Part 10 · Chapter 1

Deep Focus Through Consistent Study (דעת) 0:00

שמזה דווקא בא עצם עומק ההשגה על ידי העיון דבינה. So דווקא through this having דעת, having this deep interest and focus, that like you're totally you're totally into the, you know, obsessed with the idea or totally into it, you have this interest and concentration and focus, so דווקא with that focus, then you're you will really understand through the עיון דבינה, because then you'll do it consistently and you'll do it, you know, it's not good enough just to have the ability to understand or even to have the understanding.

You have to also consistently be thinking about it and be focusing your full attention on it and really really apply yourself to it. And that's the idea of דעת. שהוא היפך הצמצום והעיכוב, which the עיון of בינה itself, though, is really the opposite of the this idea of focusing and limiting yourself to just one idea. דעת means you get fixated on one idea. But בינה means that you want to take the idea and pull it apart and see all of its parts and compare and contrast them and see how they work together.

בינה vs דעת: Expanding vs Fixating 1:05

שהרי העיון דבינה, גם שעומד שעומד ומעוכב בצמצום ועיכוב בתחילתו, even though when a person is doing עיון in בינה, they dwell on each thing and they hold themselves back to like spend time focusing on each point at first, that's when when you're first studying each point you spend a lot of time on each one until you don't go on to the next one until you understood this one well,

אבל מיד מתפשט ומתרחב הרבה בכל פרטי חלקיו בהבחנות פרטיות הרבה כידוע. But immediately it starts to expand, it starts to grow more and more, and you start to put together this whole broad picture of all the different details, and you start to know, well there's this and there's that and they work together like this, and there's a third thing and there's a fourth thing, and you start to see how they all fit together.

Like we're learning here, first you learn about בינה, and חכמה, and then דעת, and so even though at first when we're learning about בינה we dwell on it, but then we move on to חכמה, and then we dwell on that, and now we're on דעת, and we dwell on that. And we're getting a bigger and bigger picture.

Watchmaker Analogy for Analyzing Ideas 2:20

And that's the whole point of בינה, is to understand all the points and all the how they work together. Like somebody that's taking apart a watch to examine it, to like fix it, watchmaker. So he first he takes it apart and he looks at each piece carefully under a microscope, to like see you know, not a microscope, a magnifying glass, to see if it's, you know, broken or anything, and examine the the the quality and you know, so he first he spends a lot of time on each part, but he's really trying to evaluate all of them and get a big picture, and see how he can put it back together and fix it and, you know, what could be wrong with it.

Or like detective looking for clues. So maybe he'll spend a lot of time focusing on each detail, but he's trying to put together a big picture to figure out what happened. Not just he doesn't just want to like focus on each little detail. But yet he has to have a very big interest in the details. If he's not interested in the details to like spend the time to really focus on them, then he's not going to do a proper analysis.

So the דעת is not any it's not a process of thinking. It's not like a cognitive, understanding process, it's not a learning process. What it is, is the focus that that motivates you to really learn and really do the the proper analysis. מה שאין כן הצמצום והעיכוב דהעמקת הדעת, on the other hand, the focus and limiting of העמקת הדעת, of having a deep דעת for something, really connecting to the idea, אדרבה, הוא רק הצמצום, שהוא העיכוב והאסיפה מכל כח שכלו להתקשר רק במושכל זה.

The whole idea of דעת is only the focus. That mean the whole דעת doesn't try to build a big picture. The whole thing of דעת is that you're very interested and very focused on what you're doing right now, and you totally are engrossed in it. You totally put yourself into it. You don't hear anything, you don't see anything, you just you're totally you get totally into it.

And like there's, you know, stories people when they're דאווענען or or learning or something, and they wouldn't even hear or know what's going on around them. And this sounds like a very, you know, deep level of דעת that is not שייך to a regular person that they should be that that into what they're doing.

But really, this is very easy easy for anybody, they just have to be interested. And if you just develop an interest for what you're for what you're doing, automatically your you'll have a very strong דעת for it, you'll have a very strong concentration and focus on it. And then you see this, you take any kid, you stick them in front of a TV, a video or something like that, and bam, they're out.

They don't see you, they don't hear you, they don't know nothing. You know, so you see that It's just a matter of how connected you are to the idea. I mean, it's easy. When you're watching a video, it's easy because there, like, you have all this stuff going on. You have pictures that are moving, and you have sounds and music. It's like very captivating. If you when you start to learn something and you you develop an interest for it through doing עיון in something, through studying an idea, you'll start to develop an interest, and then when your דעת starts to connect to it, then you you start to focus on that idea a lot, and become very engrossed in it and very very connected to the idea.

שזה היפך בחינת התפשטות העיון בהרחבת ענין המושכל, which this focus on the idea, and it's getting totally engrossed in what you're doing right now, and like forgetting about everything else that exists, this is the opposite of the way that עיון takes an idea and it tries to spread it out and get a broad picture of the idea.

Because really when you're learning, you don't just want to know this one little thing you're learning right now, you want to know the whole the whole the whole thing.

If you're learning like הלכה, you don't just want to know this one הלכה, you want to know all the הלכות. You want to know like הלכות שבת, you want to know everything about שבת, you want to know what to do. You want the whole picture. But right now, you're learning one הלכה, you have to like totally focus on that, whatever you're doing right now.

So if you don't have the דעת to totally focus and concentrate on what you're doing right now, and not think about everything else, then you're not going to really analyze it properly and really understand it. But nevertheless, you have to then keep moving from point to point, and then step back and see how they fit together also.

So this is why you need to have both together, and this is you have to have the right balance when you're learning of like how much you're going to go in depth and how much you're going to force yourself to go on and put together the picture. And this is why חזרה is a very good thing, because חזרה lets you, you know, focus on each thing that you learn, but at the same time force yourself to go on and build a big picture, which helps you understand also.

Balancing Insight with Repetition (חזרה) 6:54

And then you can always come back, and using everything that you've learned, come back and go deeper and understand it better. And then you go through it all again, and you come back and do it deeper and and better. And this way you have a balance of the two, because if you just learn one thing until you understand it perfectly, you could really go forever, because there's deeper and deeper you could go.

So you have to have that balance of דעת and בינה, that you're focusing on what you're doing, and you're going to stop and just focus on this until you understand it, and on the other hand, you're going to learn to to move and keep building the whole picture.

Yeah, just one thing is that this difference between בינה and דעת, דעת is not is not like you're focusing because you want to understand. דעת is focusing because you develop like that you like this idea, you're really connected to it, you're really interested in it. דעת is just that you you like where you are now, and you want to stay there.

You know, you want to say you want to savor it and just like stay with it, because you enjoy it. בינה wants you to is a is like after a goal, that you want to understand, and so wants you to go on also. So the בינה is really what's going to make you understand, but if you don't have a דעת, then you're not going to use your בינה enough, and then it won't accomplish what it was supposed to accomplish.

בלשון אידיש, דער קלעפ מיט דעם אריינלייגן זיך גאר וכולי,

means when you grasp an idea and like really settles into you very well.

So yes, the idea of עמקות הדעת is the opposite of this רחבות הבינה. So this idea of עמקות הדעת is just your that you're totally preoccupied and you totally put yourself into it. והאמנם על ידי עמקות הדעת בא לידי עמקות המושכל עד שרשו בעומק חכמה ובינה.

Nevertheless, even though דעת is the opposite of בינה, but you need the דעת to connect your עיון so that you'll be מעיין in the right place. And so it's this interest that causes your עיון to keep going deeper and deeper into the idea, which will bring you eventually to the depth of חכמה and בינה. And without the דעת, you'll only analyze the external idea, and you'll only understand the external idea.

So this is a thing that it's important, the deeper your דעת is, it's basically like knowing what you're after. And the more that you know what you're after and you connect your interest in the right place, if your interest is in the right place, you understand better. And this is like what it says that הלומד על מנת ללמד מספיקין בידו ללמוד וללמד, somebody that learns in order to teach will have time to learn and to teach.

Learning to Teach and to Act 9:48

You would think that oh, if I, you know, it's hard enough me to learn, so if I'm going to teach, I'm not going to have time to learn. Say, no, if you learn in order to teach, you'll have time to learn and you'll have time to teach.

And the לומד על מנת לעשות מספיקין בידו ללמוד וללמד לשמור ולעשות. And if you learn in order to do it, in order to bring it into, you know, to action, that you should live it, then you'll have time to learn and to teach and to guard and to do.

Why? Because the reason that you're learning, that's like your where your interest lies, that's your דעת. And the deeper into the essence of idea that you connect your דעת, the easier it is your עיון is going to go in the right place, and you'll find the depth. So the real depth of the תורה is that it's not just for you, it's that you want to bring it also to other people, and not just to other people like in learning, but you want to bring it to action.

So when you when you learn in order to bring it to action, that's really where you're getting the essence of the תורה. And so then it makes it much easier to you understand much quicker because you you're you're looking in the right place. You're analyzing from like the תורה's point of view, you're seeing what it's after, and you see everything fits in place, and and you get the depth.

But if you don't go after the the עצם, if you don't go after the essence, you don't go after the depth, you're not going to get the depth. So if you just learn to like, you know, know esoteric, you know, babble, then you'll know esoteric babble, that's it. הא בחינת דעת עליון דמזווג חכמה לבינה, כמו שמבואר למעלה בענין עומק המושג דבינה, until the

Upper דעת Unites חכמה and בינה 11:23

upper the upper דעת connects the חכמה and the בינה to the בינה. And so this inner interest will make that your that that when you study not only you'll get the depth of בינה, but you'll also start to bring out חידושים because you'll connect, the more you connect yourself to it, the more you apply yourself to it, the more you you'll be successful in what you're doing.

And so when you really apply yourself you'll also start to connect your כח המשכיל to it and you'll which is your source of, you know, new ideas and ingenuity, and so you'll start to bring out חידושים, new ideas in your your understanding. והיינו דדעת גניז בפומא דאימא וכו'.

And this is what it says that דעת is hidden in the mouth of the mother. That hidden in the ability to understand is really that there was a deep interest. It's not just that the person had a the אימא, the mother represents בינה, understanding, and hidden in, even though externally בינה looks like the opposite of דעת, it looks like it's it's it doesn't really have so much דעת, but really hidden in behind it is a very deep דעת.

Moshe’s דעת Leads to בינה 12:47

And that's what gives the ability to understand. וכמו שאמרו, like it says, משה שהוא דעת זכה לבינה. That משה that he is דעת, that his soul level was the level of דעת, that he had like a very deep connection to everything, a very deep interest in everything, so he merited בינה, to understand everything. שהוא שער נ', which that's the 50th gate of בינה, the depth of inner depth of בינה, which reaches all the way up to the כתר, like we explained before.

כי הא בהא תליא, because the two are interdependent. The חכמה and the בינה, they need to go and come together. It says אם אין דעת אין בינה, אם אין בינה אין דעת. So it says in פרקי אבות. You can't have one without the other. וכמו שכתוב בכתבים בכמה דוכתי וד"ל, like it's explained in many places in the כתבים, in the Chasidic manuscripts or the long מאמרים of the אלטער רבי.

And that is enough for a מבין to understand.