-This story is brought down in the Hidden Scroll.
-It happened in the days of the saintly Rabbi Yosef of Candia. Five hundred students, all great in torah, gathered and started to study the Guide for the Perplexed (Moreh Nivuchim) and other books of philosophy. They delved into it until they rebelled and denied the existents of the living G-D. They said there is no single enforcer of Providence, heaven forbid.
-The students came to the holy Rabbi Yosef of Candia to get his agreement on this wicked thing. When Rabbi Yosef heard this, he was stricken. They started arguing with him and giving proofs to their words that he was unable to refute. He asked them for a number of days, then he would answer them.
-He sent for all leading rabbis to travel to him.
-They came, he told them what had happened. They started praying to G-D, fasting day and night.
-Rabbi Yosef prostrated himself on the ground for three days and three nights, bread he didn’t eat and water he didn’t drink.
-After three days he felt the Holy Spirit resting upon him. He quickly got up and said, “It is time to act for G-D, the commandments have become secondary”. He took a quill and ink and started writing without rest. He did not eat, he did not drink, he did not study, he did not pray, he only wrote until he completed the book. He named it the Book of Alim and handed it to the students.
-The book contained all the wisdoms, they saw how wise he was and yet he believed in G-D. They were defeated, they all repented and became righteous people.
-Meaning, philosophy stems from the wisdoms that cannot be fully grasped. A person who holds himself to be wise believes he has the ability to grasp these concepts.