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A truly free person

Rav Kook wrote:

‘Freedom (cherut) is the elevated spirit by which a person,

and the whole people,

are raised to become faithful to their independent inner selves,

to the image of God that is within themm.’

A truly free person is one who succeeds in realizing their true essence,

in liberating themselves from the bonds of their impulses and material tendencies [which hold themm back], and in connecting to the spiritual self which already exists within them.

This is hinted at in the way in which the Tablets were inscribed:

the Commandments were not written but engraved (charut).

The special quality inherent in engraving stone is that

the writing and the stone are not separate,

but form a single entity;

the letters become part of the stonee.

The Torah is not external to humankind

but an inherent part of the human essence;

thus one who engages in Torah study

is automatically a truly free person.

This is why Moses is described as

‘the servant of God’.

|| Amnon Chaderi, Yeshivat Shilo ||

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A truly free person

Rav Kook on ‘Freedom (cherut)

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Children or Slaves?

Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 10a