Part 4 · Chapter 1

Depth, Length, Width: Finding the Core 0:01

ונמצא, comes out, בחינת העיון הזה הוא רק בחינת כלי לבחינת העמקה דבינה עצמה. So based on the way that we explained the relationship between the length and width and the depth, that is that we explain how everything comes out from the depth, and so the more you grasp the depth, the more of the length and width you have, the more that you'll be able to apply the idea in all sorts of ways and you'll be able to explain it very simply.

But also on the flip side of that, that if you're a student and you're starting out and you want to grasp the depth, the only way for you to reach it is by going through the length and the width. The length and the width make like this shell around the depth, and you have to crack it, you have to break get through it in order to find the depth.

And the only way to do that is by going through the whole length and the whole width, and finding, the more you do that, the more you'll find the depth that's behind it.

So ונמצא, comes out, בחינת העיון הזה הוא רק בחינת כלי לבחינת העמקה דבינה עצמה, that that this thing of עיון, of analyzing the subject, is only like a vessel, it's only a tool for the actual delving of בינה itself.

What is that, what do we mean? Because we explained that עיון is just to spend a lot of time dwelling over the idea, not just not to pass over it.

And what happens that like if you let an idea just pass through your mind very quickly, then your mind, your power of בינה doesn't have the chance to really focus on it and do its magic to figure it out. But if you hold the idea in your mind for a long time, then your faculty of בינה can analyze it and it can it can really, you know, find, it can it can become sensitive to it and really find the depth.

Meditation vs Study: What’s Real Depth 2:11

But now we're going we're going even a little past this, כי לכאורה, for seemingly, בחינת העיון הזה נקרא העמקת הדעת בלשון העולם. Seemingly, what we just described as עיון is what the world calls העמקת הדעת.

What the world calls העמקת הדעת is meditation. That means just to concentrate on an idea, and just like to hold the idea in your mind for a long time, and that focus, that concentration, will automatically bring a flash of inspiration, an idea from חכמה.

That's the way it seems. ואינו כן, but this is not true, this is not so. העמקת הדעת is not עיון, is not התבוננות. So העמקת הדעת, היינו בחינת כלי לבד, that העמקת הדעת is also only a כלי, it's also only a tool, but it is a tool לבוא לעומק של הענין ממש, to come to the true depth of the idea that's even higher than what בינה gives you.

So, basically, what we're going to explain, we're going to explain now in the rest of the chapter, the idea of חכמה, and how חכמה also has a length, width, and depth, and how a person can go deeper and deeper into the חכמה, and then we're going to explain דעת, and then we'll better understand this relationship here between בינה and דעת.

We're also going to explain what בינה will give you and what דעת will give you, and how the two have to work together. But the basic idea is that concentration, focusing your mind on an idea, does not actually make you understand the idea.

Concentration Alone Doesn’t Bring Understanding 3:43

It's studying the explanations that makes you understand the idea. So, if you'll just go and meditate on an idea, or try to just focus in on it and, like, attune yourself to it, cultivate a sensitivity to it, by just focusing, that will not do anything, at least nothing positive.

And actually, like it says that a person that later we'll say different negative things that can happen if a person does that type of meditation without without the בינה first, without first studying.

But when a person is studying, obviously, if they don't concentrate and they're not attentive, and they don't really put themselves into it, they're not going to understand. Like the famous היום יום, that the main thing in understanding חסידות is that you should feel that it's נוגע to you, that it relates to yourself. Like the story with the lady with the chicken, that she brought a chicken to the רב, it's a story in גמרא, you know, that's brought in the היום יום, that Reb Meir was once in in the בית מדרש and they were discussing a certain case like a chicken, whether it's כשר or not.

Chicken Tale Illustrates Practical Insight 4:43

He kept bringing all these arguments, these like ingenious arguments to try to say that it's כשר, and they kept saying, "No, it's not." And they finally said, "You know, just give it up, man. You know, the chicken is not כשר."

And they thought he was just really adamant about it, but it was like weird. He was like so coming up with the craziest things to try to make it כשר, and it's like it's just this is not כשר. So, he said, "I promise you that all of these arguments were told to me by a woman that brought me a chicken." So, there was like this woman that was not learned and wasn't smart necessarily or intellectual, but because it was important to her, because she really, you know, wanted the chicken to be כשר, so she thought up all these arguments.

So, the same thing, that even a person that's not so smart and not so knowledgeable, but if they if they if it really relates to them, which is the thing that they have like a דעת for it, so they feel that it connects themselves, then they'll really understand it. But, nevertheless, all these things of trying to that relates to דעת, so concentrating and meditating, and focusing, and connecting yourself to the idea, only help after you have the בינה, after you study the idea and you understand it.

Medical School Analogy for True Learning 6:12

This is something that's understood in any discipline or in any study, that if a person is in medical school, and they want to learn to be a doctor, obviously they have to study all the explanations of medicine, and learn learn the whole thing, the whole length and width. Otherwise, there's no way that they'll really understand it and have the דעת to really be a doctor. And just, you know, picturing the human anatomy or something, staring at a picture of it, or something like that, or any type of, you know, meditation like that will not help to to give to make a person understand.

He has to actually study the books, and spend, you know, years of studying and apprenticeship, and internship, I mean, and the the doctor has to do internship also. He has to like study under another doctor, and see how it's actually done. It's not just enough to learn it in the books, but then you actually have to, they have to find some doctor that will that will actually let them hang around and be like their משפיע, and teach them how to be a doctor.

Role of a משׁפיע as Mentor 7:17

That would be that's the idea of a משפיע. That's so many things. I mean, there's different things in a משפיע, but one of the main things of a משפיע is that he's supposed to be like your guide and mentor in עבודת השם.

So, we're going to explain what העמקת הדעת, we'll explain more about דעת soon, um the end of the פרק. But for now, בינה only gives you the depth of what's called a מושג, which is the idea that the way it's in בינה.

דעת connects you to the חכמה, that's higher than בינה. But you can only do that after you have the בינה. ולמעלה מזה, and even higher than this idea of העמקת הדעת, הוא הנקרא מעמיק, is what is called מעמיק, deep delving, שמגיע למעלה גם מן החכמה עצמה,

that that reaches even higher than the חכמה, that reaches from the חכמה up to the כתר. So, you can go from the external understanding of like גירסא to get the depth of בינה, to get the depth of the understanding. That's what התבוננות does. Then you can go from the בינה to the חכמה, which is what העמקת הדעת does. Then you can go from the חכמה to the כתר, which is what מעמיק does.

From Bina to Chochma to Crown 8:20

And we're going to explain all these things. שהגם שהחכמה היא בחינת האין ממש על המושכל קודם שבא לכלל עומק נקודת המושג שבבינה,

even though you're going to think to yourself, or you're going to ask the question, wait a minute, I learned you know, other places that חכמה is a point, and חכמה is like this nothing, it's like the undefined point of the intellect that's like a total nothing before it comes to relate to בינה, and בינה is what develops it into a יש. So, how can you say that I'm going to reach into the depth of חכמה?

I'm going to go higher than even חכמה, how can I do that? כמעיין לגבי נהר כנזכר לעיל, that this is like a wellspring to the river. So, seemingly, as soon as you get the depth of בינה, you connect it to the נקודה of חכמה, and you're done. What more can you do?

There's no room to delve into חכמה to find its source seemingly, and to go into the depth of חכמה, and go even past חכמה. What does what does that mean? Yeah, but what does so what does that mean, that you're going to the כתר?

What does that mean practically in ideas? You know, I mean let's say I tell you, "You're going to Kentucky." So, what does that mean? You know, it's not just a Okay. So, אבל בחינת העמקה בשרש של המושכל, שורש שמגיע בשרש שממשיך מן נביעת מעיין דחכמה וכולי

The answer is also Another part of this question is, I understand how you can analyze the idea the way it's in בינה to go deeper, but even if you're going to understand where you're trying to go, okay, you're trying to go to the כתר, what are you going to do? How do you You can't analyze חכמה, it's just like this point in your head. So either you got it or you don't.

But what Where are you working with? What are you doing? So the answer is that when you do the התבוננות and you work to find the source of an idea, which it means that you do the עיון in בינה to try to find the חכמה, that will automatically reach up to the root that brings down the flow of the מעין of חכמה. You'll reach into the source that is of חכמה.

So basically the עיון, studying the original work, and this is basically the idea is that that whatever you want to accomplish, you want to get the depth of בינה, you want to go past and get the חכמה, you want to get the depth of חכמה, all the way up to the depth of כתר, whatever you want, you want to get the עצם, how do you do it?

Repeated Study to Deepen Mastery 11:05

So you have to take Let's say you're learning a book, you know, you're learning a מאמר, whatever it is, you take the ספר, and you have to learn the ספר.

And then you have to learn it again, you have to learn it again, you have to learn it again, and you have to really work to understand it, learn it not just more times, but more in depth, and ask questions and answer and learn it with another person to get a fresh perspective, and keep working on it, and then imagine like you're going to have to give a class on it to like people, you know, totally skeptical intellectual people that are going to ask you all these questions, and think, well, what questions are they going to ask, how am I going to explain it to them, and and then you know, think what's the נמשל, and think how could I apply it, what are examples of it, like really work on an idea until it's you really understand it.

And the more that you you just keep working on the idea itself and going over the same words and the same ideas, and that עיון, that התבוננות will automatically bring you deeper and deeper. First you'll you'll get the depth of the בינה, then you'll start to get the חכמה, then you'll eventually even get the source of the חכמה.

So now you have something, we're telling you have something to work with. That you work with a יש. You work with this with something, with the explanations of בינה, and automatically the בינה will open up the חכמה and even the כתר. And like we're going to say later in the next פרק, the בינה also opens up everything under it. It will open up the the מדות and the מעשה.

Bina Unlocks All Levels in Chabad 12:21

And this is the whole שיטה of חב״ד, that when you do התבוננות, it will change your perspective and it'll change your feelings and it will bring to מעשה. This פרק and the next פרק explains the philosophical grounds for the חב״ד approach to self-improvement.

Towards like עבודה on yourself. Okay, so doing התבוננות will bring you all the way to the source of חכמה. כולו ונקרא עמקי חכמה, this is called the depths of חכמה, אי תעלומות חכמה or the hidden חכמה.

כי כמו שיש עומק ואורך ורוחב בבינה שנקרא יש כנ״ל. For just like there's a length, width, and depth in בינה, which like we said before is called a יש, that it's like something, that's tangible meaning. What does it mean that it's a יש? It means that that an idea in בינה, something tangible that you can explain, you can work with. It's like a particular explanation.

It's like let's say you're learning a piece of גמרא, and you learn רש״י, and רש״י explains to you the גמרא. So his explanation is, you know, that's a that's a יש. That's a very concrete thing. And תוספות explains it a different way, so that's also that's a יש. Or like the kid that's learning math and they tell him about the one apple and one apple is two apples, or or even when you're talking about the numbers, one plus one is two is a concrete example.

It's a particular problem. But like concept of math in theory that's behind it is like an abstract point. That's much harder to talk about.

כך יש עומק ואורך ורוחב במעין דחכמה שנקרא אין. So too there's a length, width, and depth, or depth, length, and width to the to the wellspring of חכמה, which is called a nothing. It's called, that's like an abstract point.