Emuna

Three rabbis contemplate emuna [faith] and how it intersects and works alongside knowledge and intellect.

An amazing story on how Hashem is always watching over us and helping us out.

The nature is for each young generation to innovate new ideas in everything, including spirituality. The personal experience of meeting these new, often charismatic leaders from up close, helps verify their innovations and legitimacy, and enable the generation to decide if those new ideas' time has come. The older leaders of the previous generation play an important role here, where their conservatism and experience can be crucial but also may be destructive and hamper advancements (especially if egos come into play), and especially in today's generation of geula [=national and spiritual redemption], the greatest revolution in world history.

Mankind and the world in general, is constantly undergoing evolution and improvement, trial and error, etc. On the other hand, this seemingly contradicts what our sages teach that the further we get from Mt. Sinai, our level drops lower & lower. Rav Kook, who's Orot HaTeshuva is based on the fact that constant improvement is natural & inevitable, deals here with this apparent difficulty, addressing the necessity of suiting the religious and national leadership with the complex level of each respective generation. Not to underrate their potential, but also not to overrate! A leader's/parent's goal is to give people the vision of their potential. This is a super-important class for rabbis, community leaders and lay-men alike.

"Who is the man who desires life, loves days in which to see [and do] good" (Psalms 34,13). How fortunate we are to be healthy seekers of life, "believers sons of believers," and the descendants of Avraham Avinu, about whom the Torah writes, "He had emuna in G-d" (Genesis 15,6). All of Creation aspires to live life that is meaningful, grounded in a cleaving to the source of life. This is how the living G-d created mankind, imbuing it with this aspiration. As Moshe Rabbeinu made it very clear in his parting speech to the People of Israel: "And you who cleave to Hashem your G-d, you all live today" (Deut. 4,4)

The loss of tzaddikim has an effect on the world. "Save, O Lord - for the pious are gone; for the faithful have vanished from among men" (Psalms 12,2). That is to say, when a righteous man passes away, the world suffers a loss of emuna and trust. Emuna diminishes because tzaddikim help ensure that it remains strong, and when they leave, it becomes weaker. Rav Tzvi Yehuda was a great man of emuna, and his loss left a great vacuum of emuna in the world.

The concept of a Tzaddik (righteous) "decreeing" and God obeying, is in the Talmud & central to Hassidut, but very difficult to understand. There's nobody like Rav Kook to explain this in a rational, modern & spiritual way, how God interacts with Am Yisrael and our leadership, in the most beneficial way! Other important topics discussed here are the types of miracles that God suits to the needs of each generation; stringencies & leniencies. Rav Kook also deals here with his own take on "Rupture & Reconstruction" after modernism, the Haskala/Reform, the great European wars and wandering, the uprooting of Sefaradic Jews from their traditions, and how to patiently return the next generation to Torah, as well as faith in our rabbinic leadership.