Does Torah Necessarily Lead to Wisdom?

And what is "wisdom" anyway?

I recently read an interesting piece that asked why philosophers - who spend their lives learning about and teaching wisdom - don’t seem to be any wiser than the rest of us. The author, Eric Schwitzgebel, is himself a professor of philosophy.

Schwitzgebel suggests that wisdom is the ability to consistently make good choices, and such wisdom comes from learning to calmly and successfully confront chaos. Here’s how Schwitzgebel illustrates his point:

“This explains your grandmother's wisdom -- grandma who grew up in Hungary, fled the Nazis, built a new life in an unfamiliar country speaking an unfamiliar language, raised five children each with their own chaos, lost her husband, almost died of cancer, knew poverty and comfort, security and uncertainty, love and betrayal.”

Perhaps that grandmother wasn’t born with the ability to to calmly think through her options under intense pressure. But by the time she had grandchildren, she’d probably done it enough to earn herself a well-deserved reputation as a reliable source of wisdom.

By contrast:

“What is pretty much the least chaotic path through our culture? The academic path. Do what your teachers tell you. Get good grades. Go to graduate school and do it some more. Get a job. Get tenure. It's extremely competitive, but the path is orderly and laid out clearly in advance. Each thing flows neatly from the next.”

What does that sound like to you? Well I immediately thought about the kollel career track. That’s not to suggest that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with following the well-beaten path through mesivta, Brisk, BMG, shidduchim, kollel…and more kollel. It can certainly provide many valuable skills.

But it won’t guarantee wisdom.

I’ve been fortunate to know many individuals who had mastered Shas and poskim in one form or another. But not all of them were able to offer truly helpful advice.

How, then, are we to understand Avos 6:1?

“Rabbi Meir said: Anyone who engages in the study of Torah for its own sake will merit many things…and (others) will benefit from his council).”

Perhaps that “council” can only be expected if the scholar consistently fulfills the two implied conditions:

• The Torah must be “engaged” in (עוסק), rather than just studied

• The Torah must truly be learned for its own sake

I guess it’s possible that that kind of Torah carries its own measure of healthy chaos.

I wonder if this might not help answer a question that’s long bothered me - and that I discussed in a previous post:

As I wrote then:

Hirsch specifically suggests that the ongoing repetition of David’s moral lessons (Tehilim 2:7) should have driven acceptance of the key moral values of God’s system to the point where they were formalized into law (“אספרה אל חק”).

But why? What was it about David’s words that should have ensured global inspiration and compliance?

Perhaps it wasn’t so much the words themselves, but the fact that they were at least partly the products of a lifetime spent overcoming chaos. Perhaps, in fact, it’s reasonable to expect people - any people - to respond positively to that kind of wisdom.