Part 5 · Chapter 1

Introducing the Dimensions of חכמה 0:02

So now we're going to explain the dimensions of חכמה. And the idea is that just like in בינה that you have to go through the length and width and then you get the depth, and there's more and more to do, so too within חכמה, a person can have deeper and deeper perception of the point of חכמה. ועומק המיין, what's the the depth of the wellspring? היינו תחילת שורש מחצבו בעומקו שמשם מתפשט נביעותו למעלה.

The depth of the wellspring is its original root in where it's cut out in the stone deep in the ground. And there, there's a deep pocket of water under the ground, like an underground lake, and there's a crack that goes up through the earth's crust, wiggling its way through, and then the water makes its way through these cracks and veins until it spurts out of the the earth somewhere, and that's the the מעיין.

That's the wellspring. And then they bottle it, and they sell it to you as mountain spring water. שמשם מתפשט נביעותו למעלה, and from there, its flow spreads up עד שבוקע ויוצא טיפין טיפין בגילוי מהעלמו, until it bursts through the earth, and it comes out drop by drop, and now it's coming revealed from its hidden source. When it's under the ground, it's hidden. You don't see any water.

You walk around, you don't see water. You have to dig down, and then you if you're in the right place, you'll find a well. Wherever you are, if you dig deep enough, I think wherever you are if you dig deep enough, you'll hit the water table. But if you're in certain places, you don't have to dig that deep, there's a big well.

ותכלית העלמו הוא תכלית עומקו למטה. And the deeper you go, the more hidden it is. כמו מעיינות תהום נבקעו, like it says by the מבול that the מעיינות of the abyss, the very deep underground lakes burst forth.

Because there are certain like springs that are normally open, and certain like geysers and different things that are normally open, and then there are ones that are normally closed that are very deep down, even if you dig or try to dig a well, they're too deep, you're not really going to hit them. But then in the מבול, they all burst forth, and that's how it flooded everything, plus then it rained also, and everything, all the rain came down.

דארעא חלחולי מחלחלא וכולי, for the earth is riddled with veins. It has all kinds of veins. It has veins of water and veins of gold and silver and everything. בגידין, with veins, שיש להם עומק ראשון, and all these veins, now we're talking about the water, they have a first source. In English, that underground lake is called an aquifer.

So, you have these big underground lakes which are called aquifers, and you also have underground rivers flowing between aquifers and stuff, and then you have these cracks in the ground that bring it up, and those are where wellsprings come from. ובזה, so that's the משל. ובזה נאמר והחכמה מאין תמצא. And this is what it says, that חכמה is found from nothing.

חכמה Emerges from Nothing – The Hidden Source 3:15

What do you mean that it comes out from nothing? מהעלם החכמה הנקרא עומק החכמה, that it comes out from the concealed source of חכמה which is called the depth of חכמה. So like the משל is that the underground lake that's the source of this water that's hidden deep under the ground, that's the depth of חכמה. That's the עומק. Then you have the actual width of like the wellspring, like this, you know, how wide of a crack you have in the ground, and so it goes all the way through until it actually breaks forth, and that's like the width is you actually go and you'll see that there's like a wellspring there.

Then when the wellspring drips out, and it flows down to like a little to the river, that's the length, that it goes out from itself to the river.

So now we're going to explain what חכמה is. והחכמה הוא המצאת שכל החדש שיוצא כברק וכולי. The power of חכמה is the ability to find a new idea that comes out like a lightning bolt, like a flash, that all of a sudden you're thinking and thinking, and all of a sudden boom, you get a an idea. כידוע, as known, ומקור מחצבו בהעלם עומקו הוא עיקר עצמות ותוך תוכו כנ״ל.

חכמה as a Flash of New Insight 4:18

So חכמה is like a wellspring that all of a sudden like this new thing comes out that you didn't see it anywhere because it was hidden under the ground, all of a sudden this water pops out. So too, חכמה brings out like a new idea from its source.

And just like we explained before with בינה, that the main thing is the depth of בינה, and the length and width comes out from that, Everything is really coming out from that depth.

So too, the source where it comes from under the ground, that big lake of water is the main, the main real self, the main עצם of the חכמה, and that's its real inwardness, that's its real, what's really behind it. In other words, the real thing behind the חכמה is that it's just, that there's this hidden potential, which that's like the idea of like the כח המשכיל, that a person like has this, this hidden, this hidden reservoir of knowledge and like abilities to understand, and then it comes out in different ways in the חכמה.

כנ״ל בביאור ענין עומק המושג דבינה, like we're saying before about the depth of the concept in בינה, שאינו רק עומק שבהשגה דבינה המורגש בבחינת יש בהבנת דבר מה בסברא נגלית,

that the עומק that we explained before the depth of בינה, that's not the true, that's not the deepest depth. That's not the farthest you can go. That's only the depth of the idea the way that it's understood in בינה, and it's felt as like a concrete thing, as like a יש, and you feel like, oh, I understood something with a revealed סברא that I can explain it to you logically with words, while as, you know, the point of חכמה is beyond that.

It's just something that you've got to חאפ. You have to find the point behind it that's much harder to articulate. שעומק של הסבר ההשגה הוא בבחינת אין של היש דהשגה בלבד, because the depth of this explanation of the idea is only the אין of the יש. It's only like the abstract point that you finally get behind all these explanations, but it's the abstract point of these explanations.

From רש״י Study to Deeper חכמה 6:50

So, like for example, if you're learning גמרא and you learn a רש״י, and you learn how he explains the גמרא, and you understand the way רש״י explains the גמרא, you first you don't really get it, and you review it a few times till you really understand what he's saying. You understand the חידוש of it, you understand his question, you understand his answer, and you really understand it.

Or like let's say like in חומש, let's say you're going to a רש״י שיחה, and so you really understand the רש״י. The truth is a רש״י שיחה is a little bit past that.

So, but let's say you just learned it, and you thought about it, and you really got it. So that, when you understand that רש״י, that's just the depth of the בינה. You understand the explanation here. Then if you go deeper, and you start to think into, and you start to to see, you'll start to get a חכמה, you'll start to see how this רש״י is really representing a שיטה, and that there's a point here in this רש״י that you find in every רש״י, or at least in many רש״יs.

So that's already bringing out a חכמה. You're bringing out the abstract point, which is a much deeper and much more abstract depth. And then you start to see let's say there's like a שיטה, there's a מחלוקת between רש״י and תוספות that goes in many, many arguments, and that's much more abstract than a particular idea, until you find the true depth that goes that's really the source of every argument of the way he explains every גמרא is because of this, that he looking at it from this point.

Sometimes you'll find that in like, you know, in like a שיחה will bring out something like that, like the ראגאטשאווער sometimes does that. Yeah, so in order for a person to to do that, to to see that, they have to not just learn one רש״י really well, they have to learn many רש״יs and learn all of them very well. And then they'll start to see, when you learn them all בעיון, then you start to see that.

Or if you learn a רש״י שיחה, then you can cheat. So like the understanding of just that first רש״י is is it's true that it's like, okay, you got this abstract depth that like you really get the point of the רש״י, that it's really it's really you can't explain it, you have to just learn it and then you really get it. But nevertheless, it's it's still like a it's still not the real depth.

ואין לו ערך לגבי עין דחכמה טרם שבאה לכלל השגה כלל, and it's not comparable to the abstract point of חכמה before it comes into the whole world of understanding. The abstract point of חכמה is before it's applied to any particular instance, like let's say you know that like רש״י has a certain שיטה, or like let's say the מחלוקת between like בית שמאי and בית הלל, the רבי explains of like כח and פועל, like the רבי shows that explains many different מחלוקות.

The idea of כח and פועל is like a חכמה, it's not really doesn't relate to anything particular. And then when you come to a particular מחלוקת, you have to say, okay, so how would I look at it from a כח way, how would I look at it from a פועל way. But that's like a much that doesn't really have to do yet, just like the point of כח and פועל doesn't have to do yet with a particular explanation of a of a, you know, a certain case.

גם לא בבחינת העומק שבה, not even the depth of the explanation of בינה is comparable to the עין of חכמה, שהוא תמציתה, which that's the, the עומק of בינה is the distilled essence, but nevertheless, it's it's still not as deep as חכמה. So, seemingly, how is it possible for you to do התבוננות and just get the depth of בינה, how are you gonna ever get to חכמה?

Because seemingly בינה just doesn't reach that far. It only reaches the depth of בינה, but it's not gonna get anywhere near even the חיצוניות of חכמה, let alone the depth of חכמה. ואמנם, however, it's not true. You are able to reach not only חכמה, but the depth of חכמה all the way to the פנימיות הכתר through the עיון of בינה.

The שער הנון – Bridge to חכמה 10:34

Because עומק המושג, the depth of understanding, נקרא שער הנון דבינה, which is called the שער הנון of בינה, גם שנמשך מאין דחכמה ליש, even though it goes from the abstract point of חכמה to be a יש, and now you're only seeing the way the חכמה was applied in this example—let's skip the parentheses for a minute—שרשו מגיע בעומק דחכמה הנ״ל, its source reaches all the way up to the depth of חכמה that he mentioned before.

And this is the idea that, so it's true that you're only understanding the depth the way that it is in this example, but nevertheless, that is the depth itself. That is the actual, like, point.

It's only one example of it, maybe, but it is, it has the whole עצם there. And this is the idea that on the level of the שער הנון, it opens up all the way to the עצם, into the חכמה and all the way up to the כתר.

Well, like we'll explain later the idea of the שער הנון, but the basic idea is that you have the מדות of בינה, like in ספירת העומר, we count חסד, חסד of חסד, those are we're counting the מדות of בינה.

And the 50th day, שבועות, is בינה, it'd be the עומק of בינה itself, which is the שער הנון, that's the כתר חכמה בינה of בינה, that it's the source of the מדות.

And when you get that, that's where you really get you get the עצם of the idea, that's higher than, like, explaining or applying, and that's why we don't count the 50th day, because it just comes it comes down מלמעלה, like once you do your work. So your work is to do התבוננות, is to study, like, the מדות, not just to study, like, let's say, in like הלכה, to study the הלכות, what's כשר and what's פסול or whatever.

And when you know all of that clearly, which is like the מדות, then automatically you'll have the מוחין of why this is yes and this is no, which is the עומק.

And that includes all the way up to the real עצם of the idea. And this is כמו מיין יצא—this is we're in the parentheses now—כמו מיין יצא מבית קדשי קדשים תחילתו כקרני חגבים וכולו כהאי גוונא, like it says that a wellspring goes out, when משיח comes, a wellspring is gonna go out from the the קדש קדשים. It's gonna start out very thin and narrow, like the horns of a grasshopper, and then it will spread out, first it's gonna be like a string and then a thicker string and then whatever, and eventually it will be as like a rushing river, as wide as a river.

Messianic Wellspring Metaphor: From קדש to River 12:54

So, what is the idea? The idea is that the קדש קדשים represents the כתר. That's the source. That's like where the עצם is revealed.

The wellspring represents חכמה, and the river represents בינה. So, both the river and the wellspring are coming from the קדש קדשים, it's coming from the same place. The only difference that the חכמה stays in the source, and the river goes out from the source, but it's the same water, coming from the same place.

So this is the idea that even though the depth of בינה leaves the source and becomes and is applied only in a particular example, but it's ממש the עצם is there. It's just that's the way the עצם is in this example, but you really have the עצם there. So when you understand it in this example, you really understand it in every example, you just have to learn to uncover, you know, what is חיצוניות and what's what what's external and what can change, what's just like לבוש, and what's the real עצם.

But once you once you really find that עצם, then it it's the same for everything else. So that's how you're able to to get the idea.

So, therefore, שרשו מגיע בעומק דחכמה הנ״ל, that the source of the idea reaches into this depth of חכמה. Like we see, the river goes all the way back to the קדש קדשים, too, that if you take the river and you trace it up to its source, it comes from the the מעין, from the wellspring. And actually its its water, you keep tracing, it goes all the way down the מעין, through the veins in the earth's crust, all the way down to the underground source of the water, to the to the aquifer.

The only difference is it's really the same water, that you have in the מעיין is just that it came to you. It came all the way down the mountain to where you are.

So this is the idea that even though that בינה is very far from the חכמה, but when you understand something in בינה, even though it's just a little concrete, tangible explanation, an example, but in that is really hidden the entire חכמה and all the way to עומק דחכמה, because you have a little bit of the essence. It's the same the same water, even though it's, you know, came out very far from the source, but it's it's the same water.

Doesn't matter. It's just bringing the same water out. And that's like if you just taste one little example of a of a chocolate bar, so you may not know all the different forms about it, and you may not know all the different ways to use it, whatever, but you have the essence. You know what it is, you know what it tastes like, because that stays the same.

And all the external things can change, but that inner point, which like the שער הנון, that's that stays the same. That's that's the same in חכמה, that's the same in the כתר.

On the contrary, when it comes into בינה, that's where you can really get it, because it's very tangible. So so basically what we're saying is that that even though it's true that the חכמה is is very far beyond בינה, and it's very abstract, and בינה is very concrete, nevertheless, the depth of בינה reaches all the way up to the depth that's even higher than חכמה, all the way to the כתר, that's the source of חכמה.

And therefore, it is possible to, like we said originally, this this is what we're trying to explain, it is possible through doing עיון and learning explanations to get new חכמות, to get a a חידוש in חכמה, which means that you're activating the depth of חכמה.