There is a person who sings the song of the Self. He finds everything, his complete spiritual satisfaction, within himself.
And there is a person who sings the song of the Nation. He steps forward from his private self, which he finds narrow and insufficiently developed. He yearns for the heights. He clings with a sensitive love to the entirety of the Jewish nation and sings with it its song. He shares in its pains, is joyful in its hopes, speaks with exalted and pure thoughts regarding its past and its future, investigates its inner spiritual nature with love and a wise heart.
There is a person whose soul is so broad that it expands beyond the border of Israel. It sings the song of humanity. This soul constantly grows broader with the exalted totality of humanity and its glorious image. He yearns for humanity’s general enlightenment. He looks forward to its supernal perfection. From this source of life, he draws all of his thoughts and insights, his ideals and visions.
And there is a person who rises even higher until he unites with all existence, with all creatures, and with all worlds. And with all of them, he sings. This is the person who, engaged in the Chapter of Song every day, is assured that he is a child of the World-to-Come.
And there is a person who rises with all these songs together in one ensemble so that they all give forth their voices, they all sing their songs sweetly, each supplies its fellow with fullness and life: the voice of happiness and joy, the voice of rejoicing and tunefulness, the voice of merriment and the voice of holiness.
The song of the soul, the song of the nation, the song of humanity, the song of the world-they all mix together with this person at every moment and at all times.
—Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook (1865-1935); OK 2, pp.444-445
And God said, “Let us make the human in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.”
(1) A song of ascents. Of David. How good and how pleasant it is that brothers and sisters dwell together.
(5) Though all the peoples walk
Each in the names of its gods,
We will walk
In the name of the Holy One our God
Forever and ever.
(13) It was You who created my conscience; You fashioned me in my mother’s womb. (14) I praise You, for I am awesomely, wondrously made; Your work is wonderful; I know it very well. (15) My frame was not concealed from You when I was shaped in a hidden place, knit together in the recesses of the earth. (16) Your eyes saw my unformed limbs; they were all recorded in Your book; in due time they were formed, to the very last one of them.
We must continually find the spark of truth in everything. Only then will the light of the world be revealed in its highest form.
--Rav Kook SK 1:216