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Wisdom cries out
in public, she raises her voice in the streets. PART ONE Ignorance is a contagious disease. Today all too many believe that ignorance is bliss, and what they do not know or believe does not exist and therefore cannot harm them. Can one stand in front of a coming train and not be hit? Can one jump from a high building and not fall? Can one point a loaded gun at one’s head, pull the trigger and expect not to be shot? We all know the answers to these questions. We say that only an idiot would stand in front of a moving train, jump off a building or shoot oneself in the head. Yet, we also all know the sad truth, as offensive as it is to say, we all live in a world that is full of idiots, foolish people who endanger themselves in so many different ways that it is impossible to count. Our human ability to think is a blessed gift from Heaven. As human beings, we have very profound, in-depth abilities of thinking and analysis, far beyond any other known species on earth. Yet, at the same time as our minds are capable of such great things, they are also capable of such stupid things. Who has not experienced the great power of human imagination and rationalization? We can delude ourselves into believing in the rationality and correctness of anything we choose. We can twist and turn the most simplest of clear realities and turn them into warped and perverted things. We can literally turn our world upside-down. As intelligent as we are, there is something within us that sometimes makes us think or act like fools. While we believe that we can turn our world upside-down, we fail to recognize the consequences or our actions. We are in fact not really changing the world; we are merely changing the way we choose to look at it. Herein lies human arrogance. We believe that if we look at the world upside-down that it has indeed changed and therefore operates in accordance to how we now view things. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If we decide to call up down and down up, this decision of ours will certainly not effect the laws of gravity. You can believe all you want that down is up and up is down, yet if you decide to test your newfound beliefs by jumping off a high building, you will certainly discover that the laws of nature have not changed all because your perception of them has changed. You will pay the price for your incorrect perceptions of reality. Not for naught was the forbidden fruit in Eden called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The problem in Eden was not so much the eating of the forbidden fruit of Knowledge. Adam and Eve could have first eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Life, then they could have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge without any harmful affects. Yet, knowledge first, before Life, brought with it death. Without the fruit of the Tree of Life, which is the Torah power of moral discernment, knowledge brings with it both good and evil. Without the fruit of the Tree of Life, one does not have the ability to discern between what is helpful to one and what is harmful. Knowledge without morality can justify anything; it can make the bad look good and the good look bad. Life without Torah morality can turn even the most intelligent of individuals into the greatest of fools. PART TWO... Wisdom can properly be called “street smarts” because it is learned along the highways and byways of life. Wisdom is acquired through experience, not books. When one pays attention to life and learns lessons about the real way things are, not the way some people believe they should be; this is wisdom. Life is not a puzzle whose pieces all fit nicely together. Life is like flowing river, one never knows what lies up ahead around the bend. Wisdom teaches one to be cautious and to be prepared for anything. Wisdom goes with the flow, it allows life to unfold, and one unfolds along with it. Wisdom never tries to squeeze a square peg into a round hole. Wisdom allows a square to be a square and a circle to be a circle. This all might sound like simple common sense, yet as the pasuk says, “wisdom cries out in the streets.” That which should be common sense to everyone has unfortunately become very uncommon. Wisdom is the proper expertise of what to do, how to do it and when it should be done. Wisdom may rightly be called intuition or instinct. We all have this within us, some more than others. How much wisdom we have depends on whether or not we choose to listen to the inner voice of conscience, the Living Torah, or to the external voices of rationalization from others outside us. Intuitively we all know that round pegs belong in round holes, and square pegs in square holes. Yet, the voices of external rationalization do not wish to be limited and hindered by what they consider to be the illogical demands of natural law. Those who disconnect from Living Torah and the inner voice of conscience have no moral compass to navigate them through life. As such, they waste their lives and energy hammering squares into round holes demanding that they fit, and puzzled why they have such a hard time. The problem with listening to others at the expense of one’s inner wisdom is the inherent danger in all external knowledge. It can be twisted and turned upside-down. We have no inner compass to direct us how to interpret that which is outside of us. Therefore, external knowledge has to come from a trusted and faithful source, or otherwise how can it be trusted? The only way for one to discern the good fruit of knowledge from the bad is by the inner conscience of the fruit of the Tree of Life, which is Living Torah wisdom. Wisdom rises from a heart that bonds with Torah. One’s moral conscience guides one through the maze of information and knowledge that our world offers. Knowledge can be both good and bad. Only Torah provides one with discernment to distinguish between the two. Torah is wisdom; wisdom is Torah. One who takes Torah to heart finds awakening of the soul, and true awareness in the mind. The inner Voice of Torah conscience is as clear as one shouting out in public. One who is listening will hear. Yet, the public has many voices shouting all at once. The public is a place of noise and confusion. One must then retreat to the silence within, to discern the voice in the marketplace and recognize it amongst the many other competing voices. One who hears the inner Voice of Torah conscience within the recesses of one’s heart will hear the wisdom in it. Ones behavior will prove if one’s has embraced wisdom or foolishness.
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Yeshivat Lev Torah -
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