Knowledge and Holiness

I started preparing the lesson on the fourth blessing, Da’at – Knowledge, with a relief.  The thirsty desire for knowledge, wisdom, is a topic near and dear to my heart.  King Solomon asking G-d to grant him lev shomea, listening heart, seeking emotional intelligence above all values – I get it, I learned mussar, I voluntarily took sensitivity training at work, I’d easily sacrifice entertainment for a night of study.  However, despite all my efforts, the true knowledge has always been elusive, it seems like I’ve never been able to grow up.

I taught about the first blessing, Avot, the awesome greatness and infinite love of G-d.  I spoke with enthusiasm about the blessing of Gevurah, the belief in immortal soul that G-d in his infinite mercy returns to the physical world.  But how can I speak about Kedusha, holiness, when every student in my class is much, much holier than me? What can I possibly say to them?

Holiness, Kedusha, is like a rotating flaming sword at the closed gate to the tree of true knowledge.  Who can come close, who can grasp it?

So I thought this morning, going through the usual routine, reading emails, one of them from JewishMom.com describing the author’s experience of being tempted by and overcoming certain food cravings, that ended with the chilling quote from Netivot Shalom (Slonimer Rebbe):

“If a Jew takes it upon himself to sacrifice his own personal desires to serve Hashem, he is considered as though he gave up his life and died as a holy martyr Al Kiddush Hashem.

Because through accepting this self-sacrifice he cleaves yet again to the root of all Holiness.”

Are observant Jews the only people to sacrifice their personal desires? Of course not – secular people give up pleasures too, when it is a reasonable thing to do, to avoid embarrassment or other negative consequences, sacrificing short-term gains in favor of long-term benefits, giving up lesser  priorities for higher.  But here is the difference between “just a good person”, who acts out of common sense, and a believer striving for Holiness, who is willing to sacrifice his own personal desires in order to serve G-d, either for no other reason, or above all other reasons.  Because the desire for knowledge is nothing but the love of G-d and the desire to come close to Him, and the path to satisfy this desire is through Holiness.