Do I Deserve It?

Remember to Look at the Big Picture

Decisive Sentences

Angels in gaza

The Community vs the Individual

"Rav Kook on Modern Warfare, Technology & Culture"

Orot HaMilchama part x, ch. 8

Rav Kook's holistic & complex thought praises modern technology and culture in many places, but he warns here in Orot HaMilchama, that modern warfare shows that without a strong base in Torah & the Godly Morality and a Jewish State of Israel as a modern Light for the Nations, mankind can and will misuse these Godly gifts in a destructive way that the world will greatly regret. The class relates to the spiritual "upgrade" referred to in Rav Kook and as seen in Israel following the 6 Day War, the Yom Kippur War, and presently the war after the Hamas Simchat Torah attack, where the religious-Zionists are beginning to lead the way back to nationalism, Tanach and the original & appealing Torat Eretz Yisrael, the effective way to keep the unity & consensus in Israel even after the war.

Even Over The Trees And Under The Stones

War Reveals our Essence - Israel Reveals Mankind

Rav Kook's Orot HaMilchama (part viii)-ch. 6

As all extreme situations, war reveals the essence and personality of the individual & the nation. Similarly Am Yisrael was dispersed in all of the countries of the historical super-powers, and includes, unites and is meant to harmonize all of the aspects of all nations & movements. In this classic paragraph, Rav Kook discusses the need for Israel as an eternal nation. serving as a "control group" for comparison, and eventually, the gathering of the exiles and the "sparks", showing how all the various world cultures are meant to work together in Knesset Yisrael. History has shown that all ideological movements are represented in Am Yisrael and our Torah.

COPING WITH TERROR AND TRAGEDY

On a spiritual level, two theological questions cry out to us: Is there justice in the world? And what is the nature of a God of love and mercy in a world filled with evil? When we witness the brutal murder of both soldiers and civilians, the young and the old, we are numbed and bewildered, at a loss as to making religious sense of it all. We feel helpless at even beginning to comprehend the ways of God.

Results of the War – An Interim Assessment

Assessing the war and the future.

Prayer for Israel and IDF

SPECIAL PRAYER TO RECITE FOR OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL AND FOR THE ISRAELI DEFENCE FORCES (IDF) – B’H