📋 Shiur Overview
The Process of Chochmah, Binah, and Chochmah: From Pesach to Shavuos
A) Introduction – Chipazon After Pesach and the Question of Time
Motzaei Pesach, Erev Shabbos, everything is still in a state of chipazon (haste). The Maharal brings a secret: chipazon stems from the fact that higher/intellectual matters are not subject to time – the soul and intellect stand outside time. Therefore, one eats matzah b’chipazon. But in truth – we do live in time, and this brings out a deeper analysis.
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B) Two Types of Intellect – Chochmah and Binah
A fundamental principle: It’s not just body versus intellect, rather there are two types of intellect:
– Chochmah – the essence of intellect, not subject to time, a flash of understanding, a single-moment comprehension
– Binah – intellect that takes time, step-by-step understanding, questions and answers
The difference between them is the key to the entire process.
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C) Chipazon – Actually the Most Below Time
A sharp analysis: Chipazon is not truly above time – it is actually the most below time. The one who rushes is the one who is late (lazy), not the diligent one. Zerizus = calm, orderly, on time. Pezizus = the opposite. The chipazon of Yetzias Mitzrayim is a galus-chipazon – one doesn’t have time, one must run.
Simple faith (emunah peshutah) is also like this – it is like a medicine (the Zohar: matzah = “food of healing”). One needs it because one has no other way. It’s not truly above time, rather the most constricted in time – an emergency solution, not the ultimate goal.
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D) The Three-Stage Process: General → Particular → General
The entire order from Pesach to Shavuos is built on three levels:
1. General Before Particular – Chochmah at the Beginning (Pesach)
The first general overview. Simple faith. “Anochi Hashem Elokecha.” “What he received from his teacher” – the basics that one receives from one’s rebbe. A leap, a jump. One doesn’t know why, one was told this way. Like matzah on the first night – simple, without questions. Takes almost no time.
2. Particular – Binah in the Middle (Sefiras HaOmer)
The long path of details. Questions and answers. Chesed she’b’Chesed, Gevurah she’b’Chesed, all 49 combinations. True understanding takes time – one cannot jump straight to Kabbalas HaTorah. It must take seven times seven – 49 days of work and growth.
3. General After the Particular – Chochmah at the End (Shavuos)
A deeper general understanding after going through the entire path. One sees the entire structure “as it is” – in one glance, “in one breath.” This is the same sentence as for the small child, but with completely different depth. “I say the same thing she says, but I know that she says it.”
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E) “A Person Cannot Grasp His Teacher’s Understanding Until After 40 Years” – Time is Necessary
Questions and answers = already two moments = already time. Even “Mah Nishtanah” takes time. Forty years to understand a rebbe’s understanding cannot be shortened. Kefitzas haderech (jumping the path) is b’dieved – an emergency solution, not the ideal.
Gadlus Rishon and Gadlus Sheini (Arizal)
– Gadlus Rishon – until twenty, natural growth
– Gadlus Sheini – after twenty, a second bar mitzvah, the true main work, consists almost entirely of things that take time
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F) The Baal Shem Tov’s Innovation Regarding the Fifty Gates of Binah
– A gate = a question with an answer. Each gate is a new level of understanding.
– The 50th gate is after 49. As long as a person lives, one never reaches the 50th gate. The 50th gate contains within it another 49 gates at a higher level. (Moshe Rabbeinu only reached it at his passing – “No man can see Me and live.”)
– The difference between levels: The questions of the first level are completely different from the questions of the second level. It’s not just harder – it’s a different world.
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G) The Baal Shem Tov’s Statement: “I Have Many Insights, Afterwards I Am a Child and I Believe”
This does not mean that he is back in cheder. It means that after he has gone through all the insights, he arrives at simple faith on a completely different level. But this only works if “they kept My Torah” – one has actually learned and worked through it. Without this, it’s just an excuse.
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H) Practical Moral Lesson for Chinuch
Time in Chinuch
Chinuch requires time – one must not expect a child to understand after being told ten times. Even middos (character traits, Sefiras HaOmer) take years. This is normal and necessary. Deeper understanding takes even more time.
The “Ben Rasha” – A Warning
A concern: people have begun to believe that “rasha” is a fixed category. In truth, “lachem v’lo lo” / “blunt his teeth” is a practical chinuch instruction, not a label – one speaks to the young man who thinks he’s above it all.
Against the Concept of “OTD”
The entire concept of “OTD” (Off The Derech) is a fiction. Every person has his mitzvos and his aveiros, everyone has times when he is more or less a yerei shamayim. A fifteen-year-old boy who asks questions like a “rasha” – this is only a stage in his growth. One must look with a broader view, with a “kavvan sheben shanah” – the long-term perspective. When one looks this way, one sees that the entire fear is “fantasy.”
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I) The Conclusion: What is True Chochmah?
True chochmah is not just a “tachlis hazman” (end goal of a time process), but rather a comprehension of the thing as it is – an attainment of the thing as it truly is in its own essence.
The entire order from Pesach → Sefiras HaOmer → Shavuos is:
1. Chochmah at the beginning – chochmah at the start (Pesach)
2. Binah in the middle – the process of understanding and development (Sefiras HaOmer)
3. Chochmah at the end – chochmah at the conclusion (Shavuos), on a completely different level
One begins with a simple flash of chochmah, one goes through the long path of binah with all 49 gates, and one returns to chochmah – the same word, but with completely different depth. This is the natural process of every person’s spiritual growth.
📝 Full Transcript
Time and Understanding: The Path from Simple Faith to True Comprehension
Introduction: The Rush After Pesach
Dear friends who are already holding motza’ei Pesach, Isru Chag, erev Shabbos – everything is still in the mode of speed, rush. It’s still right after Pesach, I need to go already to Shabbos.
We know, the Maharal said that the secret of the rush is that the higher matters, the intellectual matters, are generally not subject to time. The soul, the intellect, is not subject to time, it’s not in time at all. That’s why one eats matzah in haste, the rush – there is no time. And the truth is that it’s like this the whole year. That is, if it’s not in time, the meaning is that it’s always.
But we do live in time.
Chapter 1: Two Types of Intellect – Chochmah and Binah
The Foundation: Not Just Body and Intellect, But Two Types of Intellect
And we remember that the distinction between time and not-time is not only the distinction of, let’s say, the intellect is above time, not subject to time, and in contrast the body is subject to time. Rather, in truth there are also two types of intellect.
We’ve already spoken about this recently, but we speak about this always. In Kabbalah it’s called mochin of Chochmah and Binah:
– Chochmah is the essence of intellect, that is, the essential intellect which is not subject to time
– Binah is intellect that takes time
Let’s explain this a bit, it’s a very important foundation, one can always review it, and with this we’ll go further.
Chapter 2: Klal U’Prat U’Chlal – Three Stages of Learning
The Order of Pesach, Sefirat HaOmer, Shavuot
There are two types of learning, two types of ways of understanding. The first is called klal u’prat. We’ve spoken, we speak many times, it’s called klal u’prat. And here I want to add another piece of chiddush, it’s also connected with the order of Pesach, Sefirat HaOmer, Shavuot, where we are holding now.
And we’ll say that there are two times, there are two levels of the klal. That is, there is a klal u’prat u’chlal:
– There is a klal before the prat
– And a klal after the prat
Klal Before Prat: Simple Faith (Pesach)
In other words, a person begins to learn, one can even speak, let’s say, about faith. A person begins to know what God means. One teaches him “Anochi Hashem Elokecha”, yesodei hayesodot, faith, wisdom, “leit atar panui minei”, “malei chol ha’aretz kevodo” – this is klal. He understands it in a general way, one tells him one sentence, he understands it in a general way. This doesn’t take time.
Chipazon – A Clarification
One can say that truly, here there is perhaps a bit of a distinction, it does take a little, one can say it takes very quickly, truly in haste. There is a bit of a contradiction, because the Maharal says that chipazon is a hint that it’s not subject to time, but it’s not so simple.
Chipazon is the Most Time
Chipazon is the most time, yes? One must remember and say, when people say, what is the difference between zerizut and atzlut, yes?
The lazy person is always rushing. A lazy person is always one who rushes. Why? Because he arrives late, so he has to rush.
A zeriz is one who never rushes, he’s always on time, yes?
Many times people say about a person who drags that he’s above time. It’s not true, he’s the most below time, he’s the most subject to time, he’s never organized, therefore he always has to rush, therefore he does everything with pazizut, that is not even zerizut.
That is the difference between zerizut and pazizut, yes?
– Pazizut is the opposite of zerizut
– Zerizut is he does each thing calmly, but on time
This is the level of time itself, not above time, it’s the level of time itself, he’s organized. A lazy person, he’s the one who comes late, he rushes more.
Matzot – A Galut-Chipazon
So the matzot actually, therefore the Maharal who says that matzot is a hint of chipazon, it’s truly a weak hint. Because matzot is not really like that. We say “lo hispik betzekam”, we say “eili lehotzi Hakadosh Baruch Hu”, yes? All the sefarim say, I think it’s the simple meaning, one must put in the fifty gates of understanding, but the idea is, there was once a time, one had to run out. If one had waited another minute, one would have been late, one would have had to wait another thousand years, I don’t know what, to go out.
This is not above time, this is the greatest below time. That is, you’re so late, you’re so stuck in time, that you must rush. This is truly the chipazon of Egypt, chipazon of a galut.
Simple Faith – Meichla D’Asvata (Medicine)
And truly, one can say that this is the first point. When a person begins to learn, for example, we always ask the question, truly to understand God, truly to understand what “Anochi Hashem Elokecha” means, one needs to live ten thousand years. I mean, then one still won’t understand, but at least to understand something in the Name.
Obviously he’s under great pressure and great urgency to say, and to the little boy who doesn’t know about the Almighty, he hasn’t begun to learn anything with him, one simply tells him simple faith, “emunatcha baleilot”, “Anochi Hashem Elokecha”, there is a God. Okay, this is chipazon, this is the meaning of simple faith.
About this we said another time that the Zohar says that matzah is “meichla dimehemnuta”, “meichla d’asvata”, two different expressions, let them be different things, no difference. But the word refuah, medicine, simply means something that is not according to the natural way. This is simple faith. Simple faith is a medicine, one must. I live without any knowledge, I have no way, one simply tells it.
This is the chipazon, the so-to-speak above time. It’s not truly above time, it’s truly the most compressed in time, he has the least time, he has only one second, he doesn’t have all the time, he’s above time, he has the least time. Just like the young people who are said to be above time, they are meanwhile the most compressed in time.
And this is step one, this can be called the step of Pesach.
Chapter 3: Binah – Learning That Takes Time (Sefirat HaOmer)
Gadlut Rishon and Gadlut Sheni
Afterwards there is learning that is within time, and it’s very important, and this we must remember in our lives. There is a distinction, yes, there is a distinction, we’re speaking of people who have a certain da’at, “ben yada lehavchin”, he has a certain maturity. People who don’t have maturity, the same thing exists in spirituality, yes, the Arizal says there is gadlut sheni.
Gadlut sheni means that it’s not enough that he became an adult once, that’s in the natural way, there is another level of becoming an adult. There are people who had a second bar mitzvah, and there are people who never had a second bar mitzvah, yes. This is gadlut sheni.
The Arizal says that gadlut sheni is truly after twenty. Gadlut rishon is until twenty, “ad ben esrim shanah”, afterwards most people stop growing then, they remain with their nature. This is what they called in the devarim, in the acharonim, or in the kra’ot, one who says that one must say the goral. This is the gadol, one who still has gadlut rishon.
Gadlut rishon is that the main work. The main work is gadlut sheni, is that afterwards he becomes again a gadlut rishon. And what does da’at consist of? One must know the rule: Gadlut sheni consists almost only of things that take time.
Why Simple Faith Doesn’t Take Time
This is truly what was explained in that shiur also, that one cannot say, if one thinks only of simple faith, it’s the root of this, one can arrive. The reason why this also doesn’t take time is because truly the foundation is not subject to time. But in practice, how it appears in this world, it’s the most subject to time. If everything would remain there, indeed this doesn’t need to take time. These types of things don’t take time.
True Understanding Takes Time
But true understanding, understanding of a person, human understanding, is by definition something that takes time. You can say, even in the most compressed way, the most divided way, in order to learn something there must be questions and answers, yes? One asks “Mah Nishtanah”, and one answers. It takes time. It’s already, in other words, two moments.
Yes, you say, you can do the question and answer in one moment? No problem. I already have two moments, yes? A question, there was a moment of the question, and a moment of the answer. It takes time. It’s not like simple faith, there are no questions and answers, right?
Simple faith means Chochmah, that is, the first point of Chochmah. That’s how it is, “kacha hu”, “koach mah”, that’s how it is. That’s how it is doesn’t take time. But is it so? Is it not so? Even if it takes you one second, there was already time. It’s already there in time.
In other words, it’s called “shakla vetarya”, “masa umatan”. It takes time. This is what there is in Sefirat HaOmer, and each, and the truth is, it takes very much time.
Ein Adam Omed Al Da’at Rabo Ela L’Achar Arba’im Shanah
Generally speaking, simple faith one speaks to children, to bachurim. They haven’t even seen yet, they don’t even know what forty years means. I also don’t know, I’m not yet forty. One doesn’t even know what it means.
And this type of knowledge, yes, what does it mean to know what forty years means? I can know. One year I know, forty times that. I can do the math. But that’s not it, yes? This is in the mode of Chochmah, in the mode of simple faith, in the mode of distant faith I can say I know what forty years means.
Do you know what forty years means? Do you know what it means to learn forty years? Do you know what it means to struggle with a question for forty years, to go back and forth for forty years about this? One cannot know, only it takes forty years to know. There is no way.
Perhaps there is a shortcut. I thought, Rav Elazar Menachem Shach said “keheref ayin”, “keven shivim shanah”. There is something called kefitzat haderech, yes? Kefitzat haderech can make it a bit faster. Just as a person says he’s already seventy years in his soul, even though in his body he’s not. Okay, there is such a thing, but even then it’s still bedi’eved. We know that the kefitzat haderech one had to complete later. It’s not.
In any case, in human reality, ordinary things take very much time. This is the order. This is a matter of chinuch.
Chapter 4: Practical Lessons for Chinuch
Chinuch Takes Time
Much of our chinuch is foolish, because chinuch one must fulfill in the mode of simple faith. One must begin with simple things. So one begins to think that chinuch is above time. Then one has complaints, “I already told my boy something ten times and he didn’t understand.”
Yes, because understanding is something that takes time. Understanding even in the mode of middot. Yes, the growth of the middot. The Sefirat HaOmer speaks of the growth of the middot. Also takes time. Takes truly seven weeks, not seven weeks. One says okay, give it even three years.
Even most, I look, I don’t know anyone who is not mechanech, he doesn’t live out anything. One who lives out, his children are students, he sees after a few years they figure it out. These simple things, it’s the simple thing. From the essence it’s simple. Then, from this side you can say it in a minute, but he doesn’t understand it. It takes much time. It’s a normal thing, it’s normal, it must be so.
Deeper Understandings Take Even More Time
And certainly deeper understandings. Deeper understandings, it’s truly, it’s truly, “lu yichyeh elef shanim pa’amayim”, yes, such expressions are written. It’s truly that one must take the time for this type of human understanding that is called Binah. It’s not the only type of understanding, but Binah, the main feminine understanding that is called Binah, takes time.
And as we learned, we always speak, time means that it must be in this like steps of separation, yes.
Chapter 5: The Ben Rasha – A Warning
And I also think, I thought about this, one sees all the magazines speaking about Pesach about the understanding that one does with the ben rasha. And I look, I’m fearfully worried. One has begun to believe that there is a category of a rasha. The rasha is the one who says this, yes, “lachem velo lo”. And one tells him back.
It doesn’t mean seriously. I already said at the Seder, it doesn’t mean seriously. It means to say, one says what it means. I explained at my Seder, the first Seder we explained what “lachem velo lo” means, “ve’af atah hakheih et shinav”. One can see it’s literally chinuch halachah lema’aseh.
The boy comes, the bachur, he says, “I, ah, who are you?” And as if he holds himself great, he’s not from you. Okay, let’s see if you really hold so. One tells him, okay.
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[End of Part 1]
The Process of Chochmah, Binah, and Chochmah: Understanding Takes Time
Chapter 1: The Concept of “OTD” is a Fiction
Against Creating Artificial Categories
Suddenly he’s angry, “You’re excluding me? One must include everyone”. That means you’re already once a part of us. Very good, that’s what we wanted to show. You do want to be a part.
And the truth is, I think it’s literally foolishness. One takes, one has an investigation, I mean, one goes to the Rav, one asks him, “My son is fifteen years old, he has the mind of a carrot of fifteen”. I mean, the father is already reading twenty, twenty-five, thirty, he already has a fifteen-year-old child. He understands that fifteen, when he was fifteen, he remembers, he didn’t understand anything, true?
And he begins to investigate, “I saw my son, he does some sin, I need to know”. He’s a person, he did something, he’s a boy. Begin, he’s a teenager, and he’s holding exactly at the level of the question. Very good, he asks the question like a rasha. Let him be. So what?
People Are Not Categories
One becomes so impressed by things that are temporary, that are… There is no such boundary, because someone said that there is something called OTD [Off The Derech], there is no such thing.
There are people, in every house, there are people who do more, there are children who are wilder, there are… everyone has their mitzvot and their sins. There is no such boundary that one must investigate, and one should spend entire disputes of the rabbis and educators to… to bring close there or to. The whole thing doesn’t make sense, in my opinion.
He’s a deist! It’s not… when one tells him, when one pushes him out is the Rav angry, yes? It is yes a part of this, right? Something that… I don’t even need to have the hora’ah… It’s a fact! There are people!
The Natural Process of Chinuch
People have free choice, people there is chinuch! Sometimes it takes so long, sometimes it takes so long… a person lives a normal person! It’s five six seven eight nine ten! Until seventy! Perhaps afterwards, one says, until it’s completed! They need to ask, on the day of passing! Afterwards, been seventy years! The whole Shabbat was a whole life! One would think, what hesped to say!
But now he’s seventeen! You’re already asking, what hesped to say? What is a normal person who is the whole forgotten, how the world works?
In any case, this is a topic of chinuch, regarding the relationship. I don’t believe there is such a thing. One can say like by the father. Yes, everyone has their moment of heresy, everyone has their times when he is, let’s say, not a yerei shamayim, let’s not speak of the mind, more speak even of a terrible deed. He also sometimes has things that he does a sin.
The Different Speeds of Teshuvah
But sometimes it’s faster, yes? When not he’s older, he catches faster. He knows to figure out, he does a sin and he does immediately teshuvah. Okay, that’s one way.
A second, he does it longer. He does it more blessings. He does a sin for six years afterwards, he does it already for three years.
The Need for a Broader View
One must look with a with a broader look, with a direction of years. Da’at is direction of years. One must look at years. Generally speaking, when one looks at this view, one sees that it’s fantasy, it’s fiction. There is no such concept, like a ben rasha.
He’s not. He’s today. What does one do with this bachur boy? Today he didn’t get up, to is my question. Okay, this year he didn’t get up to is my question. It’s not even so different. How much more, I don’t see the whole investigation, it seems to me like nonsense, it seems to me a foolish investigation. In the bottom line no…
Chapter 2: The Foundation – Truly Understanding Takes Time
Wisdom, Understanding, and Wisdom: The Order from Pesach to Shavuos
The True Meaning of Chochmah
But the truth is, it’s not tachlis hazman [the ultimate goal of time], it’s a hasagah [comprehension] of the thing kmo shehi [as it truly is], that’s the meaning of chochmah, that’s the true chochmah.
The Order of Pesach, Sefiras HaOmer, and Shavuos
Now it’s like this, this is the order of the simple pshat [straightforward meaning], of the order of Pesach, Sefiras HaOmer, Shavuos:
There is:
– Chochmah b’rosh [wisdom at the beginning]
– Binah inmiten [understanding in the middle]
– Chochmah b’sof [wisdom at the end]
That’s the order.
Conclusion
Okay, I think that’s a clear enough matter, we can stop here and go to the questions.