And God said: Let the earth bring forth grass, herb yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit of its kind, containing their seeds, upon the earth. And it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and trees bearing fruit, which contain their seeds, after its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, a third day.
God said: “Let the ground bring forth...fruit trees bearing fruit of its kind” - the instruction was that just as the fruit is edible, so too the tree should be edible. But the ground did not do this. Instead, “And the ground brought forth trees that produce fruit...” - the fruit is edible, but the tree is not edible.
Rav Kook, Orot HaTeshuvah (Lights of Repentance)
(Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, 1865-1935, was the first Ashkenazic rabbi of the pre-state Jewish community in the British Mandate of Palestine. He was an important thinker and his writings continue to be very influential, particularly in Israel.)
The nature of the earth, the movement of the living from its perfect source, the weakness of the spirit when it is enclosed in a physical frame, brought about the situation in which only the fruit, the final product...would be sensed in its pleasantness and glory, but the wood which bears the fruit, which is necessary for developing the fruit, became coarse and material and lost its taste...
The path of all existence is founded upon teshuvah (return to one's original potential). Entities come into existence as a descent from the Divine realm to worldly realms – a form of descent and of terrible death– to which no descent in this universe, from level to level, from great talent and acquisition to lesser talent and acquisition, can compare...But this descent has the foundation for greater ascent stored within...
Questions for Reflection:
1) Is there a particular aspect of your personality or aspect of your behavior that you feel is not what it should be?
2) Can you describe a time in your life when you felt like you were connecting to your deeper potential?
3) Can you identify one barrier that you have encountered that makes it difficult for you to be the person you most want to be? Do you feel that you have a choice about whether or not to remove that barrier?