Chapter 42 Part 2 · Part 8 Chapters 34 to End

Direct Thought vs Symbolic Thought in Rituals 0:02

Okay, go ahead. So, what we're talking about is direct thought compared to symbolic thought, is really what he's talking about. And the basic thing is, you know,

you hear a lot of talk about symbolic thought and semantics, like people say, "Oh, that's just semantics." And like the thing that, you know, people, you know, in terms of in terms of פרומקייט,

the Reformed and people like that try to try to reduce these things into the, it's just a symbol.

Like פסח, and the מצות, it's just a symbol. So, it's not so important, you know, I mean, why do you have to make such a big deal out of it? I understand.

Of course, you'll sit down and eat מצה, and then you'll drink a beer. Why not? I mean, the main thing is that you did the the symbolism. You know You know what I'm talking about, what what they say? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the general idea. I mean, it doesn't I'm not talking particularly about פסח, but Yeah. the general ענין that that basically the rituals of religion are just symbol symbo- symbols.

And this is also one of the things in terms of universalism, that you know what the Greeks said, you know, the thing with חנוכה, that really all religions are really the same. Right. Except you use these symbols, and I use these symbols. Right. So, this is what he's talking about, the thing of turning the thing into letters.

That a group of letters in a certain order

will represent an actual concept of something. Which he's saying the concept a little kid has even before he actually has the symbolic ability to represent it in letters.

Letters Precede Speech in Conceptual Understanding 2:33

Right. But what he's saying, though, is this proves that the symbolic ability to represent it in letters comes from a higher place than the actual עצם of the thinking about the concept or the mind.

כי צירופי אותיות מתחלקות במחשבה תחילה טרם בואם לדיבור. Because these these Since he's talking, you you know that he has to have the צירופי אותיות in his mind, because it's a known thing that the צירופי אותיות has to be separated out in the mind first before you can talk.

So, this is the thing that we know that the the the the thing has to be turned into letters in thought before they can come into speech. כמו שנתבאר דעגלי לאה נכנסו תוך ראשי רחל.

היינו דהיינו דיבור שבמחשבה נעשה מחשבה לדיבור וכולי. וכמו שנתבאר במקום אחר בענין מאמר הזהר על פסוק "וקול התור נשמע בארצנו" דווקא, that it it's heard דווקא in דיבור, that the that the voice of the inner מחשבה of the thing is heard דווקא in the דיבור. אז מן התחלקות אותיות המחשבה וכולי, that it's דווקא the thing of the דיבור that brings about the התחלקות of the מחשבה.

דהיינו ענין כללות המאמר דאימא אוזיפת דרך שאלה ה' גבורות מתספחין ברתא, that this is the general ענין of what it says, that the mother loans her clothes in a way of a loan, the ה' גבורות מתספח to her daughter, שהוא צירופי והתחלקות אותיות הדיבור וכולי, which is the putting together of the separations of the letters of speech.

ואם כן, מזה ראיה שאין הצירופים שורשם בהשגה עצמה. From this, we see that the צירופים, meaning the the thing of turning it into words, of turning that the concept into into the symbolic words

are not really rooted in the actual understanding itself.

שהרי התינוק מבחין ומשיג בין טוב לרע, גם טרם שיוכל לדבר.

Infant Insight Before Language Development 5:18

He already can tell you the difference between things, what he likes and what he doesn't like. So for instance, like a baby if a baby will taste a certain food,

so he right away knows that this food tastes fantastic, and the other food he doesn't like. So he basically knows exactly the same thing that the chef knows, as far as the השגה itself.

Not only that, even you'd say, "Yeah, but the chef knows how to make it," you say, "Okay, yeah, but the but the actual taste with all its nuances, the kid can taste it and he knows! He he he can't separate it out into pieces to tell you exactly what part of it he likes, that, the chef could tell you."

Right. "Because the chef is actually reaching up into a higher thing than the השגה itself. He's actually separating it out all the way till he could actually sit down and write you a a recipe, that you put a little bit of cumin in there, you know, and a tiny drop of lemon.

Now the little kid could taste that cumin and the lemon and he knows that that's what he likes, he just doesn't know what it is." Right. "And he doesn't know how to separate it out, but the actual taste, he can tell you exactly that this taste he likes, and the other chef that made the same food, but he didn't make it exactly with the same recipe, he says, "Eh, that's not so good as this one.""

Right. "And even though he can't talk, the same thing, like if if we go and and me and you go and I can actually tell you, "Oh, this one tasted lousy, and that one tasted really great.""

Right. But the kid also knows that. So it shows you that that the actual division of the thing comes from higher, the fact that you can bring it all down into its little pieces, and then go even further than that and symbolize them, to the point where you can write it down, in words, which the word "cumin" is not the actual cumin." Right. "It's just a It's just a word that represents cumin.

But the actual cumin, that even the kid can taste it, that's why he likes it.

שהרי התינוק מבחין ומשיג בין טוב לרע, גם טרם שיוכל לדבר, ואף על פי כן אין לו צירופי אותיות מחשבתו עד שיוכל לדבר. What is What is after this? It's missing here. דווקא. דווקא. There's nothing between לדבר and דווקא? עד שיוכל לדבר דווקא. Oh, over here there's like a vav with an empty space. עד שיוכל לדבר דווקא, כנ"ל.

אלא שורשם מלמעלה מן השגה דבינה, but the שורש of the actual separation into letters is higher than the actual השגה, the actual understanding of what the concept is all about.

כמו שבאותיות הדיבור שורש כוח הצירופים... Oh, sorry. You skipped a line. Oh, right. אלא שורשם למעלה מהשגת הבינה, והוא מבחינת כוח ומקור של כל עומק ההשגה כולו. And it is really from the כוח and מקור of that whole

depth of the השגה. כמו שבאותיות הדיבור שורש כוח הצירופים מאבא, דהיינו מפנימיות החכמה, שהוא כוח המשכיל דחכמה, שנקרא קדמות השכל, כמו שנתבאר במקום אחר בעניין תרין ציפורין, כמו שיתבאר בעזרת השם.

So in other words, the the thing is actually in the depths of the כוח המשכיל, higher than the actual בינה itself. ואף על פי שהגבורות מנצפ"ך שבאימא הם אותיות, הוא המחלק ומסדר הצירופים בדיבור כפי אופן התחלקות צירופים שבמחשבה ממש מה' גבורות דאימא עילאה, מכל מקום, אבא יסד, דווקא the the the חכמה is what puts together the the the the speech, בבחינת כח המצרף, שהוא שהוא בלתי כוונה בשכל והשגה איך לצרף, רק ממילא בא, וכמו וכמו שנאמר מצרף לחכמה.

Automatic Assembly of Speech by חכמה 10:28

In other words, when when you're thinking what to say,

what you are doing is separating from the בינה.

You don't have to put it together then.

It comes together automatically. Right. So, in other words, like like when you take apart a a a piece of machinery like a watch or something like that, yeah, when you take it apart then you have to figure out how to put it together again.

Although even there, it's really the חכמה comes דווקא from the בינה. The חכמה comes automatically, and when you take it apart, if you take it apart properly, not not just take it apart without looking what you're doing, but if you take it apart and note exactly how you took it apart, you'll automatically know how to put it together.

Right. But the basic thing is like, for instance, like right now I'm thinking what to say.

So, what I'm thinking is how to separate out the ענינים. Right. But the thing is I I don't only have to think how to separate out the ענינים, I also have to think how to put them back together again.

How to make a whole coherent speech, otherwise I'll be talking once about this and once about that, and you're going to end up with a little pieces of a car and it's not going to be a whole car.

Right. But the thing is that it doesn't work like that. It It gets put together automatically, you don't have to think how to put it back together.

All you have to think about is how to take it apart.

So, in other words, what you do is you look at the you look at the way that you have it in מחשבה,

and then it automatically gets put together into a coherent speech. When When you When you cut it up into pieces, it automatically gets put together in a way that the speech that the pieces follow each other and become a coherent whole.

Now, doesn't mean that there's no actual action of the חכמה, it's just that it's it's automatic. And that's like what he's going to say later, that that like that like it's called like a a necklace, meaning meaning like like beads or pearls with a string running through them. And the string is is called in even in English I think, what do they call it? Like the string of thought or something like that?

Thread of Thought and Maintaining Coherence 13:19

Line of thought. Line of thought. Right, it's called a thread of a thread. Yeah, the thread of thought, right. A thread, like you say, "Oh, I lost my I I lost the thread of my thought."

And when he loses the thread of his thought, that means that he lost sight of the overview of the whole idea. Right. And when he loses sight of the overview of the whole idea, the whole thing falls apart. Right. And he doesn't know what to say next. Even though he has in his mind that little piece that he was going to say next, he really does have it in his mind, but he can't even say that piece.

Why? Because he doesn't remember how the whole thing holds together anymore. Right. Which this is the thing like in some places it says that memory comes from חכמה.

Right. I don't know if you've seen that. Yeah. Now, I I don't know I don't know how exactly memory comes from חכמה and what part of the brain that's in, but the the basic thing is that while you are cutting it up into little pieces and with your בינה, your חכמה has to remember the whole thing. Right.

So that like when you're talking about seats,

you have to remember that you're talking about a car. Right. And And this is the thing, you know, like sometimes people talk and they go off on a tangent, and then they say, "Wait, wait, wait, what were we talking about?" Right. What do you mean, "What were you what were you talking about?" You don't know what you're talking about?

Tangent Digressions and Losing the Main Idea 15:17

The the thing is that he went off into a tangent. Now, the tangent actually did fit into into some kind of a whole, but the thing is he can forget about the whole. Not only that, at sometimes, the tangent can go totally outside of the whole. Right.

And then he literally is not able to bring it bring it bring it back into the whole.