T12 (Tinyana) PNC - K'sheAdam Holech Achar Sichlo VeChochmaso (When a Person Goes After His Intellect and Wisdom)

When a person goes after his intellect and wisdom, he can fall into errors and many stumbling blocks and come to grave spiritual harm — there are those who have spoiled greatly through this, including the great wicked ones who built sophisticated systems on their own intellect. Sichli alone, ungrounded in emunah, becomes a labyrinth of errors that grow more elaborate the further one walks in them.

The remedy and the very meaning of teshuvah: when one has fallen into error, one searches for HaShem's kavod precisely there — at the question 'ayeh' (where) — for from the very greatness of His concealment and hiding, He enlivens these places. Through one falling there and then asking 'where is the place of His kavod,' in this very asking one returns and attaches to that place, enlivening one's fall and ascending in the supernal worlds.

This is the aspect of Bereshis — closed (sealed) utterance — and this is the aspect of teshuvah, for this is the main teshuvah: when a person seeks and searches after His kavod, sees in himself that he is distant from His kavod, and yearns to return. The seeking-while-distant is itself the teshuvah; one need not arrive before returning has begun.