לזכות ידי"נ וש"ב הרב ישראל יעקב בן ר' אשר זעליג לברכה והצלחה בכל מעשי ידיו הוא ביתו החשובה וכל אשר להם
In our shiurim on Mishlei we have been discussing the differences between שכל and דמיון - intellect and imagination. One difference we talked about in this shiur is that the intellect is ACTIVE while the imagination is passive - taking in external impressions based on the senses with no basis in pure logic and intellect.
This notion of passivity in our lives is one that doesn't receive enough attention. The root of the sin in Gan Eden was Chava's passivity. Her senses perceived that the tree was טוב למאכל and תאוה לעיניים. It is all about how my senses perceive reality. If she would have used her intellect then she would have understood that the tree is poison - literally. It was like eating a sweetened cyanide pill. Looked good, tasted good - but brought death to all of mankind.
That is what Adam told Hashem "האשה אשר נתת עמדי" - meaning, you gave me this woman who was taken over by her דמיון and thus I succumbed and ate the poison myself.
[Please listen to the shiur[im] in full. They are not long and are EXTREMELY enlightening. בס"ד!!]
In our world people often like being passive. The notion of sitting in front of the computer and watching Netflix or looking at pictures on Facebook for endless hours are symptoms of this passivity. If one has a computer then he/she can listen to endless shiurim in all areas of Torah and Avodas Hashem. BARUCH HASHEM many people do. But let us compare. Take an AMAZING gemara or halacha or parsha shiur and see how many people listened. 3, 10, 51, 86. Nothing too high. Very nice. מי כעמך ישראל who loves Your Torah!! Then look at videos by our frum "superstar entertainers". Sometimes MILLIONS of views. Many others with hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands. What is it בסך הכל?? A guy lip syncing a song while walking down the street or some footage of a bunch of kids dancing or playing basketball are some variations. ZERO שכל. One hundred percent דמיון. The whole thing is a staged performance with no basis in what is real and what life is about. Yet, in the millions, people - OUR people - go there. How do people have time for this??
Don't get me wrong!! Better watch R' Mordechai Shapiro [a close personal friend and chavrusa] or R' Shloime Daskal [if he wants I can be his friend and learn with him too] than, li-havdil, some 90 percent unclothed woman singing and doing everything she can to excite male passions [which for the record isn't very difficult] or even a guy who spends most of his free time doing drugs, drinking beer and other "not-so-yeshivish" activities, screaming into a microphone that he needs love. It's all relative. And sometimes people need to chill.
But I lament the displacement of the שכל in favor of the דמיון. That is the secret of the multi trillion dollar movie business. COMPLETE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT דמיון. Nothing else. The actors pretend to be someone that they are not and we the viewers support this with our hard earned money and play along as if what we are watching is not just one big fake.
To use one of Pres. Donald's favorite expressions: FAKE NEWS. Meaning, דמיון.
So much more to say and stay tuned for more בל"נ בס"ד!!!
