Shlomo Wolbe's radical thinking

Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe z"l (1914-2005) was a radical thinker. He was born into a secular family in Berlin, became a ba'al teshuvah in college, spent World War II in Sweden, and immigrated to Israel in 1946. His brilliant insights leap out at you from every page of his writings.

Most of his books, including the classic Alei Shur, have not been translated into English. I recently opened "Sefer Da'at Shlomo: Ma'amarei Ge'ulah, Purim & Pesach." 

We make free choice a cornerstone of the practice of Judaism, yet Rabbi Wolbe speaks of ge'ulah (redemption) as a state of mind where free choice is eliminated since we have no option other than to do the right thing, to do good. Moshiach will be greater than the prophets since he will show us that "from free choice itself we need to be redeemed, in being compelled to do good, as is appropriate and fitting for someone who lives in the world of the Holy One blessed be He." 

Rabbi Wolbe provides a loophole for those of us still in the grips of our yetzer. If we "yearn for the days of Moshiach and rejoice at the thought that it would be best if our yetzer were nullified, this thought itself will assist us in being saved from our yetzer even now."


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