Holiness, Nation, Humanity

These words were written by Abraham Isaac Kook, aka HaRav Kook, in his book “Orot,” which came out in 1920: 

“Three forces now wrestle each other in our camp. The war between them is most apparent in the Land of Israel, but the operation of these forces stems from the life of the Jewish nation as a whole, and their roots are placed within the consciousness, penetrating the spaces of human spirit.  We would become miserable if these three forces, which we need to unite within us, which we need to have one strengthening and improve the other, would instead have one side fortified in its extremism due to another’s spoiled and uncompromising stand. We would become miserable should we let these forces split, rebel against each other and become three separate camps. Holiness, Nation and Humanity - these are the three demanding forces that life itself, our life as a nation and the life of every individual, are made of.”

Decades before the independence of the Modern State of Israel, Rav Kook identified three camps which were forming within the Jewish Yishuv, the same three camps which still form Israeli society today. 

Holiness - what we call the Haredim (Ultra Orthodox), Nation (Religious Zionists, and right wing nationalists) and Humanity (Liberals.)

Those who have been following the events in Israel prior and post October 7th know that these camps have been waging war against one another.
Astonishingly, in his 1920 essay, Kook warns of the division of these three camps and writes about the importance of their unification.

Our Torah portion this week, which predominantly focuses on Jacob, brings in the third and last character in the triangle of what we call “Our Fathers” or Avot. Those are of course, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

In his book “Netivot Shalom,” Rabbi Sholom Noach Berezovsky assigns a different Midah (virtue) to each of the fathers. Abraham, he explained, represents the Midah of Hesed (loving kindness) since he went through the ten tests that God put him through and succeeded in each one through accepting it with love. To Isaac he assigned the Midah of Gevurah (courage), which is the Midah that stems from its opposite, Yirah (fear and awe), that is, of course, due to the experience of the Akedah (Isaac’s binding.)

To Jacob, as is apparent in our portion, Berezovsky assigned the Midah of Kedushah (holiness), and he explains that the entire story of Jacob focuses on the human hardships of the world that we live in — jealousy, betrayals, love, deceit, endurance, hope and disappointment. As in his famous Ladder dream, Jacob always found a way to turn the humane, the mundane, the trying, into holiness by ascending beyond his nature.  

Reading Kook’s brilliant analysis of the forces among us and Berezovsky's commentary on our portion got me thinking about our Fathers as the representatives of Holiness, Nation and Humanity. 

Abraham as the father of our people would represent the Nation. Abraham was the one who was entered in the Covenant of Fate, the covenant in which our nation was promised to any offspring of his from that day on. Jacob, as Berezovsky beautifully put it, represents our spiritual world of holiness, if you will, the ability to overcome our nature and choose a holy way of being. Isaac to me represents humanity. To me, he represents the triumph of the human spirit, who overcame trauma with his ability to find love.

The three forces which tear Israel apart, the religious, the nationalists and the liberals, are forces which threaten to tear most modern societies apart, including that of the United States.

What I find so beautiful in Kook’s writing is that, according to him, those forces do not only form societies, but also every single one of us. Each and every one of us has those three forces within them; the Nation - our personal identities, our need to belong to ideology groups and political beliefs, Holiness - our spiritual world, and Humanity - our capability for compassion, empathy and love.

Like all humans, we are made of these three forces (with variation in each force’s dominance), as are our societies. But his clear message is this:

Societies and humans alike would fall apart should war be waged between them, should one of these forces overpower the other.

In a society dominated by Nation, we get Fascism; in a society dominated by Holiness we get religious fundamentalism and theocracy; in a society dominated by Humanity, we may lack law and order as well as spirituality. 

To my mind, the three forces don’t necessarily have to unite — in fact I believe it is impossible to unite them. But they should learn to co-exist, live side by side and compliment each other, allowing one another proportional expression. Sometimes one force may be called to raise its voice, but on other occasions, a different force will be called on. But they should all always be there for the calling.

In our political climate, the warnings about the danger of polarization are not empty. As hard as it gets sometimes, we must recognize the importance of what John Rawls called “reasonable pluralism” as an overall necessary stabilizing force. 

All of us have all three forces within us. Like our forefathers who passed them onto us, we must find a way to make peace among them as well.