Rabbi Weill's Blog

Dear Friends,

wisdom. His wisdom was "superhuman" because G-d poured it into him. This great divine gift endowed Solomon with an enormous breadth of knowledge and, according to our commentaries, the ability to apply one area of knowledge to another, to synthesize ideas and, of course, to solve seemingly intractable problems.

But Solomon possessed another quality that increased his wisdom even more. Our sages teach that Solomon not only shared his wisdom with people from throughout the world who came to learn from him; he also absorbed their wisdom. He thus fulfilled the much later dictum from Pirkei Avot that the wise person learns from all people. So Solomon was a wisdom-making machine, producing it, sharing it, accruing it, synthesizing it, and broadcasting it outward, enlightening his own people and all of humanity. What a king!

In our Land Beyond Torah class, we learn from each other just as we learn from the Bible and from our sages. I encourage you to come to this class -- Thursdays, 11 a.m. Let's learn together!

None of us possesses "Solomonic wisdom"! But may we generously share the wisdom we do possess and humbly imbibe the wisdom of others.

Kol tuv - All Good Wishes!

Rabbi Jeffrey Weill