Q&A: Eight Collections I:267
Eight Collections I:267
Question
To the Rabbi, hello,
My question is how the Rabbi would explain this passage,
and why, in fact, the Rabbi chose to put it on his site. Thank you, and have a good holiday!
“The greatest deficiency that exists in the character of fear of Heaven, when it is not properly connected to the light of Torah, is that instead of fear of sin, it is replaced by fear of thought. And once a person begins to be afraid to think, he keeps sinking into the mud of ignorance, which takes away the light of his soul, trips up his strength, and darkens his spirit” (Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Eight Collections, I:267)
Answer
I didn’t understand what is unclear here. There are many who think that fear of Heaven requires them not to think, but only to cling to what is accepted, and that’s it. Rabbi Kook writes against this, and that is indeed the main motto of this site.
These words revolve around the saying: “Anyone whose fear of sin precedes his wisdom, his wisdom endures.”
The solution the fools found was to reduce wisdom and increase foolishness, so that fear of sin would always come before wisdom… except that they missed the main point. And the main point is the question of whether the wisdom endures or not…