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.
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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, 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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#RavKook #MyGeneration #MeimorHaDor #IkveiHaTzon #Orot #SpiritualGrowth #JewishThought #Emunah #Chassidus #ShayaSussman #PnimiusHaTorah
YouTube Description
In this shiur on Orot HaTeshuva, Rav Kook teaches that the healthiest state of the soul is teshuva. Teshuva is not about becoming someone new—it’s about peeling back the extra, external layers and returning to who we already are at our core.
We’ll explore:
How teshuva is the most natural expression of the soul
Why the parts of ourselves that feel broken aren’t our true essence
The teaching that teshuva precedes the world
How there is a tikkun for every sin
Join us to rediscover teshuva as the simple, natural return to a healthy soul.
In this shiur, we explore Rav Kook’s profound teaching that true teshuva begins with self-knowledge. 🌱
We need to have a sense of self in order to draw close to Hashem.
When we bypass our personalities and souls, we fall into false teshuva.
Remember: at our core, we are truly a neshama.
Every person has a Nekudah Tova — a unique point of goodness that cannot be lost.
By discovering our true self, we uncover our soul’s light — and this is the foundation of real teshuva. Rav Kook teaches that when individuals return to themselves, the world is uplifted, paving the way toward geulah and Mashiach.
✨ Join us as we journey into Orot HaTeshuva and discover how finding yourself is the first step in finding God.
What does Rav Kook really think about nationalism? Is secular Zionism just an empty vessel—or part of the Divine plan?
In this shiur, we explore Rav Kook’s bold and nuanced vision: how nationalism without Hashem becomes distorted and dangerous, but religion without a national container becomes self-absorbed and disconnected from reality. Rav Kook challenges both camps and offers a powerful third path—where body and soul, land and light, vessels and spirit come together.
We also dive into how distorted expressions of nationalism still serve a holy purpose in the unfolding story of redemption. And I share a personal story about attending a settler festival with my wife—witnessing a type of Jew that hasn’t existed in 2,000 years.
This is not your typical take on Zionism or religion. It’s Rav Kook’s deep spiritual map for national revival, techiya, and Geulah in our homeland.
At the Nach Daily book launch, Shaya Sussman shared a personal and powerful message about failure, redemption, and the deep relevance of Navi in our lives. From failing through school—and even getting a 32 in Navi—to launching a sefer that brings Navi to life, Shaya reminded us that second chances aren’t the exception; they’re the rule.
This is the story of Am Yisrael: We were in our land. We lost it. And now—against all odds—we’re back. Living in Eretz Yisrael today is living inside a promise fulfilled, a living testament to Divine mercy and faithfulness.
Shaya spoke about how every Sefer in Navi is not just a historical document, but a spiritual stencil overlaying our current moment. Nevuah wasn’t just a past experience—it was the awareness that Hashem is with us. And one day, we’ll meet the Neviim again and recognize how each of us was part of the story of second chances—for ourselves, our people, and the world.
Hashem created the world with light and vessels—a delicate balance between spiritual ideals and the structures that hold them. But what happens when that balance is lost?
In this shiur, we explore how Hashem’s pristine light descends into the mire and muck of this world—enclothed in form, even in darkness—not by accident, but by design. The vessel may look broken, the light may seem hidden, but the descent is purposeful.
We unpack Rav Kook’s powerful warning: when nationalism is severed from its holy source, it becomes a destructive force. But when the nation becomes a vessel for Hashem’s light, nothing is more sacred. The ultimate vision is Am Yisrael as a "goy kadosh", a priestly nation that channels Divine presence into the world.
This class dives deep into the Kabbalistic and spiritual framework of light and form, ideal and reality, showing how nationalism can either reflect the highest holiness—or collapse into darkness, depending on whether the light is present within the vessel.
What do we do when life feels upside down—when nothing is k’seder, and the world within and around us feels like it's unraveling?
In this experiential shiur, we explore Rebbe Nachman’s teaching in Likutei Moharan Tinyana 82 on the battle between k’seder (order) and shelo k’seder (disorder), and how that inner war mirrors the emotional and spiritual chaos so many of us feel today. We then turn to Likutei Halachos, Hilchos Tefillin, for a deep perspective on chizuk, patience, and the hidden redemptive power of suffering.
Rav Kook’s Orot HaTeshuvah 15:10 reminds us that the soul is always whole. When we forget our deeper nature—individually or nationally—we descend into chaos. But remembering who we truly are realigns us with Hashem’s will and opens the gates of redemption.
The class concludes with a short, guided mindfulness practice to help us return to a state of inner k’seder, reconnect with the soul’s quiet strength, and walk forward with more clarity, calm, and Emunah.
In this shiur, we explore Daniel Chapter 2—the vision of the great statue representing the empires of history, shattered by a humble stone—and ask: What does this prophecy teach us about today’s war, the role of Am Yisrael, and the unfolding of redemption in our time?
Drawing on Rav Kook’s Orot HaMilchama, we dive into the spiritual psychology of war—not as chaos alone, but as a deep awakening of the soul. War shakes the world, but it also shakes us inwardly, revealing the cracks in false structures and the hidden light within.
We also explore how Hashem guides history through both miracle (nes) and nature (teva)—what Rav Kook calls or haganuz, the concealed light—and how the long arc of Jewish history is filled with Divine orchestration, even when it’s hard to see.
This class weaves together prophecy, psychology, Rav Kook, and current events to offer a deeper understanding of where we are, what’s breaking, and what’s being born.
From the series: The Road Less Traveled – A Healing Journey Toward Eretz Yisrael and Ourselves
In the wake of October 7th, something ancient stirred in the collective soul of Am Yisrael—fear, grief, longing, awakening. Galut and Geulah are no longer abstract ideas. They are personal. They are embodied. They live inside our nervous systems and conversations.
In this first class, we explore how the physical exile of the Jewish people reflects a deeper spiritual and psychological exile—within ourselves. Drawing on Rav Kook, the Vilna Gaon, Yechezkel’s vision of the dry bones, Viktor Frankl, and Internal Family Systems (IFS), we uncover a powerful framework for healing:
🕊 Exile as disconnection from soul, meaning, and purpose
🌱 Return as the act of restoring light to our vessels—nationally and personally
🌍 Eretz Yisrael not just as a place, but as a living soul-bond that reconnects us to who we truly are
We ask:
What happens to a people—and a person—when cut off from their source?
What does healing look like when Torah, identity, and land are reunited?
Join us on this journey of spiritual return—back to self, back to soul, back to the land.
What happens when our highest spiritual ideals descend into the messiness of real life? In this shiur, we explore Rav Kook’s profound teaching on the tension between the soul of nationalism—its pure, redemptive vision—and the body that carries it: flawed systems, politics, and human limitation.
Drawing from the opening of Zeronim: Nishmas HaLe'umiyut v’Gufah, we unpack the mystical process of light descending into vessels, the shattering of form, and the sacred work of re-integrating spirit into structure. This is not only about national life—it’s about each of us.
This class touches on Kabbalah, psychology, and Rav Kook’s visionary Torah to guide us in how to hold brokenness without losing the dream, and how to begin healing the gap between what is and what could be.
In this week’s Rav Kook shiur, we journeyed into a radically trusting approach to chinuch—one that sees the child not as a problem to be fixed, but as a soul already whole. Drawing from Zeronim, Orot HaKodesh (Chochmas HaKodesh II), and the War of Worldviews, we explored how manipulative parenting—even when masked as guidance—can distort the deeper mission of education: to honor the divine spark within each child.
Rav Kook teaches that all of life, even secular wisdom, is rooted in kedusha, awaiting its return to Source. This expansive vision reframes how we relate not only to our children, but to the world itself—as a vessel of Torah waiting to be revealed.
In anticipation of Shavuos, when "hakol modim ba’inan lachem"—all agree the Torah must be made personal—we reflected on how the Torah is not limited to the Beis Midrash, but embedded in the very fabric of creation. Education, then, becomes an act of uncovering that Torah—within the world, and within the soul of the child.
In this inspiring shiur, we explore Rav Kook’s fearless vision of chinuch—an education that uplifts, expands, and trusts the soul of every Jewish child. Rather than shrinking from the world in fear, Rav Kook teaches that we must raise broad souls who can face complexity with emunah, curiosity, and rooted strength.
🔹 Rav Kook (Shmoneh Kevatzim 2:126) writes that a truly expansive soul should study other religions and philosophies—not to assimilate, but to redeem the nitzotzos, the holy sparks within them.
🔹 The Rambam (Hilchos Melachim 11) explains that Christianity and Islam are part of Hashem’s plan to spread monotheism.
🔹 Rebbe Nachman (Likutey Moharan 36:2) shows that one can even find Hashem in the languages of the nations—kol lashon yesh bo nitzotz Eloki.
This class is an invitation to teach from trust, not fear, and to raise children who feel deeply connected to Yiddishkeit—not suffocated by it.
✨ A must-listen for educators, parents, and seekers who believe in the light within every soul—and every corner of the world.
In this shiur, we journey into Rav Kook’s powerful critique of a common religious impulse — the attempt to package Judaism into neat, rigid systems. Rav Kook challenges us to stop reducing Torah into something small and manageable, and instead open ourselves to the vast, living truth it holds. We spoke about the need for deep spiritual principles — like gravity — that are both specific and expansive, real enough to explain large swaths of reality while exposing what’s false. Unlike idol worship, which often grasps only partial truths, Rav Kook invites us into a broader, truer world of Emunah — one that can contain it all. This is not just a new idea, but a paradigm shift in how we understand Judaism, faith, and light.
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.
