A letter written by Rabbi Eli Horovitz to his cousin from Kibbutz Hulata
To Deganit and Mozi Finkel,
Hello how are you? Shoshana wrote that Deganit is a little sick. I hope by now it has been created. How is your home progressing, the exterior and the interior?
We got along well, we renovated some old apartment that we rent in the meantime very very cheaply, but I have no place to grow things And that saddens me.
what about you? You have no desire sometimes to be in a green and blooming place like Hulata, for example? It is not easy to live in the city.
In the letter you sent to my family, you asked some questions about details of the law (handshake, speaking in the Holy Language, etc.) and I felt that it was really so unfortunate that there was no way to bring all the holy and pure Israelites who do not keep the commandments, with the true Torah of Israel.
Rabbi, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, always emphasizes that the common expression in the mouths of the people, of religious and non-religious, is a misguided and falsified expression, that the truth is that every person in Israel is a believer, of necessity, in whoever said and was the world.
Belief is not a verbal agreement that there is indeed a Creator, not some philosophical thought method that supposedly explains the formation and development of the world. The true meaning of faith is connection, devotion, and belonging with a higher power than us.
We, the people of Israel, were created embedded in this connection. Each and every one of us, we were born with it. It is the attribute of our special race, to be clinging to our inwardness in a noble harmony that encompasses the world and its fullness. And it does not matter if we feel it, or if we deny it. It does not change the fact.
On the other hand, said Rabbi, one should really define everyone in Israel as a religious Jew, except that there are observant ones and there are non-observant ones.
The truth is that there are quite a few situations, and perhaps the vast majority, which are called secular, are more faithful to the innocent and light-filled doctrine of God, than the ultra-Orthodox "religious" who are careful about the details of every Hasidic practice.
After all, we learn from our true sages, not the doctors and philosophers and the poor critics - whose whole world went into a box of matches, but the mighty sages of Israel who spoke in prophecy and the Holy Spirit - from whom we learn that the Yeshiva of Eretz Yisrael is considered against all commandments in the Torah.
From the sages of Israel we learn that everyone who lives in the Land of Israel has a Gd, and everyone who lives abroad as if he were worshiping idols, and it is easy and material that those who build and worship and perfect our holy land have a very great right.
And anyone who is killed because he is a Jew, and even more so if he is killed in the Israeli wars against their enemies, is considered perfectly righteous.
The truth is that I can not define in some pages and also in some books what is the faith of Israel and the Torah of Israel. Only a deep sorrow in my heart that the impression given to our dear brothers, especially in kibbutzim and moshavim, is an impression of smallness, of a gray life of doing all sorts of strange things.
The truth is that life for most observant people in Israel is like this - small, depleted of all supreme spiritual content. Very far from the perfection of the sacred life in which we find our supreme engraving.
In exile we had no choice but to be in weakness and slackness, the humiliation of all the nations of the world and without the physical strength, national heroism, how an enlightened and open outlook on life is possible.
Now that we have returned to our homeland, we can no longer accept all the empty religiosity our parents tried to impose on us. And in B. the infidels multiplied in Judaism, in religiosity, in order to pave the way for a great, mighty opinion, full of life heroism and immense joy that felt the grace of God this time among the nation in all its social and private order.
Good. enough. Maybe you will be here (you are welcome to be with us) we will talk more about it ..
Eli
