“Internalization” of knowledge
Hello Rabbi Michi,
In one of your YouTube lessons on faith, in the context of “accepting God” in terms of accepting the yoke of God as king, you talk about Rosh Hashana as a day of accepting God anew in God every year, after in most cases we “forget” about it a little during the year.
In response to a question from one of the class participants, you explain that “return to repentance” exists specifically among those who observe the Torah, who, although they know that God is King and God, have not internalized this knowledge, and therefore the task on Rosh Hashanah is to “internalize” it again.
I wanted to ask:
Although everyone understands from within themselves and from their own lives what internalization is, compared to someone who does not internalize (such as the doctor who smokes, etc.), apparently not everyone knows how to explain exactly what the act of internalization is.
If so, I wanted to ask what your explanation is for this “internalization”?
Are you talking about the effect of knowledge on emotion (?!..), or a certain stage in intellectual understanding?
Are you perhaps talking about the power of “knowledge” spoken of in Chabad teachings, (a mental aspect that connects reason and virtues) that is awakened by “observation”?
After all, this is a person who knows that God is “God” and can even explain it to others. However, he lacks “internalization.” What is it?
You yourself have explained well what internalization is. I don’t know what you expect from me. There are quite a few things we know and yet don’t act on. Internalization is supposed to cause us to act coherently with our own perceptions. It is a combination of intellectual refinement and emotional assimilation, and perhaps also an attempt to overcome impulses that contradict these values.
My question comes from the background that in one of your lessons you explained the commandments of love and fear of God as a commandment based on knowledge only, and you also explained the famous Maimonides in Hilkot Teshuvah 10:3 about loving God as being similar to loving a woman, regarding intellectual knowledge only, without emotion.
Therefore, I understood that in your opinion there is no value for any emotion (I think you also said this).
Now, if you also believe that there is a certain value for the influence of intellectual understandings on emotion, do you think it is possible to interpret the “commandment of fear of God” as a commandment based on intellectual contemplation that leads to internalizing knowledge and feeling a strong inner fear of transgressing the commandments of God, who is God?
Also, do you think it would be correct to interpret Maimonides there as an exhortation ("proper love") or as a commandment to internalize the greatness of God through an intellectual influence on our feeling of love (=internalization through the feeling of love)?
In fact, this is what is explained in the Chabad method.
It is certainly possible to interpret it this way. That is exactly my interpretation. But even for this interpretation, the emotional result is a result and not the essence of the matter. What we have is the intellectual work that generates this emotion. For example, if there is someone without an emotional dimension, he will still be able to do the same work, but the result will not occur for him.
I have written more than once in the past that emotion can be an expression of intellectual work that itself has value.
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer
