Feelings
The Heart of the Wise Man Knows
Feeling is swifter than intellect. In feeling, the word “God” is filled with fecundity and reality even before the smallest fraction of all the multitude of enigmas concealed with it is deciphered.
But this is not the case with intellect. Intellect requires toil. Without study and inquiry, one will find nothing.
If feeling is exchanged for intellect, if one will desire to engage one’s intellect without spiritual labor, in order to enjoy the benefit of what is already prepared—as it is possible to do in feeling—one’s world will swiftly grow dark. Tangled thorns will flourish in one’s spiritual portion, one will constantly be entangled, and one’s spiritual path will be filled with stumbling blocks.
“There is a time and judgement that the heart of the wise man knows.” And that is: to enter the palace of feeling in its fullness, to take pleasure in its sweet things, and to allow the portion of the intellect to engage in its toil. Then the knowledge of God will enter one’s heart in its most desirable form.
Orot Hakodesh I, p. 251
Feeling is swifter than intellect. In feeling, the word “God” is filled with fecundity and reality even before the smallest fraction of all the multitude of enigmas concealed with it is deciphered.
But this is not the case with intellect. Intellect requires toil. Without study and inquiry, one will find nothing.
If feeling is exchanged for intellect, if one will desire to engage one’s intellect without spiritual labor, in order to enjoy the benefit of what is already prepared—as it is possible to do in feeling—one’s world will swiftly grow dark. Tangled thorns will flourish in one’s spiritual portion, one will constantly be entangled, and one’s spiritual path will be filled with stumbling blocks.
“There is a time and judgement that the heart of the wise man knows.” And that is: to enter the palace of feeling in its fullness, to take pleasure in its sweet things, and to allow the portion of the intellect to engage in its toil. Then the knowledge of God will enter one’s heart in its most desirable form.
Orot Hakodesh I, p. 251