This week begins a four-part exploration of Rav Kook’s writings on teshuva which we will continue over the next few weeks as we approach Rosh Hashana.
Rav Kook’s writings on teshuva were published posthumously as Orot HaTeshuva by his son, Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, as were most of the volumes we have that are attributed to him. Rav Kook wrote an introduction in characteristically florid style and a few chapters early in his career as chief rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yafo. The bulk of the book was anthologized from his other extensive writings. Rav Kook finished very few complete manuscripts in his lifetime, so this is not at all unusual.
The writings on teshuva are particularly expressive of the themes and worldview that permeate his writings and his spiritual-intellectual project more broadly; they are worthy of much more widespread and more in-depth study. They are also especially relevant to us as we begin the season of teshuva, with Rosh Chodesh Elul last week. We will, G-d-willing, examine this text together over the coming weeks until Rosh Hashana.
Rav Kook’s introduction to his work on teshuva is remarkable for its emphasis on the poetic and literary value of teshuva, although this won’t be surprising to anyone who has a more extensive familiarity with his thought. It’s noteworthy that he considered this an incomplete, or even abandoned, project. In the introduction he mentions his feelings of unworthiness in the face of the grandeur of the topic and the stature of those who had written on it in previous generations.
Rav Kook explains, almost apologetically, in what might be described as an Hegelian turn, that he has a unique perspective rooted in his own creativity and connected to the cultural expressions of his own generation. He develops this even further in very suggestive language, referencing the unique historical circumstances of the return to Zion and the profound historical forces that were impelling this process. Rav Kook bemoans the “obtuseness” and insensitivity of his own generation who do not sufficiently appreciate the literature that already exists, nor how it is relevant to their own experience. Rav Kook’s stated purpose in his text is to bridge this gap of understanding and to make the concept and the practice of teshuva relevant again.
However, as was typical of Rav Kook in his writings, his encounter with the individual, spiritual, expressive experience of teshuva inevitably interfaces with the national, collective, and historical world. He understands teshuva as a vehicle for self-knowledge leading to self-improvement, but also as a mechanism that in and of itself opens up the possibility of expanding awareness and spiritual transcendence. He posits this about the individual engaging in a process of teshuva, and he extrapolates from this to the national collective.
In the opening chapters of Orot HaTeshuva, Rav Kook examines the categories and characteristics of teshuva. He posits that teshuva is an aspect of natural law which triggers an awareness of Divine Mercy that in turn precipitates the exercise of Divine Mercy. This means, in practical terms, that teshuva is a necessary principle by means of which the individual (or community) becomes a partner in his or her own redemption. When a person lives without true faith in Hashem and is not concerned with personal accountability for morality, then he lives entirely under the authority of natural law. The world can be and probably will be exceedingly unkind as nature tends to be, and the human is little more than a hapless being caught up in this seemingly immutable framework.
By means of the initiation of teshuva – what Rav Kook refers to as hirhurei teshuva, the stirrings of the thoughts of teshuva – one becomes a more purely spiritual being and gradually frees oneself from the strict confines of the material world. By initiating a process of teshuva in himself, an individual effects an actual change to his experience of reality and by extension his spiritual constitution. The one who undertakes to do teshuva thereby changes his essence to a luminous being that prepares himself to “hear the voice” of Hashem, and to be suffused with the light of Torah for which he has made himself a suitable vessel.
The author will teach a related class at Cong Agudath Achim in Bradley Beach, NJ, where he serves as chazzan for the High Holidays. The class will be on September 11 and is open to the public.
