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The Honor of Israel: Rav Charlap, King David, and the Soul of a Nation

BY RABBI ELIE MISCHEL

The wagon wouldn’t move.

Rabbi Ya’akov Moshe Charlap, only 21-years-old, was coughing up blood from years of fasting, traveling on a horse-drawn cart from Yerushalayim to Yafo on doctor’s orders. His students at the Etz Chaim yeshiva had scraped together pennies to send their skeletal teacher to the coast for rest. But now, approaching the sand dunes of Yafo, the wheels had sunk deep into the sand. The driver pulled and cursed, but the wagon stayed stuck.

“If the Master of the Universe is delaying,” Rav Charlap said to himself, “there must be something important here.” He climbed down from the wagon. Exhausted, sick, and carrying a suitcase, he walked through the sands until he reached Yafo. And there – he discovered what was so important.

It was just before Shavuot, 1904. Rav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook had just arrived that year to serve as the Rav of Yafo. On Shavuot, in the Sha’arei Torah synagogue, Rav Charlap heard Rav Kook recite Akdamut – trembling and weeping.

“I was shaken to the depths of my soul,” Rav Charlap later wrote. “From that moment on, I cleaved to the Rav with intense love, and became his student and follower forever. I felt myself entirely seized by flames, all my physicality evaporating away, and my soul, which had become bound to the Rav’s soul, ascending to the highest spiritual realms.”

He thought he was going to Yafo to rest from bodily ailments. Instead he received spiritual-emotional healing. As the Ba’al Shem Tov had taught the Maggid of Mezeritch 150 years earlier, Rav Kook convinced him to serve G-d with joy, to stop the fasting and self-mortification that were destroying his body and depressing his soul. The young ascetic from the Old Yishuv met the visionary of redemption, and Rav Charlap’s life would never be the same.

Rav Ya’akov Moshe Charlap was born on the 29th of Shvat, 1882, in the Old City of Jerusalem. His father served on the rabbinical court of the Maharil Diskin. His grandfather, Rav Yitzchak, had come to Israel from Poland dancing – literally dancing – with such extreme joy that his entire town marveled. His love for the Land was in the boy’s blood from birth.

By age 15, he was studying with Rabbi Yehoshua Tzvi Michael Shapira, an ascetic kabbalist, and by 18, he was already teaching at Yeshivat Etz Chaim. All of Yerushalayim celebrated when Rav Charlap was appointed Rav of the Sha’arei Chesed neighborhood when he was only 28. He was the first native born son to serve as rabbi in Jerusalem. If not for Rav Kook, he would have become one of the great rabbis of the Old Yishuv.

When Rav Kook founded Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav in 1924, Rav Charlap was appointed Rosh Yeshiva, a role he held until his passing in 1951. Though seventeen years younger, he was Rav Kook’s talmid-chaver – student and friend in equal measure – and the two shared a close intellectual and personal bond. Through his writings and public teachings, Rav Charlap articulated and developed Rav Kook’s philosophy, and after Rav Kook’s death, he helped carry Rav Kook’s vision to the next generation.

His writings fill volumes: six volumes of responsa called Beit Zevul, and most significantly, the Mei Marom series – discourses delivered at the third Shabbat meal, when heaven’s gates open widest. In the pages of Mei Marom, Rav Charlap explained the mysteries of Israel’s modern redemption. “One who studies these books,” wrote Boaz Dromi, “feels that in every letter of the Torah the Creator peers out at him and reminds him that he has a mighty, creative soul, full of life and power, that he himself is a letter in the Torah scroll.”

A powerful teaching in Mei Marom addresses the central question of his generation. How should Torah thinkers view the young, secular Jews flooding into Israel in the early 20th century who were smoking on Shabbat and abandoning the Torah? Were these heretical pioneers a danger to the Jewish people? From Rav Kook, Rabbi Charlap learned to look deeper.

When we first meet David in Tanach, he is described as admoni – ruddy and red like the wicked Eisav. But the verse adds: he had “beautiful eyes” (Shmuel I 16:12). What made David’s eyes beautiful? He could see what others could not.

When David arrived at Shaul’s camp, the army of Israel – reservists, farmers, tradesmen – was paralyzed by fear of Goliath. Superficially, they were an unimpressive army about to be slaughtered by the Philistines. But David saw something no one else did: “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should taunt the ranks of the living G-d?” (Shmuel I 17:26). David was the first Jew in history who understood that Israel’s army, the IDF, was the army of G-d.

David was far deeper than he initially appeared – and he saw holiness in his people that no one else recognized.

Rav Charlap explains that David existed on two levels: nefesh (soul) and ruach (spirit). At the level of nefesh, David was admoni and struggled with physical temptation. But at the level of ruach, he possessed a yearning for holiness like no other. The Midrash recounts that David told G-d: “Master of the Universe, each day I would plan where I was going, intending to visit this place or that house, but my feet would not take me there. Instead, my feet would bring me to synagogues and study halls” (Midrash Tehillim 119). Consciously, David planned to go to his palace, to feasts, to the pursuits of power and pleasure; spiritually, his steps were already moving toward holiness.

“Even in our own generation, the one chosen to lead may sin on the level of nefesh. Yet on the level of ruach, the light of the Mashiach still shines within him. Though his thoughts may wander, ultimately his steps are guided toward the houses of trial and the study halls… leading to complete spiritual rectification.” Superficially, the secular pioneers looked like Eisav – but they had beautiful eyes. Like David, the spirit of redemption burned in them. Their feet would one day bring them to holiness, even if they didn’t know it yet.

We are David, the generation that will bring us to the final redemption. And so Rav Charlap called on Jews to carefully study Tanach “to reveal the greatness of King David’s soul in all its layers and qualities, seeking both G-d and David our King. It is the responsibility of the righteous and leaders of the generation to delve deeply into David’s essence, to contemplate it inwardly, and to attach themselves to his soul.” By studying David, we can better grasp the complex greatness of our own generation.

But to truly understand the spirit and struggles of our generation, we must also recognize what exile stole from us: honor. “When Israel, the holy nation, forgets the strength of its own soul – when it loses sight of its greatness, its calling, its unique place in the world – the nations sense this weakness. They rise up proudly, trampling Israel’s dignity underfoot.”

In the era before Mashiach, many Jews lose the ability to grasp the grandeur of the Jewish people. They are too distant, too secular, too assimilated to perceive their own holiness. And so G-d allows our enemies to rise up against us, to awaken our national consciousness and a healthy desire for self-respect. 

“The only way to break free of this is for Israel to remember the loftiness of its soul, to lift its head once more, to put its honor on display, and to take pride in it. When Israel does this, the coarse arrogance of those who mock it will fade away.”

No more weakness and fear. No more apologizing for existing. No more begging the nations to accept us. When we forget our greatness, the nations of the world trample us. But when we remember who we are and rise up in pride and strength – “Hashem’s portion is His people” – their arrogance will fade away before the glory of our people.

Initially, “the dignity of Israel will reveal itself in ways that appear ordinary or secular” – such as Israel’s extraordinary technological innovation. “This creates space for the honor of Israel to be recognized even by those who are distant, allowing them to draw spiritual nourishment from the holiness of the Jewish people. In this way they too rise, and through it Israel itself is strengthened.”

The pioneers plowing the land and bringing it back to life. Jews defending themselves and crushing their enemies, as Israel crushed Iran and Hezbollah after October 7. These incredible accomplishments appear secular. But they restore the honor of Israel – and the honor of Israel is the honor of G-d Himself.

“When this demand for honoring the nation becomes deeply rooted – when it truly settles into the heart – then a deeper question awakens: What is the meaning of national honor? From this, we come to understand that the honor of Israel is nothing other than the honor of the living G-d, the Eternal One who unites Israel. Slowly, the light of the Mashiach will emerge, and the salvation of Israel will shine in the radiance of the King of life” (Mei Marom, Volume 6).

What begins as national pride will one day deepen into something far greater. Am Yisrael will come to see that its pride rests not in power or technology, but in being G-d’s chosen nation.

Rav Charlap died in 1951, as Israel’s strength, resilience, and national pride were only beginning to take form. Today, the holiness he recognized beneath the surface of our people is being revealed for all to see, as our nation returns to Torah and embraces its G-d-given mission. May we soon merit to see the full glory of David revealed, the honor of Israel restored, and the destruction of our enemies, once and for all.

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).