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---The origin of the proverb, “Ignorance is bliss,” is in Thomas Gray’s poem, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of EtonCollege” (1742). The quote goes: “Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.” My teachers, however, would add but two words to the proverb,“Ignorance is a fool’s bliss.”
To believe that ignorance is bliss, is to believe that we cannot handle the truth. Even more so, it is to believe that G-d has brought us knowledge of something that we can do nothing about, not for the world around us, nor for the world within us. This goes in contrast to the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov that everything one sees and hears is to serve as a lesson for them in their lives, and even more so, is a knowledge brought to them so that they can do something about it.
Thus, he who revels in ignorance, is one who flees responsibility and accountability. While in truth, there is no greater bliss, and a feeling of deep contentment, in knowing that we have lived up to our responsibility, with the knowledge of a truth that G-d brought to us.
However, according to Kabbalah and Chassidus, G-d created the world precisely with a bliss of ignorance, and it is our purpose to overcome this fool’s bliss, and search out the truth, and to live by it.
This lecture is based primarily on a maamor the Rebbe delivered, on this Shabbat in 1969, exploring the deeper dimension of how G-dcreated the universe, and the purpose behind why G-d did it so.
