Part 1 · Chapter 2

Intro and Levels of Bina and Tevuna 0:00

Welcome to the Chabad House. Okay, you ready with a with a tape recording and everything? Okay. והנה ידוע שיש בבינה עצמה ב׳ מדרגות, and in בינה there's two levels: בינה ותבונה.

So בינה, what was already discussed, means analysis basically, והענין דתבונה הוא בחינת התפשטות אור הבינה. Now skip skip the parenthesis, התפשטות אור הבינה מצד קליטתו היטב בכלי המקבל השגת הבינה, that's the definition.

So like it says, now we'll go into the parenthesis, כמו שנאמר בזהר דאו״א תתאין הם ישראל סבא ותבונה ונקרא אמא תתאה. It's called תבונה is called the lower mother.

So what is תבונה? תבונה is התפשטות אור הבינה מצד קליטתו היטב בכלי המקבל השגת הבינה. And by the way, this also comes דוקא from the התבוננות. Right. From going over and over means that when you go when you do the התבוננות till you understand it real good, if you stop there you'll have בינה, but you won't have תבונה.

Analogy of Deep Water: Ish Tevuna vs Ish Bina 1:07

Right. If you go over it again, even after you do understand it real well, you understanding it really good, if you go even then you keep going over it and then it gets absorbed into the כלי המקבל of the השגה, into your brain, על כן מתפשט לבוא ולהביא בכמה ענינים נבדלים מעצם ההשגה, then it can spread out and it can go into various things that are separate from the actual understanding itself.

Right. והוא הנקרא איש תבונה, and that's what's called a איש תבונה, כמו מים עמוקים ידלם איש תבונה, the איש תבונה it can can, what do you call it, draw out the deep waters.

איש תבונה ידלנה, מים עמוקים הם בחינת עומק בינה שנשאר שנשאר בהעלם העצמיות.

The real depth of the בינה which remains in the העלם העצמיות of the concept itself, like over here some of these things we're talking about, the actual thing that we're talking about really remains in the העלם העצמיות. Right. But the איש תבונה, in this particular case again, like like like I said, this book is always a a משל on itself, the מיטלער רבי, דוקא, דוקא the איש תבונה, דוקא the מיטלער רבי ידלנה can draw it out, ויש הבנה and he he he draws it out from the העלם, להביא להתפשטות בכמה אופנים משונים לרוות את המקבלים, us.

Right. כמו הדולה מים עמוקים להשקות הצאן, like for instance somebody who draws out very deep water from a well in order to give drink to the sheep.

Two Methods: Bringing Water to Sheep or Submerging Sheep 3:21

So there's two things you can do: you can either take each sheep and throw it into the well and then take it back out again,

or else you can take the water out and bring it to the level of the sheep. Right. So what happens is the איש תבונה, first of all there has to be a איש בינה. The איש בינה, what he does is he goes deep into the well itself.

He doesn't bring the water out. He can the reason he can drink the water is he's all the way down on the level of the water, in the depths. Right. That's why he can drink.

But the sheep, it doesn't help them. The איש תבונה can take that water and and bring it out from deep water to shallow water.

Right. והוא כמו שאנו רואים בחוש, like we see in actuality, שבהיות השכל והסברא עמוקה ביותר מהכיל בהשגת אדם, like again, like we see right over here, this is a משל on it,

הנקרא מים עמוקים, like this book itself which is which is which is really talking about a very deep stuff which is called the deep water of the of the תעלומות חכמה, the aquifers under the, you know, that's that's what a well is, you know, the well dig into the aquifer, right? Right.

And the water in the well is stays in the aquifer, שהוא בחינת עומק המושג הנ״ל, שהאורך והרוחב ממנו בא וכולו, ואיש בעל תבונה דוקא ידלנה, דוקא the איש תבונה Over here the מיטעלער רבי can draw it out like from a well, you know, with with those the דלי, you know, the what do you call it? The pail. Yeah, the pail.

פירוש, what does it mean? שיוציא לאור בחינת העלם העומק המושג, he'll bring out to the outer light that hidden עומק המושג, עד שיכילנו השגת האדם כאילו לא היה עמוק כלל, until a regular person who doesn't have such a deep mind like the the מיטעלער רבי, like us, which in a way you'd you'd think like like, you know, how can we understand it? Like we just said before that we we can't even we don't even have enough of a דעת to learn ע״ב really properly.

So in a way, I mean like, and and really this is stuff that even the earlier generations that had fantastic big minds and big בינות and stuff like that, and they couldn't get in they could not go into this depth. Right. And here we are getting this depth. Why? Because the איש תבונה brought it out

to our level, like like the way that he brings out the water from the aquifer to the sheep. Right. Right? כאילו לא היה עמוק כלל, as if it was not deep at all. And we're learning this stuff almost, I mean, not that it's not It's like we say, \"Well, it's like deep stuff.\" Yeah, but it's all like deep stuff according to Americans and, like, our college students.

Like, a regular college student could, you know, with a little bit of explanation could could learn this. Like, our the the New and Improved Kabbalah series, you know. Right. כמו הדולה מים עמוקים, like a guy who who draws out the deep water from the well, which means basically from the aquifer, שמקרב את העומק, that he brings the עומק close to the sheep.

ולפי זה מוכרח לומר שכח התבונה הוא כח המתפשט מכח הבינה. In other words, this is not the actual כח of the בינה. The כח of the בינה doesn't mean to draw out the water from the aquifer. It means to go down into the aquifer.

Power of Bina versus Power of Tevuna 7:08

Right. Like, in other words, like a guy who's a with a drill, that he goes down. Not only that, in order to drink, he has to actually himself go down into the depth. Right. That's the כח of בינה. The כח of בינה is that he goes down into there.

Right. But the כח התבונה is a power that spreads out from the כח הבינה, means that if you don't have the understanding into the thing, you're not going to be able to bring it out.

Right. It's it's connected you have to have דווקא the power of בינה first, להביא עומקו לגילוי למטה למקבלים, to be able to bring the depth downward to the מקבלים. And and by the way, in in terms of these two things, בינה and תבונה, תבונה is the length.

Right. Because the whole thing that he explained, what the length of בינה is the power to explain it,

except the length of בינה is the power to explain it to himself. Right. Whereas the length of of תבונה is the power to explain it to somebody else.

And that's the two basic That's the two basic things in בינה, besides the fact that in in בינה and in תבונה there's a רוחב and אורך in each one of them, but as far as the two of them, the the the תבונה is the אורך.

And the בינה is the רוחב, means to spread it out like he said before. The difference between דעת and בינה is that בינה means to spread out into all the different parts and all the different That's a רוחב. Right. That's the real thing of the the the בינה, even though that in comparison to חכמה, חכמה is called the רוחב and בינה is called the length. But in בינה, בינה is the רוחב and תבונה is the length.

Length vs Width: Bina as Breadth, Tevuna as Length 9:14

Right. And by the way, that's that's the secret of the two לויתןs. You know, the the the The נו״ן פשוטה and כפופה. The נו״ן, yeah. The the the like he said before, and then then התבוננות is two נו״ןs, there's a נו״ן, the straight נו״ן, and the the crooked נו״ן. It says there's a נחש, נחש בריח and נחש עקלתון. You know, if you're the straight snake and the the Serpent, straight serpent.

and the crooked snake. Right. And the the crooked snake was the female snake.

And it was killed. And the straight snake is the male snake. And he was what do you call it? Neutered. He was left alive, but he had to be neutered.

Because otherwise the תבונה itself would he he he could he could have babies somehow, even without the female.

And this also, I mean, according to this, you can explain the whole ענין the whole ענין of the לויתן's, why why דווקא תבונה was left. And you see that the real the the בי the בינה was pretty much gone, and the the main ענין of בינה that people have is more the the the applications,

which is תבונה, really. They're learning basically the applications of the the physical world.

Okay. מה שאין כן. Yeah, מה שאין כן כשאינו איש תבונות, when he's not an איש תבונות, גם שהוא בעל השגה במוח הבינה, שנקרא שנקרא תפסן, a chapper בלשון העולם, that he has a good chap in the thing, he he he can grasp, means a person who has בינה, but not so much תבונה. יוכל להיות שהשגתו נשארת רק מה שהיא בעצם מוח הבינה שלו, in other words, he understands it, but it just stays his understanding stays like just the way it is.

In other words, the reason that he can drink the water is because he went down into the depth. Right. שנקרא רוח בינתו לבד means his own understanding only, ולא יבוא ממנה שום התפשטות למטה בענין נבדל שהוא חוץ מעצם ההשגה כלל.

And it will not come out into any kind of application, for instance, or any kind of explanation to somebody else outside the עצם ההשגה. Like, for instance, the this is also in in societies. That's like the difference between the the Greeks and the Americans. Right. The the the Greek power was a power of בינה. Right. And the the American power is דווקא the power of תבונה. They're not so much understanders, but appliers.

Greek Intellectual Bina vs American Applied Tevuna 12:20

Right. So like for instance, you know, there's

the Greeks actually had a a steam turbine engine. Right. There's a little thing that in the museum it's a it's an actual turbine engine that works on steam,

but by them it was just like this philosophers that sat around and thought thoughts. Right. Like איש בינה, they never ever thought of applying it to making an appliance run on it.

Right. And this technology was really available like, what, 2,000 year, whatever, 1,500 years About 2,000 years ago. about 2,000 years ago, right? Yeah, more than 2,000 years ago. Right, in the in the Greek times.

And they actually had a turbine engine. And basically they also had like certain things, like you know, they knew about how how gasoline or not gasoline, what do you call it? Oil from the ground could burn and all, but they never thought once to apply it to anything.

Right. They only thought of it in in in abstract בינה stuff. Wait, hold on for a minute, I have to take a call. Hold on for a second.

Yeah. And and the American specialty, you know, a lot of these things, you know, airplanes, trains, and and let's not not just the American, but the whole like Western society, modern Western society, a lot of these concepts like that now we have cars and electricity and stuff like that, Right. you know, they knew about electricity in in by the Greeks. Right.

And they knew they knew about the wheel, and they had they had a they had, what do you call it? A a a wagons with wheels, and they knew about metal.

And they had a turbine engine. Right, they could have started the Industrial Revolution 2,000 years ago. Yeah, they had If they would have applied it. Really, all of these things were available. I mean, and and what the Industrial Revolution is, like a lot of these things people think, \"Oh, we're so smart, the modern generation,\" it's not really true.

They're the ones who did the actual thought, and over here we're doing the application. Yeah. In other words, a lot of these thoughts were available already before, and as a matter of fact, compared to them, really people nowadays are kind of low low style, that they only think about bread and butter.

As a matter of fact, the reason why the Greeks never thought of the application is they never even thought about it on such a low level.

For them it was all like intellectual. Right. Like pure intellect. They were like the it was the pursuit of intellect, not a pursuit of the dollar. Right. You know, and in America it's דוקא because it's it it it the pursuit is of applications, so a lot of these things that they think they did, I mean like airplanes and stuff like that, you know, the aerodynamic theory, you know, they had kites in the old days and stuff like that, they knew about it.

I mean, also they knew that birds flew. Right. And they had an idea how it worked. There's even You know, it's just they never tried to put it together into an application. Why? Because they were into בינה, they had nothing to do with תבונה.

Right. So you can have a person where the whole thing, and we see not just a person, but even whole societies, where the whole thing stays into the בינה, and it doesn't come even התפשטות out of it at all. Even though really he might be a bigger בעל בינה than the בעל תבונה. Right. You know. Right. Like like the a lot of these Americans, like the Wright brothers and people like that, and Edison and people like that, they were not really such great philosophers on such a high intellectual level like the Greek philosophers really.

Societal Application: From Theory to Practice 16:35

They're really in in terms if if a Greek philosopher would have met any of them, he would have considered him a גראבע מענטש. Right. You know, that's that's what you think about?

Not not refined upper things, you think about how to how to make a better horse carriage? Right. You know, who cares about horse carriages? We care about intellect. So they would they would actually consider this guy a lowlife.

Right. But nonetheless, you can have a person where where he has more תבונה even though he doesn't have so much בינה.

But nonetheless, the the advancements in תבונה also come דוקא from the בינה שבבינה, דוקא from the analysis of the thing. Right. וגם שיש בהשגה אורך ורוחב ועומק כנ״ל הכל הוא רק בעצם ההשגה כמו שהיא. Even the thing of the explanation downwards is really mostly to himself, not really to others. So to explain to somebody else is דוקא the ענין of תבונה. Right. כמו שהיא אבל לא שיתגלה למטה בענין נבדל.

Which is the ענין נבדל is also the ענין of a the ענין of a משל is to reveal the thing into into a ענין נבדל. Right. That's a משל, right? ומכל שכן עומק המושג, and especially the עומק המושג, הרי נשאר בעומקא בהעלם לעצמו. It stays deep inside of itself. Like like by the Greek philosophers, that not nothing actually came out of it. Right. And not only nothing came out of it, but they didn't even

really explain it to the regular people. Like that's another thing. In America, the whole thing is you have to explain it to everybody, that everybody should understand. Even a stupid guy has to go to to school and learn it, you know.

Right. But over there, they didn't think that it was just like for the for the elite. Right. It was just a few elite, and they were happy to think about these things, and they never thought that they should explain this to to the guy who's working in the in the in the marketplace.

Right. וכן האורך והרוחב, even the length and the width, הכל בעצם ההשגה כמו שהיא במקומה לבד.

ודוגמא לכל זה, הננו רואים בעומק הפלפול בתלמוד בטעמים וסברות רבות כו׳ וכו׳, גם שבאים בהשגה דבינה, אבל לא יוכלו עדיין להוציא לאור מעצם השכל איזה פסק פסק דין חייב וזכאי, like there's people who can have a whole פלפול and they understand all the different סברות, but they can't really apply it to anything.

Right. And and really in a way the the power of תבונה has a higher root than the power of בינה, because to bring it out really have to in a way understand it deeper than the original understanding.

Right. And really you see that even though the the Greek philosophers in in one way they were greater than the modern scientists to the point where they would consider the modern scientists דפקא גראבע מענטשן, but the fact that the modern scientists went and applied it into stuff finally gave them an actual deeper understanding into the thing than really the Greek philosophers had with their בינה. Right. So that really right now they understand some of these ענינים that even though they had the theoretical thing back there,

but we understand it better even though we're not as big theoreticians. Right. But because we applied it, so we ended up understanding the principles even better than they did.

And even by the Greeks, you see that the big the big

special thing of of the the story of the smart Greek is דפקא on the תבונה, not on the בינה. You know the eureka story? Right. With Archimedes? Right. He was basically really just one of these Greek guys who used to sit around and think stuff. Right. He didn't he never tried to apply any of these things.

And the king had a problem, and he had to come up with an application for it. And then there came the whole thing of eureka, the eureka is like the whole thing of understanding deeper into the thing. Right. That because he had to apply it, דפקא he understood somehow deeper into the thing, and came up with a principle of the displacement of of water according to the mass and stuff like that.

Right. So there could be something someone somebody understands the the תלמוד, but like the big פוסקים like the רמב״ם and stuff like that could actually apply it to an actual פסק דין חייב וזכאי. Right. והיינו, שלא יוכל להוציא מתוך הסברא איזה חיוב על פי זה השכל, ולא איזה זכות על פי זה השכל.

Like you can learn the whole thing in terms of, you know, העלם ומציאות or whatever you want to learn in תלמוד, but but to actually פסקן, you won't be able to do. Right. כי עדיין אין השכל והסברא רק השכלה שכלית לבד בלתי נמצא ממנה שום התפשטות בנטיות לענין נבדל ממנה. לא, שהוא, in other words, and and what he's saying here is the שהוא לחייב על ידה או לזכות על ידה, which is the ענין of חסד וגבורה, meaning the חסד וגבורה does not come out from בינה, it comes out דפקא from תבונה.

Right. והרי זה כמו דבר ההיולי. And it's just a היולי. שלא נודע עדיין מה ימצא ממנו ומה יעשה בו. It's just like an idea, but nobody knows what will come out of it and what he can do with it. בלשון אידיש, דער מושכל אליין כמו שהוא, ער קען מיט אים נישט טון קיין זאך. He can't do nothing with it.

צו קערן לזכות או לחייב, to to be נוטה to either זכות or חייב. Right. ואמנם, כח התבונה שמתפשטת ממוח הבינה, היינו מה שביכולתו להביא עצם ההשגה לבחינת התפשטות למטה הימנה בכל ענין נבדל ממנה, או לחיוב, או לזכות, או להתפעל בלב. Like, in other words, he knows that this is a thing that it will bring התפעלות from it. וכן להביא אותיות המחשבה כמו שנתבאר במ״א, and and this is what he's he's starting up what he's going to discuss later in the book, that the letters of מחשבה come out out from מלכות of תבונה.

Future Discussion: Letters of Thought from Tevuna 24:32

Right. וכולו, and that's where we're going to stop, because the the crew is going to come in any minute now. And now he's starting up a whole a whole new thing about the זיין תחתונות of בינה.

All right.