Favorite Texts

The Fourfold Song - Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook

There are those who sing the song of their souls.  They find everything, complete spiritual satisfaction, within their souls.

Others sing the song of the nation.  They step out of their private souls because they find them too narrow. They cling with a sensitive love to the entirety of the Jewish nation and sings its song.  They share in its pains and are joyful in its hopes.

There are people whose soul is so broad that it expands beyond the border of Israel.  It sings the song of humanity, yearns for humanity’s general enlightenment its ideals and visions.

And there are some whose souls rise even higher until they unite with all existence, with all creatures, and with all worlds.  And with all of them, they sing the song of the soul, the song of the nation, the song of humanity, the song of the world—they all mix together with this person at every moment and at all times.

(Orot Hakodesh II, p. 444)