How does the fear of looking stupid hold me back?

Rabbi Landau teaches that the biggest disability in life is being afraid to look stupid. How many questions have you not asked because you didn’t want to look dumb? How many chances slipped by because you didn’t want to look weak?

Nobody was born knowing. “The people who ask get answers. The people who risk looking dumb become wise.”

He gives a deeper reading of the Sages’ words “Siyag l’chochmah shtikah.” The usual translation is that silence is a fence for wisdom. “It means much deeper.” Silence is the boundary between you and wisdom. “Your fear of looking stupid is the fence keeping you out. If you’re too scared to look stupid, you’ll never become smart.”

Also answered in this teaching

Is being too embarrassed to ask a kind of humility?

In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that it is not. Humility says “I’ll ask, and I’ll learn.” This kind of shame says “what matters is what they think of me,” and that is a subtle form of ego.

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

The fear of looking stupid keeps people from asking, and so from learning.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

Every unasked question is a moment of protecting your image. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that the moment passes, the question passes, and with it goes the understanding.

What may be behind it

Rabbi Landau writes that this shame is not humility but a subtle arrogance: the person stays in the dark as long as his honor comes out whole.

Deepest human truth

The people who become wise were not born knowing. They were willing not to know, and they asked.

More questions from this teaching

• What does “silence is a fence for wisdom” mean?