The Sacred Quest for Wisdom: Rabbi Yosef Karo's Spiritual Journey
In a snowy winter in Tzfat, Rabbi Yosef Karo questions why a young scholar easily solved a problem that cost him great effort, only to be comforted by an angelic revelation.
- יהוסף יעבץ
- פורסם י' אדר א' התשפ"ד

#VALUE!
The Torah says, "In the heart of every wise-hearted person I have given wisdom" (Exodus 31:6). Was the wisdom already in the heart of the wise, or was it given now?
Winter, year 1555. Heavy snow falls on the city of Tzfat for hours. Midnight has long passed, and even the elders of Tzfat have gone to bed. Yet in the synagogue of Rabbi Yaakov Abuav, sits the holy Rabbi Yosef Karo, wrapping his cloak tightly against the cold, not rising from his table. Tonight, he cannot rest as usual because he hasn't managed to reconcile a difficult point in the works of Maimonides!
Rabbi Yosef Karo authored the book "Kesef Mishneh," offering explanations for all the queries on the writings of Maimonides. Sometimes he could offer several solutions for one query, but to leave a question without an answer? That was unthinkable.
Rabbi Yosef labored for many hours. Books piled up on his table until, near dawn, he discovered the long-sought solution and could rest for a short while.
The next day, after prayers, Rabbi Yosef wandered among the scholars in the synagogue when, to his surprise, he overhears two young students discussing the very topic he struggled with the previous night. Driven by love of Torah, Rabbi Yosef listened closely. To his astonishment, one student expressed the profound question he had tackled, and his friend answered promptly: "It's not such a difficult question, you could simply say..." and laid out the very explanation that had cost Rabbi Karo so many hours of effort!
Rabbi Yosef's face fell. A few days later, when the angelic guide visited him on Shabbat night, Rabbi Yosef asked, broken-hearted: "How could that young man think so easily of the answer I labored over for so long?" The angel replied: "This is because of you! After you worked hard to bring this wisdom into the world, others can grasp it too!"
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Cambridge University, England, 1995.
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, a consciousness researcher, conducts an experiment to test his theory of "morphic resonance", which suggests that nature has memory. A novel occurrence in nature stays, so to speak, in the "memory" of the world and happens more easily thereafter.
Sheldrake measures the time it takes for a rat to learn how to navigate a maze. Dozens of rats struggle with the maze, their solution times recorded. The next day, more rats are placed in the same maze. This time, however, they all complete it much faster. The experiments were conducted in separate places, and the rats could not communicate, not even via WhatsApp...
Sheldrake repeats the experiment with inanimate objects: there's a method to chemically alter particles to form a crystal, called "crystallization." Initially complex, the process becomes much easier and faster after it's first achieved.
The wisdom in the world is the wisdom of the Creator. It precedes the world, existing above it. The wise have the power to bring it down to earth; after it enters the world, it can be more readily accessed. The wise work to attain this wisdom, after which the Creator gives it to their hearts, allowing the whole world to benefit from it.