Last I heard, R Dov Kook of Tiveria is very unwell.

He’s apparently sedated and on a ventilator after suffering a bad bout of pneumonia. Ventilators never augur good.

This is a prayer the Rav just put out for everyone to say for R Dov Kook’s refua shlaimah:

(Hebrew original below the footnotes).

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Prayer for Am Yisrael to say for: Isser Dov ben Shoshana HaKohen [Rav Dov Kook of Tiveria]

Ribonu shel olam, Who can do anything, and from Whom nothing is withheld.

Send a refuah shleimah [complete healing] in the blink of an eye to the Rabban of all the Children of Israel, HaRav, HaGaon, and the awesome Tzaddik, who no-one else has been like since the creation of the world. And there will not be anyone like him until the end of time, HaRav, HaGaon and HaTzaddik, Isser Dov ben Shoshan HaKohen.

Answer, Hashem!

Please cancel the awful decree that has fallen upon him, because we have nobody who could replace him, and there will never be someone who could replace him, for ever and ever.

And it is said about him, like about Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, that he purifies the city of Tiveria, and he makes it tahor (ritually pure).

And mamash, the whole of Am Yisrael has already stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, because he was Sinai, for all the generations.

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And only in his sole merit will all the residents of the city of Tiveria make complete teshuva.

Like Reish Lakish, in the merit of Rabbi Yochanan, who left all his evil ways.[1] And like Yakum Ish Tzrorot, who in the merit of Rabbi Yochanan the Amora immediately made complete teshuva.

And so, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon[2] said that fi we had been on the Sanhedrin, they would never have sentenced a man to death.

Because immediately when a person would see the face of the True Tzaddik, everyone would make real teshuva.

Like it’s written on the headstone of Rabbi Aharon the Great of Karlin, who merited to bring 80,000 people back in teshuva – the whole of Karlin, to make them into complete tzaddikim.

As it’s written in Likutey Moharan[3]:

Mevakshey panecha Yaakov Sela –

That only the shining face of the Tzaddik, that shines like the sun, this is already enough that the whole of the people of Shechem made real teshuva.

And so, it was forbidden to kill them.[4]

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Reish Lakish was a bandit when he first met R Yochanan, and was taken with his ‘beauty’. R Yochanan promised Reish Lakish that if he would stop being a bandit and would come to learn Torah, R Yochanan would arrange for Reish Lakish to marry his sister. And so it came to pass, that Reish Lakish became R Yochanan’s most beloved student.

[2] See the Gemara, Tractate Makkot 7.

[3] Lesson I: 27. It says there: “[P]eace is attained by way of the concept of ‘Jacob’, who represented the shining of the Countenance, as in, “Jacob’s splendor resembled the splendor of Ada.” (Bava Metzia 84a). This is alluded to in, “Those who seek your Countenance, Jacob.’ (Psalms 24:6).”

[4] Referring to Yaakov’s sons Shimon and Levi, who put the city of Shechem to the sword after the rape and captivity of Dina,  on the third day after the men of the city had circumcised themselves.

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PS: The brother of one of my girl’s good friend, Recanati, just got killed by a drone in Lebanon. Am Yisrael is bleeding from a million cuts at the moment, it’s hard to keep up with the real, ongoing suffering occurring at the moment, in so many ways.

I just wanted to remind us all what the Rav said a few years ago:

Shuvu Banim is the ‘ark’ for our generation.

Take that however you wish.

But, I would encourage you to climb aboard, if you haven’t already.

More stormy waters appear to be ahead.