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PREVIOUSLY:
Hispaalus - Awakening or lit. Excitement of the Emotions can only be brought about by Hisbonenus.
Hisbonenus is essentially intensive repetitive analytic study And this is what's called Iyun (deep study into something) .
For there are three things in every intellectual concept in Binah: the depth, length and width.
Contemplative or meditative concentration(Haamokas HaDaas), is only a vessel to get to the depth of a subject. Whereas the Iyun of Binah, that is, intensive analytical explanatory study is the vessel to the actual subject itself.
And higher than this is the level of Daas/Concentration called a Ma'amik (deep delver) who reaches higher than even the wisdom itself.
Chochmah is the Ein (nothing) (non-apprehended ethereal source) of the concept Binah is the Yesh (something) Like a spring in regards to a river .
In the same way that there is a depth and a length and a width in Binah (Understanding) as stated above, so too there is a depth and a length and a width in the spring of Chochmah .
Chochmah is the discovery of a new intellectual idea which comes out like a flash of lightning.
The nothing of Binah is more of a something than the something of Chochmah.
However, the true depth of the Musag (concept) is called Sha'ar HaNun (the Fiftieth Gate) of Binah which reaches until the depth of Chochmah.
As we see in actuality that anyone who delves deeply just into the depth of the Musag (of Binah) will eventually discover the root and source of the Muskal (the pure intellectual idea of Chochmah) and will be able to discover new aspects of the light of Chochmah and bring them into Binah (felt, graspable Understanding). And this is what is called a Maamik - deep delver (lit. a deepener) because he deepens the depths of Chochmah and Binah.
Chochmah of Binah is simply to understand another new thing (interpretation, meaning, function, etc.) from the Musag of Binah.) But only within the original concept .
Iyun (repetitive intensive analytical study), which is to analyze the subject matter into all of its parts with detailed identification is called Binah of Binah.
And only after this (process of Iyun/analysis) is it possible to give birth to new ideas and to discover in Chochmah new reaches of understanding (Binah) but only in this particular Musag (concept). And this is called Chochmah of Binah.
Crown (Kesser) of Binah is the depth of the Musag (explained concept) whose root reaches into the depth of Chochmah as explained above.
And understanding of wisdom (Binah of Chochmah) is the power of explanation within the Chochmah itself that he is able to bring it out in many different methods of explanation. This is referring to the idea the way it is above the grasp of Binah (when the idea is still a flash of inspiration within Chochmah) and this is the power to can understand something from inside of something i.e. the power to understand a whole different and even deeper wisdom from his understanding of this wisdom. (that is, his comprehension can spread from one subject matter to another or one level to a deeper level)
the order of the levels within the intellect is such:
1.) The level of Eeyun Binah within Binah - the length
2.) Then Chochmah within Binah - the width.
However, the length and width of both Chochmah and Binah depends on the depth of the explanation, which is called
3.) Kesser within Binah.
And now Chapter 1.15
Now after explaining the length, width and depth of Binah and Chochmah as well as the parenthetical explanation describing them in more technical terms, the Mitler Rebbe will proceed to define the length, width and depth of the third mental faculty - Daas.
Based on this, that was explained about the depth of Chochmah and Binah, it is now understood that, what is called by the world Ha’amakos Ha’daas (meditation; lit. deepening the concentration) is not the actual delving itself, as per reaching into the depth of the understanding of Binah. For, this has no connection at all to the faculty of Daas. It is understood that, as explained previously, the concentration is only a vessel to facilitate the learning of the subject, and it is the analytical and repetitive Eeyun-learning that actually brings one to the depth of the concept. It is also understood that since this concentration only serves as a vessel to ones learning, it is only as good as what one puts in it; and so the concentration alone, devoid of a content is as useless as an empty vessel.
Now that this common misconception as to the meaning of Hisbonenus, confusing it with Ha’amakos Ha’daas, has been dispelled, the Mitler Rebbe will continue to define the faculty of Daas and its length, width and depth.
Rather, the faculty of Daas is the experience of a great connection of ones feelings to an idea. This has many aspects to it, for example this that one becomes emotionally excited from what one understands. There is a story that is used to illustrates this point of a simple illiterate farmer who received a letter from abroad. Obviously he was quite excited for he had never gotten a letter before, but since he couldn’t read it himself, being illiterate, he hurried off with it to the village school teacher to have him read it to him. He arrived excitedly at the teachers house and knocked impatiently on the door. Soon the scholar emerged, and smiling, greeted the farmer warmly asking what he could do for him, did he want to know how his son was progressing in his studies? The farmer showed him the letter and ask eagerly if he would be so kind as to read it to him. The teacher obliged and took the letter from the farmer and began to read. Unfortunately the letter did not bear good tiding as it was sent to inform the farmer of the passing of his mother, and upon hearing the news the farmer was so socked that he fainted on the spot. Now as people gathered around to revived the man someone asked the obvious question, how was it that this simple farmer was so deeply affected by what he heard, while the learned scholar, who possessed a far greater intellect and obviously understood the letter much better than the farmer and yet, he remained totally unaffected by the letter? All those around looked at the man in astonishment at his dimwittedness and replied "you fool don’t you see it was the farmer’s mother!?" So too, it is understood in general that one who has a deep personal connection to an idea will have more feeling for it also understand it better.
This idea is pointed out in the book Day to Day, a calendar assembled by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, which includes a Torah thought for each day of the year. There it explains how the secret to understanding Chassidus is that one must feel a personal interest.
And it is this sensitivity to the idea that brings one to the delving into the depth of the understandable concept, though this is possible only after one has done the aforementioned Eeyun. For only after one studies a subject matter thoroughly and concentrates deeply during this study, truly connecting to the subject, that one will attain a true understanding of the subject including its innermost depths.
Now Daas also has a length, width and depth. Like, for example, there are some people who have a sort Daas (here it would mean a sort attention span), while there are those who have a long Daas (i.e., a long lasting interest or attention span). Reb Hillel Paritcher explains a long Daas for a subject to mean that one wants a lot of "letters" on that subject. So that this person wants as much information as possible on the subject and will there for be willing to listen to a long explanation. Similarly when a fan wants to know all about a star, were the star eats what the star likes what the star wears and similarly wants all of the stars paraphernalia, this all comes from a long Daas for this thing. Then there are those whose Daas is wide, but not long. This is your proverbial ‘Jack of all trades’ - one who is interested in many things (a broad interest), yet is ‘a master of none’, not being interested in any one thing long enough to become proficient in it.
And there are those with a strong Daas, such as one who possesses an intense powerful concentration. Like one who becomes completely engrossed in ones work, totally forgetting their surroundings and all else, often even forgetting to eat and sleep. Or there are those with a light Daas, such as women whose Daas is on average light compared to men’s.
This is not a negative statement towards women, but rather a statement of one of the fundamental psychological differences between men and women and it is not intrinsically good or bad only different.
A story:
Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge
Or should it be
Eve and Adam and the Tree of Knowledge
Everyone knows the story in Genesis
The Serpent talked Eve into eating from the Tree of Knowledge.
She did and then talked Adam into eating from it.
And then G-d threw them out of the Garden and blocked the way to the Tree of Life which, by the way, was never forbidden. As a matter of fact G-d wanted them to eat from it.
And that's how all this trouble got started.
You may even be familiar with what some of the commentaries say about this.
Here is a Sefirotic explanation (this does not negate the various commentaries but is another facet of the story - the Torah has many facets)
The Tree of Knowledge - Etz HaDaas is of course the Sfira of Daas - the power of Concentration or Meditation
The Tree of Life is the Sfirah of Binah - the power of Detailed Analysis or Hisbonenus (as explained in my series.)
Kabbalah explains (and the psychologists are beginning to find out) that Daas is Man's special power while Binah is Woman's. (Men are from Mars Women are from Venus)
So when Eve chose to eat from The Tree of Knowledge she made it a Man's world as evidenced by the punishment she received - to be subservient to the male. This is a situation which women are just now starting to come out from.
Originally Woman was HIGHER than Man since Binah is higher than Daas.
Now she was LOWER.
This will be rectified with the coming of Messiah since we will then eat from the Tree of Life - Kabbalistic Hisbonenus. Of course it will be again the women who eat first and then feed the male.
That's why it is so important that women learn Kabbalah
Story by Rabbi Yossi Markel
For it is explained that women have more Binah while men have more Daas. This specialization is important, giving the members of each gender the tools they need. For, as was explained Binah is the ability to analyze details while Daas is the ability to concentrate deeply, focusing ones attention on one thing only. Since women have more Binah they therefore have a much greater attention to detail then men. For example, imagine a husband and wife go to some dinner or function catered at a fancy hotel. Now if one were to ask the husband how it went, the reply would probably be something to the affect of "it was just a bunch of boring speeches." On the other hand if you ask the wife she’ll tell you about how pretty the hall was, how the centerpieces matched the table cloth so well, etc., etc.. While if you ask the husband about the center piece... what center piece? This is also why women tend to keep things a lot cleaner than men, because men don’t notice how dirty it looks. Also women often get very paranoid about the cleanliness of their house when another woman is coming to visit, because they know that she will notice anything untidy. This is also the source of the famous women’s intuition, which comes from their ability to pickup on even the minutest of details. Men, on the other hand, tend to be vary focused and will tend more to become totally engrossed in whatever they are doing.
This is why women have ability to do many tasks once, such as watching the kids while cooking three things and talking on the phone. For, they have a lot of Binah - attention to detail, while not so much Daas - not getting totally engrossed in any one thing. Men on the other hand have the ability to become totally focused in on their work, forgetting everything else. This ability is helpful for most involved work, while if he had to do the woman’s job the food would get burnt and the kids would get into some sort of trouble with out him noticing.
This is in general.
This means that there is not the depth of the Daas and automatically their Daas is light etc.. This is understood that when ever we speak of a strong concentration it is synonymous with a deep one.
The distinction between those with a light Daas and those with a deep Daas can be understood in light of the distinction between a child and an adult. As is known that when we say of children that their Daas is light, this means that they don’t possess the power of having a feeling and connection at all to what they understand or what they want, except in a vary superficial manner. Therefore they can be easily seduced to understand or want the very opposite of what they had understood or wanted previously, for they are gullible and unsure of themselves and what they want or like, making it easy, for example, to convince them that anything is fun. This is also why there attention span is short and they quickly tire of a game, toy, or activity. Conversely, an adult whose Daas is deep, connecting strongly to what he understands or wants, which is called deepening of the Daas.
In addition just like the length and width of Chochmah and Binah come from their respective depths so too with the depth of Daas that automatically the length of Daas and width of Daas come out from it as mentioned previously about Binah. Now the sign for this Ha’amakos Ha’daas (deep concentration) is that the person appears as if he were contracting and focusing the vessel of his brain (i.e., the wrinkling of the brow), into an intense, deep connection of his mind focusing into the idea. That specifically from this deep concentration and deep feeling for the idea that one comes to the essence of the depth of the understandable concept after performing the Eeyun of Binah. In simple terms if you concentrate on what you're learning then you will understand, but not from concentration without learning or learning without concentration. Which this Eeyun is the opposite of concentration and focus, for the Eeyun of Binah, even though this process may required stopping and standing over a subject with concentration and focus of the mind in the beginning, studying each point carefully by itself. However, immediately it spreads out to a great width of all of its detailed parts, this broad understanding being facilitated by the analyzation of many specific details as is known. So that even though during Eeyun one does concentrate and focus on each point individually, this is in the process of building a broad understanding of the subject. Like a detective who examines each particular piece of evidence with the greatest care, only in order to piece all of the clues together into an accurate picture of the events of the crime.
This is not the case, however, with the concentration of Ha’amakos Ha’daas. On the contrary, it is only the contraction of the mind, which is the gathering and the collecting of all of the brain’s strength to connect only to this concept. In other words, Ha’amakos Ha’daas is only the concentration on one idea to the exclusion of all else. Which is the opposite of the broad expansion of one's knowledge of an idea as a result of the Eeyun. So that the concentration of Ha’amakos Ha’daas alone when not used as a vessel for Eeyun is only what the world calls meditation - the focusing of the mind on one thing to the exclusion of all else. This alone is meaningless, for it lacks a content and so, as explained previously, it will not aid one in reaching into the depth of Binah and certainly not the depth of Chochmah (which is the ultimate goal in the pursuit of knowledge - to reach the underlying truth - the inner depth of the idea).
However, Eeyun does make use of Ha’amakos Ha’daas as a vessel to contain it for through Ha’amakos Ha’daas one comes to reach the depth of the idea, all the way to the idea’s source in the depths of Chochmah and Binah. So that through concentrating on and connecting to what one learns will one come to understand it properly.
(Until the upper level of Daas that unites Chochmah and Binah as was stated previously about the depth of the understanding of Binah. Also this is what it is stated that Daas is hidden in the mouth of the mother (i.e., Binah) etc.. In simple terms an example of this is that reading aloud helps one to concentrate, or how by an alcoholic admitting verbally that he is an alcoholic it helps what he understood all along to sink in so that it hits him to the point of moving his emotions to fight his addiction. And like it says that Moshe (Moses) - whose soul level corresponds to the sfirah of Daas, merited Binah, which refers particularly to the 50th gate of Binah, the other forty nine being within the realm of human achievement, while the 50th is a gift from above. For Binah and Daas are interdependent as it says "if there is no Binah there is no Daas and if there is no Daas there is no Binah," for through concentration one comes to understand and ones understanding sparks ones interest causing it to grow, spiraling upward in an infinite self feeding cycle. And as is written about these topics in the Chassidic and Kabbalistic manuscripts in many places and this explanation will suffice for the discerning to understand.)
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