Part 2 · Chapter 6

Defining God Through Negation 0:01

Right. So like you can't really figure out what the אייבערשטער is, but you can figure out it's not Jesus. He's not a person. Right. So what is it? If you know so good, so what is it? He said, "Well, you can't What what it is, the actual מהות, you can't figure out. But I can tell you what what it's not." Right. That's the real thing of השגת השלילה.

But that's a השגה. That's not in in חכמה, that's the actual form of logic, Right. that you can actually figure out what the thing is not. Right. Okay, but when you can figure out what the thing is not, and you figure out that it's not anything physical, and it's not anything like you can think of, and it's not necessarily with ten ספירות, Right. so that it's not necessarily לא מכל אלין מדות כלל, you see, it starts with the word לא, Right.

means the השגת השלילה. It says, "So what is it?" It says, "Well, it's not חכמה, it's not בינה, it's not any of them." Right. And not only it's not any of them in terms of our ספירות, but even in terms of the ספירות that we can have a השגה only with a משל into, it's not even them. Right. Okay, now up to here we're still talking logic.

This is all בינה, it's not חכמה. Right. This awakens the power of חכמה to actually see into the מהות of what it is. Right. And what it sees in the מהות, it doesn't see really what it is so much, it just sees how far away it is removed. Right. So that basically it's like a thing, you know, when you're walking towards a big, big mountain, and it looks to you like it's a big mountain, Right.

Mountain Analogy for Infinite Divinity 1:49

and you say, "Wow, it must be like what, must be about a mile away from it." Yeah. "That's a really big mountain, you know." Then you're walking, you're walking, you already walked three miles, and now the mountain looks much bigger. Say, "Wait a minute, this mountain was a lot bigger than what I thought. And it wasn't just a mile away, we already walked three miles, and now it looks like it's maybe five miles away."

And you're walking and walking, and it gets bigger and bigger, and it looks farther and farther. Right. You say, "Wait a minute, I mean, how big is this mountain? Right. How far away from it are we?" And the more you keep walking, the bigger and farther it gets. Right. So finally you start getting a sense the your sense of הפלאה, I mean, as you walk and you get a bigger and bigger sense of הפלאה, but then the sense of הפלאה does a a double take, you know?

So all of a sudden it hits you that, wait, it's not even a hundred miles and that big like I think. I have no idea how big it is and how far away it is. Right. And the thing that I'm seeing it at a certain size and a certain distance is just an imagination, Right. a mirage. And at this point, that's the real ענין of the הפלאה of the אייבערשטער is not the הפלאה that you actually get from seeing it and seeing how big it is, but that you're starting to realize that it's it's really you're making a whole mistake and it's just going to keep going like that, no matter how much you travel, it'll just keep getting bigger and farther.

Wonder (הפלאה) Emerging from Negation 4:26

Right. And that's it that's the ענין of the הפלאה. So even the הפלאה, like it's not that it has nothing to do with בינה, like we said before, there's no בינה without חכמה, no חכמה without בינה. The the sense of הפלאה comes from the השגת השלילה actually. Right. But the sense of הפלאה is a positive thing, Right. that you actually see the הפלאה. The the השגת השלילה is a השגה of of בינה that it says, "Well,

it's none of these things." And from this comes the sense of הפלאה of

חכמה. Right. But the נשמחו בך is in the אויבערשטער ממש. Yeah, the שמחה, in other

words, like right now we are getting a שמחה from learning. Our שמחה is not from the fact that it's such an intricate, detailed study. That's not what we're getting the שמחה from, or that we're getting to understand psychology or something like that, because if it was just an intricate, detailed study, so I could come up with more intricate, detailed studies. You know? Right. We can study quantum mechanics or something like that, and I wouldn't get none of this I wouldn't get a שמחה, as a matter of fact, I would get bored.

Joy Comes from Divine Connection, Not Detail 20:00

You know? So, if you think about it, what how our whole enjoyment and happiness that we're getting out of this thing, I mean, apparently, you guys are getting an enjoyment, you keep calling me every night. Absolutely. If you if you weren't getting something out of it, like, you know, like we learn, if there's no תענוג, the מדה doesn't exist. There's absolutely no existence to a מדה, and also if there's no תענוג, there's no רצון.

So, if you want to call me every night, there must be a תענוג there. There must be a שמחה and a תענוג there. Where is that coming from? It's a תענוג and שמחה in what? The תענוג and שמחה is not in the thing that we're going to have this intricate study, and we're going to talk, and we're going to discuss, like like, you know, people have, you know, these like philosophy groups, you know what I'm talking about?

Right, they get together and האק א טשייניק. Yeah, האק א טשייניק, they'll even sometimes even they have a philosophy group or a politics group where they discuss communism, even even though they're all Republicans. Right. And they get a whole big שמחה and תענוג out of it, out of the intricacies of the of the explanations. Right. In other words, the שמחה is out of the intricacies of the explanation.

Explanation as Elegant Structure 22:12

The שמחה of the בינה is coming out of the beauty of the explanation. Right, that's not what's happening here. Yeah, the explanation, in other words, an explanation is a בנין. Right. You know, an explanation is a building. It's an elegant structure. It's an elegant structure, right. And when you look at this beautiful, elegant structure of the explanation, you know, some people like to do mathematical problems. Right.

Not because they need to do the problem in order to come up with a certain solution and that's why they're doing the problem, but they're just doing the problem because they love to go through these elegant structures of mathematics. Right. Like like the old ancient Arabs, it wasn't an ענין of of בינה so much, the Arabs and the Greeks and stuff like that, that came up with algebra and stuff like that, the original people who used to come up with these things, got the שמחה and the תענוג out of the elegance of the structure itself.

Chassidic Joy Rooted in Divinity 23:32

Right. What he's telling you, the שמחה of חסידות is not coming out of the elegance of the structure. It's coming out of the אלקות. Right, that's the whole thing, because that's the actual subject. That's the subject. Right, but my question is is that that we're actually trying to make contact with, so to speak. Not contact with, that's what we're trying to understand. Right, but what I'm saying is that this was this and trying to understand it in a way of a יש.

Right, which is what I'm saying is that the נשמחו בך is a positive השגה of the מהות of the אויבערשטער. It's it's Maybe not right now, right now maybe this No, it's not an actual השגה I mean, no, the thing is later on he will actually promise that נגילה ונשמחה בך ממש. Right, that's what I'm saying. That when משיח comes, we we will have it. Why? Because really, why בינה is into the עצם of the thing is because really בינה has the power to grasp the עצם.

דווקא because it is the יש. Why? Because בינה is connected to all the levels of בינה. The whole thing of בינה is that it goes up and up and up, and it goes down and down and down. So that the שכל, even though it's a שכל, when it goes down into the physical world, catches the actual physical world to the point where it's not just a שכל, but you can actually make a car.

It's not just a theory of a car anymore. In other words, the theory that you can have a combustion engine and a wheel and stuff like that, and you can put them together, can finally grasp The thing of בינה is השגה and grasping. What do you call that? There's another word Comprehension? grasping. How do you Comprehension? Huh? Comprehension? Not comprehension, grasping. How do you say that in Hebrew?

To hold on to the thing. A תפסן it's called, right? Right, לתפוס. לתפוס בענין. לתפוס. That that he says in another place, I think it was chapter one, that A תפסן is called a תפסן. Right. That the בעל בינה is called a תפסן, and the בעל תבונה, you know, they said the בעל בינה is called a תפסן. Right. That he actually תופס in the actual עצם of the thing, so that, for instance, the בינה into the physical nature of the physical world, you see this, finally תופס the actual thing so that you can actually make actual changes in the actual physical things.

Bina as Grasping the Essence 27:29

Right. And when you understand architecture, for instance, it's the the intellect, even though to understand to understand architecture is just intellectual. Same thing with engineering of how to build a car and all these things, aerodynamics. Right. Nonetheless, the understanding, he doesn't want to just understand the theory of aerodynamics. Right. He wants to understand actually how the physical world works. Right. That's what he wants to understand, not just as some In other words, when somebody's really trying to understand something, like for instance, if somebody says, "I don't understand my children."

True Goal of Understanding 28:31

Right, it's because he wants to understand them. Yeah, but he wants to do more than understand them. He wants to understand them to a point where he can actually make a change in them, to actually control their behavior. I don't mean control necessarily in a bad way, but to affect their behavior. Right. That's what he means to understand, or like somebody says, "You know, I would like to understand politics."

Right. Now, there's it There's sometimes that some people want to understand, and they're they're not They're not really interested in understanding the עצם of the thing. They're just interested in the בינה itself. Right. But that's not the real ענין of בינה. The real ענין of בינה is that you're trying to understand the thing itself, the עצם of the thing. Right. So