If you devote your life to studying the stars; if you envelop yourself in the observation of their movements; if you focus all of your intellectual power on their intricate positions, you will be an amazing astronomer.
You are what you learn. It's very straight forward: study medicine, you're a healer. Study science you're a scientist.
Why then was it such a struggle for me --a self-anointed intellectual-- to understand that if you study kindness, you'll be kind?
In the introduction to his magnum opus The Path of the Just, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (aka the RaMCHal) addresses this question explicitly.
He explains that smart people can stray from the "path of the just" simply because the matter of how to be a good person seems so obvious, they choose to devote little attention to its study.
Why should I study vigorously how to be a kind soul if the path is so clear; if moral right and wrong are innately obvious and divergent what is there to investigate?
The connection between study and action (and existence) is spelled out in a passage from Luzzatto's introduction. The message keeps with his theme of making obvious facts-of-life intellectually accesible:
"For it is obvious that something which does not occupy a place in a person's mind becomes of no concern to him."
Time to hit the books.
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It's true. The easiest way to loose our way is to under value what we want.
ReplyDeleteI find you have to keep your eye on the ball. And what with all the distractions of distractions of modern life, it is very easy to do.
Hope you're enjoying your time away.
Thanks so much for your wishes. I hope that being here gives me the focus I need toward that direction.
ReplyDelete--Gabriel
I would think it could. Or being in the midst of so many other distractions you might loose focus. Only you can know the path you'll take. But I do have faith in you. You're a good person, with a good head on your shoulders.
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