Rav Kook On The Ultimate Destiny of the Souls of Olam Ha-Tohu

“נשמות דתהו גדולות הן מאד. דורשות הרבה מהמציאות, מה שאין הכלים יכולות לסבול. דורשות אור גדול מאד, אינן יכולות לסבול שום דבר סופי, מדוד ומוגבל. ירדו ממדרגתן הגבוהה מראשית ההוויה, להבתן עלתה ותכבה. לא תכלה את געגועיהן אל אין סוף. הסערות הללו יורידו מטרות נדבות, העננים החשוכים הללו הם ההכנה לאורות גדולים, ‘ומאפליה וחשכה תראינה עיני עיוורים’.” (Orot haKodesh III, p. 316)

“The souls of chaos are very great. They demand much from existence, more than the vessels can bear. They demand a very great light; they cannot suffer anything finite, measured, limited. They descended from their lofty level at the dawn of being, their flame rose up and was extinguished. Their longing for the infinite will never cease. These storms will yield bounteous rains, these dark clouds are the preparation for great lights, ‘and from darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see.’” (Bezalel Naor, The Souls of the World of Chaos, Kodesh Press, 2012, pp. 3–4).

The shattering itself, Rav Kook insists, prepares the world for a radiance otherwise impossible.

Rav Kook describes these souls as untamable, vast, often tragic. They cannot be satisfied with compromise or gradual ascent. They demand the infinite immediately. They are the great dreamers, the heretics, the revolutionaries, the artists who scandalize, the seekers who burn. They may rebel against the Torah, but their rebellion conceals a deeper yearning for the Absolute.

He insists again and again in his letters that we must not despise these souls. Their restlessness is not emptiness but excess. Their straying is not abandonment but overflow. They are, as he writes, “souls aflame, whose vessels are too narrow, and therefore they burst.” Their destiny is not ruin, but redemption: “all their storms will prepare a great light.”

“אין להתיירא משום מהפכה רוחנית. כי אם רשעים, נשמות חלושות וחנפים מתייראים וחוששים. אבל הצדיקים הגיבורים, האריות שבחבורה, יודעים שהכל מהפכה של בניין, של תיקון, של ברכה.” (Igrot haRa’ayah I, Letter 1339)

“There is nothing to fear from any spiritual upheaval. Only the wicked, the weak souls and the flatterers are afraid and tremble. But the righteous, the mighty ones, the lions of the group, know that it is all an upheaval of building, of repair, of blessing.” (Bezalel Naor, Orot, Ktav, 1993).

For Rav Kook, history itself is the long drama of Tohu and Tikkun. Every collapse of civilizations, every upheaval of nations, every rebellion of youth against their elders is a repetition of the primordial shattering. Yet each collapse is also a birth.

“העולם הישן יתחדש, והחדש יתקדש, ויאמר שיר חדש.” (Orot haTechiyah §28)

“The old world will be renewed, and the new world will be sanctified, and a new song shall be sung.” (Ben Zion Bokser, Lights of Holiness, Paulist Press, 1978, p. 282).

Thus he interprets the secular Zionists—their break with tradition, their fiery nationalism, their rejection of the past—not as enemies of redemption but as the very bearers of its sparks. They are souls of Tohu, who cannot endure the narrow vessels of exile Judaism. Their shattering of tradition is itself an act of birthing.

On the individual level, Rav Kook envisions the destiny of the Tohu soul as ultimately luminous. Such a soul may live a life of unrest, of contradictions, of collapse and renewal. Yet in the end, its uncontainable yearning is gathered into the larger symphony of Tikkun. In Orot haKodesh, he urges us never to despair of such souls, never to suppress them, but to build vessels broad enough to receive their fire.

“אל תירא מרוחות סערה. הן באות רק לטהר את האוויר, לחזק את הנשמה, להרחיב את הלב.” (Orot haKodesh II, p. 537)

“Do not be afraid of storm-winds. They come only to purify the air, to strengthen the soul, to expand the heart.” (Naor, Orot, 1993, p. 186).

Thus the destiny of these souls is not exile but homecoming.

Their rebellion is transfigured into song. Their heresy is revealed as the unconscious service of holiness. Their destiny is to return not as penitents ashamed, but as leaders crowned with the very sparks they carried into exile.

On the level of the people of Israel, Rav Kook reads the national soul itself as a marriage of Tohu and Tikkun. Israel is both a vessel shattered in exile and a light too great to be contained by the nations. The exile itself is a drama of Tohu, a scattering of sparks across history. The return to Zion is Tikkun, the vessel reforged. Yet the destiny is not to reject the chaos but to redeem it.

“כל המהפכות של העמים, כל הזעזועים של התרבות, כל השגיאות של הכפירה – כולן הן מהלכים אל האחדות הגדולה.” (Orot Yisrael 6:2)

“All the revolutions of nations, all the upheavals of culture, all the errors of heresy—they are all steps toward the great unification.” (Bokser, Lights of Holiness, 1978, p. 244).

Rav Kook discerned that the flames of Tohu spill over not only into the lives of singular souls and the upheavals of nations, but also into the unfolding of human culture. Wherever there is a burst of creativity too immense to be contained by inherited forms, there the storm of Tohu burns.

He saw art, music, and poetry as embodiments of the soul’s demand for infinite expression, its refusal to be bound by convention. He saw science and philosophy as vessels shattered by their longing for absolute truth. He saw secular rebellion itself not as abandonment of holiness but as a concealed service of holiness.

“הכפירה באה מתוך שהאור גדול מדי מכדי שיוכל להתאים את עצמו אל הכלים הצרים של הדמיון המצומצם. על כן היא נראית כהרס, והיא באמת הכנה לבניין גדול יותר.”

(Orot haKodesh I, p. 6O

“Heresy comes because the light is too great to fit itself into the narrow vessels of limited imagination. Therefore it appears as destruction, but in truth it is preparation for a greater building.” (Naor, Orot, 1993):

“כל עז התרבות וכל כשרון האמנות אינם אלא גילוי של נשמות דתהו, המבקשות להאיר אור אינסופי, וכל עוד אין כלים מתוקנים לכך – הן מחריבות, ואחר כך יבוא התיקון.”

(Orot haKodesh II, p. 444):

“All the power of culture and all the genius of art are nothing but the revelation of the souls of Tohu, who seek to shine with infinite light, and as long as there are no rectified vessels for this—they bring destruction. Afterwards, the repair will come.” (Naor, Orot, 1993)

Thus the ferment of modernity—the rush of philosophy, the daring of art, the breakthroughs of science—are all, for Rav Kook, the overflowing energies of Tohu. They may appear destructive, even godless, but they are preludes to a higher Tikkun, when vessels vast enough to contain them will be shaped.

In Rav Kook’s eschatology, the end of days is precisely the reconciliation of Tohu and Tikkun. Chaos is not obliterated but embraced. Its energies are not crushed but crowned. The vessels of Tikkun are made vast enough to hold the infinite light of Tohu without shattering. Then all the exiled sparks, all the restless souls, all the shattered fragments will be gathered.

“על כן הצדיקים הטהורים אינם קובלים על החושך אלא מוסיפים אור. אינם קובלים על הרשעה אלא מוסיפים צדק. אינם קובלים על הכפירה אלא מוסיפים אמונה. אינם קובלים על הבערות אלא מוסיפים חכמה.” (Arpilei Tohar, p. 39)

“Therefore the pure righteous do not complain of darkness, but add light. They do not complain of wickedness, but add justice. They do not complain of heresy, but add faith. They do not complain of ignorance, but add wisdom.” (Bokser, Lights of Holiness, p. 317).

This is his vision of the destiny of Tohu: not its erasure, but its transformation. The storms of chaos become the rains of blessing. The restless heretic becomes the fiery tzaddik. The shattered vessels become the foundation stones of a new creation.

Ultimately, Rav Kook sings of a cosmic symphony in which the wild notes of chaos are not silenced but harmonized. The souls of Olam ha-Tohu, once exiled in their restlessness, become the very crown of redemption. Their infinite longing finds its home.

Their fire becomes steady light. Their storm becomes song.

And in that final day, when all vessels are broadened and all lights are gathered, even chaos itself will be revealed as the secret pulse of creation—the overabundant love that shattered the first vessels only to prepare the world for a harmony beyond imagining.