“I am in the midst of the exile”
Rav Kook uses a line from Ezekiel, who received prophesy during his exile in Babylon, as the basis for the reflection that our inner "I" is found in exile.
Characteristic of all of Rav Kook's teachings is the view of the people as a unified national organism, a national personality. Hence he stresses the parallel between the revelation of the "I" of the individual and of the community (the people).
"Its own": that is, the revelation of holiness and purity in its own soul, not introduced from outside.
"Within it": the more holiness and purity a person or society has, the more supernal light it can receive. Real holiness is linked to the realization of one's own divine nature at the individual and national level.
The serpent personifies the inner passions of the soul, distinct from a person's true essence. In the Garden of Eden, it was still possible to separate these inner passions from the essence of the person; when the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was consumed, these passions entered the person, and it became much more complicated to differentiate them from the self.
In accordance with this archetype, every sin constitutes the loss of one's true essence.
As Israel, both as an individual and as a national entity, draws its "I" from the divine essence, in bowing to false idols it betrays itself.
This refers to the Midrash, according to which it was originally intended that the earth would produce "the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind" (Genesis 1:11), such that the tree itself should have been edible as fruit, but the earth "willfully" misbehaved, creating trees "yielding fruit" (Genesis 1:12), on which only the fruit was edible, rather than the tree. Thus the earth's sin preceded human's sin, and the earth was punished together with the humans when they were banished from the garden: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake... Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee" (Genesis 3:17 - 18).
That is, the earth wanted to achieve faster results and so put everything into the fruit, rather than the tree, creating a situation that was unstable, and leading to destruction and the fall.
This refers to the Midrash, according to which God originally intended to create two lights of equal size ("And God made two great lights" (Genesis 1:16)), but the moon complained that two kings could not share a crown, for which it was immediately reduced in size. This is why the Torah continues, "the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night."
That is, pedagogues are concerned only with the transfer of knowledge to the student, rather with developing their "I."
A person who has no (developed) self cannot come to know the world. (Knowledge of the world is based on the relationship "I - He.")
A person who has no (developed) self cannot enter into a dialogue with God (which is the relationship "I - You").
These lines from Lamentations emphasize that the Messiah does not come from without; he is the embodiment of the inner development of the Jewish people, its immanent essence, "the breath of our nostrils." (In Lamentations, this refers directly to Zedekiah, who was king of Israel at the time of the destruction of the First Temple, but at the same time it explains an important aspect of the idea of the Messiah.)
That is, the religious quest is not carried out through denial of self, or submission to an external power, but through the realization of one's own potential.
To know is not to receive external information; it is the creation and activation of connection within oneself. For this reason, knowledge is developed only through the development of the "I." When we find and purify our "I," we become able to know God, who has led us from Egypt, from (internal) slavery to freedom.