Song

Singer of Wholeness

Singer of wholeness,
Are you yet born?
If your soul is still bound
In the bond of heaven,
The bond of life,
Descend to us soon.
Play your harp--
Let the down-hearted hear,
Let the disillusioned listen
To the murmur of your strings--
And be revived.
       Orot Hateshuvah, p. 144


The Return to Nature

    There are three levels upon which the individual and collective perfection of Israel must be based. These are the return to nature, to human ethics, and to the national foundation. Supernal holiness rests only upon these three.
    The highest divine service is connected directly to nature. But this supernal holiness was polluted by human defilement, which destroyed the service of nature and turned it into a monster of idolatry rather than a firm foundation for supernal idealism.
    The lofty luminosity of Adam contained within itself a supernal quality rising higher than the clear lens of prophecy that was attained by Moses. “To work and guard” the garden of Eden is the radiance of supernal life: to eat of the Tree of Life and know nothing at all of any evil, because it is completely impossible that there should exist in the physical and spiritual world—which is so perfect, which is the work of the hands of the Creator of everything—anything evil. Everything in its season and its time is solely good. “God made man straight.”
    Engaging in the “Chapter of song” is the foundation of this return to nature. This is a lowly return that is high, that rises beyond all national jealousy, lifting man to become an elevated brother to his other brothers, the creations of the Almighty, who all know their Maker and take pleasure in the glory of His activity. Everything rises to the heights of holiness.
    In this, we acquire a guarantee that we will not descend constantly downward, that we will not be transformed into a tool of death, destroying ourselves and others.
    The name of God must exist, and the light of His Torah that shines on earth and accompanies humanity through all its phases, so that we will not fall into the deep pit that caused us to stumble in ancient days.
    “In the blood of your covenant, I sent your prisoners forth from a pit that contained no water” (Zechariah 9:11).
        Orot Hakodesh II, pp. 493-94

A New Song

    Jealousy between scribes increases wisdom (Bava Batra 21a). Because this wisdom comes from jealousy, in the end it will disintegrate.
    Everything that disintegrates has an unpleasant odor. And so the sages said that “in the end of days before the messiah comes, the wisdom of the sages will [be despised, as though it has] an unpleasant odor” (Sotah 49b).
    This unpleasant odor will destroy the form that the wisdom of the sages had had.
    Then it will begin to radiate the light of the soul of supernal wisdom, which transcends all jealousy and which is higher than the wisdom of the sages.
    This wisdom will come to light by means of a “new song.”
    “The mouth of Hashem shall designate a new name [for Israel]” (Isaiah 62:2). Then Israel’s “beauty will be like the olive tree, and its scent like Lebanon” (Hosea 14:7).
        Arpelei Tohar, p. 59

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