if you sit and watch a movie and most of the movie most of culture nowadays is is for the pleasure of the body if you if your intention is to receive pleasure for your body so then your passive your get tested so so that makes a big difference so to understand this let's see the introduction to a salam commentary he says his follows that had goof she returned the compel asthma the body is the will to restore itself he says the early day essica meets run through the engagement in the performance of meets world milky milk shannon viola from bar mitzvah but mitzvah and about she was sick which a person performed almond nightly HP are not that were cleared so a person performs them it's worth in order to bestow gratification to his creator by doing that who met him let the he'll have at only cabela's know a person starts to purify the will to receive for himself which is imprinted in him and slowly slowly map huh turns it into a wildebeest Oh actually this book separates Willem says that that's the purpose of every person in life says the proof the purpose of every person in his private life is to turn this will a person is born with a will to receive the body wants to receive and the purpose of the person in life is to turn over that will from will to receive to will to give to let the soul drive the body with the will to give instead of the body driving the soul with the will to receive and it says the will to receive for oneself will be entirely a receiver in order to bestow gratification this creator if that's what a person does is careful about that that any physical pleasure person derives is done with this right intention that I don't take this pleasure for myself I take it because I needed for the service of my Creator so if one does that so then he actually does not receive anything everything he does is giving because any pleasure he receives is not received for his own physical pleasure he receives it for the purpose of enabling himself to give more later to the service of his creator and he says because reception in order to bestow is considered a pure Listowel that's the novelty of Judaism that's the meaning of the Mitzvah the shim to you if a person lives his life that way so then that's a holy person that's a consistent person who all what it does always like has just given given given everything it takes is also actually an act of giving does he he takes it in order to give and then he says and all the service of Torah and mitzvot that was given to the entire world during the six thousand years of its existence and to every individual in the seventy years of his life is only to bring them to this perfection that's the purpose of life of a Jew and I think that just as is the purpose of a Jew as an individual so - this should be the purpose of the Jewish nation as a nation now if we go back to help sell Herzl himself I I think he basically repented it did Chuba he changed his approach completely 180 degrees he changed his his view if initially it was what we would call today anti religious or he refused to circumcise his time he refused the way he wanted all just to convert the Christianity eventually he changed his mind and actually himself explained that that idea to convert everybody to Christianity was not really a real idea cuz maybe just something he imagined he says in his diary also at first the Jewish Question hit me very much perhaps he says perhaps there was a time when I found when I would have invaded it willingly perhaps to Christianity anywhere in any event he says these were vague tendencies of youthful weakness so himself says wasn't the real idea it was just the out of the weakness of youth because I tell myself with all my sincerity I never really intended to convert or change my name and himself was actually very proud of being a Jew all his life so that idea was something unclear but it was not really his thing later he realized that the solution to convert to Christianity is not going to solve the problem of anti-semitism so when you realize that the solution must be to have a Jewish state and then he also wrote our nation is not a nation but in its faith but to be better than this he's saying himself that the Jewish pain is the main thing of the Jewish people they can't convert to any anything else and eventually what can i think demonstrate more than all hurtles jewish soul is what he wrote so in his diary and this was during the Jewish the Zionist Congress he says out of respect to the religion on the Shabbat before the Congress I went to the synagogue he went to synagogue the head of the community called me to come to the Torah since Herzl was not raised Orthodox so obviously he couldn't he didn't know how to recite the blessing but it seemed like he was told in advance it was gonna call to the it was gonna be called to the Torah he says I asked Marcus murmuring the brother-in-law of my friend from Paris to teach me to recite the blessing and when I went to the Bema I was more excited than in all the days of the Congress and he says the few words of the Hebrew blessing choked my throat with more excitement than the opening speech and the closing speech and all the deliberations so this I think shows his his deep soul Jewish soul that ultimately repented and realized that the solution is not to be run away from Judaism the opposite the solution is to go back to Judaism and if we go back to the Jewish state as a state or to the Jewish nation as a nation I hear I heard the Netanyahu the Prime Minister speaking many times about the great achievements of the State of Israel and indeed I think Herzl dream is now fulfilled we have an amazing state in 70 years the State of Israel is in the forefront of many things the first in the world in many many things and in many other things it's it's not the first it's now it's among the the the forefront in the high-tech agriculture water you name it it's it's it's an amazing state nobody could dream that we'll have such a state within such a short time but everything I hear that Netanyahu is speaking about is still hurtful dream to avoid anti-semitism to be able to protect ourselves to avoid violence to have the physical conditions right for the Jewish people to have proper economy but I do not yet hear anything about something positive everything that the never speaks about is to avoid the negativity if you look at it carefully to avoid the negative to avoid enemies to avoid war to avoid violence to live there freely it's great it's alright but it's not yet the ultimate vision of a rough cook and for example if the Jewish state is a superpower in in in high-tech in agriculture in all these areas I think the cooks dream will be fulfilled when the Jewish state will be a superpower in culture in showing the world what is the right way to live as a holy person I mean today's culture for example is mostly if you look at the at the movie or at the whatever it is a show song so they all mostly speak about the physical the physical pleasure for the physical body not to many speak about the spiritual soul the pleasure for the soul so where if we will be able to promote that and it all starts from individual every individual is a smaller screw in the big machine and every screw that is more well tighten that strengthens the entire machine so when every individual becomes better himself becomes more consistent himself so that helps the entire Jewish nation as a nation in this lesson we will be sooner in light of the nation and that's a repentance of the Jewish people and there's a to serve the full Redemption sure more of a comment I should remember or not my birth always told us they told us that we learn we should learn in order to teach and you wanted to back it up obviously he's into outreach in Peru but he says what is the Rambam we're not just the rum anybody who tells you what's the source for the mitzvot to learn learn to learning to be pat not passive but absorbing right so if you're learning to teach means you're learning in order to give it over so the source the rum Bob brings down for learning is she not the movin out you should teach to do it right to learn correctly is to learn in order to in order to teach so I always like you're gonna learn order to teach good thing more attention because how can you tell it over if you don't know it could be a practical thing but I think it's really what the Rose saying now that if you do any mixers right because even it's not the Shema hopefully it will become lachemann perhaps that's just a new mom that's just an example of one miss Ruth they apply to everyone do it even if it's selfish but ultimately it's for the good right I would like to suggest that there must be saying that although reading our state is not yet fulfilling Cook Street all the way in this way this respect as you said the rule to receive is the world and I think that this nation we are right yeah that's great but I think so far we are giving but I think the giving is nap it's good it's great but it could be much more yeah what are you from the nation's but you know there's a there's a statement that says at me a little bit of light drives away a lot of darkness so if we will work on ourselves and become more luminous so I think all these darkness will fade away but all these you know like I said the youngsters in the Universities mitosis an environment that they are very Italian especially in Europe and in the u.s. it might be an issue of it says something about them that they are against Israel of course the problem is that they don't know me yeah it says a lot about them that they don't know they think that they're right you all know that everything as currently everything is not perfect so maybe the fact that people stands righteous as an example and others rejected it is actually meant to be ah so good that you reminded me this actually of cook related referred to her told you question I says I've cooked I spoke about misshapen yourself and she opened the vid and he actually writes he's asking what are these two messiahs why do we need to mention Messiah so he explained that yourself was the one who sustained the Jews when they were in Egypt the step takes care about the physical needs and he says that so two will be the redemption the redemption of the Jewish people were coming two stages the first stage is the stage of michelle phan yourself and he kind of compared Herzl to that i'm not sure if he meant to say that Herzl as a person himself was michelle phan yourself or his vision or his idea was reflected by michelle phan yourself and that's the first stage of the physical redemption of the jews which as i said i think is vocation fulfilled now every Jew in the world can be kind of a citizen of Israel and have a safe place to live a great state but to be better than their who what you just wouldn't even dream about this so many decades ago so this I think is basically there's no there's no threat to the very existence of the State of Israel they say now even though Iran is trying to threaten Israel but they cannot annihilate the stay so and he says the second stage will be massive in the vid which will come to redeem us spiritually and that's what we should anticipate soon well not always something which is the most important is mentioned so many times it's sometimes it does but for example you can ask if so how come in a person's body the heart is essential how come it's only that that big the entire body is many more limbs or the brain is not bigger than that so actually the mr. to be holy the Torah mentions more than once it says any past attitude we think the same relative em certainly few places to be holy right but but it is something as there are branches without this all the rest of them it's what could be could be meaningless without s mitzvot that's what he says right similarly I love cook says for example that he was asked what did a person learn during the day so he says the most of the time one should dedicate to learn mother ha ha ha and even though certain things are very basic very fundamental like studying the basics of duties in the master rather the Jewish thought and weena but it says it shouldn't take up most of your time even though it's the most more basic more fundamental but the time you're dedicated could be more quality but less less in quantity so so to hear this Mitzvah is in its quality it's against all other mitzvot but it's [Music]