Getting to Know Your Thoughts - 009 Taking Apart Details

Binah and Tevunah

We have said that there are two systems in our mind: a lower mode of thought, and a higher mode of thought. The lower mode of thought is Chochmah, Tevunah, and Da’as. The higher mode of thought is Chochmah, Binah and Da’as.

At first we spoke about lower Chochmah and higher Chochmah. Lower Chochmah is the knowledge one receives from his teachers. Higher Chochmah is when a person really sees the knowledge.

Then, we spoke about lower Da’as and higher Da’as. Lower Da’as is Da’as d’havdalah (to separate information) and Da’as d’hachraah (to decide between the information). Higher Da’as is to connect to the information (Da’as hamechaberes).

Now we will discuss the two kinds of Binah: the higher kind of Binah, and the lower kind of Binah (which is called Tevunah). We spoke about it before a little, but now we will elaborate on it.

As we mentioned before, the higher Binah and the lower Binah, Tevunah, are different. Tevunah is to compare one thing to another. When a person compares, he is able to expand the information. Binah, which is in the higher mode of thought, is to reflect into the information and take apart its details.

Chazal^[1] say that women are blessed with “extra Binah”, and for this reason a girl is obligated in mitzvos earlier than a boy is. This is because women have a unique understanding – an extra “Binah.”

Although Binah is the faculty of the mind used more by women, we aren’t only referring to women when we discuss Binah. In every soul, there is a male aspect and a female aspect. So when we say “women” here, we are really referring to the feminine aspect of every soul.

The female aspect in the soul consists of Binah and Tevunah. Binah is a kind of understanding. Women are blessed with extra Binah, in that they can recognize better the spiritual stature of their guests.^[2] Tevunah is essentially the power of medameh, which is to either compare or use the imagination.  This we can see clearly by women, who often use their imagination.

This seems to be a contradiction inside a woman (as well as in the female aspect of every soul). If a woman is more prone to imagination, why doesn’t her extra Binah cancel it out and show her the real understanding?

But the reason for this is because these are two different systems going on in the mind. In the higher mode of thought, we use Binah, and in the lower mode of thought, we use Tevunah.

Binah is only in the higher mode of thought. Chazal say that women have extra Binah, and this is not coming to say that women have less understanding; the opposite is true. Women have greater understanding in certain areas, and in fact this is why a girl has to start keeping the mitzvos earlier than a boy has to. In the department of Binah, women have an advantage over men, and they are thus greater in their power of Binah.

But the power of Tevunah, which is the imagination, is from the lower mode of thought. This is not an advantage over a man – it is a disadvantage.

Of course, the lower mode of thought can still remain in a girl even after she matures and is obligated in mitzvos. The point of what we are saying here is that there are two abilities in our mind. There is a higher power, Binah, which women excel at more than men. There is a lower power, Tevunah, which is the power of imagination, which is also part of the feminine nature.

We will try, with the help of Hashem, to expand this discussion. We will try to see the contrast between Binah and Tevunah and how they relate, and then we will see the flip side of these matters. We will open up this discussion by discussing Tevunah, which is the power of imagination.

The Way Imagination Works

The lower kind of Binah – Tevunah -- is when a person compares one piece of information to another piece of information. This is essentially the imagination, and the Vilna Gaon lists it as one of the seventy forces in the soul. With imagination, a person expands the information.

When a person uses imagination, he is able to come to compare one thing to another. But the imagination at its root causes one to picture in his mind that he has the general understanding of the information, as opposed to the details.

If a person would really look at the details, he wouldn’t make a total comparison between one thing and other. He would notice some similarities, but this would not make him conclude that it’s the same. He would see how each detail is unique and can’t really be compared to something else. Why do people compare? It is because they see a general view of the situation, without entering into the details. When a person just focuses on the general outlook of a situation, it creates the point of imagination.

The whole idea of a comparison is to take two things that are different from each other and see how they are similar. But really, nothing can really be compared. Something might be similar somewhat to another thing, but it’s only a little similar and not more than that. One species of bird might look the same as another bird, but in reality each species is a whole different species of bird, and no two species are the same. They share some similarities and that’s it; they are not the same.

Why is it then that we compare? It is because usually, a person focuses just on the similarities, and not on the differences. A person sees one detail that is similar to another thing, and because of this he things that the two things are really the same. Comparing makes a person leave the details and instead just focus on the general outlook of something, all because of a particular detail.

Even more so, when imagination is in control, a person doesn’t even notice how the details are really very different from each other. Imagination causes one to connect all the information together that in reality has no resemblance. Seeing details is fine, but when a person takes a particular detail and expands it to be “more” over here. The details go from being details to becoming the whole thing.

 With imagination, a person doesn’t really enter the information – he just pictures it. Imagination takes the details out of the general picture as a whole and blows up the details. This is why when a person imagines something, it seems to him that he has uncovered more information. But really, it is because the details have been blown up, so it appears to look like more information; really, there aren’t more details here.  If a person would really see the details, he would leave most of the imagination.

When a child imagines something, his imagination shows him how one particular detail forms everything, and from there the imagination continues to expand. If a person would really enter the details, his power of Binah would take him out of the imagination and return him to the way things really are, not the way things seem.

In the lower mode of thought, Chochmah is that a person receives knowledge from his teachers. When someone is taught by his teacher, does the teacher tell him all of the Torah he knows? No, he only teaches him some specific details. The student, who is at the lower mode of thought, thinks that the particular details he was taught is the whole picture. In other words, he creates his general outlook of the knowledge from the details he knows about. In the lower mode of thought, Chochmah is a specific detail, while Tevunah creates the general view.

This is erroneous. Although it is possible for a person to arrive at the general view from the details, that is only if the person is revealing the details within the general view, and he is aware that details are just details that make up a greater picture. But this is not the same attitude as a person using imagination. With imagination, a person takes the details and sees how it’s everything.

When a person compares things, he uses the imagination, which is in the lower mode of thought. When people compare, they compare as long as there is some similarity. Although there is only one detail worth comparing, a person is convinced that the two things are totally similar, just because there is one detail that makes them similar. He’s not really focused on the details – it is rather because of certain details, he is focused on the general picture.

Chazal also had to explain to us that certain matters are not the same, even though they seem similar because of one particular detail. If not for what they said, we would mistakenly conclude that two things are similar because of a certain detail they both share.

This is the mistake which imagination causes. With imagination, a person compares one thing to another because they seem so similar. But upon some reflection, a person can use his Binah to see how it’s only similar in one particular detail, and not as a whole.

Really, none of these details can be connected. Each detail is full of many differences that contradict the other details, and thus no detail is similar to another. They cannot be connected.

This is the definition of Tevunah, which is to compare. Tevunah is when a person is viewing his Chochmah through the lens of imagination.

It seems simply that imagination is rooted in Binah, because with Binah a person also compares the information of the Chochmah. But that is only in the higher mode of thought. In the lower mode of thought, the very Chochmah is being seen through the imagination, which is a false view.

We can see this all the time. People look at something and see how it’s like something else, and they think it’s the same thing. A person sees one particular detail and thinks it’s the whole thing.

That is the depth to imagination. If a person takes a look at reality, he will find that he has concocted his own reality, and that it is not the real reality. This is the implication of imagination – we are referring to the lower part of the mind, which uses Tevunah.

How Men Think and How Women Think

This point is essentially the difference between men and women. With the lower mode of thought, a man sees details as just details, while a woman sees the details as the whole view.

Women by nature see the details more, and they also have a nature to see details as the whole picture. A woman doesn’t just look at details as details – she looks at the details as everything. This comes from her Tevunah, which is the imagination. (Soon, we will see how Binah, which is in the higher mode of thought, is the opposite of this).

The deep reason behind this is because a woman was created while man was asleep. When people sleep, imagination takes over. This implies to us that a woman was created from a time in which there was imagination. For this reason, Chazal^[3] state that one should not teach Torah to his daughter, and if he does, it is as if he taught her foolishness. This is because a woman, using her lower mode of thought, can only perceive Chochmah through her imagination, which is an incorrect understanding of the information.

The difference between men and women is very apparent and can be seen clearly.  A man thinks about one thought at a time, while a woman often jumps from one subject to another in almost the blink of an eye. There is a deep reason for this. It is really because according to a woman’s understanding, one thing appears similar to another thing. This is coming from her imagination. A woman uses her imagination more to connect various different things to each other and make it all into one.

By contrast, a man breaks down the details. As a result, he sees the details as something that makes up a bigger picture; he knows that the details are not all there is to it, but that each detail is a detail to itself that makes up a greater whole. But women, who make use of their imagination more, immediately compare this detail to that detail, and because of this they come to connect all the details. If she would really see what’s in the details, she would see how they are all very different, and she wouldn’t come to connect them all together.

It’s not simply that she just jumps from one detail to another very quickly. It is that she connects them all, using her imagination. As a result, she thinks she’s dealing with the same thing. If she would be able to differentiate between the facts, she would go back to the details and see that they cannot really be connected.

So in the lower mode of thought, Chochmah focuses on the details as they are, while Tevunah sees the details as the whole picture.

The Higher Chochmah and Binah

Using the higher mode of thought,  everything we have just said gets turned around.

Higher Chochmah is when one really sees the information. This is to see a general view of the situation, without getting into the details. By contrast, higher Binah sees the details, and sees how all the details connect to form a complete picture. This is why it is called Binah, from the word binyan (to build).

Binah, which women are blessed with more than men, is the ability to see details; this is what it means that women are blessed with extra Binah, because they know how to get down to the most miniscule details of something. Chazal say that a woman can recognize the spiritual level of her guests better than her husband can, because she can notice these details, unlike her husband, who only sees the general view. When you see the details, it’s a whole different viewpoint.

In the higher mode of thought, there is Chochmah and Binah. Here, the Chochmah is more than just the knowledge one received from his teacher; it is to really see the knowledge. With lower Chochmah, a person receives certain details from his teacher – detail upon detail. The lower Chochmah is about details. But the higher Chochmah is to “see” it. This is when a person has a general view of the situation that is all-inclusive. It resembles somewhat the level we were on at Har Sinai, when the Torah was given over in its entirety. This ability in a person is to see the general outlook on a situation. It resembles the ability of Adam who was able to see from one end of the world to the other.^[4]

The more a person accesses his higher mode of thought, the more he can see this general view. The highest level of this was reached by Adam, who was able to see all the way from one side of the world to the other because he saw how all the details were all part of one picture.

This is also the quality possessed by leaders. A leader sees the general view. Although a person needs to see the details also, the power to lead the public comes from the ability to see the general view. That is why Moshe Rabbeinu is praised for having a “good eye”^[5]; because he had the general view, he was able to lead.

However, there is a disadvantage to the general outlook. Although there is a benefit of seeing the general picture of what’s going on, it can hamper one’s perception of how he sees details.

With higher Binah, a person enters the details. Chazal say that there are “Fifty Gates of Binah.” These are many details which add up to become a general picture.

To summarize, in the lower mode of thought, the Chochmah sees details, while Tevunah sees the general outlook. In the higher mode of thought, the Chochmah sees the general outlook, while the Binah sees the details.

For this reason, a man sometimes misses the details in something, because he is used to seeing only from his general view on a situation. A woman often sees the small details and thus can recognize her guests better.

Higher Binah and Lower Chochmah

Now we can see a difference between higher Binah, which sees details, to lower Chochmah, which also sees details. They are two different ways to see details.

If you give a child a penny, he thinks that the penny is everything, since this is what he has in his hand. An adult knows that a penny is part of a much larger whole.

Higher Binah sees details as part of a greater whole, while lower Chochmah sees details as the whole thing. The Tevunah comes and sees the details as the whole thing, but the problem really started before, in the very Chochmah. The Chochmah saw the detail as everything.

We can see people who have very little knowledge about the Torah, yet they think they know the entire Torah. A person knows a few stories in the Torah, like what happened with Pharoah and what happened with Bilaam, and from this little knowledge a person fools himself that he knows the whole Torah. Why are there people who think this way? It is because they have a problem in which they see details as everything. They are still at the lower mode of thought. Any comparisons they make will be to blow up these details into everything. Even the Chochmah they have learned from their teachers, which were just details, are perceived by them to be everything.

But with the higher mode of thought, a person sees details, but he knows that the details are part of a greater whole.

Havdalah – The Power To Separate Information

We will now discuss two different ways how to differentiate between information --- one way is through Da’as,  and the other way is through Binah.

Chazal say that if there is no Da’as, there cannot be Havdalah (separation). Here we see that Da’as comes to separate. On the other hand, every day we make a morning blessing, “He who gives the rooster Binah to differentiate between day and night.” This implies that we use Binah to separate information. Which ability do we use to separate information – Da’as, or Binah?

A person is called a “bar Da’as”, someone capable of Da’as – not a “bar Binah”. A rooster might be a bar binah, but it is not a bar Da’as. Although the terms of Binah and Da’as are frequently used by our Sages in their works when they discuss how to differentiate information, we must determine if it is our Da’as which we are using to separate the information, or if it is our Binah which we are using for this.

It depends on which mode of thought we are at. In the lower mode of thought, Da’as comes to separate between the information and decide. But in the higher mode of thought, Da’as is connection to the general outlook seen by the Chochmah and the details seen by the Binah. This is how Binah can be involved with separating information.

There is a huge difference between these two kinds of separation. It is clear and simple according to what we have explained.

Firstly, to give a very general description, the higher mode of thought sees everything as unified, while the lower mode of thought sees everything as separate. A simple example of this is a child, who cannot give birth. A child cannot connect; a child’s whole being is to be separate and to himself. The younger a child is, the more he lives for himself, as we can see at the lowest level, when he is a baby and doesn’t see anyone else but himself. The more a person lives in the higher mode of thought, the more he lives with unity, and the more a person is at the lower mode of thought, the more he lives a separate kind of existence. That is a clear-cut fact which is very simple.

Now we can understand as follows. In the lower mode of thought, when a person separates information, he is totally separate from the information. In the higher mode of thought, when a person separates information, he is grasping onto both of the two ends together, although they are separate.

The lower mode of thought is the kind of thinking that stems from the evil eitz haDa’as, which had in it good and evil knowledge. Thus, the work of the lower mode of thought is to differentiate between what is good and what is evil. But the higher mode of thought is the knowledge contained in the eitz hachaim. Here, the only issue was to choose between one kind of good and another kind of good. That is what we do in our higher mode of thought – we are differentiating between two kinds of good.

When a person has to differentiate between good and good, he’s holding onto both sides at once. “From this and from this, do not remove your hand.” He doesn’t mix them together, but he holds onto both. But when a person has to use his lower mode of thought and differentiate between good and evil, he has to decide what is good and throw away the bad.

In the lower mode of thought, a person uses Da’as d’hachraah (to decide) and Da’as d’havdalah (to separate the information) in order to come out with one side. Such separation is for the sake of separation. The decision comes to seal this separation, but the separation remains.

But in the higher mode of thought, a person separates information in the same way that a rooster separates between day and night. A rooster knows of both, and holds onto both even though it has to differentiate between them. If day and night would be mixed together, that would be twilight. The rooster is only separating night and day for now – it is holding onto both.

This is a huge difference between the two different kinds of separating. Lower Da’as separates and decides like one way, while higher Binah separates but continues to hold onto both of the sides.

Clarity Is Only Through The Higher Mode of Thought

We will describe this in more simple language.

When a person learns something using his lower mode of thought, he decides like one way, because that is the way he understands. But with the higher mode of thought, a person differentiates between all the information in front of him, and he is grasping and understanding all of the details. We will explain this.

When a person is holding onto a piece of information and he is at the lower mode of thought, his Da’as is being used simply to invalidate the rest of the information and thus come to understand whatever is remaining. Lower Chochmah is the knowledge one received from his teacher, and lower Tevunah is to make comparisons in the information. When a person makes the comparison, confusion gets created, and for this a person can use his Da’as to clarify and separate the confusion.

Tevunah has in it the words ben and bas – son and daughter. In other words, there is a son and a daughter going on at once in the information. Tevunah creates confusion. Why? It is because when we compare, we compare things that really aren’t similar at all. They might have one specific similarity they share, but that’s not enough of a reason to make a total comparison and say, “These two things are totally similar.” When a person thinks that two things are totally similar, he has really caused a lot of confusion to a matter, and everything gets all mixed up.

Chochmah looks at details not like details, but as the general idea. That is the first point. The second point is the Tevunah, which is aware that the details are the details, and thinks they are connected, so it compares. It leaves its understanding of the details, which was fine, but then it makes various comparisons which are erroneous. It comes and connects the information when really there is no connection. Tevunah, which is in the lower mode of thought, causes confusion and a lack of clarity.

Now, a person has to use his Da’as and go back to see the details, and after than to decide again. What the lower Da’as is essentially doing is to remove the confusion caused by Tevunah.

By contrast, the higher mode of thought is clean from this. It is like what one of the Sages said, “I see a clear world.” All of the information here is in its place.

In the higher mode of thought, the Chochmah sees all the information in its place. The only threat here to the thinking is that a person might diverge from his general outlook on the information and come to make mistakes. For this, the Binah comes and shows all the details, and how each detail is in its place. The Da’as comes and connects them all together. As we said before, it connects all the information to the general outlook of the information, as well as to notice the differences between the details. It doesn’t come to connect all the details to show any one particular detail; it is coming to show how all the details are different. Da’as connects it all. It connects the view of the general outlook to the view of the details together.

Arranging Information In Order Vs. Taking Apart Its Details

Now we can understand better the difference between higher Binah and lower Da’as, which seem to be the same thing. Higher Binah is when one separates the information and takes apart the details, which is like deciding between good and good. Lower Da’as is when one separates the information and decides, which is deciding between good and bad. They are two different ways of deciding.

In the higher mode of thought, a person’s Chochmah has all the information arranged properly, but he only sees the general idea as a whole, and he doesn’t see how it connects all the details together. The higher Binah comes and arranges all the details as details, so that the person can see how all the details add up to form the general idea. In either of these two abilities, the person sees the details, and the only difference between the two abilities here is how the person sees the details.

But in the lower mode of thought, a person is confused when he sees the information, because it’s all mixed up. In the lower mode of thought, Binah is Tevunah, and Tevunah creates confusion by comparing the details to the general view, mixing them up. What happens as a result? When a person uses his Da’as to try to differentiate between the information, he doesn’t have the properly arranged details, because everything got all mixed up. Here, the work of the person is to use his Da’as to go back and see all the details.

Da’as D’Havdalah

Let us make these words even more clear. In the higher mode of thought, the details are clear as they are. In the lower mode of thought, a person uses Tevunah, which is to see a mixture of different facts, and the person doesn’t even see what the information consists of.

To give a simple example, a young newlywed decides to buy a house. He thinks, “What’s the big deal to buy a house? You just make a phone call and that’s it.” But when he starts getting down to the details of buying the house, suddenly it becomes very complicating. He sees that there are many factors going on at once to consider. He has to install the right kind of windows. He has to find a new school for his kids. He will have to deal with new taxes. He sees that there are many details which he never fathomed at first. It was only his superficial kind of vision which made him think that it’s so simple to buy a house.

Here, the work of the Da’as in a person is different than what he has to do with the higher Binah. With higher Binah, he saw all the details at once, and all he has to do is arrange all the information and give it order. But with lower Binah – Tevunah – the information is all mixed up, and it’s more than just an issue of how to make order of the information. Here a person has to use his Da’as to take each detail of the information and break it up into even more details, so that he can see what the matter is made up of.

Let’s say a new Rebbi (teacher) walks into his third grade classroom on the first day of school. If he has a superficial outlook, he sees thirty ten-year olds sitting in front of him. But the real way he needs to see them is to see thirty different souls in front of him, and that each of them is vastly different from each other. Each child is a different reality unto himself, and it is the job of the teacher to break down this reality into all its details.

Whatever a person encounters, he first needs to see what his initial outlook is on the matter. When he sees that the general information is really all one specific detail, he then should break it down to all its details, and see what it is made up of. There is no end to how much a person can break down the details of a situation; everything on this world is endless. But we need to keep breaking down the details and discover more factors that affect a situation, and each person can do this according to his abilities as much as he can.

Don’t Skip This Step

Our discussion here about the power of Da’as d’havdalah is a very important matter that is relevant to most people.

Most people skip Da’as d’havdalah, and quickly go straight to Da’as d’hachraah. What results from this? The person decides between two possibilities, but he doesn’t even know what the difference between the two possibilities are.

If you think about it, most people have never really accessed their true free will. Free will is exercised by our lower Da’as. The higher Da’as is not our free will; it is a connection to what one knows, and it is the kind of knowledge contained in the eitz hachaim (Tree of Life), but it is not our actual decision. The lower Da’as, our ability to decide, comes from the eitz haDa’as (Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil), which was a mixture of good and evil. Before we can arrive at the higher knowledge, which is connection to the knowledge, we need to first go through a preliminary stage, in which we sift out the bad knowledge from the good knowledge. After we have made this differentiation – by taking apart all the details – can we truly decide between the options.

But usually, people only know of lower Chochmah and Tevunah. People usually only have a superficial kind of knowledge that comes from how others think, and they make various comparisons between one thing and another that aren’t accurate.

For example, a person goes to a store to buy something. The storeowner shows him different items to buy, and the person hears out the pros and cons of each item. That is lower Chochmah, because he is getting his knowledge based on other’s thinking. Then he starts making certain comparisons: “My neighbor bought something similar to this item and was satisfied with it, so it makes sense for me to buy this.” This is a use of Tevunah. Upon this thinking, the person goes ahead and decides to buy the item.

This is something which most people do, and it is an immature kind of thinking. Most of the Chochmah in a person is information which he heard from others, and the kind of Tevunah we use is when we compare two things that in reality bear no resemblance at all.

Most people, when they decide to buy something, do so because they compare the item to something else they know of. It’s a very subtle matter about how our minds work, but this is the reality of how people usually are. A person doesn’t usually buy something unless he compares it to something else he bought that he was happy with.

But when a person makes such a comparison, it’s a distortion of reality. People skip over differentiating between their options and go straight to make a decision, and there is almost nothing to decide about! After all, the person’s comparison has already decided for him that it’s the same thing anyway, so why should he decide…

A person says to himself, “Yesterday I did such and such, so today I will do the same. I don’t need to decide about it again. Why should I think about it again? It has already been decided yesterday.” But the truth is that many times a person hasn’t really decided – he only compared this fact and that fact and came up with some erroneous conclusion based on that. When Da’as d’havdalah is missing, the Da’as d’hachraah isn’t a true decision.

Most people actually do not know how to really decide, and they have never really come to a true decision in their life! It is because they don’t know how to differentiate between their options; they don’t know how to make use of their Da’as d’havdalah.

With Da’as d’havdalah, a person can see the reality of the details. It is the beginning step to have actual clarity. The final step of having clarity is when a person has the connection to his Chochmah and Binah, but the beginning and initial step to make is to at least notice differences.

Let’s say a person is given two closed packages, and he is asked which one to choose. He chooses the package on the right, thinking, “Well, Chazal say that when in doubt, always take the right, not the left.” Such thinking is superficial, because he doesn’t weigh his options. Although Chazal say to always take the right path when in doubt, the person still isn’t thinking. He isn’t thinking from a true place in himself. His decision in such an example is a very weak one.

It’s scary. If a person really examines himself he will discover that he never really came to a true decision in his life!

***

The previous eight chapters before this one dealt with analyzing our minds, and most people will not find them practical because these are lofty matters. But this chapter, which has dealt with Da’as d’havdalah, differentiating between information and taking apart details – is very practical for everyone. We have explained here that a person must be aware of all the details in whatever he encounters.

The power of Da’as d’havdalah applies both to learning a sugya as well in our practical, daily life. Many times a person regrets what he did and complains afterwards, “I should’ve known…” But if a person uses Da’as d’havdalah, he is able to check himself and see what his motivations are, and with this he will eventually see success in his life.