a person can know all the right ideas and still feel nothing. the torah itself expects that gap to be closed: וידעת היום והשבת אל לבבך (devarim 4:39), know it and bring it back onto your heart, and וידעת עם לבבך (devarim 8:5) puts daas in the heart, not just the head.
1. what is daas actually, in the torah’s own usage? it often means intimate connection, not information. how does knowing about hashem turn into that kind of knowing?
2. are there prescribed practices for internalizing it, in chazal or the rishonim, like fixed reflection, cheshbon hanefesh, hitbodedut, or learning machshava with a chavrusa, or is daas only a byproduct of years of living mitzvos?
3. and what blocks it? if a person believes everything but lives like none of it is real, which avoda addresses that gap first?
Thank you Rabbi, thank you very much.
Da’at in this context is not merely possessing information.
A person can know all the correct ideas about Hashem, Torah, reward and punishment, hashgachah, tefillah, and mitzvot, and yet none of it is real to him. It sits in his head like information he learned for a test.
וידעת היום והשבת אל לבבך means that what you know has to become something you actually live with. It has to move from information into relationship and reality.
How do you accomplish that?
There is no one technique.
Prayer can be enormously important, especially if you spend a few minutes before davening thinking about what you are about to do, and even afterward thinking about what you just said, especially through meditation. Davening with real kavannah can create a connection that merely saying the words cannot.
Learning Torah properly does the similar. Chovot HaLevavot can be extremely helpful. Chazon Ish’s Emunah U’Bitachon, Derech Hashem of the Ramchal, and many other sefarim can help a person think seriously about Hashem and about his own life. Some people benefit from learning machshavah with a chavrusa. Some from quiet reflection. Some from cheshbon hanefesh. Don’t beat yourself up. Different people need different tools.
But I think there is a more basic problem that sometimes has to be addressed first.
If your entire Jewish life has become meaningless routine, stop.
Stop the routine.
Stop davening mechanically. Stop putting on tefillin mechanically. Stop shaking a lulav mechanically. Stop performing religious motions that have absolutely no meaning to you.
Meaningless rituals are meaningless.
Then start over.
Pretend you just became bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah and somebody is teaching you Judaism for the first time.
What is tefillin? Why am I putting them on? What am I supposed to think about when I put them on?
What is Shema? What am I actually saying?
What is the Amidah? Who am I standing in front of?
What is Shabbat? Why am I doing these things?
Take one practice at a time and rebuild it properly. Learn what it means. Think about it. Do it consciously. Then add the next thing.
Sometimes you cannot repair twenty years of robotic religious behavior by telling somebody, “Just have a little more kavannah tomorrow morning.”
You need a full stop.
Then you start again from the beginning and build a Judaism that is alive.
That, to me, is part of והשבת אל לבבך.
First you know it.
Then you have to make it real.
I completely agree with you Rabbi. Unfortunately, when I mentioned this approach to other Rabbis I was always treated like crazy. They always told my “How can you go step by step? You need to do all and this and that”. I don’t think that is even possible, particularly to people like me with actual OCD and anxiety.
I think that choosing to stop certain actions (negative Mitzvot) and to do some actions (postitive Mitzvot) step by step, even if takes a year or so, is not just healthy but it will create a real bound between you and Hashem. For example, and this may sound crazy, what is the point of koshering your kitchen if you still have issues to avoid certain prohibited foods? Having a kosher kitchen and eating certain things out doesn’t solve the problem. It is better to start avoiding seafood or pork or mixtures, even if you still east treif meat from permitted animals, and once you mastered such cravings move to the next step of just kosher meat and so on.
Are we allowed to choose our battles on this ot is there Mitzvot that must be the starting point in all cases?
Your perspective is correct. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And you are in charge of deciding what and how.