Here’s a little controversial, mildly triggering guide on increasing your chances of acquiring genuine real wisdom on any given issue or field of knowledge.

Kabbalah has very precise terminology that embraces everything a person needs. No two terms are ever the same. Since Hebrew is the holy language of wisdom of the Torah, it does not have unnecessary words, though they might be connected and understood one from another.

The Zohar explains that Wisdom (Sephira of Chokhmah) is built upon and vests itself in understanding (Sephira of Binah). Binah is essentially gathering knowledge and seeing how each piece of information works. Chokhmah is connecting them to form new, more powerful ideas.

The fact that wisdom (the male aspect) vests itself in understanding (the female aspect) gives us many insights.

Wisdom requires understanding in order to be grasped. After understanding what a car can do, one can begin to learn how to drive it. And, of course, one cannot know that you can drive a car on the highway if one doesn’t know what a car is in the first place. Driving a car, while it might sound like a silly thing, is filled with understanding, though the wisdom is relatively simple to grasp.

The nature of real wisdom

Chokhmah by its nature is very elusive. It can easily be lost, such as when a person becomes angry or stops learning.

King Shlomo said:

כָּל זֹה נִסִּיתִי בַחָכְמָה אָמַרְתִּי אֶחְכָּמָה וְהִיא רְחוֹקָה מִמֶּנִּי.

“All this I tried with wisdom, I said I would become wise, but it’s far from me.”

Acquiring wisdom is a lifelong pursuit that requires consistent effort and an open mind.

It involves gaining knowledge (Binah) and experience through a variety of sources, such as reading, learning from mentors, and engaging in self-reflection. It also requires the ability to apply critical thinking, discernment, and empathy to situations.

Then one needs to connect these disparate parts to generate new, greater ideas.

Some pitfalls that can show up when acquiring real wisdom

I have lost a lot of time debating “experts”, “authorities” and misguided people on the health scam we just went through for the past 3 years. The information is available online and anyone that connects it (and “wisen” up) will see it for what it is.

The good part of Internet is that we can learn almost everything online we want, many times for free even. Though a lot of science is corrupt and has been used for evil ends, a lot of is benign and can help Avodat Hashem.

The problem comes when certain idiots, willfully ignorant, or deranged individuals think they own a certain field of knowledge and call themselves “representatives of science”. I have now lost respect for much of the “established science” and its “prophets”, simply because I categorically found them out to be false. I will do a more thorough post on my discoveries soon b’ezrat Hashem.

If you are interested in learning something deeply, keep in mind that:

1. You are completely misguided, uninformed, and/or poorly informed
2. The “experts” and “authorities”…
   • Don’t know anything about it, or have a skewed view of the issue
   • Are almost entirely or solely motivated by money or other vested interests
   • Got it all wrong, or arrived at the wrong conclusions, despite their best intentions
   • Are complete idiots
   • Are giving you a limiting and/or misleading scope of knowledge, not covering all the parts or directing you to a certain conclusion (see next item)
3. The issue is more complex, nuanced, difficult, made of many parts (maybe even from other fields of knowledge), and requires a long time of study and contemplation to be properly understood.
4. You may not have the necessary intellect to properly understand it. And that’s ok. Move on.
5. You need willingness, diligence, and an open mind and heart to thoroughly understand it because true wisdom in that issue or field is perforce non-verbal and transcends words.
6. Knowing the truth about this issue or field of knowledge will make you look like a fool in the eyes of others.

Remember to keep yourself happy as the guy below, because happiness opens up channels of wisdom and gives you a plethora of health benefits for free.

Being happy is being wise because we all have reasons to be happy no matter what comes.

There’s always something to thank Hashem for.

A wisdom paradox exists: “The more you know, the more you don’t know that you don’t know”.

Meaning, even after you thoroughly examine an idea, you may be left with the feeling that there’s so much more to learn.

This is because, after reaching the top of a mountain, you are able to see there are many more, greater mountains to climb.

That’s why, a sure-tell sign that you are progressing is feeling humble and inadequate in giving an opinion due to your perceived “lack of understanding”.

If you feel like that, that’s a great sign, keep going!

And learn not only knowledge but learn how to learn as well.

Remember that absolute knowledge belongs to God, we only have approximations.

But the truth, nonetheless, feels and resonates as truth.