“Positive World!“ p: 56

AyinBase with R' Paltiel 10/9/11 Sunday 11 Tishrei 5772  

Page 56 – about 10 lines from end of the page (line starts: “hispashtus...”)

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We are saying that in binah there is also a point. We can draw it from the hasagah/understanding itself. It is not the point that proceeds the hasagah. It is in a different environment. hasagah/understanding is already metziut/entity with structure.

Binah is a dependent derivative of chochmah. It needs to depend on the insight of chochmah, otherwise it leaves holiness/sechel and sees like an animal, 'here's something to eat or escape from'.

There's space and then there's demarcated space. What happens is that the open space does not speak of what can be done with it. It is what it is. When you demarcate an area you see it in terms of utility, even though nothing really happened, but you identified space as a presence. Now it 'speaks to you' and you see ways to use it. Binah is built from this hispashtus.

These mashalim/metaphors are to help understand the nimshal/analog. Nefesh is not a metziut and things need to be understood in a qualified manner.

The nekuda ha tamzit is what results from binah. Even though at the level of mitziut things are relative and are entities in a structure, still they represent a point. Anything that results from the metziut itself is not true... the reason 2 tables cannot be in one place is that one is here saying, 'yes you may belong here, but I came first'. This is the way the world sees things – all is competitive, without inherent truth. By contrast we eat because it is a mitzvah, as opposed to eating to reduce hunger. Truth created by the metziut is not inherent truth.

The principle that there is a truth anywhere is rooted in the recognition that all originates from a True Source. The Rambam says, 'the basis of wisdom is to know that there is a First Being who brings all into existence'. You can know the world without knowing there is One Who makes it, but then it will not be a chochmah type knowledge. You will have a default/negative type of knowledge. In a dark room you can feel your way around, but everything is discovered by obstruction. Light changes this – things are there, since they are there, not because they affect me. This in general is the basis of sechel. What makes sight possible? Because all that exists is not because of its own presence, but because there is a first being that makes it and hence there is a truth to it, since it represents this First Being. And this is the foundation of sechel/mind.

When we see the world and say, 'hey, look, this is real!' This is based on our sense that everything was 'put there and arranged for us'. A shul should have windows. This is because when you see it with your sechel then the sky is indicative of Him.

If you don't have chochmah then your 'seeing' is like 'touch'.

A man and a cat walk into a wedding hall. What does the cat see? What does the man see?

Sechel requires that man, 'live up', he has to stay put with the human/sechel perspective. It takes work. One needs to know what sechel is. One needs to be human.

How about tzniut/modesty. Why cover the body? Is it not made by G-d? Man is like a full world – top to bottom. Including 'animal' elements too! Everything comes from the brain, though there are going to be all elements. Thus we put on clothes on the whole body and leave the head open. Showing this is the person, the rest is secondary. We expose what is of importance – the head! All is enlivened and brought into existence from the brain. There are people who have physical health yet cannot move a limb. There is no sechel to move him.

A foal walks half hour after birth. A human baby takes a year to first stand. Why? The horse is not more advanced. The horse acts instinctively. He has legs so he walks. A human is different. Everything must be processed first with his brain. The brain has to tell him to do it. By the time the child works he has an intellectual development that is unfathomable. The hands are closest to the head and are also exposed.

Sechel sees the reality of things. How does he know there's a reality? Because there is a First Being and things are arranged by Him and thus in everything there is a G-dly truth.

The element of the etzem/essence of chochmah, is removed completely from the aspect of sechel. This essence of chochmah is in a different operating system. It is above. It relates you to the primary truth.