Walking back toward Givat Shaul with Rabbi Hazani after the morning prayers, I asked him all the questions that were swirling in my head.
“Who’s the Mashiach?”
“How can this be the beginning of Redemption if the State is secular?”
“Why don’t the Ultra Orthodox celebrate Jerusalem Day?”
“Now that we have the State of Israel, why don’t all the Jews come home?”
“Why don’t we rebuild the Temple?”
I asked question after question. He didn’t say a word. He walked deep in contemplation. Maybe he was tired, I thought. But my mind wasn’t at rest. I wanted to understand what was going on with me and with the Jewish People. Insistent, I asked him more questions.
“Learn the book, Orot” he said.
“Orot?”
I had never heard of it. I asked him what it was, but he didn’t say anything more the rest of the way to his home.
That’s how it came to pass, a few years later, that a former, totally-in-the-dark screenwriter from Hollywood ended up writing a series of commentaries with Rabbi David Samson on the classic book, “Orot,” of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaKohen Kook, and a book on the teachings of his son, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda, “Torat Eretz Yisrael.”
With God’s help, to help us get ready to receive the Torah this Shavuot, in the coming week we’ll take a look at some of the amazing revelations which Rabbi Kook teaches about the Nation of Israel and Eretz Yisrael.