Bilvavi Part 9 - Temimus in a Nutshell

Our sefarim hakedoshim state, “The purpose of knowing is to realize: that we do not “know”. In these words, there is subtlety contained within subtlety.

Let’s say a person thinks, “Hashem does not want to me to know what His ratzon is”, and perhaps he bases this on this well-known quote, “The purpose of “yeda” (knowing) is to realize lo yeda (that we do “not” know).” Yet, even such thinking is not yet accessing lo yeda, because he still thinks that he understands! He thinks that Hashem’s ratzon is that right now he should not know, so he thinks that he knows what Hashem’s ratzon is from him right now. He won’t be able to integrate himself with Hashem yet.

Rather, the more inner perspective to have is that Hashem always wants something from us, but that His ratzon is hidden from us – and it is hidden from us due to our own fault somehow, since we have the power of free will. The proper way to go about doubtful situations is that we are in doubt about what the ratzon of Hashem is, and Hashem indeed wants us to know what His ratzon is – and the only reason that we don’t know His ratzon is somehow due to our own fault.

A person should come to the point in which he has no idea at all what Hashem wants from him: “Maybe He wants me to know what He wants; maybe He wants that I shouldn’t know. Maybe he wants something else from me other than these two options. I have no idea what His ratzon is.” If a person truly gains this perspective, he can then come to feel integrated with Hashem.

“The purpose of knowing is to realize that we do not know.” It is precisely when we feel like we don’t know anything that we truly access the state of lo yeda, and then, we can become integrated with Hashem. As long as we think we understand things – even if it is just about understand what Hashem’s ratzon is – then we are still trying to understand things, and we won’t be able to integrate with Hashem yet. It is precisely when we are totally disoriented about what the ratzon Hashem is that we can come to simply integrate with Him.”