This week, a community member approached me with a question that stopped me in my tracks. Having heard about my background in Jewish education, he asked what Jewish knowledge, experience, wisdom, or observance did I think a Jew should have to be considered a “knowledgeable Jew"?
Now, personally, I love these questions. They create opportunities for genuine dialogue and engagement. But I'll admit, this one caught me by surprise, bringing me back to my years in the Jewish day school world. There, a perpetual tension existed between two schools of thought. Some believed that being a "knowledgeable Jew" meant living Judaism through rituals, prayers, holiday celebrations, and daily practice. Others argued it was about mastering content from our texts, traditions, cultural stories, and shared history. This latter group even created lists of 100, 500, and 1000 facts that every Jew should know to live a Jewishly informed life.
My response to the community member was hardly authoritative, but it reflects something I've come to understand over the years: Judaism rarely focuses on mere "knowledge." Instead, our tradition concentrates on "wisdom." We have our "wisdom literature." It is the "wise child" who serves as the model at the Passover Seder table. Even our Christian friends and neighbors, who celebrated Christmas yesterday, speak of the "Three Wise Men of the Orient." Our faith is rooted in wisdom, not knowledge. As I've often said, knowledge is knowing the information, but wisdom is knowing how to use it.
This week's parashah, Vayigash, offers a perfect illustration. When you think of Joseph's story, where does your knowledge come from? Is it from reading the Torah and engaging with rabbinic commentary, or from watching Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat"? Jewish wisdom is about the pursuit of intentional knowledge, not incidental. Living Jewishly means making decisions through a Jewish lens, actively choosing to engage rather than passively absorbing.
This distinction between knowledge and wisdom may help explain a remarkable phenomenon: Jews represent less than 0.2% of the world's population, yet account for over 20% of Nobel Prize winners. This isn't about possessing more facts than others, but about cultivating a tradition that teaches us how to think, question, and apply learning to the world around us. Our emphasis on debate, interpretation, and the pursuit of understanding, from the Talmudic tradition of machloket l'shem shamayim (disagreement for the sake of heaven) to the countless hours spent asking "why?" rather than simply accepting "what," has shaped generations of problem-solvers, innovators, and thinkers. We don't just accumulate information; we wrestle with it, challenge it, transform it into wisdom that can heal, repair, and improve our world.
As this is our final dvar Torah for 2025, many of you will be making New Year's resolutions in the coming days: working out more, eating healthier, finding work-life balance. I encourage you to add one more: building community. Attend a program and introduce yourself to someone new. Invite a neighbor and connect them with others. Volunteer through our Tikkun Olam and Gemilut Chasadim programs.
The Jewish Federation is our community's central address, supporting everyone regardless of ideology, political affiliation, experience, or knowledge. May 2025 be a year of wisdom, connection, and community. Because we are Stronger Together!
Shabbat Shalom, and happy new year!
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