Just as nothing rattles the mind more than hesitation, nothing settles it more than certainty. So the prophets could be said to have had the most settled, calm, and composed minds.

But as we’ve seen, that was only after they’d first been thrown into a state of upheaval (and before they’d have passed their revelations on to others who may not have reacted as calmly as they). In any event, the first and most stunning reaction to prophecy was surety — the clear and abiding awareness that the prophet had encountered both truth and G-d Himself outright.

And it’s that same clarity and surety that convinces the aspirant when he’d first achieved true prophecy — that the images he’d envisioned were indeed prophetic messages, and that the knowledge he’d been granted came to him from an encounter with G-d. There would simply no longer be any doubt in his mind by that point what had happened to him.

But that would only come about after a lot of training and discipline, as we’ll find.

This series is dedicated to the memory of Yitzchak Hehrsh ben Daniel, and Sarah Rivka bas Yaakov Dovid.

Copyright © 2004 by Rabbi Yaakov Feldman and Torah.org

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