720. He Who Adds Knowledge, Adds Pain

We see that when a person is in Katnut [smallness/infancy], before he grows up, he draws vitality and pleasure from every single thing. Anything he encounters excites him and elicits from him good, when he loves the object and yearns to play with it, or bad, when he is afraid of the object and steers clear from it.

He grows through those two and expands and ascends higher and higher until within a short time—some seventeen or twenty years—he grows up and becomes a tall tree of about 1.60-1.80 meters [5’4” - 6’].

Then, once he has grown up, when he has obtained the quality of Daat [knowledge] and can measure each and every thing, whether he should receive it or move away from it, and even when it is worthwhile to receive it and he already wants it, he must still move away from it due to external causes, where as a child he did not have any external enslavement and he did what his heart desired.

Naturally, it is hard for him to find life and pleasure, for not everything can he bring closer. On the contrary, he must push away most things, since reason makes him think that those things do not become his personality. Thus, he becomes deficient of bread, and when he grows up, the tree can no longer spread to the length and to the width, but he is happy just to be able to endure and not lose what he already had.

When he was little, he wanted and desired everything, meaning that he could derive vitality and pleasure from anything. This is why we see that children always want new things, and before he obtains anything, he plays all kinds of tricks—whether asking or shouting—only to be given that object. But as soon as he gets the object, he throws it and wants new things.

But when he grows up, he criticizes every passion whether it is worth toiling for or should he give it up.

In truth, it is not worth toiling for anything corporeal. Hence, when he begins to think about them, he promptly has no Kli [vessel] for work; therefore, he does not continue with them. Thus, from where will he take vitality so he can grow?

Just as a tree needs new foods every day and without it, it dries up and dies, so man must receive corporeal nourishment in order to satisfy his corporeality. And also, he must satisfy his spirituality.

It therefore follows that the more his reason grows, the more he needs spirituality. And then, “he adds pain,” since it is hard for him to always obtain such precious foods like spiritual nourishment.

And even when some intellectual thing comes to him, and he thinks that he is playing with this thing, as soon as he begins to examine with his mind, he does not always succeed in absorbing in the mind everything he saw and heard because he already has the power of criticism.

And the more his criticism grows, the more he is tormented because he becomes enslaved to his intellect, meaning he cannot receive anything before his intellect permits him, for without its consent he is forbidden to do anything. It follows that the more the intellect grows, the more the criticism grows. Thus, he who adds knowledge, adds pain.

At that time, it is hard for him to obtain nourishment because man has a mutual agreement with the mind that he is forbidden to do anything without its consent, and when one breaches this agreement, the reason promptly puts an end to its partnership with the man and departs.

Perhaps this is what our sages implied by the words, “There is none who is richer than a pig, and there is none who is poorer than a dog.” That is, in Katnut, he always repeats his actions because he has no criticism. That is, even if he already decided that he must not do such things, he still repeats what he forbade. He is always rich, meaning that inferior food can always be found for sale in the market.

This is not so with a dog. When a person has a dog, meaning he pays attention to everything, as our sages said, “The righteous, their hearts are given to them,” meaning that they have a heart, as it is written, “And every wise-hearted,” etc., for then he cannot derive pleasure and abundance from anything, but rather everything must be calculated in advance, and then he decides.

It is possible that this is what was implied by “Bread is not for the wise,” meaning that they are poor because they cannot derive pleasure from anything, for they have limitation on everything, since they must be criticized.