{"id":1775,"date":"2018-07-17T11:55:43","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T08:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/2018\/07\/17\/rabbi-tzvi-yehudah-kook-behind-our-wall"},"modified":"2018-07-17T11:55:43","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T08:55:43","slug":"rabbi-tzvi-yehudah-kook-behind-our-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/2018\/07\/17\/rabbi-tzvi-yehudah-kook-behind-our-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"Rabbi Tzvi Yehudah Kook: Behind Our Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

An English translation of an excerpt from an article written by Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook<\/a> in 1937, this piece describes the Western Wall as a symbol of the eternal nature of the people of Israel and of the Divine Presence in the world. Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook (1891-1982) was a prominent Religious Zionist leader and the son of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. This excerpt is from an analysis of the piece posted on the website Rav Kook Torah<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cBehind our Wall\u201d by Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook<\/h3>\n

Secure and invincible with its Divine strength, the Kotel holds its own \u2014 throughout the generations of change, transformations and vicissitudes, the horrors and the shocks, which visited the land and its inhabitants. The Kotel is in them and with them.<\/p>\n

Even if the disgrace of ruin conceals its beauty, and signs of destruction are displayed prominently over it, and clouds of desolation cast shadows over its radiance; even if it is hidden behind a thicket of dark and squalid alleys, as it is shoved aside in the cruelty of its neighbors, surrounding it from all sides, trying to invade its borders, to suppress and consume its legacy. Nonetheless, like a stone fortress, it stands guard, without moving and without allowing its inner dignity to be sullied. It remains pure and exalted in the strength of its very essence…<\/p>\n

For it is a remnant of the holy and precious, of the Divine abode. In the wonderful quality of its very existence, it is a witness to world events and the millennia of human history.<\/p>\n

\n

\u05d9\u05e9 \u05dc\u05d1\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea \u05d5\u05d9\u05e9 \u05dc\u05d1\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea. \u05d9\u05e9 \u05dc\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea \u05d0\u05d3\u05dd, \u05d5\u05d9\u05e9 \u05dc\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea \u05d0\u05d1\u05e0\u05d9\u05dd.<\/p>\n

There are hearts and there are hearts. There are human hearts, and there are hearts of stone.<\/p>\n

\u05d5\u05d9\u05e9 \u05d0\u05d1\u05e0\u05d9\u05dd \u05d5\u05d9\u05e9 \u05d0\u05d1\u05e0\u05d9\u05dd. \u05d9\u05e9 \u05d0\u05d1\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d3\u05d5\u05de\u05d4, \u05d5\u05d9\u05e9 \u05d0\u05d1\u05e0\u05d9\u05dd-\u05dc\u05d1\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea.<\/p>\n

There are stones and there are stones. There are silent stones, and there are stones which are hearts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These stones, remnants of our dwelling on high, \u201cretain their holiness even in desolation\u201d (Megillah<\/i>\u00a03:3), for \u201cthe Shekhinah has never left the Western Wall\u201d (Tanhuma Shemot<\/i>\u00a010)…. These stones are our hearts!<\/p>\n

Each of us knows that this wall, for all of its somber simplicity and signs of ruin and exile, is not a \u201cWailing Wall\u201d for us, as it is called by strangers and foreigners. For us, it is a wealth of life, a hidden treasure of light and strength, guarded and secured by our tears.<\/p>\n

The healthy Jewish eye does not see in the Kotel a symbol of our nation\u2019s ruin, destruction and degeneration. On the contrary, we see the wall, in the hidden strength and power of its existence, still standing \u2014 even after they fell and when they fell \u2014 as it raises itself up and reaches out with Divine strength to eternal redemption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An English translation of an excerpt from an article written by Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook in 1937, this piece describes the Western Wall as a symbol of the eternal nature of the people of Israel and of the Divine Presence in the world. Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook (1891-1982) was a prominent Religious Zionist leader and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=1775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775\/revisions\/"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1755\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=1775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories\/?post=1775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kol-ami.kulam.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags\/?post=1775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}