It is written: Who is wise? The one who sees birth of things, the one who is aware of the process whereby the world is formed.
To understand this, let us presume that we have two ways of seeing.
One way is seeing that is not necessarily that of wisdom; it is a matter of simply seeing things as they are.
Whereas the wise man can see the way things come to be what they are, their development and growth from something other.
He can know the essence of things by observing their origin and growth.
The first way sees the status quo, reality as it is presented to one.
The other, that of Wisdom, is seeing beyond that which is manifest to the senses.
Having seen the birth of things in the world, the wise person is able to be free of the delusions of the world.
Much of the strangeness and incomprehensiveness of the world comes from our ignorance of the process by which things happen.
If a rabbit is pulled out of a hat, it is astonishing only to those who did not see how he was put in.
Those who see the world only as it appears to them, as the truth and the reality of things, are confronted with a world that seems to be firm and unrelenting; to them, there is a world that is real and there is a God who is somewhere beyond it.
The eyes of Wisdom, however, observing the process of events, are able to see reality in a more comprehensive way.
They have become aware of another sort of reality, a world that is not divided and does not constitute a barrier to God.
The ability of the interior heart to penetrate to the essence of things thus belongs to Wisdom.
Frequently, however, there is the sense of a great barrier, of distance and obstruction.
But this is the product of an illusory belief in the reality of these obstacles.
The more one believes in them, the greater they are.
As soon as one is able to see beyond the immediate hindrance of the process, it ceases to constitute a barrier.
One overcomes the illusory sense of vast distance or impenetrability between oneself and the truth of things.
Upon which the soul can feel restored.
Thee severance caused by the soul's descent to the body is bridged.
Indeed, the barrier or distance is seen as a distortion of vision and not anything real, and the result is an integral awareness, seeing a wholeness instead of separate parts.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz
From “Elixir of Life and Death” in In the Beginning by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz