In this timely teaching for the Three Weeks (Bein HaMetzarim), Rav Shlomo Katz draws on the words of Rav Kook to reframe what exile really is — and what redemption might look like.

The first tragedy of the 17th of Tammuz wasn’t a military defeat. It was spiritual: the breaking of the Tablets. And it wasn’t accidental. Moshe broke them — deliberately. What does that tell us about the deeper damage that led to the Golden Calf... and to all the tragedies that followed?

Rav Kook writes that the path to redemption begins with teachers “armed with spiritual strength, who do not need the rod of affliction.” Not force. Not fear. But inner truth. Real influence.

In a generation where Torah was received with the hands but not yet engraved on the heart, Rav Shlomo asks: How do we pass down a Torah that connects? How do we build leaders who don’t just enforce — but inspire?

And maybe the most haunting question of all: What does it mean that even Moshe, our greatest leader, had to learn this the hard way?

This shiur opens the gates of Bein HaMetzarim — not just as a time of mourning, but as an opportunity to rebuild how we teach, how we lead, and how we connect.