Love for People

by Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook

            Love for people must be alive in the heart and in the soul: love for every individual and love for all nations—a desire for their elevation and their spiritual and material well-beingre-establishment.
            Hatred must exist only toward the evil and pollution in the world.
            It is absolutely impossible to attain the elevated spirit of “giving thanks to Hashem, calling out in His name, making His deeds known among the nations” (Psalms 105:1) without an inner love from the depths of the heart and spirit to do good for all the nations: to improve their acquisitions, to gladden their lives.
            This quality makes it possible for the spirit of the king messiah to impress itself upon the people of Israel.
            Wherever we find allusions to hatred, we know clearly that the intent is only toward evil, which strongly binds the union of many nations—at present and, even more, in ancient days, when the pollution of the world was more foul.
            But we must know that the core of life, light and holiness never moves away from the Divine image with which man overall is graced, and with which every nation and people is graced, each in accordance with its nature. And this holy kernel will elevate everything.
            From this point of life, we desire the total elevation that will occur in the world,
the light of justice and righteousness united with splendor and harmony, with might and victory, and the perfection of all creation, starting with man and all of his extensions, and with the inner soul that lies in the depth of the awareness of the Congregation of Israel—which, when Hashem's spirit rests upon us, we proceed to arouse in physical and spiritual life.
            Midot Hara’ayah: Ahavah 5

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