Breaking Free from Smallness: How Rav Kook Changed My Life
BY RABBI ELIE MISCHEL
As we approach the 90th yahrzeit of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (3 Elul, August 27th), I am fascinated by a strange disconnect: while his influence within Israel has never been stronger, most Jews in the Diaspora remain largely unfamiliar with his revolutionary vision. Today, Rav Kook’s teachings inspire many of Israel’s greatest rabbis and thinkers, energize the settlement movement, and fuel the dynamism of Religious Zionism. Yet his ideas remain foreign to the way most Jews think outside Israel.
This disconnect isn’t merely due to his challenging Hebrew prose. Many excellent commentaries now make his work more accessible. The deeper issue is that Rav Kook speaks a fundamentally different language – the language of klaliyut (collectivity) and of penimiyut haTorah (the inner Torah of Kabbalah) – the language of redemption itself.
My own encounter with Rav Kook transformed my life in ways I never anticipated. For years, I immersed myself in beautiful teachings about overcoming the yetzer hara and the holiness of every Jew. This learning shaped how I understood the world and what I taught in my shul. But by my mid-thirties, I felt an inexplicable frustration. Something was missing. I had spent years studying Torah that was ultimately about myself – my own spiritual growth, my own connection to G-d. It left me feeling small and unsatisfied.
It was then that I began studying the writings of Rav Kook, his son Rav Zvi Yehuda, and his students. I became addicted to his Torah. During my personal learning time, I found myself learning less Gemara and more Rav Kook. I made my way through Orot, one of Rav Kook’s seminal works, with Rabbi Shlomo Aviner’s explanatory commentary (for which I’ll be eternally grateful), plowed through Rav Kook’s letters, and dove into the works of Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Charlap and other students.
In studying Rav Kook’s teachings, I wasn’t merely learning another great sefer. His writings completely revolutionized my understanding of what Torah is and why we’re here on earth. At the heart of his vision lies the crucial distinction between pratiyut and klaliyut – terms derived from the Hebrew words “prat” (particular/individual) and “klal” (general/collective) – a distinction that unlocks the entire purpose of Jewish existence in our time.
In exile, Jewish thought naturally focused on pratiyut – a constricted spiritual consciousness primarily concerned with one’s personal relationship to G-d. In this mindset, we focus on our own mitzvot, our own spiritual growth, our own portion in the World to Come. Even our communities become extensions of this self-absorption. This narrow perspective – understandable during exile when national expression was impossible – ultimately misses the larger cosmic purpose of Jewish existence.
At the heart of Rav Kook’s thought is klaliyut – often translated as “universality” or “the collective,” but these translations fail to capture its essence. Klaliyut is a consciousness in which a Jew transcends his private concerns to see the destiny of the Jewish nation as central to his own existence. This isn’t merely performing occasional acts of kindness for fellow Jews; it’s a complete psychological reorientation. The klaliyut Jew “steps outside” his individual experience to see himself primarily as a cell within the living organism of Am Yisrael. He is motivated not by the pursuit of personal spiritual attainment or individual salvation, but by a burning commitment to G-d’s plan for the Jewish people and their mission in this world – in other words, redemption. The entire focus shifts from “What will become of me?” to “What will become of us? How can I contribute to our national destiny?”
Take Tisha B’Av as an example: Someone who sees this day merely as a time to lament personal distance from G-d because we don’t have a Beit HaMikdash is completely missing the point. This approach reduces Judaism to spiritual self-improvement and personal religious fulfillment – the hallmark of pratiyut. The world desperately needs G-d’s presence, the Shechina, to reenter creation in a way unseen since the Beit HaMikdash stood. Our purpose is redemption – partnering with G-d to reveal His name and spread G-dliness throughout the world. This mission demands that we break free from smallness and embrace klaliyut – the consciousness of the collective.
Rabbi Aryeh Levine once said of Rav Kook: “Who am I to judge the greatness of Rav Kook? But I can say this: I have never seen smallness in him!” This absence of smallness is what I found so liberating in Rav Kook’s writings. His vision extended far beyond the individual soul to encompass the entire Jewish people, humanity, and cosmos itself.
For five years while serving as rabbi, I immersed myself in Rav Kook’s teachings. I read his letters and marveled at his poetic Hebrew. And day by day, I grew increasingly dissatisfied with my American rabbinical life. Don’t misunderstand – being a shul rabbi is incredibly meaningful. When you’re the rabbi, many normal boundaries dissolve. People of every age and background sat at our table, and I learned from them all. Teaching Torah and helping other Jews was powerful and fulfilling.
But pulpit life can also feel suffocatingly small. The community drama over petty politics. The heated arguments over how long davening should take. The endless debates over whether a woman could serve as shul president. I began thinking: “Can I really spend my life dealing with these issues? Am Yisrael’s pants are falling down, and we’re worried about fixing our tie!”
I don’t mean to be dismissive – these are legitimate community concerns that require attention. But when such issues become our primary focus, consuming the majority of our time and energy, we’ve lost perspective on what truly matters. Reading Rav Kook’s letters, I found myself powerfully identifying with his frustrations. In one letter, he writes: “For a moment, I’m breaking free from the suffocating emptiness of the petty pursuits that stir and consume the masses” (Iggrot Ra’aya #691). His words captured exactly what I was feeling – a yearning to break free from the smallness that seemed to dominate communal life.
Rabbi Ouri Cherki explains the progression from the teachings of the Chassidic masters to those of Rav Kook. The Ba’al Shem Tov famously tried to travel to the Land of Israel but only made it as far as Istanbul before being forced to turn back. As the Chassidim traditionally explain during the Seudat Mashiach at the end of Pesach, this wasn’t merely a failed travel attempt, but rather a part of G-d’s plan. As Rabbi Cherki explains, it wasn’t yet time for the deep teachings of klaliyut to be revealed to the world. The Ba’al Shem Tov’s divine mission was to reveal the holiness of the individual during exile, when national expression was impossible.
His great-grandson, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, managed to reach the Land of Israel and began to reveal the holiness of the Land and Jewish nationhood. But he too couldn’t remain permanently. He served as a transitional link, bridging individual and national holiness. Finally, Rav Kook arrived in Israel, stayed, and transformed it. Through him, the depth of our national mission was finally revealed, completing this historical-spiritual progression by restoring klaliyut to its rightful place (Rabbi Ouri Cherki, A Clear Thought: World and Man in Rav Kook’s Teachings, Introduction).
It’s not that Chassidic thought lacks holiness or depth – quite the contrary. The teachings of the Ba’al Shem Tov and his disciples represent an essential stage in our journey toward redemption. But they are not the final destination. The focus on individual spiritual perfection was perfectly suited to exile, when national expression was impossible. But now, in the age of redemption, we must expand our consciousness from pratiyut to klaliyut, from the individual to the nation.
Rav Kook’s thought, like Chassidut, draws from the “Secret Torah,” from Kabbalah. The three Torahs of Israel represent three different dimensions of time: The Written Torah belongs to the past – once written down, it can no longer be changed. The Oral Torah belongs to the present – constantly evolving through discussion and application. And the Secret Torah belongs to the future – it contains the seeds of wisdom that will fully blossom only in the messianic era.
This visionary dimension is what sets Rav Kook apart. More than any other modern Jewish thinker, he possessed a clear vision of the redemptive future unfolding before our eyes. He prophetically described the eventual collapse of secular Zionism, which we witness today, and outlined the necessary steps toward final redemption.
Rav Kook’s teachings on klaliyut and Jewish nationhood have practical implications. They demand that we become activists for Am Yisrael and for redemption. His vision calls us to participate actively in the historical process of redemption – to build settlements, strengthen Jewish sovereignty in our land, and labor toward the spiritual revival of our people. As Rabbi Yitzchak Nissenbaum wrote in HaMizrachi in 1921, “The gravest sin of all is indifference to the fate of our nation.”
As I delved deeper into Rav Kook’s world, I found myself increasingly drawn to the great cosmic drama he described. The monumental struggles of Jewish nationhood, a people rising to fulfill its divine destiny after centuries of oppression – this was the real story of our time. Am Yisrael in the Land of Israel is living the epic narrative foretold by our prophets thousands of years ago, heroically battling enemies for sovereignty over our ancestral homeland. In comparison, American Jewish life felt small, almost trivial. You might say I ultimately left the shul and made Aliyah with my family because of FOMO – fear of missing out on the great drama of redemption.
In Rav Kook, G-d gave us an unparalleled gift; a taste of the prophets of old and the future redemption. May we merit to study his words – and to live by them.
Rabbi Elie Mischel is the Editor of HaMizrachi magazine and the author of “The War Against the Bible: Ishmael, Esau and Israel at the End Times” (2024).