In today’s class we continued Rav Kook’s Meimor HaDor and explored how Rav Kook looked beneath the surface of his generation and saw not simply behavior, but potential. Rav Kook teaches that every generation carries the spiritual DNA of its historical hour. Because we were born close to Geulah, we carry Geulah Neshamot — souls that are sensitive, idealistic, and spiritually complex.

Rav Kook shows us that this generation cannot be reached through behavioral models or cognitive compliance alone. These souls require Torah that is short, clear, deep and authentic — words that go straight to the inner world of the Neshama. We spoke about moving beyond CBNT-style education into a Torah of depth and dignity.

We also brought in Rebbe Nachman’s story of the Sad Tzaddik and the practice of Nekudot Tovot, learning how a true educator sees and draws out the hidden point of goodness inside each person. The work of this generation is to see beneath the surface, to validate the inner world, and to teach in a way that honors the soul rather than managing the behavior.

This is how Geulah unfolds — not by changing people from the outside in, but by awakening the light that is already present within them

In today’s shiur, we explored Rav Kook’s profound process of Aliyat HaDorot — the elevation of the generations — and the rise of collective consciousness.

Rav Kook explains that throughout most of history, spiritual greatness was concentrated in a small number of towering individuals: great tzaddikim and erudite souls who stood far above the general population. The broader public, the hamon am, remained relatively simple in spiritual awareness and intellectual depth.

As history progresses, however, something radical happens. The great souls no longer appear only as rare individuals. Instead, their light becomes diffused into the collective. The giants descend a level, while the masses rise a level. The result is a generation in which ordinary people carry greater inner depth, moral sensitivity, and spiritual capacity than ever before.

This shift creates both an aliyah and a yeridah at the same time:

An aliyah — because the collective soul of Am Yisrael has risen.

A yeridah — because the old spiritual models and leadership structures can no longer contain the expanded inner world of the people.

Rav Kook teaches that when the collective rises but is still taught by lower or outdated spiritual frameworks, the impact can be damaging. Fear-based authority, small ideas, and shallow teaching no longer work. A generation with a greater inner stature cannot be reached through fear — only through love, compassion, good words, and deep Torah.

We saw how Rav Kook insists that the only way to reach such a generation is by offering higher, deeper, and more expansive Torah — teachings that match the size of the soul and speak honestly to the mind and heart.

Rav Kook notes that in his own time this transformation was already underway, though it was largely imperceptible and had not yet fully come to fruition. Today, its effects are unmistakable.

This shiur reframes the crisis of our generation not as a failure of Torah, but as a sign that the souls have risen — and the vessels must now rise with them.

In this shiur, we continued Rav Kook’s Meimor HaDor and explored his deeply compassionate diagnosis of our generation.

Rav Kook teaches that this generation is not sinful or rebellious, but rather emotionally flooded — drowning in spiritual pain. The confusion, anger, distancing, and breakdown we see are not signs of moral failure, but of souls overwhelmed by intensity they cannot yet regulate or contain.

Rav Kook pleads with the leaders and rabbis of his time to respond not with fear, punishment, or scorn, but with empathy, good words, and deep, honest teaching. True leadership, he argues, begins with compassion — the ability to see even ideological opponents, including Zionist youth, as suffering souls in need of guidance and healing, not enemies to be crushed.

We also explored Rav Kook’s radical insight that the very cultural forces that damaged the generation must be transformed into tools of healing. In Rav Kook’s time, this meant redeeming literature and intellectual culture. In our generation, this applies directly to audio, video, social media, and digital culture — not rejecting them, but filling them with deeper inner content, meaning, and light.

We concluded with Rav Kook’s revolutionary teaching of Aliyat HaDorot — the elevation of the generations. The crisis of our time is not because Torah has failed, but because the souls have risen, while the old vessels can no longer contain their light. The task of our generation is not to suppress this light, but to guide it, refine it, and help it find its true place within Torah.

In this shiur, The Subconscious Sickness, we explored Rav Kook’s actual diagnosis of the core problem of our generation. A good diagnosis is half the cure — and Rav Kook offers one of the most penetrating psychological–spiritual readings of modern Jewish life.

He explains that a deep subconscious sickness has taken root within the generation, creating a breakdown in language, communication, and a person’s inner map of meaning. This fracture inside the self leads to loneliness, isolation, anxiety, and a sense that “no one understands me — not even myself.”

Rav Kook traces this crisis to two forces:

External influences — popular ideas, cultural trends, and “sifrus” that people give enormous emotional weight to, even though these ideas lack real content, truth, or spiritual grounding. They distort the inner compass.

Internal questioning — a person begins to examine their Jewish and religious upbringing and quietly wonders: What is it all worth? What does it mean for me? Why doesn’t it answer my deepest questions anymore?

The result is a generational disorientation — a subconscious ache that affects identity, belonging, and purpose.

We connected this with Chanukah, the ultimate “in-between generation”: a battle over worldview, culture, and the mind. Just as the Greeks fought to reshape consciousness, Rav Kook shows that our struggle today is also a war over meaning — and the healing lies in revealing deeper light.

In this fifth class on Meimor HaDor, we learned Rav Kook’s radical response to the spiritual vacuum of the modern generation. Instead of tightening rules or relying on behavioral expectations, Rav Kook tells us to show them the light — to reveal the deepest, brightest parts of Torah so the searching soul can finally recognize its home.

Rav Kook explains that the confusion and restlessness of the new generation come from too much light, not too little. Their questions are big because their souls are big. When old vessels crack, we don’t shrink the light — we expand the vessel. That means teaching Pnimius, uncovering the inner psychology of Torah, and guiding them to the entrance rather than forcing them through the door.

We connected this message to Chanukah and Yud-Tes Kislev, two moments when hidden light breaks through darkness, and saw how daring Rav Kook was in calling for this approach over 100 years ago — and how urgently we need it today.

In this fourth shiur on Meimor HaDor, we explored Rav Kook’s profound diagnosis of a generation in transition — a generation standing in a liminal space, suspended between worlds. Rav Kook describes his era, and ours, as strangely high yet deeply confused, overflowing with idealism while also wrestling with emptiness and collapse. As the neshamas of the generation rise, the old spiritual structures can no longer contain their light, leaving many — from teenagers at risk to those leaving their communities — searching for something they can’t yet name.

Rav Kook teaches that we cannot enter the Yerushalayim shel Ma’alah until we truly enter the Yerushalayim shel Matah — meaning that lofty souls must find grounding, integration, and a home in the real, concrete world of Torah and mitzvos. Our task is to illuminate a path for them: to offer deeper Torah, more inner light, and spiritual frameworks big enough to hold their greatness. Ultimately, what these souls are seeking has always been hidden within the broad and holy arc of Torah itself.

In this third class on Rav Kook’s Meimor HaDor, we continued exploring his breathtaking reading of our generation — a generation torn between greatness and confusion, light and darkness, trauma and renewal.

We began with Rav Kook’s raw validation of the pain of modern Jewish history: the silence, the shame, the collapse of dignity, and the deep psychic wounds carried by both parents and children. But in this class, we watched Rav Kook make a gentle, powerful turn — from acknowledging the trauma to showing us the first steps of healing.

Rav Kook describes a generation that is paradoxically very low and very high. A generation filled with humility and chutzpah, rebellion and idealism, spiritual thirst and moral frustration. Children embarrassing parents, norms dissolving, confusion everywhere — not because the generation has fallen, but because the souls have risen and the old vessels can no longer contain their light.

We learned how Rav Kook reframes this inner collision as the birth pangs of spiritual evolution, and how to begin moving forward with compassion, dignity, and vision. We also learned a beautiful supporting source in Orot HaTechiyah 39, which deepens this theme of a generation struggling to hold powerful lights in fragile vessels.

A shiur about trauma, healing, inner greatness, and the complex soul of Dor HaGeulah.

In this second shiur of the My Generation series, we continue exploring Rav Kook’s Meimor HaDor — his lament over the emotional collapse and inner defeat of the generation.

Rav Kook describes a world where individuals, families, and communities are wrapped in emotional pain and existential angst, leading to isolation, despair, and even psychosomatic suffering. Yet beneath the surface of this darkness, something sacred is taking shape — a new light beginning to emerge, and new-old souls descending into the world.

The old structures must decay for something more whole to be born. What appears on the outside as disintegration is, on the inside, the beginning of renewal.

We also learn a powerful piece from Orot Yisrael 5:13, where Rav Kook speaks of the birth of a “new Jew,” one who transcends outdated forms to embody a more complete spiritual consciousness.

All of this, he writes, unfolds specifically in Eretz Yisrael, the spiritual ground of transformation.

Topics:

The emotional pain of the generation

Isolation, despair, and psychosomatic suffering

Rebirth through decay and disintegration

“New-old souls” and spiritual evolution

Orot Yisrael 5:13 – The birth of a new Jew in Eretz Yisrael

In this first shiur of the *My Generation* series, we begin exploring Rav Kook’s *Meimor HaDor*, found in *Ikvei HaTzon*.

We discuss the historical context in which Rav Kook was writing and how he saw light emerging from darkness — even in the spiritual confusion of his generation.

Together we learn the prologue to *Ikvei HaTzon*, uncovering why Rav Kook chose this name, and begin the essay with its opening theme: **the great, subconscious pain of the generation.**

Rav Kook teaches that this deep, unspoken pain is not only psychological but cosmic — a pain that transcends language, reaching toward redemption. He speaks to the struggle of our times and even hints to the inner turmoil that will surface near the end of days.

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**Topics:**

* The meaning of *Ikvei HaTzon*

* The hidden light within darkness

* The subconscious pain of the generation

* Why we can’t yet articulate our deepest suffering

* Rav Kook’s vision for the end of days

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For Those Struggling | Rav Kook on Teshuva and the Yamim Noraim by Rabbi Shaya Sussman, LCSW