Why the Scoffer Runs from the Wise

“A scoffer does not love the one who corrects him; he will not go to the wise.” Opening There is a kind of person who goes through life looking very sure of his opinions. You ask him a question, and he smiles. You put a challenge in front of him, and he changes the subject. You invite him to listen to something that challenges his view, and suddenly he is very busy. From the outside, it looks like self-confidence. But as King Solomon wrote: “The heart knows its own bitterness.” This problem does not belong to one man alone. Most of the world lives this way. People are not looking for truth. They are looking for approval. They read what agrees with them. They listen to whoever backs up what they already think. And the moment something pokes a hole in their story, they walk out. They do not leave because the challenge was wrong. They leave because the building they had built was not solid enough to stand up to a single question. The Verse and Its Hidden Message King Solomon said: “A scoffer does not love the one who corrects him; he will not go to the wise.” The simple meaning is that the scoffer hates being corrected. He does not want correction. He does not want wisdom. He just goes his own way. But there is a deeper point here, hidden in the exact words. Solomon does not say that the scoffer looks down on the wise man. He says that the scoffer will not go to him. These are words of avoiding and running away, not words of arrogance. So why does he run? Here is the new insight. The scoffer does not avoid the wise man because he is sure of himself. He avoids him because he is not sure of himself. Deep in his heart he knows that his spiritual world is shaky. He knows that one wise person, with one question, could touch the foundation, and then everything would come crashing down. The arrogance is only on the outside. On the inside there is fear. The scoffer is not too strong to listen. He is too weak. A Lesson for Serving Hashem The strength of faith is not measured by how loudly a person declares it. It is measured by whether it can stand up to a hard question. Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, author of the Tanya, the classic book of Hasidic thought, describes one level of serving Hashem in the Tanya. It is a kind of inner work built on the mind ruling over the heart, on looking deeply inward and thinking things through clearly. Inner work like this builds a building on real foundations. And there is an opposite level. It is a habit learned from other people. It rests on custom, on friends, on the approval of the people around you, and there is no inner clarity in it. The prophet calls it by its name. Speaking in Hashem’s Name, he says: “Their awe of Me has become a habit taught by people.” A building built on social approval falls at the first question. That is because it never really belonged to the person. It was borrowed from the people around him. The moment those surroundings challenge him, he has no ground to stand on. The Mishnah says: “Know what to answer the unbeliever.” Notice what it says. It does not say “run away from the unbeliever.” It says “know what to answer.” The point is not to get ready for an argument in the marketplace. The point is to build a spiritual world that can hold questions, grow from them, and come out of them stronger. Closing The Tanya is the wise one Solomon was speaking about. It does not offer cheap comfort. It does not tell you that everything is fine. From its very first chapter it shows you who you are. You are an “in-between” person. Inside you are an animal soul and a divine soul, and the war between them never ends. That is not comfortable. But it is true. Studying Hasidic teaching in general, and the Tanya in particular, is a choice. It is not an easy choice. It is a brave choice. It is a choice to sit down in front of the book and say: “I want the truth, even if it challenges me. Even if it shows me that my habits are not real inner work, and that what I show on the outside is not what lives on the inside.” The scoffer runs away from the wise man. The devoted Hasidic Jew goes to him.