It’s Unwise to Consider Yourself Wise

Giving the Creator of the World an Approbation??? 

After several friends in my army unit died, I began to think about the meaning of life, and I came to know the Creator of the World. I became familiar with the Creator long before I became familiar with Judaism. I would speak to the Creator for many hours every day when I was still far from keeping the mitzvot. 

I grew up in a Jewish home, and I knew I was Jewish, but at a very young age my contact with Judaism was severed and Judaism had no meaning for me. When I started to study at the university, I saw myself as being completely equal to all other human beings.  

I am mentioning my sins today to strengthen an important point that is the most fundamental part of Judaism. When I merited, thanks to Hashem’s kindness, to come closer to Judaism and to perform some of the mitzvot, I was still in the grip of mistaken thoughts and opinions, and, stupidly enough, I said to myself: “What I understand, I’ll do; what I don’t understand, I won’t…” 

I was very fortunate that I was talking to Hashem daily, including examining my deeds and thoughts. One day, during the hitbodedut, I looked at my “worldview” of doing only what I can understand. I sat and thought: 

What am I actually doing and thinking?  I am actually thinking that I’m wiser than the Creator. And when I see a mitzvah that feels right to me, I give the Creator of the World an “approbation” and say: “This mitzvah is understandable to me, and therefore it’s a good mitzvah”; but when I don’t understand the Creator, I don’t perform the mitzvah. So, I am actually giving preference to my logic over the Creator’s logic and thereby negating the infinite wisdom of the Creator. What a twisted notion! 

A Private Mount Sinai Revelation 

At that moment, I was fully struck by the recognition that I had been making a fool of myself. For if I believe in the Creator, and believe that He is sublime, lofty and elevated, above this entire world, and certainly beyond my own logic – the wisest thing I can do is to, first, listen to His wisdom. 

I understood that my own understanding was the complete opposite of faith, and was really expressing a mixture of belittling the Creator, false pride, and stupidity, as if I am, so to speak, the wisest of all men and I understand things better than all the tzaddikim who were wise and knew the entire Torah and observed it with temimut (wholeness)… 

And then I just sat and was ashamed of myself. This is a feeling I remember very well – a feeling of deep shame. I was ashamed of my thoughts. So, I decided then that I couldn’t go on like this, and I must make a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree change in my perception, as well as in my actions, of course.  

I didn’t know much then, but at the same time Hashem guided me, in His mercy, to do the simple and correct thing: I bought myself a pocket-sized copy of the book “Kitzur Shulchan Aruch” and carried it around with me. I read from it every day; and everything that I read, I implemented. I shaped all my everyday behaviors according to the laws of halacha that I read about in this book.  

That was my own private “Receiving of the Torah”. 

That was the stage in my life in which I became a Torah-observant Jew…. 

Following the Jewish People 

Over time, when I became familiar with the teachings of Rabbi Nachman of Breslev, I understood in hindsight that the process I had gone through and the conclusion I had reached – was exactly the process that the Jewish people had gone through as well.  

In Egypt the Jewish people were sunk in the forty-nine levels of tum’a (impurity). Not only was their behavior not in keeping with their being descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, but their perception was completely distorted – they engaged in idol-worship, avoda zara – and they received their worldview from sorcery, the wisdom of Egypt – and that was the biggest problem! 

It is very difficult to change people when they are in such a state.  

The first stage of the geula (redemption) was simply to know the Creator. In the Ten Plagues, and mainly in the Splitting of the Sea, the Jewish people saw the hand of Hashem directly and recognized the existence of the Creator; but still, except for two one-time mitzvot – circumcision and Korban Pesach (the Passover sacrifice) – they hadn’t changed anything in their behavior and were still in the grip of so many distorted perceptions! 

In this state they could not receive the Torah, which is a system of laws based on the eternal and infinite wisdom of the Creator. Based on their perceptions and wisdom at that point, the Jews would have rejected all the laws.  

A Fateful Decision 

But having come to know the Creator brought them to a fateful decision. A few days before the Torah was given, Hashem yitbarach offered the Jews the Torah, and said to them: “You saw what I did in Egypt. Do you wish to make a covenant with me, to observe My mitzvot, and become My beloved nation forever?” 

Moshe passes on this offer to the Elders, and they referred the question to all the people. At that moment, Bnei Yisrael, out of an inner holy instinct, understood in the depths of their souls something basic: We must give up all previous wisdom and understanding that we have, and if we have any amount of wisdom and understanding in our heads, we must throw away all our own logic, and accept Hashem’s wisdom simply, without examining or questioning it.  

“And the people answered together, saying: everything that Hashem spoke, we will do.”¹ 

And so, the “deal” was thus made, and the rest is history: Generations upon generations of a nation that have amazed the world with its loyalty, its stubbornness, its wisdom ,and its genius. But everything depended on that understanding, on that “giving up” of one’s own thought processes, and a complete willingness to adapt as a nation and as individuals to the Creator’s will, wisdom, and mitzvot – and that is called temimut. 

No Compromises 

This is what Rabbi Nachman writes in Likutei Moharan: 

“And Yisrael, at the time they were receiving the Torah, had great wisdoms, because the mistake of the avoda zara worshipers in those days was based on wisdoms and great research, as is known. And if Yisrael had not rid themselves of these wisdoms, they would not have received the Torah, because they could have denied everything, chas veshalom, and nothing that Moshe Rabbeinu would have done with them would have helped. Even all the great miracles and signs that he did in front of their eyes would not have helped them, because now too there are heretics who deny the truth due to foolishness and a mistake in their wisdom; but the holy nation of Yisrael saw the truth, and rid themselves of the wisdoms and believed in Hashem and in Moshe, His servant, and that is how they received the Torah.”² 

Rabbeinu’s wording is so unequivocal, because there is no room here for compromises, for half-and-half thinking. When you go to the doctor, you don’t try to understand in five minutes what he has learned in ten years; you just understand that there is someone here who is wiser than you, and you do what he says.  

The Tam is the Wise Son 

The simple message is that the foundation upon which everything rests is being tamim! “You must be wholly loyal to Hashem, your G-d.” The Jewish people have been blessed over the generations with world-renowned geniuses who knew how to assess how many drops of water there are in the ocean, and they could see from one end of the world to the other, and they knew all the secrets of the world and of creation, in the upper and lower realms, and all the secrets of a person’s psyche and its rectification.  

All those role models accepted and observed the Torah wholly. Even more – all their immense wisdom came from their throwing away all their own wisdom and intellect and accepting the infinite wisdom of the Creator.  

In our generation as well, we see the righteous Jews who, in their deep and sharp instinct, not only thirst for emuna and for love of the Creator but feel a need to connect to the Torah practically – to observe the mitzvot, tzitzit and tefillin, Shabbat, kashrut, and family purity. And even if they can’t explain why they feel this need, they don’t have to explain. They know the Creator and recognize the fact that what He, in His wisdom decreed, is certainly the best and wisest thing. 

There is no greater fool than a person who is wise in his own eyes. Even a person who does not consult with people wiser than him is a fool – not to mention someone who decides, based on his limited intelligence, to do without the wisdom of the Creator. And there is no greater wisdom than receiving the wisdom from its source, and that is precisely the point of temimut, which is the acceptance of the Torah back then, and today as well. 

And in the merit of our loyal forefathers 

We will renew the covenant of loyalty  

With the G-d of the earth and the heavens 

And will renew our days as they were in earlier times 

Because He will not withhold good from those who are tamim 

And we will be redeemed soon, forever. 

Editor’s Notes:

¹ Shemot (Exodus) 24:7 

² Likutei Moharan I, 123