Part 3 · Chapter 2

Purpose of התבוננות: work vs intellect 0:04

Okay? Yeah. Yeah. שהוא עיקר ענין ההתבוננות כנ״ל. התבונה. No, no, not a תבונה, to bring, well, yeah, תבונה, but the main thing, he's saying the main thing of התבוננות is to bring it into the מדות. That was the whole thing in in קונטרס ההתפעלות. In other words, the whole thing is not just to be a משכיל, is to be an עובד. התבוננות is עבודה, not השכלה.

השכלה means it's just an intellectual thing and you think about it intellectually and it's a very nice intellectual thing. That's basically where most of the people make a very big mistake, that they think that this whole thing of like a שער היחוד type of learning, or like ע״ב, is the people who learn it are משכילים.

Right, it is just up in up in the הימל. Up in הימל, but עבודה means to קוועטש your face. Right. דעת.

And he's saying, "No, the whole thing of the התבוננות is דוקא תבונה, which the דעת comes דוקא from תבונה." Right. The בן ובת, which is the מוח הדעת, which brings about the actual מדות, that's the whole ענין of the התבוננות. And that's from תבונה, to bring the the the מדות of בינה in into becoming the שכל of the מדות.

Right. And to bring about a מדות. That's the whole thing, like he explained in קונטרס ההתפעלות. He said the whole thing that my father wanted, the אלטר רבי, was that the חסידים should have a התפעלות אלקות.

Goal of חסידות: fire up the heart and mind 1:37

That's the goal. The goal is really the מדות.

The goal is to get excited. Right. Like דוד is doing. Right. The The goal is not just to sit there with the, "Oh, well, this is very nice. So, so tell me, so what is so what is אריך and what is עתיק? Oh, that's so interesting."

Right. That's not the goal. The goal is to get fired up.

That's the goal of עבודת הלב. And the and an even bigger goal is to get totally fired up where your whole brain gets fired up, which is עבודת המוחין, which even the thought becomes hot, the thought itself of בינה becomes hot. Right.

And an even bigger goal is up in עתיק and אריך. Right. That the רצון should get hot. The רצון and the תענוג, you should get a hot רצון and תענוג for this stuff. Right. In other words, to become a total addict to this, that this has to be this is your תענוג where you're getting your תענוג from. Right.

And the the even higher thing is the עצם היחידה, that this is me. Right. This is what I am. Right. Like it says that by the by the מיטעלער רבי, if you would poke him with a needle, חסידות will come out instead of blood. Right. Blood means it's your soul. The soul is in the blood. Right, exactly. Means that our soul is not just that your your heart is getting hot or your head is getting hot or your עצם הרצון that this is your תענוג and you can't have no תענוג without it, it's even more than this.

It's to a point that even if you'll suffer from the חסידות, Right. it's higher than the תענוג. תענוג means if you get the תענוג, so you want it. If you don't get the תענוג, so you don't want it. Right. But the עצם הנשמה means that he's willing to die על קידוש השם. That's what means עצם הנשמה. That's the whole ענין of יחידה. Right. The whole ענין of יחידה, like he explains, that even a you see it even in a simple Jew, that he's willing to actually give up everything, including the תענוג.

Right. Why? Because this is what I really am. I'm חסידות.

That's the real that's the the the the the the highest ענין, and that's the And that's basically what he explains there, the the the התפעלות of the five levels of of נרנח״י. Right.

You know, וידוע גם כן שיש נ׳ כפופה ונ׳ פשוטה בבינה. So, in בינה itself, there's a נ׳ פשוטה and a and a נ׳ כפופה, and the same thing in תבונה.

And basically, as far as the general thing of בינה and תבונה, that בינה is the כפופה and the תבונה is the the פשוטה. והנה יש נ׳ כפופה הוא הרחב הרחב, ונ׳ פשוטה הוא אורך.

Right. ונון המילוי שלו בנון פשוטה. The מילוי of נון is with a long נון. Right, a ו נון. ו נון. מה שאין כן בשאר מילוי אותיות.

Letter nun vs mem: shape and meaning 5:17

Now why does he say that? I can tell you another letter where it is like that: מ.

Yeah, but a מ doesn't have a a line to go down. Okay, but it's still there's there's the מ פתוחה and the מ סתומה. There's two עניינים over there. Right.

In the other letters like א doesn't end with an א. Right.

And כ doesn't end with a כ. But מ does end with a מ. The difference between מ and נון... A ו ends with a ו.

That's right, a ו does end with a ו. But over there, there's also the various things in it. The The The special thing of a נון is that the מילוי of נון is נון ו נון.

Right. נון and נון, a נון כפופה and a נון פשוטה. Right. The מילוי of נון is a נון and a נון. That's the difference, basically.

בינה שבבינה as the linchpin of powers 6:27

In other words, they're connected to each other. Means it's two things. It says there is this one and that one. In the מ, the מ the מ פתוחה and the מ סתומה is two different levels of the same thing, really.

So the ו separates The ו, I'm not really sure. and unites them. Both. It separates them and unites them.

And "and" means when you say "and", it means there's two things. And when you say "and", it means they're connected. Right. Means in בינה there's two separate עניינים. Right. It's not just two separate levels.

It's two separate עניינים. There's בינה and there's תבונה. Right. And also the אורך and the רוחב is like special things over here. מה שאין כן בשאר מילוי אותיות, כי האורך נכלל ברוחב, because the length is included in the width.

In other words, the מילוי of the length is included in the width. If you have the width, if you have the width of the whole explanation in your head, so you can bring so you can bring it down to explain it to other people. Right. If you don't have the width, then you can't explain it.

וכך הוא בתבונה, and the same thing in תבונה, there's a length and a width.

ואמנם נון הכפל בעניין הנקרא התבוננות, כמו עמי

לא התבונן וגומר, שזהו בחינת פנימיות בינה הנקרא עיון לעמוד על כל דבר repetitiously. Right. דנקרא בינה שבבינה, a double נון. הוא ממוצע בין בינה לתבונה.

Like we said before, it's דווקא the בינה שבבינה, which is the which brings about the קליטה. Right. In other words, the the how do you bring about from בינה to תבונה?

With the התבוננות. You'll learn it another time. Right. The התבוננות is the אמצעי between the two. Right, so so the התבוננות brings about the thing that in בינה itself, he חאפט the שכל.

He said, "Okay, so now I חאפט the שכל, so how do I go to the next stage of having the תבונה of the שכל, to be able to apply it to outer things and to teach it to other people?" He said, "Well, through בינה שבבינה." He said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Because בינה שבבינה will bring about the קליטה." Right. There's no special power of קליטה.

So, basically what he's telling you is that בינה שבבינה is the main power of all the powers. Right, that's the linchpin. It's not just the linchpin, it's the one that's in your hands.

The other powers are not really in your hands. Right. Even the power of דעת, which is partially in your hands, like you can force yourself to concentrate on something, it's still really דווקא from בינה שבבינה, because basically if you even even by like עבודה זרהניקס that just meditate on a candle or something like that, the reason they do it is because of an understanding that they have.

It's a wrong understanding, but you see that like all of these forums that tell you to, you know, meditate on the emptiness and stuff like that, right, in the forum they're doing an explanation, right, they're not doing a meditation.

And the reason they're doing this because they did an התבוננות, in other words they did an analysis of the thing, and came up, and this is by the way where the whole ענין of תהו started, the שבירה the שבירה starts in in ס״ג of ס״ג, right, בינה שבבינה in the התבוננות, right, and that's the that's the that's the root of all the מלכים, and that's basically the the real the real eighth king of תהו.

Not the not the שם מ״ה החדש. שם מ״ה החדש is is where it becomes מתוקן already. It's תיקון, that's the source of תיקון, right, it's not a תהו thing.

But the שבירה is in in in in where they they did the התבוננות of of this and that and something else, and they decided that since you want to really get to the חכמה, which is that's what we want to get to, and the real thing is the התעלות in the חכמה, which is above בינה and below בינה, right, so how do you get to them? With דעת.

But the real thing that he is saying is דווקא בינה שבבינה is the ממוצע בין בינה לתבונה על ידי נו״ן פשוטה. Okay, so the שבירה is in the ובכן? Huh? The שבירה is in the ובכן. In the ובכן, right. The שבירה is in the ובכן, that therefore that that in the analysis that they can In בינה itself it says basically that in בינה itself there's no שבירה, right, but really it is.

It's it's the the the שבירה is in the מדות of בינה, in the in the decision that he came up with.

In בינה itself meaning in the in the in the in the חב״ד of בינה there's no there's no actual you know Meaning in בינה שבבינה there isn't a real שבירה. There isn't a real שבירה, but that's really the source of the שבירה. That's the source of the שבירה. It's the source of the שבירה, like for instance let's say, you know, the the the the pro-choice people, in their analysis, yeah, there's there seems to be famines in the world and overpopulation and gangs and stuff like that, so that's true, I agree with that.

So what should we do? So I would say, well we should study חסידות. They say, well let's kill all the babies. The ובכן is where the שבירה is, right, you know?

So that's the ממוצע בין בינה לתבונה על ידי נו״ן פשוטה שמחמת זה נקרא התבוננות הוא בדבר המבין, and and it's דווקא through the נו״ן פשוטה, through the אורך of בינה itself, in other words in the בינה the התבוננות itself is really the נו״ן פשוטה.

In בינה, חכמה of בינה is is the width, to come up with all kinds of new things, right, but in order to have the קליטה, it's דווקא not through coming up with new things, it's by going over the same explanation another time, through through going this אורך one more time, right, not okay, okay, okay, fine, we understood it, so now let's go and learn another בבא.

That's a רוחב, right, that will not bring about the קליטה, right. The קליטה will come דווקא from learning this book once over again as any college student knows that if you want to absorb the material, you have to read it another time, right, not go to the רוחב, but this same explanation, this same אורך you going have to go through it again.

And it's so so it's דווקא בינה שבבינה, so now basically what he explained up to now, in the first chapter he explained how בינה שבבינה is the one that activates all the powers higher than it, right, and then דעת he sort of explained separately, but he didn't explain exactly how it gets activated, right. Now he explained that דעת, בן ובת,

gets activated דווקא from תבונה, right. Okay, but that And but תבונה gets activated דווקא from בינה שבבינה, from going over the length one more time. Right.

And that's also the thing that it explains what's the difference between a עובד and שלא עבדו in תניא. Right. That he did it a hundred and one times. Right.

And why is it when he did it a hundred times it's called that he didn't, לא עבדו? Besides the fact that he didn't put an effort into it, that that was their habit, but there's this other thing that we're talking about here, the difference between עבודה and השכלה.

The hundred times was to understand the ענין. Right. The hundred and one time, that's what made him a עובד rather than just a משכיל. Right. That's what brought about the דעת into the thing.

Hundred‑and‑one repetition creates a עובד 15:46

And the thing that it went into his מדות came דווקא from the hundred and first time. Because the hundred and first time is where he already understood it, because that's why they learn a hundred times, to understand it properly. Right. And then the hundred and first time, that's where the קליטה started. Right.

Because he already understood it, so what do you mean, I learned it a hundred times already. Because yeah, you learned it a hundred times, you understand it, very good, you're a משכיל.

But as far as a עובד, you're not considered a עובד. Because you have no דעת into it, because the דעת comes from תבונה, you have no מדות, that your מדות are not מתפעל. Right. You didn't bring it down into the מדות, which is the whole ענין of עבודה.

Right? Right. Okay. And like he says here, ודי למבין.

So now we can go back to the Q&As. Let me turn off the tape. Yeah, turn off the tape. He sits down and learns the בלאט. That evening the phone rings and somebody says, "Rabbi, I have a question for you." And he asks him this huge complicated question on tractate שבת, דף רל"א, 131. And right away this rabbi was able to answer the question, because he had just learned that that day!

Halachic Q&A: property acquisition via stolen money 17:11

And he felt so good, and the guy felt so good. Now, because you stole from the second guy, and it's a גזילה, so the money that you used to pay the first guy is not the second guy's money. It's your money, because you acquired it through your גזילה. So you paid for the property with your money, and now the property belongs to you. And what does the second guy get?

Only a claim of returning the money. So what's the, what is, what's going on over here? The קשיא is, well wait a minute. If you bought the property with a שטר, right, you gave a שטר, or you made a חזקה, or something like that, then the property was acquired. But if the property was acquired with כסף, and you didn't give the money, so then you didn't acquire the property.

And you're going to acquire the property now with the money, with the כסף, whose money is this? It's the second guy's money. But you're telling me you acquired it through גזילה, but money, מעות, is not נקנה, money's not acquired through גזילה. Money's not acquired through שינוי השם, money's not acquired through יאוש, money is, so why? Because when the second guy gave you the money, he gave it to you in order to buy the property.

You took his money and you paid the first guy, but it's not your money. You're a שליח of the second guy, you're buying it for the second guy, you're using the second guy's money. So it comes out that the second guy bought the property. And if the second guy bought the property, so then how can the first guy מקנה it to you? He was מקנה it to the second guy.

The answer is, because the first guy doesn't know about the second guy. The first guy is מקנה it to you, he's not מקנה it to the second guy. So if he's מקנה it to you, you acquired the property. But whose money did you use? You used the second guy's money. But the second guy's money is not your money, so how can you acquire it with the second guy's money?

Ah, because מעות ניתנו להוצאה, money is נקנה with הוצאה, and once you spend the money, you acquire the money, and you bought the property with your money, and therefore you own the property, and the second guy only has a claim of money against you. Now, what if the second guy told him, "Go buy the field for me"? So then he made him a שליח, and if he made him a שליח, then he acquired it for the second guy.

So why does the גמרא say that you acquire it for yourself? Because over here, he didn't tell him, "Go buy the field for me", he sold him the field. And the second guy thought that it's his field, so he gave him the money to buy the field from him, not to be a שליח to buy the field from the first guy. So you're not a שליח, so it's a גזילה, and once you spend the money, it's נקנה with הוצאה, so you bought the field with your money, and therefore you acquired the field for yourself, and

the second guy only has a claim of money

against you.