OU TORAH Joseph, Chanukah, and Wisdom Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb

Wisdom is the rarest of all important human qualities. Observers of the contemporary state of affairs often remark that wisdom, which is especially necessary in this day and age, is now particularly lacking. Yet, at the same time, we are told that there is an age in life when most of us finally do obtain wisdom. Erik Erikson, the famous psychologist and thinker, believes that the course of the lifespan is marked by a series of developmental stages. At each stage of life, we master different developmental tasks. In late middle age, about age sixty, one begins to achieve wisdom. Erikson’s book, Childhood and Society, devotes an entire chapter to defining wisdom and to detailing the process by which one achieves it, or fails to achieve it.