Development of Personal Thoughts:
Part 4 – Personal Struggle – A Sign Of Potential New Idea

In Pinkas Rishon Leyafo 9, Rav Kook writes that at times the person feel lack of contentment with his self, with his growth, it may be because he prepared to develop a new idea, rise to a new level of understanding. His old level of understanding is too limited, too narrow to contain the light that he is on the verge of revealing. When the keilim can not contain the great light in them, they must shatter to allow for greater keilim to come into being, wide enough to contain the new, profound, lights. Chazal tell us that Hashem built worlds and destroyed them. Rav Kook states that the new worlds were more perfected than their predecessors. To bring in the next stage of development, some of the old must fall away. This is why, explains Rav Kook, that when there is a great intellectual “fermentation” (“tsisa”) of ideas, forcing some of the old to seemingly crumble away, we must not fear. Just like a woman suffers in childbirth, our suffering will bring forth great new lights. Every eved Hashem knows very well that more often than not “lifnei gaon – shever”.
At the same time, warns us the Baal haTanya, we must not lose our old madreiga. We are not spiritual anarchists who believe that only with a complete destruction of the old can an improved new world rise. Rise to a new madreiga is an incredible synthesis of old and new, a balance that every eved Hashem must struggle to find.