Q:
Wasn’t Avraham given the gift of a brilliant mind? So what’s the big deal that he accomplished so much?
A:
There are a lot of brilliant minds on the Bowery. Did you ever sit in a park in the Bowery? There are two of them sitting, two brilliant minds. They’re sitting and doddering. They’re soaked inside and outside. They’re scratching themselves. And one gives the other one a push off the bench. He flies. I watched it once. He pushed him off the bench and he fell with his head on the concrete and the other one paid no attention. He lay silent on the concrete. The other one paid no attention.
Brilliant minds can be misused too. When people sink to wickedness, to intemperance, they let go, and then a brilliant mind is no good.
Sometimes it’s better not to have a brilliant mind. Without a brilliant mind he could have been a hod carrier. He could have been a construction worker. Only that he had a good mind and so he tried to go to college because he wanted to be a professor or a doctor. But he was too lazy. He pursued girls instead of his studies. He pursued narcotics. And he ended up on the Bowery.
A brilliant mind can be the undoing of a man. The fact that a man has a brilliant man means it’s an opportunity to become great in virtue or great in wickedness. So Avraham’s brilliant mind was only an opportunity that he used.
TAPE # 330 (August 28, 1980)
