Utilizing Your Da'as - 01 Differentiating

Introduction and Summary of ‘Getting To Know Your Thoughts’

Here we will discuss mochin (the mind), which we have begun to explain previously [in Da Es Machshavosecha\”Getting To Know Your Thoughts”]. In the previous series, we mainly discussed the mental abilities called chochmah (wisdom) and binah (contemplation). Now we will focus on how we to use the ability of our da’as (connecting knowledge). The discussion here is built upon the previous series and is a continuation of it.

We mentioned [in Getting To Know Your Thoughts] that there are two kinds of chochmah, binah and da’as – a higher function and a lower function. The higher function of our mind is called “mochin d’gadlus”, while the lower function is called “mochin d’katnus”.[1] There is a higher and lower chochmah, and there is a higher and lower Binah. This is a brief summary.

Binah, as was explained, really makes use of our power of “medameh” (imagination\comparing). Higher binah is to compare information with what one has learned from his teachers. Lower binah is to compare the actions that one has seen from his teachers. Both of these kinds of Binah involve comparing information, so binah works in tandem with medameh\imagination.

Within daas itself, we mentioned that there are three kinds: “da’as d’havdalah” (differentiating), “da’as d’hachraah” (deciding), and “da’as d’chibbur” (connecting the knowledge together). We will begin to explain the lower functions of daas and then progress to discuss its higher, deeper uses.

The Three Kinds of Da’as: Differentiating, Deciding, and Connecting

Da’as d’havdalah is when a person differentiates between a chochmah-thought and a binah-thought. Here, the da’as in our mind comes to differentiate between the knowledge that I see in front of me which I have acquired from what I have learned  (chochmah), with what I am about to do (binah). If one is able to makes this differentiation, he has reached the power of daas d’havdalah.

Da’as d’hachraah is when I weigh out the information and decide if I will act upon it or not. Here, the da’as decides if my comparison which I made is correct or not. What I hear from my teacher doesn’t mean I have decided to act upon it. Binah is when I compare the information and thus I come to understand the information better, and daas d’hachraah is that after I have used my power of binah\medameh to compare, now I decide if I will act upon that understanding.

So chochmah is to “see” the information, binah is to compare different kinds of information, and the role of daas comes to combine all the information together (first it differentiates and decides, though, before it can combine the information). It combines the general view of the chochmah and the detailed view of binah, and fuses them together to form the bigger picture.

At its total level, this is ruach hakodesh (the “holy spirit”), which sees the general view, as well as the details, and then to see how they both connect - which is to see the grand total of the picture. This is known as da’as d’chibbur: when one uses his daas to connect the information together, after having used havadalah (differentiation) and hachraah (deciding).

That is a brief outline of what it is to come. We will begin with the lowest function of daas, which is called daas d’havdalah – to differentiate between information.

Da’as HaMavdeles: Differentiating Between Chochmah and Binah

Da’as d’havdalah [or daas hamavdeles, or simply “Havdalah”] comes to separate between what is chochmah and what is binah. When the thoughts of a person become mixed up, there is bilbul, confusion, and the thoughts need to be separated and arranged.

To illustrate this concept, at the beginning of Creation, light and darkness were mixed together into one, and Hashem came and separated them from each other. Havdalah is about sorting out a previous mixture. If there is no mixture, there is no need for havdalah. So havdalah is only when there is a mixture of information in the head that needs to be sorted out. A mixture manifests in our soul as the power of medameh (imagination).

Da’as comes to analyze what the binah has done and takes it apart, in order to decide if the binah has made an accurate comparison. The binah has made a comparison between two chochmah-thoughts, and now a bilbul in the mind is created, because there is now chochmah and binah. The da’as comes to sort out this mixture of information that has been created in the mind.

More specifically, daas d’havdalah essentially comes to separate the medameh\imagination – the mixture of information that has now entered the mind after binah has been activated. Chochmah sees the original scrap version of the information, binah compares that with other information, and daas separates between the chochmah and binah - it essentially comes to separate the bilbul (confusion) that gets created from the jumbled together thoughts of the chochmah and binah.

“Dilug”: Mental Jumpiness

What causes a person to have bilbul, to become confused and mixed up? Generally speaking, there are two causes for bilbul.

One cause is called “dilug” – “jumping”. This is when the mind quickly jumps from one piece of information to another piece of information. (There is also a holy way to use this power[2], but now we are dealing with the lower use of dilug, which causes a person to become confused in his mind when he jumps around between information). When a person is “jumpy” in his mind, he loses the chochmah that was contained in his binah, and as a result, his binah then becomes a total imagination. He will then come to make an inaccurate comparison of information, using binah alone.

Creation is built on seder (order); all of Creation is orderly, and everything in Creation functions through a certain order. “All of them You created with chochmah (wisdom)”.  When there is medameh, however, there is a dilug (jumpiness), and then there is no seder. A dilug is the antithesis to chochmah, which represents seder\order.

What brings dilug? One cause is medameh (the imagination), which is what we will be mainly dealing with in this discussion. Another cause for dilug is “mehirus”, quickness. An example of this when people skip words as they read and then they make mistakes.[3] We will not deal with this now; now we will focus on the problem of dilug causes by medameh.

How does medameh bring dilug? By nature, it is hard for a person to pass so quickly between one thing to another, unless he feels very pulled after it. Children, who do not have da’as, jump very quickly from one action to another, because they constantly feel pulled after things. Unless a person gets dragged after something, he doesn’t jump away from what he’s doing. Children are jumpy because they have no daas; their medameh is dominant.

Man was created to follow seder – “Asher yatzar es haadam b’chochmah”, “Who created man with wisdom.” We are naturally orderly, because we were created with orderly wisdom. But when a medameh enters the mind, it takes us away from our normal seder, by causing a dilug to our seder.

Medameh even causes a person to think that he’s not jumping, and that he’s just getting from one point to another. He doesn’t even make the differentiation between the two different points; in his mind right now, all points are connected together, and that is why he jumps around in his mind from one point to another so quickly.

Most people suffering from a problem of dilug are really suffering from their medameh. There are few people who suffer from mehirus and they are simply impulsive; or, it is because their minds think very quickly, so they have rapid movements as a result. But most people suffering from dilug are suffering from medameh.

When medameh isn’t sorted out, it causes dilug in the mind.

A Difference Between Men and Women

This is why most men cannot pass quickly from doing one thing to another thing, while women find this easier. The deep reason behind this is with by most men, their imagination hasn’t been properly developed, and their imbalanced imagination thus makes it harder for them to pass from one thing to another thing. Women, who use their imagination more often, due to their “extra binah”, are usually more developed in their imagination, and thus they find it easier to pass from one thing immediately to another thing.

We see that a woman can easily do many tasks in her house, one after the other; one minute she is cleaning, the next minute she’s at the stove cooking, the next minute she’s doing the laundry – and she can make the transition between one of these acts to anther very easily and quickly. This is because her mind processes all of the things she has do in her house as all one unit; thus she finds it easier to pass so quickly from one task to another, because from her viewpoint, everything in the house is connected into one point: it’s all about taking care of the house.

In contrast, the husband does not have this viewpoint on the house, therefore he sees each of these household tasks as separate from each other, so he has a harder time moving so quickly from one of these tasks to another.

Yetzer Hora\Medameh\Dilug

The medameh\imagination is what the yetzer hora (evil inclination) essentially uses in order to get people to sin. The yetzer hora is described as “nidmeh” – theimagination (Sukkah 52a). This is because when the yetzer hora is present, it uses imagination, which can make a person temporarily lose his da’as. Our da’as has the ability to differentiate between good and evil, but imagination makes us lose our power to differentiate.

The Serpent is called the poretz gidrei olam, the “one who breaks the fences of the world.” Why does it ‘break fences’? It represents the evil inclination, which uses medameh. Medameh tells a person there are no gedarim (fences\rules) to anything. And when it breaks all fences, a person can then feel like he can ‘jump’ over the fence – he is apt to do anything that the evil inclination tells him to do.

Too Focused On the Similarities and Ignoring the Differences

This is the problem behind dilug\mental jumpiness: The person compares one thing to another thing that they are the same, due to the unsorted medameh, thus, he jumps over to the another thing in his mind. It focuses on a certain comparison and tells you that the two things can be compared, ignoring all the other differences.

This is what happens when medameh is not sorted out by the power of da’as - specifically, da’as d’havdalah.

Daas can show the person what is similar and what is different, within the information. It helps you concentrate on what is different between two facts, which opposes the medameh that is showing you how two facts are similar.  But when has not yet used his power of da’as to sort out his medameh, his medameh will be dominant and it will lead a person to make erroneous conclusions about something.

A person might even be so immersed in his medameh, thinking that something is so similar to what he’s thinking, that he overlooks certain details and he comes to makes rash decisions. For example, a person sees an advertisement for an apartment that looks like the one he wants and it’s in a great location, so he immediately wants to grab the apartment. He calls the number in the ad and buys it on the spot, without going to check out the apartment. Then he goes to the apartment and finds that it’s not what he wanted. He has to walk up a flight of stairs to get to it, and there are other things he didn’t bother to find out.

He had imagined that the new apartment would be similar to his apartment, because he was so immersed in imagining that it’s similar. After all, it looked exactly like his old apartment, and it was even on the same block. It was similar - but in actually, it was not the same. He never bothered to check it out and see the differences. He calls the owner the next day to complain that it’s not he thought he was getting….

Sometimes a person can be so focused on making comparisons that if you ask him if he is aware of differences, he will agree. But he still can’t pull himself away from his imagination, because his imagination is making him so focused on the similarities that he can’t get himself to see the differences. Intellectually, he is aware that he’s too swayed by his imagination, but he’s too emotionally connected with his imagination that he can’t get himself to pull away from it, and he continues to fool himself that a comparison can be made, and he ignores the differences.

Using Daas D’Havdalah: Noticing Differences

So our binah (or tevunah) compares information, which creates medameh in our mind – a mixture of information; and we need to use daas to sort this out. Basically, we need to see what is different and what is similar in two pieces of information that we compared.

First, try taking apart the comparison in your mind and see what’s similar between A and B and what’s different between A and B.

Someone with a tendency to imagine will be drawn towards comparing things that are really different, and he will also not be drawn towards comparing things that are really similar. He is the kind of person who will take two things that are completely different and try to find how they’re similar. This shows that imagination dominates his mind.

If one has this problem and he wants to uproot this, he should take a pen and paper and write down how the two things are really not exactly similar. If he tries this for about 10, 20, 50, or 70 times, he will be able to chip away at his tendency of imagination\erroneous comparisons. (This improves the lower aspect of medameh; we have not yet addressed how to fix the higher parts of medameh). In addition, he should pay attention to differences he never noticed until now and now examine if there is more reason to compare or differentiate between the two things he compared.

So, write down all the reasons why you think the two things you compared are similar, why they should be different. Now, see if they are really similar or different. The more you do this, the more you can weaken your tendency to imagine.

We do this all the time with learning Gemara – we notice differences, and we see how two things that seemed the same are really not. But what should women and children do, who do not learn Torah? They can use our method, which is really based on the same idea of making comparisons in our Torah learning and differentiating between the information.

See how two things you compared are both similar and different, then decide if they are really similar or not, and then find new differences that you didn’t see until now.

How To Stop Mental Jumpiness

Until now we discussed how to use daas d’havdalah to weaken medameh, imagined information. Now we will see how to use daas d’havdalah to also chip away at the problem of dilug, mental “jumpiness”.

The truth is that dilug\mental jumpiness doesn’t really ‘exist’ in our soul. We really cannot ‘jump’ between one point to another - even though it seems that we can. A person can only jump from one thing to another in his head when he has formed for himself a kind of mental [imaginary] “bridge” to cross over with, and that is why he connects so fast to something else in the blink of an eye. If we would somehow take away that “bridge” he has formed in his head, he can’t cross over from one topic to another.

How did he build the ‘bridge’ in his head in the first place? He was thinking of something, and then another unrelated thought suddenly fell into his head. When this happens, a person has to pause his thoughts and ask himself why he suddenly thought of this new thought. In this way, you clarify the imagination which has entered into your head and analyze why it came, and how it caused you to make some mental comparison between information.

This is essentially cleans up his imagination as it’s taking place. A person can only jump from one thing to another through medameh\imagination, and the solution is for a person to “catch” himself while he is “jumping”.

This is because dilug\mental jumpiness causes medameh\imagination to become awakened, thus, all dilug is really fueled through medameh. The entire basis for dilug is medameh\imagination, so dilug is basically fed by the imagination! Thus, if we take away the root of the dilug - which is medameh - the dilug ceases.

The way we do this is, as we said: by catching yourself in the act of imagining, you become aware that your mind is jumping, and then you analyze your imagination and see that it led you to make some erroneous calculation.

However, the difficulty is, that as the dilug is taking place, a person doesn’t think that he’s imagining. He might be somewhat mentally aware of the dilug, but he is not actually aware that his imagination is essentially overtaking him. Dilug can make a person jump around too much in his mind, and he can’t concentrate. He might perhaps take pills to help him concentrate….

What a person really needs to do is, to get to the root of why he acts so jumpy in his mind. This is by being aware of why you are jumping, as you are jumping. The whole problem of dilug comes from a lack of awareness to our imagination as it’s taking place. Once a person is aware of his imagination as it’s happening, the mental jumpiness will lessen. When you become aware, ask yourself why you jumped from one thought to another. A lack of awareness to one’s mental jumpiness is the root of a person’s problems.

What happens when a person nips the dilug? There are two gains. Firstly, he escapes the dilug, and the second gain is that he weakens the medameh\imagination that was created from the dilug.

When a person isn’t aware of his imagination as it’s happening, though, his imagination will continues to bring him down more and more, and then there will be more dilug.

There are all kinds of ways how mental health professionals deal with dilug, but those methods only address how to get rid of it, without getting to the root of the problem. The method here gets to the source of the problem of dilug and nips it at the source. The source of dilug is that is comes from an unsorted medameh, and the key of stopping it is to be aware of it as it happens.

Thus, when you’re imagining how one thing is similar to another thing, try to catch yourself as you’re imagining, and then analyze what made you jump from one thought to another. Try to become clear of why you made the mental comparison. This already solves half of the problem.

The main problem with our imagination is when we are not aware of it. People might know intellectually about their imagination, but the key is to become aware of it as it is happening.

There are people who jump from one subject to another as they talk. If you ask them, “What’s the connection to what you were just talking about before?” you will get a response like, “No, there’s no connection…” Their thoughts are constantly jumping around.

So the avodah is that after you go through a dilug in your mind, the first thing you must realize is that medemah is overtaking you. That is the first step. Then, ask yourself why you made the mental comparison.

When you live like this, you can see how little thought about something can fool you entirely! In situations where you become aware of your dilug, be aware that it is coming from medameh and then ask yourself why you made a mental comparison. See how what you compared is really different.

This is the depth of the power of daas d’havdalah which we started out this chapter with, but here we have explained a new facet in how to use it.

Getting Back Your Nature To Differentiate

Now we will add another point to the solution. Our power of daas d’havdalah counters medameh. We use our daas d’havdalah after we have made a mental comparison, and there are two parts to this.

At first, we need to become of the differences between two things; we become aware of the dilug. Then we need to become aware of what is behind the dilug, which the medameh, the comparison – and you do this by asking yourself why you made the mental comparison, what led you to think this way, how your mind went from Point A to Point B. This is what we explained so far.

Now we can come to a deeper point: we can now see that when we are conscious, the nature of our soul [our mind within it] is to differentiate, and that it is just in our subconscious that we tend to make mental comparisons and focus on similarities between A and B. You become aware of this contradiction in yourself, and the more you recognize this, the more you weaken the imagination.

Now you can see how daas d’havdalah is really your initial perception of your soul. Our nature is really to differentiate – thus, dilug is really a developed habitually, and it is the opposite of our soul’s nature; even though is true that we can develop a tendency of dilug[4].

Seeing Subtle Differences

Now let us sharpen this discussion more, of how using daas d’havdalah can sort out our medameh\imagination.

Until now, we have been discussing what happens when a person compares Point A and Point B when they are really not similar, because he gets too caught up in the similarities between them and therefore he mentally equates them as the same thing; that is why he jumps from Point A to Point B.

But sometimes, a person compares two things that really are very similar. When you use daas d’havdalah, though, you can see how two things that seem very similar are still different.

For example, if a person sees two great leaders of the generation performing the mitzvah of shiluach hakan (sending away the mother bird), it seems superficially that they are both doing the same thing. They are both doing the same mitzvah. But if you use your daas d’havdalah, you will notice that although they are doing the same act, it still not the same thing. They are each performing the act in their own unique way. Only someone who has developed daas d’havdalah will be able to notice this subtle differentiation.

To illustrate, anyone who is used to learning the words of the Rashba and the Ritva in-depth knows that although they seem very similar to each other, they are not the same exact wording. Sometimes one word can make the whole difference. This is the depth behind learning with iyun (in-depth) – to notice differences, even in what seems similar. It is to get used to seeing beyond the surface of things, which only offers a superficial understanding.

Our Sages state, “Just as all faces are not the same, so are all de’os [opinions] not the same.”[5] There are no two things in Creation which are the same exact. There are always differences between one thing and another. The more we use our ability of da’as d’havdalah, the more we can see the differences.

In order to sort out our mind, we need to make use of our da’as d’havdalah. We need to see how things are different from each other. Anyone who is used to learning Torah in-depth lives this kind of life and is familiar with the concept of daas d’havdalah.

To work on this concept practically - especially if you regularly learn Torah with iyun (in-depth), here is an exercise you can use to work on this. Let’s say you are learning about a certain concept, and there are two proofs to the concept. Although they are both proofs to the same concept, try to see how the two proofs contain different points from each other. By learning like this on a regular basis, you will greatly clarify what goes on in your mind and sort out the imagination.

Overcoming Temptation

This helps you in the practical sense, and to take this concept further, using daas d’havadalah can help you counter the essence of all evil on this world. As we explained earlier, the yetzer hora works using the power of imagination. When you use daas d’havdalah, you begin to become aware of things you never noticed, and now you can see how there are more things you need to avoid on this world.

All evil thrives on medameh, as we mentioned before.[6] How can a person deal with medameh, which the yetzer hora uses?

If someone has never tried to sort out his medameh at all, the words we are discussing here will be worthless for him to try to implement, because he hasn’t yet worked on the lower stages of this, which is to simply get used to differentiating between information. When the yetzer hora comes to tempt him, he will remain with his passions (taavah) and his will to commit the sin (ratzon). “When the yetzer hora comes, there is no mention of the yetzer tov”; but if a person has gotten used to sorting out his medameh from already beforehand, he can fight the yetzer hora even when there is no yetzer tov.[7]

Here we will discuss a situation in which the yetzer hora isn’t present, not the time of the actual struggle.

A person should know that whenever there is a struggle with yetzer hora, it’s all being fueled by medameh. Therefore, one has to clarify what brought him to this difficulty: what erroneous comparison he made that led him to the difficulty. If a person can summon forth his daas d’havdalah and take apart the comparison he made, the difficulty with the yetzer hora will weaken when it comes.

This is the subtle way to deal with the yetzer hora, who is called “nidmeh”[8], from the word “medameh”. When a person sees something and now he has a desire for it, how can he deal with it and rid it from his thoughts? He has made some erroneous mental comparison, and that is what it is feeding his desire. If a person wants to take it apart, he should see that medameh has taken over. That is how he uses daas d’havdalah.

This is practical advice on how to overcome the yetzer hora, which tries to connect one to improper things: develop the power of daas d’havdalah, which enables you to realize it when medameh begins to control you.

If a person would always use daas d’havdalah, he would never succumb to a sin. When a person sins, it’s all because his medameh has overcome his power of havdalah. Had he used his power of havdalah (by developing it before the yetzer hora comes), he would have been able to separate himself from the evil that the yetzer hora is trying to connect him to. He could have used havdalah to take apart the imagination in his head.

When you make a havdalah, you distance something from yourself. Thus, when the yetzer hora is trying to convince you to sin, he is trying to draw you closer to it, so what you have to do is distance yourself from it.

Restraining The Imagination

However, the point of this is not to destroy your power of medameh. We do not want to destroy it, chas v’shalom; it has its uses, since Hashem created it as part of the design in Creation. Rather, what we have to do is restrain our medameh.

Medameh is actually good and holy when it is kept within its limits. When we keep it restrained, there is no possibility to commit evil. So the depth of our avodah is to learn how to restrain our medameh, not to destroy it. We want to give it proper limits and keep it restrained.

When it is kept within its limits, it is like the yetzer hora before the cheit (sin) of Adam HaRishon. After the cheit, the yetzer hora entered man, as the Nefesh HaChaim writes; the depth of this is that it entered where it doesn’t belong, and that is when the yetzer hora\ the medameh became evil. So the entire evil of medameh is when it enters where it shouldn’t; when it is unrestrained. It is not evil in essence.

To summarize, we need to get used to using our power of havdalah more often, both in matters that do not involve a temptation of evil, as well as using it in matters that tempt us with evil.