And if faith is neither intellect nor emotion, “but rather the most fundamental self-revelation of the essence of the soul,”
does that make the sentence any clearer?

Obviously. Now everything is clear. 🙂

The fact that things sound detached and incomprehensible says nothing about whether their content is true…
Instead of approaching the words humbly and trying to rise to the perspective of a tremendous thinker like Rabbi Kook of blessed memory (and many others like him), and to understand what he really means, we remain at the level of our current education (which in my yard is about as high as the grass, and mine is synthetic) and hand out grades to him.
That’s intellectual shallowness and arrogance.
And I do not mean to claim that we must always accept the words of those greater than us simply because they came out of their mouths. Absolutely not.
But if we stubbornly entrench ourselves in our own understandings and dismiss anything that sounds airy and irrelevant to us just because the language is like that—this is no way to make progress in life.
Think. But don’t forget to listen.

I don’t know where you’re inferring such things about me from.
A few years ago, when my simple faith began to crack, and I couldn’t manage to find myself a new faith,
I at least tried to investigate the nature of that simple faith.
Did it stem from some knowledge that I once knew and forgot? Is it one of my soul’s inner powers? And if so, what does that mean? And do I recognize the legitimacy of that power among the soul’s faculties? And what happens when that power suddenly stops functioning? Does Rabbi Kook have some message here for the simple believer? Or דווקא a statement for the believer who examines and clarifies?
And so when, in Rabbi Sabato’s new book, he simply quotes this sentence without expanding on it, without deepening it, without explaining what it means, it arouses anger in me.
Anger at educators who do not delve deeply into the concept of faith, and especially at my rabbis from the illustrious Birkat Moshe Yeshiva.

And with that I identify with you completely. I study in a “Kooknik” yeshiva, and no one sees more than I do that many of the teachers there speak in this lofty language, and I’m not sure they understand the meaning of the things coming out of their mouths.
But one has to distinguish between the superficiality of the students and the depth that certainly exists in the educator (Rabbi Kook of blessed memory, for the sake of this discussion).
I don’t accept that annoying phenomenon of rote recitation that you spoke about. But I also don’t accept the childish conclusion that apparently Rabbi Kook too is speaking in codes and hot air.
I don’t let my rabbis off easy; I put them on the spot. I ask: what is holiness? What is soul? What is being? What are these sentences that right now sound to me like nothing more than some imagined jumble of words?
I start from the assumption that maybe (just maybe) there is something there that I still haven’t managed to understand, and I work with all my might and honesty to understand. After I’ve done that work and managed to reflect this deep/detached content they’re saying in my own language, clearly and precisely, only then can I decide whether I accept it or not. But not before.
And by the way, my comments weren’t directed specifically at you. I enjoy the nonsense here on the site, but the arrogance I described earlier is screaming from every corner.

I’d be glad to hear (read) what the Rabbi thinks about what’s being said here.

What I understand is that the Rabbi is claiming that faith is the soul’s connection to the Holy One, blessed be He, a kind of natural connection, like “And he brought up Hadassah” — Mordechai raised Hadassah and she became part of his household. I can feel the connection or not, I can understand it or not, but the connection exists regardless. A son is a son, whether he is aware of it or not.
However, I don’t know of a source for such a definition, perhaps in books of Kabbalah.
Maimonides understood faith more as knowledge, and intellectual knowledge.

If I may add to Kfir’s words, it seems to me that we can also add here the concept of intuition, natural trust: I look at the world and feel that “there is something here”; the world is not an empty vessel, it has soul and meaning (and the proof is that I work so hard to find that meaning). Even if I do not fully know, and never will be able fully to know, what exactly that “something” is. This intuition and basic trust constitute an indication of the existence of the connection Kfir spoke about—it stems from the “essence of the soul,” from the depths of our consciousness.
You could include this within “intellect,” since all axioms are like this in a certain sense. But it seems to me that in faith, the gap between it and ordinary modes of thinking is much more pronounced. What is clear is that the Rabbi’s intention is that faith does not stem from analysis of a certain phenomenon and the like, but from a primary and basic human awareness.
It would be interesting to hear whether I’ve succeeded in bringing the ideas a bit closer to the intellect and the heart…

*that the Rabbi’s intention

Puzzling things. After all, our forefather Abraham was the greatest heretic of his time.
Faith has its root in idolatry.

Intellect too can be a root of idolatry. The question is whether you know how to use it…
And so too, of course, with the power of faith.

The opposite. Through intellect one detaches from that idolatry that faith pulls a person toward.

Well, what can I do with such a decisive statement… If you say so, apparently you know…
Just an important clarification—when I say “faith,” I don’t mean believing anything some guy with a beard says. In fact, at least in my description there is no connection at all between faith and believing someone else; on the contrary, it is a person’s inner listening only to himself. I don’t know whether that’s what you understood from me or not; in any case, it’s important to me to clarify.

What is so interesting about a person listening to his own stupidity?
And what is the difference between believing yourself and believing someone else?
And it has already been said: “Do not trust yourself until the day of your death.”

So it’s not clear what connection this whole discussion has to Judaism.

Right, because believing the whims of your own intellect… that is certainly Judaism. Listen a bit to what people today are saying about human thought and its “objectivity.”

Of course I don’t mean to throw out the intellect, but placing trust in yourself is a basis for both intellect and faith. To exactly the same degree, perhaps with a certain advantage for faith (assuming you really examine and clarify it properly).

Nadav, about that too it is said: “And do not rely on your own understanding.”
Why do you need so much to believe in yourself? You were only just born, and in another moment you’re gone. What’s with all this excitement about the self?

In the end I have to choose some way of life. So I do the best I can…

By the way, in my eyes this “best I can” is very significant. But even if it’s not all that significant, it changes nothing for our purposes. You have to choose something, and it’s better to do it in the best possible way than… well, I’m not sure what the other option even is.

Nadav. Where did you see in my words anything about not doing your best?

What I saw in your words was an unclear and unfounded prioritization between intellect and faith (or, as I tried to present it—inner listening to my most basic intuitions, the feeling that the world is not empty of meaning). I didn’t understand why you call this idolatry, “a person listening to his own stupidity,” and other such compliments, while giving that enormous credit and absolute control.
In my view, of course, there is no contradiction between them, but you wrote that there is—so why believe in this and not in that?
And as is well known, the local authority here has elaborated at length in his books on the fact that all analytics are based on a person’s initial intuition (axioms); see there, and this is not the place for it.

I don’t know what “basic intuitions” are. By the very nature of intuition, it simply bursts forth, that’s it. It pops up. What is there to listen to? And in general, intuitions based on lack of study and knowledge don’t carry particularly much weight.
After a person studies a lot, he develops the ability to identify incorrect things very quickly.

Anything that does not stem from intellect is at the intelligence and sophistication level of a monkey. And that is how it should be treated.

And if this (“all analytics are based on a person’s initial intuition”) were true, then the analytic disciplines would have developed already hundreds of thousands of years ago.
And not only that, but every person would develop all the analytic disciplines. And not only that, but he would do so even in his youth.
And since that does not happen, it means there is no such initial intuition here, but rather a late and sophisticated development. Analytics is based on criticism. On casting doubt. On clarification.

This is a long discussion. Indeed, the distinction between intuition and passing emotion, and its relation to analytics, criticism, and skepticism, require clarification and grounding. You are warmly invited to look at Rabbi Michael’s books, especially Two Wagons and a Hot-Air Balloon (perhaps Rabbi Michael himself would be willing to refer to something more concise). And you’re also welcome to contact me directly at my email: nadavbloch55@gmail.com