Faith in the wise is one of the great principles I found in Rav Nahman's Le''M vol I chapter 61.
And it is the reason why I will often quote different wise people --for example Rav Nahman himself, and the Gra, and Kant and Hegel. The reason is this principle of faith in the wise. So it can happen that people that are wise can contradict each other. Sometimes that is in order לגרש את הסיטרין אוחרנין to expel the forces of evil. That is often one is no worthy to learn from a truly wise person or a tzadik. So it comes about that different tzadikim disagree with each other in order to sow confusion in minds of people that then go away from them.
This applies to truly wise and great people. So this is test to see who is worthy. On the other hand there is such a thing as the Torah of the Realm of Evil. And there are Torah scholars that are in fact demons of the Sitra Achra as Rav Nahman brings in Le''M vol I chapter 12 and 28. So it is necessary to develop some kind of common sense to be able to tell the difference between authentic and inauthentic.
"Faith in the wise" is as is well known a principle from the Mishna in Avot [Pirkay Avot] but the reason this stuck in my mind was that Rav Nahman ties it into the problem that I had at the time. He says על ידי אמונת חכמים יכולים להוציא את משפטינו לאור "by means of faith in the wise one is able to bring his judgment into the light." That is to merit to the right piece of advice that will help him in his troubles." i.e. to merit to the right advice. I was not sure what to do at that time. So I simply learned that particular Torah lesson every day--saying it from beginning to end, until some kind of clarity would come to me. So I was learning that lesson for a different reason --not to come to faith in the wise. But the idea of faith in the wise did stick with me.
This applies to truly wise and great people. So this is test to see who is worthy. On the other hand there is such a thing as the Torah of the Realm of Evil. And there are Torah scholars that are in fact demons of the Sitra Achra as Rav Nahman brings in Le''M vol I chapter 12 and 28. So it is necessary to develop some kind of common sense to be able to tell the difference between authentic and inauthentic.
"Faith in the wise" is as is well known a principle from the Mishna in Avot [Pirkay Avot] but the reason this stuck in my mind was that Rav Nahman ties it into the problem that I had at the time. He says על ידי אמונת חכמים יכולים להוציא את משפטינו לאור "by means of faith in the wise one is able to bring his judgment into the light." That is to merit to the right piece of advice that will help him in his troubles." i.e. to merit to the right advice. I was not sure what to do at that time. So I simply learned that particular Torah lesson every day--saying it from beginning to end, until some kind of clarity would come to me. So I was learning that lesson for a different reason --not to come to faith in the wise. But the idea of faith in the wise did stick with me.
