Question

Hello. Since I don't advocate for any particular path, but rather for truth, the figure of Monsieur Chouchani intrigues me. Extraordinary things have been said about him, in relation to his generation and in general. I collect and order books and gather whatever I can, but I still haven't seen anything about his methods of learning from the inside. Elie Wiesel said about him: "At his side I learned much about the dangers of language and reason, about the drives of the sage, and also of the madman, about the mysterious path of thought through the centuries, about doubt by way of thoughts." Shalom Rosenberg brought a brilliant remark in his name: "We have five fingers on our hand: thumb, forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, and little finger. The outstretched thumb stands at a ninety-degree angle to the forefinger, as if to tell us of the ninety-degree gap between the thumb, which symbolizes reality, and the forefinger, which symbolizes thought. The middle finger, the third and tallest finger, is language; it is taller and broader than thought, and sometimes excessively so. The next finger is the ring finger, which points to the great frugality one must adopt with regard to writing down thoughts. And the little finger, the smallest of all, points to extreme frugality with regard to publication." In one story it is told that he lunged at someone who touched his writings. And in another story it is told that he did not allow people to write down his words. It's easy to understand that he had an approach that perhaps hints at and explains more about the way Jewish thought developed throughout history. Writings contain hidden things, including in the modes of thinking and learning. The writings always had a more mysterious cast than appears on the surface. Have you heard of him? And if so, what do you think: did he follow his unusual path because there was really something to it? Or did he have other motives for his own sake, and it's not merely accidental that no books by him entered the canon?