RAV KOOK AND BOUNDLESS LOVE. BREAKING THE FAST 5778 IN MIAMI

It was Yom Kippur and I was on my way to Miami to be with my good friends.
We broke the fast together. The hours we spent chatting was an example of the connections we have with the jewish people all around the world: the three of us are all of different nationalities of origin: USA, South Africa and Australia
Earlier that day I was able to listen to the sermon on line by Rabbi Stephanie Kolin of The Central Synagogue in New York and I learned about the concept of Ahavat Chinam  Boundless Love.
We see examples of this all around the world and let us begin with our own people, this has nothing to do with Religion but our culture and our commitment for the survival of the Jewish people. We have another generation following us, and we have to show them Boundless Love (and of course not HATRED) by practice.
Rav Kook the Chief Rabbi of Israel before independence had clearly explained how to achieved Ahavat Chinam, practical advice on how to achieve this love.
Spending the evening breaking the fast, the three of us from different parts of the world, connected to another generation now in Ireland and Bruxelles, felt the love that we can easily extend not only to our fellow Jews but also to others, including those who hate us.

Practical Steps towards Ahavat Chinam

In his magnum opus Orot HaKodesh, Rav Kook gave practical advice on how to achieve this love.

Love for the Jewish people does not start from the heart, but from the head. To truly love and understand the Jewish people - each individual Jew and the nation as a whole — requires a wisdom that is both insightful and multifaceted. This intellectual inquiry is an important discipline of Torah study.

Loving others does not mean indifference to baseness and moral decline. Our goal is to awaken knowledge and morality, integrity, and refinement; to clearly mark the purpose of life, its purity and holiness. Even our acts of loving-kindness should be based on a hidden Gevurah, an inner outrage at the world’s — and thus our own — spiritual failures.

If we take note of others’ positive traits, we will come to love them with an inner affection. This is not a form of insincere flattery, nor does it mean white-washing their faults and foibles. But by concentrating on their positive characteristics — and every person has a good side — the negative aspects become less significant.

This method provides an additional benefit. The Sages cautioned against joining with the wicked and exposing oneself to their negative influence. But if we connect to their positive traits, then this contact will not endanger our own moral and spiritual purity.

We can attain a high level of love for Israel by deepening our awareness of the inner ties that bind together all the souls of the Jewish people, throughout all the generations. In the following revealing passage, Rav Kook expressed his own profound sense of connection with and love for every Jewish soul:

“Listen to me, my people! I speak to you from my soul, from within my innermost soul. I call out to you from the living connection by which I am bound to all of you, and by which all of you are bound to me. I feel this more deeply than any other feeling: that only you — all of you, all of your souls, throughout all of your generations — you alone are the meaning of my life. In you I live. In the aggregation of all of you, my life has that content that is called ‘life.’ Without you, I have nothing. All hopes, all aspirations, all purpose in life, all that I find inside myself — these are only when I am with you. I need to connect with all of your souls. I must love you with a boundless love....Each one of you, each individual soul from the aggregation of all of you, is a great spark from the torch of infinite light, which enlightens my existence. You give meaning to life and work, to Torah and prayer, to song and hope. It is through the conduit of your being that I sense everything and love everything.” (Shemonah Kevatzim, vol. I, sec. 163)