Part 2 · Chapter 25

Chochma and Bina as Father and Mother Brains 0:03

So within this, this source itself יש שורש הגדלת מוח ההבנה ושורש הגדלת מוח התפיסה. So in this itself is a source for the development of the brain of understanding, which is we're saying the לשון העולם, which is חכמה, just to like get an idea, and there's also the source for שורש הגדלת מוח התפיסה וההשגה, the source for the development of the brain of grasp and to understand in a way that you can explain it, which is the idea of בינה, שהן נקראים מוח אבא מוח אימא.

These two brains are called the brain of אבא, the brain of the father, and the brain of the mother, חכמה and בינה, כידוע, as is known, כמו שבבחינת מוח הבינה שהוא מוח התפיסה וההשגה מתהווה מבחינת העין דמוח החכמה, and just like when in the brains themselves, in the mind itself, in the revealed intellect, that first you have this an intuitive understanding in חכמה, or like a holistic, abstract understanding of חכמה, and then that understanding is developed and explained by the brain of בינה, so too in the source, that the intellect starts in the מזל of חכמה, and then from there it spreads to the מזל of בינה.

כך בשורשם, so too in their source, ביחוד ב' מזלות דאריך אנפין, ונוצר ונקה וכולי, so too with the unification of these two מזלות of אריך אנפין, the מזל of ונוצר and the מזל of ונקה, which is the source of חכמה and בינה, the intellect goes from ונוצר to ונקה, and that's why in the revealed intellect the source of the intellect is חכמה, which comes from ונוצר, and then from there it goes over to בינה, which is ונקה.

Flow from Chochma to Bina Generates New Ideas 1:44

And this is why also, if one of the reasons why, when you do התבוננות and you study something in בינה, you'll get new ideas in חכמה, you'll get new flashes of an idea, because, too, in their source חכמה and בינה are connected. And so when you bring more, as you draw more liquid into בינה by having being active in your brain of בינה, and that activates the מזל of ונקה, that automatically starts to draw more liquid into ונוצר also, which will then bring out a new idea.

Now, as far as what what modern medicine says about the all of this in the brain, it seems like they're they're still researching all of this, and it's I haven't been able to find anything conclusive yet. Yeah, as far as as far as modern science is concerned of what they say about this, it seems like they're not they're still researching the brain and and this liquid, the membranes, and I haven't been able to find anything conclusive about, you know, how it works and what its function is and everything.

So so we're just explaining it as best as we can based on what it says in in תורה sources without trying to make any correlations.

I mean, in general, making the correlations from what it says in תורה to to medicine or science is is tricky a lot of times because the terminology a lot of times is different, and there's always new theories or contradictory theories or opinions in modern science, and it's like sometimes you can find a connection, and sometimes sometimes there's an obvious one, sometimes there's possible ones, and sometimes it's just there's not enough.

Maybe you know, maybe in 30 years or 15 years or 10 years, they'll research the brain more and they'll figure it out. So, we'll have to wait and see.

I mean, there's like 70 pages about the brain and its membranes and liquids in זוהר. I don't know how much modern science really understands the brain.

I've heard I heard people say that now they're like beginning to really research it, that until now they were researching the liver and the heart and different things, and now they're they're just starting to really research the brain.

Brain 'Hair' (Sha'arot) Analogy Explained 3:59

We'll see. ובידוע, and it's known, דגם שהמזלות נקראים שערות, that even though these מזלות are called hairs, because and and they, you know, it's connected to the hairs of of like the head and the beard, but but here it's talking about the hairs that are inside the brain, from this membrane, that's the משל, and then למעלה it's a certain type of a צמצום. But so they're called like hairs, שנפקעים ויוצאים, which the idea of a hair is that it like, you know, bursts out of the skin and then it grows out, רק מבחינת מותרי מוחין סתימאה דאריך אנפין, and they're growing only from like the leftovers of the מוח סתימאה of אריך אנפין.

And this is what it explains, is that there's two parts of the hair. There's that the hair is like a tube, and the actual hair the the actual like tube inside the brain, the the tube itself is connected to the level of כתר, it's like the level of the skull, but then the liquid that drips through it is the This is from this liquid which is called the מוחא סתימאה, the hidden source of the intellect.

And so, but this liquid that comes through the the hairs is only like the leftovers of this liquid, and it's only like a little drop of it. אבל שורשן מעצמות הגולגלתא.

So, even though what comes through the hairs is only like the leftovers of this liquid from from the source of חכמה of אריך אנפין, from the מוחא סתימאה of אריך אנפין, but their source is from the עצמות הגולגלתא, from the actual skull itself, שלמעלה מגוף פנימיות המוחא סתימאה, which is higher than this liquid, because this liquid represents the source of חכמה, or like חכמה of כתר, and the גולגלתא, the skull represents the כתר of כתר, which connects to עתיק יומין, that עתיק is like enclothed in the skull.

שלכך, therefore נבקעו ויצאו בבחינת מותרות, and this is the reason why the hairs come out as like leftover or like a waste, because their source is so high. That's why. What's the משל? כמשל בקיעת הנוד סתום ביותר וכולי, like if you have a very tightly sealed wine skin or like a water sack, so some of the the liquid will if it's very like full and very tight, it will some of it will will seep through the pores, it will leak out a little bit.

Sealed Vessel Metaphor for Intellectual Pressure 6:03

כמו, and so too the brain, that because the skull is like forms this very like tight seal, it forces some of the liquid to go through the membrane into the brain.

But it's just like little drops that it's like leftover. It's really not It's really mostly stays on top of the brain, but only because the pressure that it forces some of it through.

כמו החכם כשגובר עליו כח השכל ביותר נושר ממנו נובלות, and for example with like your intellect, we see something like this, that when you're somebody's really thinking hard or they really have and and the power of the intellect is really pressuring it, so besides having coming up with good ideas, they'll also come up with like some ridiculous nonsense. Like if you have a think tank or something, and you're really working to brainstorm some for to figure out some idea, and you're really, you know, trying to press your mind, so you come up with a lot of good ideas, and you also come up with a lot of nonsense, which is the idea of נובלות, so like these leftover or waste, ששורש הנובלות יותר גבוה מגוף השכל, but actually the source of these like jokes or this nonsense is actually higher than the intellect itself, than what makes sense, because that's connecting to the the level where it's higher than intellect, and therefore it's forcing it to come down.

It's forcing the intellect to come down and that force the intellect to come down and the fact that it's forced to come down into low things shows that it it's coming from a higher source, or else it wouldn't be to come down so low. Yeah, the ability for the fact that the intellect is coming down into to like ridiculous things, into nonsense, shows that it's being that it's being that that intellect is not just functioning on its regular level, but that it's being pushed by the כתר, from higher than the intellect.

And that's why like שטות that's higher than the intellect will can come out, and it will look it will look like שטות, like the idea of שטות דקדושה, that's the idea of שטות, or even in קליפה, the idea of שטות is that it's coming from the רצון, which is like forcing the intellect to go a certain way, and so the intellect will come will will come out with whatever that the רצון tells it to come out with, even if it's stupid.

Well, no. Just because somebody is saying stupid things doesn't mean that they're very smart, because could just be that they're saying stupid things. But we're saying like this is the idea of like שיחת חולין של תלמידי חכמים, that like when a a תלמיד חכם, his jokes really have deeper wisdom hidden in them than his actual teachings, than his actual תורה that he teaches, because the things that are too deep for him to explain normally come out in a joke, because really what what it does it it brings out the עצם thing, the עצם of the idea in like a but in like a in a different way, so it's like a לבוש זר, so it's like a משל, or like a חידה, like a riddle.

Regular people's No, if regular people have שטות, that's just because if they're not If it's not coming as result of like thinking, then it's just then it's just because they weren't thinking so hard. No, he's not talking about like a regular just like a regular joke, that's like just nonsense. He's mean saying that sometimes you have things that that sound that seem like very low, but really it's coming from a high thing.

Low‑Level Jokes Reveal High‑Level Wisdom 9:46

I mean, like if you look if you look in in let's say in גמרא or something, there's different stories where with the sages how they would joke with each other, but it was like a very big חכמה going on there. ששורש הנובלות יותר גבוה מגוף אור השכל. That in this case, the these low things are actually higher than the light of the שכל itself. ולכך, therefore, אמר דנובלות חכמה שלמעלה תורה.

It says that the תורה is like the leftover waste of the חכמה שלמעלה, of like God's wisdom. And it says לשבח דווקא, that this is a praise.

That's not saying It's not trying to put down the תורה and say, "Oh, the תורה is like nothing of God's wisdom." It's saying that the fact that God's wisdom, that God lowered His wisdom to tell us what to do with our cows, what happens if our one cow gores another cow, or how we should keep שבת, and how you should do your business, and like tell you about all these mundane things, how you should eat, and how you should sleep, and how you should walk, and how you should dress, and all these very low mundane things, the fact that תורה is coming down to those things, which for the intellect it would be like נובלות, it would be like a very little It's like a very little petty thing, it's like garbage.

But the fact that the שכל is coming down to that shows you that the whole purpose of the חכמה of אצילות and the חכמה of א"ק and everything, the whole חכמה is only for us, and so reveals that the עצם, that that Hashem's עצם chooses us down here in this world, and that the whole purpose of the חכמה is really for that, and so it reveals the connection of the to the עצם in the חכמה.

Cause otherwise as as it is itself it's just It's not connected to the עצם, it's just חכמה. But when it when the חכמה comes out as תורה for us to make a דירה בתחתונים, then it reveals Hashem's עצם in the חכמה. And that's why the תורה is דווקא the biggest חכמה, that's what the the greatness of the תורה, it's not just like a חכמה, because it's Hashem's עצם there.

And that's brought out specifically when it comes down very low. And this is a rule in general. This is one of the big general rules in חסידות, that whenever something that's on a certain level that's like a high level or relatively higher than something else is forced to come down to the lower level, in order for it to go down to the lower level it has to reveal its עצם which is higher than its level.

And so when it comes down it actually gains, because it reveals its עצם. And this is why that the the greatest If you want to really understand something, so if you teach it you'll understand it much better than if you just learn it for yourself, because the fact you have to lower it down, explain it simply forces you to understand it much deeper. And if you want to bring it out למעשה, to live it, or if you want to tell somebody like a practical הוראה, you're not just explaining them a theory, but you're telling them advice what to do like a רב that has to פסקן a הלכה, or like if you have to give somebody advice, if you're a משפיע and you have to give somebody advice what to do, then דווקא there you get the real עצם of the שכל that's higher even than if you teach it.

Teaching Deepens Understanding and Practical Application 12:21

And that's the idea of ללמוד על מנת לעשות. And דווקא like that then you get to the עצם of the שכל. And you see that this is this is I was just learning a המשך ס"ו actually, but you see this in a lot of מאמרים, all over the place, this rule. But there he's talking about with like שכל that that when if you're if you're a רב and you have to פסקן, you're afraid you're going to mess it up, because you it's not it's not a theory, it has to be the real, you have to tell them the right thing.

And so that fear gives you a deeper ביטול to the idea than your pleasure in explaining it would give it to you if you're just explaining it.

And so that that deeper ביטול lets you get to the עצם of the idea that you wouldn't be able to get with just the enjoyment of the idea.

That's the מעלה of a of a רב or anytime that even if you're not like a רב, even just for yourself, if you were learning so that you know what to do in your house, or, you know, let's say you're learning הלכה to know what to do, or in case somebody asks you to know what to tell them, or even if you're learning חסידות, you have to know, well, so what do I do?

So, what is the What is it What is חסידות telling me to do? How does חסידות tell me to live my life different than than if I wouldn't learn חסידות? And if somebody's going to come and ask, you know, so what How should I act in this situation? So, you know, you have to bring out the practical הוראה in everything. And this is one of the big כללים, you know, the רבי stressed a lot, but this is a כלל בכלל, בחסידות, in תורה, that everything, even the highest ideas, you have to find a practical application for it, like a הוראה לפועל.

And at the end of like every שיחה and every מאמר, there's always like a הוראה למעשה, some lesson in our עבודה from it, because that's the way that you get to the עצם of the idea, is when you bring it out like that.

כמו שמבואר במקום אחר, like it's explained elsewhere about the תורה, that it's the like נובלות חכמה שלמעלה.