“The individual and the collective soul, the world soul, the soul of all realms of being cries out like a fierce lioness in anguish for total perfection, for an ideal form of existence, and we feel the pain and it purges us.” (8 Notebooks, 4:1)
“The highest sensibility in the soul of the people of Israel is the quest for universality. The people aspire for this by the very essence of its being, and this affects all existence. The desire for tshuva in its highest form is rooted in this hidden longing.” (5:6)
“The soul of the people of Israel expresses itself in the striving for absolute justice, which, to be effectuated must include the realization of all moral virtues.” (Ibid, 5:7)
“We must liberate themselves from confinement within our private concerns. This pervades our whole being so that all our thoughts focus only our own destiny. This reduces us to the worst kind of smallness and brings upon us endless physical and spiritual distress. It is necessary to raise our thought, will and our basic preoccupations toward universality, to the inclusion of all, to the whole world, to humankind, to the Jewish people, to all existence. This will result in establishing even our private self on a proper basis.
The firmer our vision of universality, the greater the joy we will experience and the more we merit the grace of divine illumination…
The call to be committed always to the principle of universality, to the divine ensemble, where all things their being, is the essence of the soul of the ‘tzaddikim-righteous’ who walk before God and whose delight is in the Creator.” (Ibid 3:147)
“The Torah of Israel clarifies how the existence of the world and human ethics are dependent on each other. It is clear that the improvement of the world is dependent on ethical improvement. This is the essence of the Israelite understanding of the Creator. ” (Ibid, 1:499)
“The realm of mystery tells us- ‘You live in a world full of light and life.
Let us know this great reality, the richness of existence that we always encounter.
Let us contemplate its grandeur, its beauty, its precision and harmony…
In every corner where we turn, we are dealing with realities that have life; we always perform consequential acts, abounding with meaning and with the preciousness of vibrant life.
In everything we do we meet sparks full of life and light, aspiring toward the heights. We help them and they help us…
And everything aspires, longs, yearns, according to a pattern that is adorned with holiness and girded with beauty. For this life of ours is not a meaningless phenomenon.
With the light of Your own presence, You have gifted us, HaShem Elokeynu, with תורת חיים-The Torah of Life.” (Ibid, 2: 343)
