Welcome to Daily Bitachon , where in our Sha'ar Habechina series, the Chovot HaLevavot is moving into our mental capacities and how to appreciate them: thought, memory, forgetting, shame, intellect, and speech. Before we dive in, let's quote the Chazon Ish from his sefer Emunah U'Bitachon . As we've mentioned many times, he writes through a Sha'ar Habechina lens. He notes that a person who is sharp and contemplative sees a specific wonder regarding human wisdom: that man is formed of clay, yet within this "clay being" resides intellect. In the words of Rav Wolbe, if you were to remove the skull, you would see this "bowl of oatmeal"—and how wise is this bowl of oatmeal? Computers the size of a city block cannot do what the human brain can do. The Chazon Ish then describes one of the greatest "spectacles of wonders": that intellect is undefined by physical concepts. It possesses neither length nor width, neither youth nor old age. Yet, when a human is an infant, his intellect is likewise infantile, and as you grow, your intellect grows with you. Now, when I shared this with someone, they said, "Well, of course; as you get older, you gain more knowledge." But that isn't the point. It's not merely about accumulating facts. Your brain develops physically as you get older, and that physical development allows for intellectual development. To explain this in layman's terms: think of your brain as the hardware —the physical computer—and your intellect as the software or operating system. In a baby, the hardware is incomplete. The brain is born with almost all the neurons it will ever need, but the "wiring"—the connections—is still being built. Because the hardware isn't fully wired yet, the software (complex thought, reasoning, and memory) cannot run at full capacity. As the physical brain matures, the intellect expands along with it. This growth is a scientific concept called neuroplasticity , which literally means your brain is "plastic" or moldable. I studied this in education; during childhood, the brain creates more connections than it needs. As you repeat actions and grow, these wires are coated with a substance called myelin , which allows signals to travel faster. Think of it like metal wires coated in plastic. That coating keeps the electrical current focused. You have this "wiring" in your brain, and as it receives more "coats," the impulses travel faster to solve problems. So, as the biological network becomes more efficient, your soul matures, so to speak, hand-in-hand. Of course, science can explain how the brain changes, but it still struggles to explain why these physical electrical signals turn into a "person" inside with feelings and thoughts. This is what the Chazon Ish calls "wondrous." It is what we say every day in the Asher Yatzar prayer: u'mafli la'asos —"He acts wondrously." What is the wonder? It is that God links together body and soul. How can two such different "creatures" impact one another so deeply? With that introduction, let us look at the first thing the Chovot HaLevavot discusses: Memory . He asks: if you were lacking memory alone—even if everything else in your body worked perfectly from head to toe—what would your status be? How much loss would befall a person if they could not remember what they possessed or what they owed? You wouldn't remember who you helped or who treated you poorly. You wouldn't even know where to go, no matter how many times you traveled the path. You wouldn't retain any wisdom, regardless of how often you reviewed it. Experience would be useless, as you could not weigh the present against the past to determine the future. Indeed, such a person would be nearly divested of their very humanity. It is unbelievable to appreciate this. That is why Atah chonen l'adam da'at (God granting man wisdom) is the very first request in our daily prayers. Without memory, you have no identity, no relationships, and no way to fulfill obligations. You are basically non-existent. While I use the metaphor of a computer, the brain is more than that. It is a perfectly designed instrument intended to help a person fulfill their purpose. If we remembered everything with equal intensity, our minds would be cluttered with noise, making it impossible to focus on the "signal" of our lives. Therefore, we need this entire, efficiently designed system to act.