The research and admissions experience
There is a beautiful passage in Ein Ayah (Shabbat 4:7) that talks about methods for resolving doubts:
(Shabbat 44:2): ” My father said to him, ‘I have brought a Torah scroll and a speech to my right. Who did not say, Rabbah bar bar Hana, said Rabbi Yochanan, they did not move from there until they brought a Torah scroll and a speech. ‘”
There are three ways to resolve any doubt: Kabbalah, research, and experience. Where experience cannot clarify our question for us, research will come to our aid, spreading its rays of light in its near and far paths, all according to the subject. And where research has also created itself and cannot bring us to the promised shore, the faithful Kabbalah will appear to us from the secret of these on the straight, to express to us the sharpness of the north and the wonders of wisdom. But God forbid that we should use the power of the north, since it is in our power to reveal the source of our knowledge by a visible power, therefore we should not turn to conceptual research where we have simple experimental clarity. And we have also learned from this that we should not cease investigating everything that our research will lead us to, because what can be safely reached by one power, the Lord of all souls does not allow the use of another power in its essence.
Indeed, the sufficiency of the words of Torah is esteemed by us, either from the very knowledge of them, or from the effort itself, which leads us to strive more in the work of Torah. Therefore, we must be careful, without saying that, since striving in oneself is a worthy goal, why should we seek easy ways such as the way of experience? Let us delve into the heavy work of logical search. This is a passing argument, and there are those who may argue that since this good is the heritage of a craftsman and the faith of the sages, therefore we should accept the solution in Kabbalah. Indeed, neither one nor the other will be justified, because only where the experimental truth is not right before us, then will the fruit of benefit come from striving to seek advice from afar, and then the effort itself is excellent, and every wise-hearted person will understand that there is a divine secret here, which has left this work of study to this chapter and these individuals. But when there is room to arrive at what is sought through experience, the divine counsel here left no way for the idea to be influenced by the power of doubt, which would come only from weakness of hand and laziness. Therefore, even if a person says to use this in the way of research, he will not succeed, and the intellectual branches that will come from it will not be planted on the streams of the waters of the Torah of truth. Therefore, when the intellect operates its activity in a constant process, it is not appropriate to follow anything, so that it does not build its drawings on a shaky foundation, but rather to clarify them with that clarification that is prepared for it according to its matter. Therefore, here is where experience can clarify the question, for the days of the Torah scroll and the right hand, and you will not say that time is not available for such difficult experimental work, and in any case we will use the methods of hypothesis and theoretical research, not so our two, they did not move from there until they brought the Torah scroll and the speech, to show the favorability of the event that brought the certain experimental clarification, and to show that it is not permissible for the intellect to engage in images that were not created for it, since there is a clear and evident, “The sayings of the Lord are pure sayings, pure silver clearly poured into the earth.”
I wanted to ask why it’s not worth relying directly on acceptance instead of experience? I understood his arguments against the research, but acceptance is simply an experience that previous people did before me and commented to me – why can’t you trust it?
(The truth is that the passage also reminded me a bit of your criticism against armchair research 🙂 )
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