The Torah says na’aseh ve’nishma, ‘we will do and then
we will understand’[1].
Everybody knows that this means that we first observe the commandments, and
only then do we try to, or come to understand them.
Not the other way around
where commitment to mitzvos is predicated upon prior comprehension of their
reasons.
The Kotzker understood it
slightly differently; “We have some who contemplate G-d. But they can only reach as high
as their intellect can take them. If, however, one introduces practices commensurate
with one’s learning, one’s comprehension grows exponentially, beyond where their intellect could take them before. This is what ‘we
will do and then we will understand’ means.”[2]
Contemplation of G-d, if it is to be meaningful and not just academic, must never be in a vacuum, nor void of action.
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