Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Chochma vs. Bina - Part 8 - Rav Kook - Putting It All Together


In this final section, translating teachings by Rav Itchie Mayer Morgenstern and Rav Kook on the topic of understanding Chochma and Bina and how those sefiros manifest themselves practically in modern times.

I highly recommend that you read the Introduction first. Each part links to the next, so you will be able to keep up. My rebbe connected this teaching from Rav Kook, with Rav Itchie Mayer Morgenstern's explanation of Chochma and Bina's practical manifestations in modern jewish movements. Here, in the conclusion to this series, Rav Kook explains how the desire to unify Chochma and Bina is the prime movant behind so much of what people invest time and energy into in this world, and how you and I can learn Torah in a way which is mesakein, repairs, the world's perversion of this desire to unify.

Oros HaTeshuva 7:10

The chutzpa that exists at the end of days comes because the world is already ready, to the extent that it demands understanding, [to know] how all details are tied into the principal. There is no detail, that is not tied to some great principal, will satisfy the mind. If the world would toil in Torah, with the light of this trait, the spiritual sould would be come so great that it would recognize the right connection between every detail with the spiritual principals. Teshuva and a reperation of the world which would come with and through it, would be revealed and and reach actuality. But because of laziness, and because the light of Torah is [hidden] within, and needs to be loftiness [of spirit] and inherent holiness, [this trait] has not entered the world in the proper way. The need to organize life in this way, where the details are built on an understanding of the whole structure.

At a time like this, where the completion of the revelation of light, and a clarification of the path to this understanding has not yet come, this creates an awesome destruction. We must use the best medicine, which is increasing the power of spiritual strength, to the point that the way of understanding and measuring the connection between all types of theoretical knowledge and activity with the highest principal will be something which is understood and becomes a normal means which comes naturally through [currently] forgotten feelings of the soul. Then, the spiritual power behind life will return to actuality and intellectual connectivity, to affect the world, and overarching Teshuva will begin to give its fruits.

-Dixie Yid

(Picture courtesy of Gutenberg.org)

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