Monthly Archives: February 2011

Shai Agnon wrote in MeAtzmi El Atzmi:

Rav Kook once asked me to give him [copies of] my books. I replied that I had indeed thought about giving him one or two of them. He said, “I want all of your books, and you intended to give me only some of them?!” I replied, “Your desire is my honor”…

A while later, he saw me and said “I read your works.” All of them?” I asked. “All of them;” he replied, and I want to tell you something. The author of Pri Megadim wrote a small worked entitled Mattan S’charan Shel Mitzvot (‘Reward for Mitzvot’), in which he writes: If a drop of forbidden food falls into sixty times its volume of permissible food, the forbidden drop is nullified in sixty (batel be’shishim). In that case, the permissible food gains from the forbidden one, for there are now sixty-one parts of permissible food [instead of just sixty]. The same is true of your works. Even if some forbidden material ‘falls’ into your books, it is nullified in sixty and becomes permissible. Thus, the permissible material gains from the forbidden.”

[An Angel Among Men – Rav Avraham Yitzcahk Hakohen Kook pg 399 – 400]

Comments:

– This idea is elucidated in the audio series “Exploring the Role of Art and Creativity. Through the Teachings of Rav Kook – Art and Eros”. 

– I believe I have read a similar quote attributed to the Lubavitcher Rebbe (although I cannot find a source, if anyone knows please leave a comment).

– Although seemingly a radical idea, it might perhaps provide guidance in terms of our exposure to art, literature and secular culture in dealing with those "grey" areas where the lines of inappropriateness are sometimes crossed.