Part 4 · Chapter 2

What is תבונה and its hidden letters 0:03

וזהו שנקרא תבונה. And this is what is called תבונה, which תבונה has the letters of בן ובת, right, it has a ב-ת, and then it has the נ, so you could read it בן and בת with the ו, and has an extra ה, but it has within it the letters of בן ובת כידוע, להיות כי גם בתבונה יש ג' דברים, because תבונה also has three things: עומק ואורך ורוחב, a depth, a length, and a width.

So now we're going to explain the dimensions of תבונה like we explained in פרק א the dimensions of חכמה, בינה, and דעת. And this idea of בן ובת is the idea that תבונה is a source of the מידות, which we'll explain shortly. העומק הוא עצם כח התבונה הזה שבעת ההשגה. The depth of תבונה is the essence of the power of תבונה in this understanding. In other words, the ability to apply, the type of understanding that allows you to apply something that you understand, that is the depth of תבונה.

כמו שהיא בשעה שקולטת השכל וכו', the way that it is, the time that you absorb it. And this is the main thing of תבונה is the קליטה, that you really absorb the idea well, that you don't just, like השגה means that you grasp it, that you're holding it, but it's outside of you.

תבונה requires that you're קולט the idea, that you absorb it. And so it's not just something that you're grasping that you can like understand intellectually outside of you, but has to be something that that's the way that you think, that's the way you see things, that you really integrated it into your thinking.

Like let's say a רב wants to, you know, פסקן הלכה, it's not good enough that he should learn a הלכה and understand the הלכה. He has to go over, let's say, the אלטר רבי's שולחן ערוך over and over again until he really absorbs the the way that the שולחן ערוך thinks about it, and like he starts to think about it in the same logic, and the same order, and the same categories that the שולחן ערוך thinks of it.

And when he starts to see things and through the eyes of that of the הלכה, then he's able to apply it and פסקן in different situations, because he sees he's able to see, you know, beyond the textbook. And the same thing with anything, that when you really absorb it, then you're able to apply it. ובה יוכל עומק ההשגה הנ"ל לבוא לגילוי כנ"ל.

And when a person has this, that they really absorb the idea, then they're able to bring the depth out to reveal it, to like explain the depth to somebody in a way that seems simple. כנ"ל בפירוש איש תבונה ידלנה וכו', like we explained before about how a man of תבונה, somebody that has this power of understanding that they can apply things, which is called an איש תבונה, that דווקא he can draw out the deep waters and explain it to somebody.

So that's the depth of תבונה. The depth of תבונה, again, is this קליטה, this absorption, really integrating or internalizing the idea into your way of thinking.

Length: applying knowledge to new contexts 3:05

והאורך, the length of תבונה, הוא ירידתה בענין אחר, is to bring the idea down into something else, a different subject, a different idea, הנבדל, which is separate from the original idea that you're studying, להורות בו ולעשות מעשים רבים על ידו וכו', to give advice based on it, or to פסקן based on it, and to do many different things with it. So it's when you take the idea that you understand, like you learned something and now you're able to פסקן based on it, or you're able to apply it in your life, you're able to find a way you take some theory and you're able to find a way to make money out of it.

Like the ancient Greeks, for example, invented like a steam engine, a type of a steam engine, but it was never really applied until much later in America when they made a a steamboat out of it. I mean there were technical limitations that why they couldn't they couldn't really use it yet, but it was also just a mindset of like that the Greeks would learn things just in way of pure science, they would just like want to understand things, and then in America there came there was especially a certain time there was a very big push to invent things, and to develop technology.

And that's like more of a תבונה type of of a thinking. And the same thing like how they went from like the theory of relativity to the atomic bomb. The idea, like Einstein discovered this theory, and it was all very nice, but it was just a theory, and like so some physicists were happy that he figured out this theory that explains stuff. But then he realized that based on this theory, you could make a bomb.

And they called the president, they told him, you know, we could make a bomb, and you should you should make this bomb, you better make this bomb before the Russians make it. And so they started the Manhattan Project to make the first bomb. bomb. So that's the idea of the length of תבונה, that once you understand an idea and you absorb it, then you're able to apply it.

And so this, in a way, is the most important thing for anybody that's like studying to learn a skill, let's say somebody wants to be a doctor, a lawyer, a mechanic, anything that a person wants to be, they have to understand it in a way that they really absorb the lessons, and then they're able to apply it. They're able to use their understanding and to actually do things, or to tell give somebody advice in that area.

And that's like the same thing with a רב, and the same thing, the same thing with חסידות. If a person wants to be able to apply it, the main thing is תבונה. But that he explains in the next פרק. והרוחב, and the width, הוא בחינת התפשטות התבונה בעצם ההשגה.

Width: expanding ideas in many ways 5:42

The width of תבונה is to expand, to spread out the idea within the idea itself, to just apply the theory within the understanding, להרחיבה במחשבה בכמה ריבוי אופנים שונים, that

you should be able to think about the idea in many different ways, ולא שכמו שהיא לבד וכולי, and not just the way it is alone. In other words, that now with the power of תבונה, you don't have to think about the concept in the terms that you originally learned it in.

You can now find all different types of examples, and all different types of explanations, and all different types of ways to think about it, and and also when you're explaining it, you can do that also. You can find all different types of stories, and examples, and all these different ways of understanding the idea or explaining the idea. ומה שכלולה התבונה מבן ובת,

תבונה as source of מידות (emotions) 6:43

and this that תבונה includes within it בן and בת, היינו מה שמתבונה דווקא יולדו המידות בגילוי ממש בפני עצמם. This represents that דווקא from תבונה are the מידות revealed, that the מידות become, they come out to be their own The source of having an actual emotion, of actual love and actual fear, separate from your intellect, is from תבונה. I don't mean separate that it's not, it's always מוח שליט על הלב, but that you should actually feel an emotion, as opposed to the מידות of בינה that we explained earlier in this פרק, that it's still within the theory of the סברא you have you have a מידה.

That in theory, you like you're learning the גמרא, and you have a certain סברא, and in theory in that סברא it says that that this guy is responsible, let's say, but you don't know how to apply that to this case, to know who's responsible. Like you just know, let's say, like המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה, you know, like a rule, and you understand that rule. And now you come to a certain situ- a certain case, and you're not sure who's who you're being מוציא from.

You know, so you don't know how to פסקן in this case based on it, you just know the theory that that it whatever that would determine it. So it's like the emotion is hidden within the theory. When you know how to apply it, then the emotion can actually come out from the understanding.

So this is why דווקא from תבונה the מידות come out, כי מבינה עצמה לא היו תולדות המידות,

because from בינה itself, the emotions would not be born, they would not come out. אף על פי שנקראת אם הבנים וכולי, even though בינה is called the mother of the children, which means that it is the source of the emotions, אבל היא אימא עילאה, but it's the upper mother. So even though it is the source of them, but it's not the direct source. It's not good enough to have בינה to bring to an emotion.

If you want it to affect you, you have to not just understand in theory, you have to understand how it applies to you. You have to have the ובכן. מה שאין כן התבונה נקראת אימא תתאה, but תבונה is called the lower mother, which is like the thing of the ובכן, להוליד המידות, to give birth to the מידות. And this is like a משל in a person that there's really on- only one mother.

בינה and תבונה are are two parts of the same the same thing. But just like physically, like the main thing of a person is their intellect and their emotions, their personality, and so you say you say that the person is the mother. When you say speak about a per- somebody's mother, you're mainly speaking about the person as far as their their intellect and their emotions, their personality.

That's who you're talking about, but that's the upper mother. That's like their upper faculties, like their their head and their heart. But the actual birth of a child comes from the womb, and the womb, that's what actually gives birth to the child. That's called that's the call like the lower mother. So even though you call בינה the אם הבנים, because בינה is the real source of the children, nevertheless, the actual birth of the children comes only from תבונה.

Upper and lower mother metaphor for בינה and תבונה 9:43

Even though you don't really focus on תבונה as it's its own thing, and the reason we don't focus on it as its own thing is because from doing התבוננות התבוננות, that will bring you to תבונה, which we didn't talk about yet.

והוא בחינת בן ובת, and this is the idea of בן ובת, אהבה ויראה, love and fear, שבאים בהתכללות בתבונה דווקא, that they are included in תבונה דווקא, שהיא בחינת התפשטות אור הבינה למטה כנ״ל, which תבונה is the spreading of the light of בינה below to everything separate from בינה. And so this is the idea that תבונה is the power of the intellect that is able to apply the שכל to tell you in a certain situation whether it should be חסד or גבורה.

So like let's say you learn about a lion, a kid in school learns about a lion, and let's say he's learning, I don't know, about שמשון with the lion, and the teacher tells him about the lions, and how they have big teeth, and how strong they are, and how big of a miracle it was that שמשון was able to kill the lion. So then he understands what a lion is.

And then if he thinks about it, so he won't just understand what a lion is, but he'll have תבונה, and he'll say, "Whoa, lions are dangerous. Therefore, the ובכן, therefore, I should be scared of the lion." That's the תבונה.

"Therefore, the lion is bad for me, I should be scared of it." Now, he's not doesn't actually feel a fear of the lion right now, because there's no lion in the room. And that's the idea that he doesn't have a דעת for it. He doesn't have a דעת for this lion, because it doesn't relate to him. When the lion walks in the room, then his דעת connects his תבונה to the actual emotion, then he actually has a emotion come out from it.

But even before he has a דעת, the real emotion is the תבונה. The fact that your your mind tells you that this thing is dangerous, and if it comes near you, get away, that's the emotion. That is the point where the מוח tells the לב what to do. That's מוח שליט על הלב. And just your heart is only going to get actually excited if it's relevant right now.

But that's really where the מידה comes from.