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Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz: “When a person is filled with his own ideas and knowledge.”

Chokhmah (“wisdom”) is the power of self-nullification, reaching a state of nothingness.

The character of chokhmah is that it dissolves into non-being; it becomes nothing.

The author of the Tanya has explained this in terms of the mind and its ability to learn.

The capacity to learn new things is based on the connection between chokhmah (“wisdom”) and humility, for the ability to receive with one’s mind is identified with the self-negating ability to be humble.

When a person is filled with his own ideas and knowledge, he cannot arrive at any new understanding but can only assimilate variations on the old.

… Because a small child does not have a developed sense of independent existence, he can more easily absorb new information.

—Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz