“You Have to be a Fool to be Wise” – Parshat Devarim: As some of you may already know, my middle son can be, true to form for middle kids, a class clown. At the same time, he is also very curious and asks a lot of questions, which, now that I think about it, may also be another piece of the middle child trying to get attention thing. But the ability to ask questions without fear of looking stupid or foolish is, according to our Torah, actually a great trait, and it is true about anyone who possesses it.
Moses, in this week’s reading, speaks of the help he received from the “people wise and knowledgeable and understanding…” (Dt. 1:13). It is worth noting for us that while there were roles for the hereditary tribal leaders, the leaders that assisted Moses in the day-to-day running of things were chosen on merit, and chiefly for wisdom.
The Rabbis, of course, want to understand what wisdom is exactly. What does it mean to be wise? One of their most famous comments is part of a set of teachings, “who is rich? The one content with what he has. Who is strong? The one who controls his passions. Who is wise? The one who learns from everyone.” This seems at odds with another of their teachings, “the Divine Presence rests on those who are wise, strong [although this could also be “tall” but I don’t want to seem biased] and rich.”
One of the Hasidic rabbis, Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl, explained it as follows, “God doesn’t care about our external, material side. The Divine Presence rests on the one rich enough to be content, strong enough to hold their passions in check, and wise enough to learn from everyone.”
Even if you run the risk of looking foolish in doing so, even if some of your teachers might not seem
“worthy” to everyone else, choose to be wise – like one of the leaders of Israel in the Desert, be one of those people on whom the Divine Presence rests because you now know what it means to be truly wise.
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