VeHaIkar Lo Lefached Klal
Niels Bohr wrote, "How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress." Paradoxes are a major part of who I am and how I see the world. Bohr wrote, "The opposite of a trivial truth is false; the opposite of a great truth is also true." Yes. Great truths have to be balanced. Sigh. Paradoxes keep me awake at night.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 5:01 AM
7 Comments:
A very Torah'dike thought. Without questions, we never arrive at answers. The Gemara has a derashah like this somewhere - that stumbling allows a person to rise, but I don't remember it exactly right now.
Not a Gemorah - Rav Hutner's take on sheva yipol tzadik vekam is that it's not simply that a tzadik is able to fall and rise repeatedly, Rather , its's that falling and risng is the way to become a tzadik.
No, a Gemara. I just don't remember it right now.
I remembered the Gemara I meant - it's on Chagigah 14a. You could argue that it's not precisely the same the concept, but it's certainly very closely related, and I would say actually the same: והמכשלה הזאת דברים שאין בני אדם עומדין עליהם אלא אם כן נכשל בהן. The Gemara cites a verse that speaks favorably of "the stumbling block," and explains that it refers to matters that cannot be grasped until one stumbles over them first, i.e. he errs in their understanding.
Wow, that's a powerful Gemorah. Thanks
Yes. And I find it to be very often true in learning, where you break your head and make all kinds of mistakes in pshat, and then the correct pshat sort of emerges from the mistakes, and it feels like you couldn't have gotten there by any straight path.
Another Maamar Chazal comes to mind. Ein Chacham Kebaal HaNisayon.
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