In the cur­rent moment, in which so many of us are feel­ing dis­con­nect­ed, alone, and angry, we have the priv­i­lege of read­ing Aryeh Ben David’s beau­ti­ful book, The Secret of Love: A Glimpse into the Mys­ti­cal Wis­dom of Rav Kook. Not only does this vol­ume do a won­der­ful job of intro­duc­ing us to the pro­found reli­gious thought of Rav Kook, the first chief rab­bi of the Ashke­nazi Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in pre-state Israel, it also invites us to recon­sid­er the cen­tral pur­pose of Jew­ish life. 

For Rav Kook, the core ele­ment of being human and being a Jew is to love. It’s not a feel­ing for him, but rather a spir­i­tu­al state of being that is present with­in us at all times. All we have to do is get out of our own way and release our spir­i­tu­al yearn­ing with­in to fill the world with love. Ben David shares with us Rav Kook’s spir­i­tu­al brav­ery. With one short phrase, Rav Kook turns the essence of Judaism on its head: ​“All of the Torah — ethics, mitzvot, learn­ing, and prac­tice — come to remove the obsta­cles that pre­vent an all-encom­pass­ing love from expand­ing and spread­ing to every cor­ner of life, every­where.” Rav Kook refo­cus­es us in a pow­er­ful way. The Torah isn’t just about rules, rit­u­als, or our con­nec­tion to peo­ple­hood. The pur­pose of the Torah is to help us love.

In the world in which we are all strug­gling to nav­i­gate right now, what mes­sage could be more impor­tant for our own hearts, our fam­i­lies, our com­mu­ni­ty, and our larg­er society?