There is such a need for daat (holy knowledge) in our lives, especially since everywhere the Evil Inclination is trying to fake us out and rob us of true love, joy, connection to Hashem, and everything good. How does he do this? He gives us the klipah, and only if we withstand the test of grabbing onto the klipah, can we get to the real deal. When does he do this? DAVKA when Hashem has the real deal ready and waiting for us! But the test to actually receive that goodness is first to say no to the false version.
There are so many areas where this is true – I’ll give you a few examples and a life story to make this more meaningful.
First off, every woman needs kavod – to feel beautiful, noble, upstanding. She can have this in truth, through being tzniut, and reserving herself for her husband (or future husband) and truly not wanting any other man to notice her. This is true kavod, because to give herself out to anyone else is to throw away her kavod and make herself cheap. The Evil Inclination (EI) tries to trick her, and give her kavod to someone else in other circumstances, someone who sweet talks her, gives her presents, etc and makes her feel good – the klipah of kavod, or the fake version. Sadly this fake version only brings her down, and now she is even more laid bare as she realizes that she has been used…but now her kavod is so broken, that she can fall prey even easier to the next fake who comes her way because she needs those reassuring, sweet words even more…R’ Arush says a woman can even die by this cycle r”l.
Another place I've been seeing this recently is regarding the supposed wisdom of the goyim. We are allowed to believe simple facts – Consumer Reports is a great place to check out safety ratings etc. for goods, for example, as a good friend of mine always says. We can believe those ratings, no problem. But if they say they have Torah – do not believe them! Meaning, if they say that they have a system of wisdom – throw it away. It isn’t wisdom at all. There is so much out there about parenting – but it is just the klipah of proper parenting. Who knows who these authors are, really. Do they even believe in G-d at all? What do they believe are the ideals a human being should be living up to in the first place? What kind of child are we trying to create, anyway? Do we even believe that a truth exists out there with a capital T? It is so easy for it to sound nice, and glossy, and beautiful but look at the foundations – it is IMPOSSIBLE that with such foundations, any of these popular parenting techniques are coming anywhere close to Truth – in this case, the Truth of how to properly raise a child and what we are trying to raise that child to be.
And even worse, how many modalities are out there in the supposedly Torah world, based on the same nonsense! They throw in Torah as proof that these non-Jewish ways of thinking are true. It is the worst form of lie there is. I recently went to an event where a big, big name in Chinuch spoke, and everything he brought as proofs, and explanations, and everything, EVERYTHING was non-Jewish – he even said so! And said that the frum world needs this information, and this is going to prevent children from going off the derech! Everything was completely upside-down in his speech – everything. I was in complete shock. It happens to be that I myself in a previous life studied this entire method he was teaching, except that he had it all wrong – it is true that what he taught would somewhat help people but the basis of all the issues he discussed in every situation was a fundamental flaw in middot. To use his techniques were simply to try to cover up those flaws, like arrogance, perfectionism, etc. – but really, those techniques would never truly be used properly because a person who flies off the handle easily isn’t going to remember to look at his victim in the eye and speak in a measured manner, for instance!
This doesn’t even start to touch the problems we see in shalom bayis, marital harmony. It is hard to read a book and have any clue on what basis the facts are coming from, and if it is truly from the Torah or from somewhere else. Let’s see, the author of a major book in the goyishe world is himself divorced – he clearly knows what he is talking about (Men are from Mars). Psychology – all based on Freud’s recant, when he had it right in the first place but no one wanted to admit that (if you don’t know what I'm referring to you are better off but if you really want to know, email me). Look deeply into its principles and you’ll see that none of it actually makes sense and brings forth a completely flawed view of the human mind.
The truth is that GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out. If you fill your mind with garbage, big surprise that garbage comes back out of it in the straightness, or crookedness, of your thinking. That is why we have to let go of our thinking, of our wisdom, of what we “get” and connect into the Tzaddik – someone who thinks straight, and can tell us what is true and not. Then we can apply our minds to see just how wise that truth is, how true that wisdom is, how it applies to our lives perfectly, etc. To follow anything else is to follow the klipa of wisdom, and not wisdom itself.
And what do you need to properly discern the klipah from the real deal? Daat – holy knowledge. And on what is that dependent? EMUNA.
First and foremost, we must strengthen ourselves that the Torah is the ONLY source of wisdom from Hashem Himself. That ONLY a Rabbi who comes from a completely and only Torah perspective can help us (as I quote all the time, R’ Arush says a lot of supposed “rabbis” out there giving advice on shalom bayis, who don’t have it themselves, they are all going to have a nice place in Gehinnom waiting for them for all the bad advice they gave out…I have some great stories if you want them. Including some “rabbis” who have given me “great advice” as well!). To believe that Hashem loves us, He knows everything, and He is the only answer to our problems…sure, you can talk to other people and they will speak to you in a voice – and more often than not, their answers will only lead you to more confusion because they are speaking from their own crooked, broken mind (everyone’s mind is crooked and broken BTW, except for the tzaddikim. They are sane, and we are not). Only Hashem can give you real answers – maybe not with a voice (although sometimes an idea in your head happens), but through lots of signs and signals, if only we would have the EMUNA to know that Hashem IS talking to us through all the things we experience and think, and search for the message, and continue speaking to Him about it all. It’s the longer short way – the answers aren’t quite as fast or obvious, but they are real answers, and when they come it is so obvious that this is the truth, this is the real solution. Speaking to others gets you the short long way – fast answers that only take you farther off track. If you really need to speak to someone, speak only to someone who is either the tzaddik himself (pick one that speaks to you – Rabbi Arush, Rabbi Shternbuch, Rabbi Schwartz, Rabbi Yaakov Ades, to name a few good ones) or someone who is already on a level that they threw out their own mind and can just quote you the tzaddik directly.
It is the only real solution. Along with honest prayer for emuna and daat, and learning emuna and daat via the books of true tzaddikim, only Hashem can give you a real solution to your problems.
With prayers that all of am Yisrael should strengthen themselves to learn about and pray for emuna and daat, and especially to have the daat to speak to Hashem for an hour every single day…
