Book review – Hadarav – His Inner Chambers

Text translation is relatively easy at a basic level – anyone who has used Google Translate can attest to that. However, doing translations well is a challenging endeavor. Add to that a poetic and spiritual writing style, and it is even more difficult. And when the author of the original text is an enigmatic and complex personality, it’s an almost impossible task.

Anyone attempting to translate Rav Avraham Yitzchok Kook’s works faces a formidable task. But Rabbi Bezalel Naor is one of a handful of people who is qualified to do so. Naor is a scholar in his own right and able to not just translate, but also extract the deep meaning (often kabbalistic)  and phraseology inherent in Rav Kook’s writings.

Hadarav – His Inner Chambers (Maggid Books) is a collection of passages from Rav Kook’s personal notebooks. Truly understanding a complex personality such as Rav Kook is unachievable. However, in the excerpts that Naor has brilliantly and artistically translated, based on the original editing of Ran Sarid, one can get a glimpse of this great man.

Printing the personal diaries of someone who didn’t have them published in their lifetime can be dangerous. Did the writer want everything to be published to the world? Or perhaps it was meant for their family and inner circle exclusively.

Some years ago, a professor published very personal letters between a great rabbinic scholar and his friend and was criticized for doing that. It was felt he made public what should not have been revealed. He later visited the grave of the person who was the subject of the article and asked his forgiveness.

That is not the case here, as everything written only attests to Rav Kook’s greatness, brilliance, and uniqueness.

A recurring theme in the Kosher Money podcast series is how money and the desire for things are slowly destroying Jewish communities from within. For Rav Kook, his problems were of an entirely different dimension – all of them spiritual.

The book opens with Rav Kook worrying, “Is it possible that I shall not find that which I seek, when my quest flows from the depths of truth”? Rav Kook sought not what we see advertised today in magazines; instead, he and King David were soul brothers. When he wrote in Tehilim 27:4, “One thing I ask of the Lord, only that do I seek, to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, to frequent his temple,” Rav Kook echoed those desires.

Throughout the book, one feels what Rav Kook was anxious and concerned about. But Rav Kook’s worries were not that of a regular person. That’s clear when he writes, “Is it an empty thing, the great pain that I am not permitted to pronounce the Name with its letters?

Hadarav is not a biography or autobiography by any stretch. But the story of Rav Kook’s life and personality is made eminently clear here. Too many hagiographies take away from the humanity of the subject. Here, we see Rav Kook discuss the very human issues of the tempestuous drive for societal approval, self-appreciation, and more.

Rav Kook was a deeply spiritual person. He writes that his soul’s sensitivity does not allow him to speak of empty, extraneous matters. He concludes that on those occasions when he must speak like that when the situation warrants, he feels the protest of the soul within himself.

The book is a brilliant journey through Rav Kook’s life. None of the entries are dated, so it’s impossible to see when and in what context they were written.

Written in a raw, personal format, it’s hard not to feel his pain when he writes, “Whoever said about me that my soul is torn – said well.” Or his joy when he writes, “My love is great for all the creations, for all of existence. Far be it from me to allow even a small spark of hatred, of misanthropy, to enter my heart.”

In his eloquent review of the book, Rabbi Steven Gotlib asks if this book presents too deep of a look into Rav Kook. The candor of his thoughts might turn him into a smaller figure for whom religious unity did not come as easily as perceived through his more familiar writings.

Gotlib feels, and I concur, that rather than diminishing Rav Kook in his eyes, these passages have helped him appreciate him all the more. Every reader will undoubtedly feel that sentiment.

Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi said he saw Rabbi Meir’s back and considered himself fortunate to have seen him from behind. Rabbi Naor allows the reader to see parts of Rav Kook’s insights, brilliance, and uniqueness. And for that, we should consider ourselves fortunate.