Part 2 · Chapter 1

Three Dimensions of an Idea: Depth, Length, Width 0:02

כי הנה ג' דברים הוא שיש בכל דבר מושכל. There are three things or three aspects to every idea: עומק ואורך ורוחב. There is the depth of the idea, the length of the idea, and the width of the idea.

So now we're going to explain these three dimensions: the depth, the length, and the width. הרוחב, the

width, הוא בחינת הסבר המושכל לכל צד בפרטים הרבה, כרוחב הנהר, ולא דברים כהווייתן לבד כנהר קצר. The width of an idea means to explain the idea to every side with a lot of details, like the width of a river, that is, and not just saying things like they are in the shortest way, which would be like a narrow river. And this type of an analogy carries over even into English, that when you say something is a broad idea, that implies that it's an idea that has a lot of parts and a lot of vocations, a lot of fields, a lot of subjects within it.

Like let's say you would say medicine is a broad idea, because there's so many different fields in medicine, and there's so many, you know, there's so many different types of doctors. There's whatever, there's regular doctors, and then there's like specialists, and you can specialize in so many different things, each part of the body.

And then there's all these different theories in medicine. There's Western medicine, and there's Eastern medicine, and there's holistic medicine. Not everybody would agree exactly what which ones are included in medicine, and which ones are just quackery, but you know, there's all kinds of theories and things within within that one subject. So if you just want to say in like the narrowest way, then to explain what medicine is, you would just say, "Medicine is the science of healing the body," or something like that, just like a dictionary definition.

That would be like a narrow river. And then if you start explaining that all these different aspects of medicine, then you're making the idea much wider. You're broadening the idea. You're broadening the explanation of medicine. והאורך, the length, הוא עוצם ירידת ההשכלה להלביש את המושכל במשלים שונים. The length of the idea is a measure of the intensity of the descent of the idea to enclothe it into משלים, עד להביא להשגת, להשגת התינוק קטן וכולי,

Length: Simplifying Ideas for the Child 2:08

until you bring the idea to within the grasp of even a small child. So how difficult it is to explain the idea simply. So if it's a very deep, a very difficult idea, then it's very hard. It takes like a very talented teacher to be able to put it into simple משלים and make it understandable to a small child. But something that is not it's not such a hard idea, it's not so deep, so it's very easy to explain to a child, because anyway it's like a child-like idea, child-like level.

So if you want to explain, let's say, football, it's not so deep. But if something really simple would be like tiddlywinks, and that you could explain even to like, you know, a really really little kid could play tiddlywinks. Yeah, it's you know, it's like a game where you you have a little like cup, like a short cup, and then you have these like kind of like coin-like flat, round discs, and you try to flip the discs into the cup.

That's the whole game. Yeah, that's that's it, it's pretty short. It doesn't need, I mean it's very narrow also, doesn't have very much to it. And so like, for example, like it's it's easy to see this these dimensions in like when you teach a little kid math, that when you explain like one plus one is two, so to so first of all, let's say you're going to teach him addition.

So you could give him the whole width, or you could But that that would be like there's so many different problems and so many different examples, that's like you can't, you know, that that would be like the whole width of it. But even when you start with just like one idea, like one plus one is two, it's just one example. But even that is too abstract, so you have to make it simple.

You have to put it in like a משל, to say like one apple plus one apple is two apples, one fishy plus one fishy is two fishies.

And like that, the kid can understand, start to start to understand what you're talking about. So that's like the length, is to bring it down from one plus one, which is like the abstract, to one apple plus one apple, and that's not such a far descent.

But if you're to explain something that's deeper, so then to put a משל is a farther descent.

There's two things in the length: there's the potential length, and there's the actual length. So the potential length depends on the idea itself, however deep the idea is, the deeper it is, the more of a length it will have. That's what we're going to say later, that the the width and the length depend on the depth.

But in actuality, how much a length comes out depends on the how far the teacher and the student are from each other. If the teacher is very has a very deep understanding and the student has a very shallow, low understanding, so then it's like the teacher is like a mountain, and the student is like a little valley.

Length Analogy: Teacher as Mountain, Student as Valley 5:18

And in order to go from one to the other, the idea has to flow very far, a very long way. That's like

the משל. כנהר שהולך ונמשך לאורך, like a river that flows and is drawn out for a long time, a long way. So it's like a river flowing from a mountain. So if it's flowing from a high mountain to a low place, that's very very long.

וכמו שמבואר באריכות בכתבים בענין אורך היריעה וכו׳,

as explained at length in the כתבים. The כתבים, as it says in היום יום, is a name for the Alter Rebbe's longer מאמרים. That the longest מאמרים the Alter Rebbe said at the end of his life are called כתבים. They're called manuscripts.

So, as explained at length in the manuscripts of the Alter Rebbe's later מאמרים, בענין אורך היריעה וכו׳,

about the length of the the skins that covered the משכן. And there it explains the idea of length. It explains by the פסוקים there that it says how the skins should be a certain length, and then it says like it should be שלשים אמה אורך באמה.

It should be 30 אמות long by that אמה. So why is it necessary for it to repeat the word באמה? So it explains that it's this idea that it's like the same things just being doubled over to make it long.

So really like you take the same אמה of skin, and then you just do another one, and another one, and another one, and you attach them to each other, and then they fold over or whatever, and it's like a it makes it long. This is like a משל for how an idea like, for example, when an idea goes from teacher to student, teacher to student.

So, it's the same idea really, but because it goes through many different stops, goes through many teachers, and each one like explains it a little bit different, and it goes through their understanding and their minds, so you say it went goes a long way.

So, that's the idea that that that the idea becomes long. Or even within one teacher, when he goes from one explanation and then based on that, he goes to a simpler explanation, a simpler explanation.

And within himself, the idea gets applied at lower and lower levels until it becomes a very simple idea, that's also the idea of of a length.

Depth: The Core Essence of an Idea 8:16

So, that's what it explains there about the the אורך היריעה. The עומק, and then there's the depth, the depth of the river. הוא כעומק הנהר, that's like the depth of a river, שמשם מתרחב, that from the depth, that's where it spreads out, ובעצמו אינו רחב כלל, but in itself is not wide at all. And what exactly is this depth of the river? הוא עיקר עצם הנהר אבל הוא עיקר עצם הנהר, rather this is the main the main identity, the main essence, the main self of the river, הנקרא שטראם, which is called the undercurrent, שהוא עיקר מרוצת הילוכו ממקורו.

This is the main flow of the river from its source. So the way a river works is that you have some water source, either a spring up in the mountain or the combination of a spring with melting snow and rainwater that collects from, you know, different mountains. Like for example, in America, there's something called the continental divide, that the Rocky Mountains go from like Mexico up to Canada, and they divide America, not really not in half, but I mean because it's like all the way to the west, but they, you know, they they split America.

And anything that any rain that falls on one side of the mountains to a certain point and any water that that's rain that falls on the west of that point will end up flowing, it will join up into these little streams, then it will join up into bigger streams, so it joins into little rivers and bigger rivers, and it will end up in like the main rivers, and it will all flow to the Pacific Ocean.

And then all of the rain that falls on the other side will

So, like, all the rainwater that falls on America, like, some of it is absorbed into the ground, and, you know, it grows crops, and some of it just evaporates back into the air. But then the rest of it flows down and turns into rivers, also. So there's that, and then there's there's springs. There's like springs of water, which we'll talk about soon.

So the the way a river works, then, is that you have this water flowing, and then it like carves out a path, like a like a little trough, like a like a ditch, a groove in the ground.

And the bottom of the ground, like the water drags against the bottom against the ground. And on the top Oh, so that's the bottom and sides, and on the top, it drags against the air. But it But it makes like this cushion, and in the middle, the water is able to flow very fast. It becomes like a lubricated tube or something like that. And in the middle, there is this stream of water that flows very fast.

And that's that's the main flow of the river. The waters on the side and on the top flow much slower. And that's called undercurrent. And if there's, you know, sometimes it's dangerous, if there's a big difference between the top and the middle like that, then it can be dangerous for swimming or something. It can pull somebody under the water. But so this is the main flow of the river, and so from there, what happens that this flow this is really the main thing with the river, is that it's flowing, that it's trying to go from the mountains to the ocean.

And if on the way the land becomes flatter, so then it will become wide or it'll spill over and it will become wider and it will also be able to go a long way. If there's not so much water, it'll just flow a little bit, and then it will get absorbed in the ground, and it will dry up. There has to be a lot of water flowing in order for it to make it all the way down to the ocean.

So that's the way a river works. ומים שעל גביו ובגובה ולצדדי העומק,

and like we said, the water that's on top and on the sides of the depth טפלים לו, are secondary to it, because the main thing is the flow, that's the main idea of a river, is that it's flowing.

So the rest of the water isn't really flowing so much. שאינן רק בבחינת התגברות התפשטותו בלבד לצדדים ברוחב ובגובה באורך וגו' וכולי.

The rest of the water is only the like the overflowing of this water that's flowing because it's there's so much water, so it all fills up the sides, and it also becomes like high, and then as it goes very, you know, along the the course of the river, which is the length. But the main thing is this inner stream that's flowing very fast.

And the rest of the the water on the sides and the top is just to help it do that. כך עומק המושכל הוא בחינת עצם נקודתו. The same thing with an idea, the depth of the idea is the real, essential point of the idea. כמו שהוא, as it is, that this is not this is like the real essence of the idea in its essential state. ונקרא עומק המושכל, and that's called the depth of an idea, the depth of the what's understood.

שכל מה שנתפשט בהסבר ההשגה, whatever spreads out from this point to, you know, be an explanation, לכל צד ברוחב גדול, to every side, every like different detail that's encompassed in this idea, ברוחב גדול, with a great width, explaining all the details, בכמה פרטים, many many details, וכן לאורך, and also a length, בעוצם הירידה, to bring the idea very far down into משלים.