Friday, March 6, 2015

You Gotta Be Smart... If you Want To Be Smart

וּבְלֵב כָּל חֲכַם לֵב נָתַתִּי חָכְמָה וְעָשׂוּ אֵת כָּל אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִךָ:
"I have endowed the heart of every wise-hearted person with wisdom"
(Ki Tisa: 31: 6)

What sounds difficult to you about this phrase? For me the question is: Which came first? Were the people tasked with creating the Mishkan wise hearted already? And if so, why did Hashem need to give them wisdom, if they were already wise hearted? And if they wereonly wise after God endopwed them with wisdom, then why are they called "wise hearted" already at the beginning of the verse?

I believe that the answer is simple: If you want to become wise- you need to be wise. Even before one accumulates knowledge s/he needs to carefully craft a plan: Who will I learn from? How will I go about learning in an optimal fashion? And of course the wise-hearted understand at the outset that success is dependent on both his/her strategy as well as God's blessing- so prayer becomes a crucial factor in the plan.

It is in the merit of our being wise about our approach, that we hope to be blessed with the wisdom promised in this verse at a particular time and place, but useful for all of us, in every generation.

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