Part 2 · Chapter 2

Bina vs Tvuna: Abstract vs Applied Understanding 0:02

דהיינו, this means שלא יוכל להוציא מתוך הסברא איזה חיוב על פי זה השכל ולא איזה זכות על פי זה השכל. That this means that the person, he learns the גמרא and he understands that there's a certain סברא. So according to רש"י the סברא is like this, and according to תוספות the סברא is like that, and then the רא"ש is like this, and the ר"ן, and the רי"ף, and רמב"ם, and רמב"ן, they have all these סברות.

But now if I ask you, okay, so according to this סברא, so how how would it come out in this case? It's like I don't know yet how it will apply in this case. That's like a whole nother level of understanding, to be to see how that סברא would come out practically. So he doesn't know how to do that yet. כי עדיין אין השכל והסברא רק השכלה שכליית לבד.

Because right now, it's just an abstract, intellectual thing. It's purely intellectual. בלתי ימצא ממנה שום התפשטות והטיות לענין נבדל הימנה. It's just right now a פלפול about what is the גדר of this of this חיוב, is it, you know, גברא, is it a חפצא, is it because of this, is it because of that? I remember in when I was learning בבא קמא, we had in the beginning a whole חקירה about whether the reason that you're חייב for when your property damages something, whether it's because of העדר השמירה or because there's an actual התחייבות that you have a יחס to your your money.

Early Bava Kamma Investigation: Reason for Liability 1:24

It's like different מחלוקות like that. That at first, you're just trying to understand what is the the reason for the הלכה. And like you can understand it one way, the other way, and at first there's no you don't see any נפקא מינה. You don't see any practical difference. And then when you ask what's the practical difference, they tell you the difference is that if somebody says מקדש is מקדש a woman on condition that this is the reason for the דין, you know, that's what they tell you.

In other words, right now they're just for the עצם thing. They're just learning it, they don't care what the practical thing is. Afterwards, we'll see if there's a practical thing. Right now, they just want to understand what is the reason. And so right now, it won't come out to anything separate. שהוא לחייב על ידה או לזכות על ידה, which this means to find guilt because of it or merit because of it.

והרי זו כמו דבר ההיולי. This is like something that is a היולי, like an essence, like we explained in פרק י' and י"א, שלא נודע עדיין מה ימצא ממנה ומה יעשה בה,

that we do not yet know what will come out from it or what can be done with it. We have no idea yet, because it could come out in so many different ways. בלשון אידיש דער מושכל אליין כמו שהוא, that this is the idea itself as it is, in other words, just an an abstract theory, ער קען מיט אים נישט טאן קיין זאך ניט צו קערן לזכות או לחוב כו',

and he can can't do anything with it to bear to merit or to liability. בלשון אידיש דער מושכל אליין כמו שהוא,

in Yiddish we would say the idea itself as it is, meaning the abstract theory, ער קען מיט אים נישט טאן קיין זאך ניט, he can't do anything with it, צו קערן לזכות או לחוב כו', to lean the judgment to merit or to liability, כו'. ואמנם, however, כח התבונה שמתפשט ממוח הבינה,

this problem of being stuck in the world of abstract theory, that is only in בינה itself, but the power of תבונה that spreads out from the faculty of בינה, היינו מה שביכלתו להביא את ההשגה בבחינת התפשטות למטה הימנה,

it's in the ability of this power to bring the abstract understanding to application in something lower than it, בכל ענין נבדל הימנה, in anything separate from it, או לחיוב או לזכות, whether that that means to find the judgment of guilt or innocence, או להתפעל בלב, or whether this means to bring it to an excitement in your heart, that you should have an emotional reaction because of this understanding, וכן להביאה במחשבה בכמה אופנים שונים כו', and also to be able to bring it into thought in many different ways, that you should you should be able to explain the idea to yourself in all different, you know, conceptualize it, even the depth of it, in many ways.

So this is the general difference between בינה and תבונה, that בינה is the abstract understanding and it's still like a היולי to its applications. And then תבונה is the power of applied understanding. And so this is like the difference between learning somebody that that learns גמרא or somebody that learns הלכה, somebody that learns גמרא just like לעיון, just like a פלפול, and somebody that learns הלכה. And actually I think that it used to be that חב״ד would stress learning גמרא להלכה.

Not sure if not sure if there's a reason why that changed or if it was just because it became popular in the world just to learn גמרא like a פלפול style. But I don't know, I heard that that's the way that it was always done.

It might say it in קונטרס עץ חיים. And this is also the difference in like other things, like let's say in science or mathematics, that they have what's called pure pure science and applied science.

So pure means that it's just the theory and it doesn't apply to anything yet. And so like pure mathematics is just you're learning about, you know, the numbers and the formulas and, and applied mathematics is when they use it for like engineering, like when they want to send something to the moon, so they have to use mathematics to figure out the trajectories and whatever. And the same thing when they're building a bridge, they have to figure out with all the variables, the pressure and the wind and the, you know, in case there's an earthquake, they have to be able to figure out like how that would affect the structure.

Pure vs Applied Science: Bridge Building Analogy 6:27

So like all these kind of things, that's the practical side of it. Now, like when you learn if you're learning like שולחן ערוך, so then you're learning a practical understanding. It's not the same as actually doing it, but you're you're already learning an idea that relates to doing it. When you're learning like the גמרא about שחיטה, you're learning why this is כשר, why this why this type of שחיטה is כשר and why that type of שחיטה is not כשר, you're trying to understand what is the real essential determinant, what really decides whether it's going to be כשר or not, what is the key factor that everything is based on.

You're just trying to find that point. That's like the trying to find the depth of a בינה. That type of a learning is בינה, and then when you just want to learn what to do practically, that's תבונה.

And a lot of the things of תבונה are circumstantial. So the fact that like the knife has to be sharp, it's a practical thing.

The main thing is that, you know, the שחיטה should be done in a way that it doesn't rip the skin, and it's just it's not cutting because of ripping, it's not cutting because of your pressure, it's cutting because of the knife, the sharpness of the knife. So practically you want to have a very sharp knife. And the fact that you want it to be very hard so that it won't nick easily, because if it has a nick, then it will rip.

So therefore they use very hard steel. But really you're allowed to שחט with anything that's sharp. And it doesn't even have to be that sharp. It could be that you have to go back and forth all day and it just cuts it very slowly, and it could take you all day to to שחט it and it'll be כשר, as long as you're you're not applying pressure and it's not ripping and, you know, things like that.

So like the fact that they use like a hard steel knife is a practical thing. And that's like the that difference from seeing the abstract idea and then seeing what's like a practical way to do it, you see that very much the difference between like, let's say what the way בחורים learn and the way that girls learn, because like let's say כשרות or something. So even even when בחורים are learning סמיכה or whatever, it's still much more the theory of it.

But then you have to learn how to actually set up your kitchen in a way that practically will keep things כשר. There's a whole different שכל of knowing what is כשר, what's not, and then knowing how to make sure that you don't run into those problems. Having your separate dishes and, you know, separate burners, and setting it up in a way that like will reduce the number of problems is a whole nother חכמה.

Practical Kashrut: Kitchen Setup and Separate Utensils 9:10

That's a whole other way of power of understanding is to be able to apply it like that.