The Ten Sefiros — ESSENTIAL Kabbalah

So, we're going to talk about tonight with God's help, one of the most fundamental concepts in Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. And that is the concept of the Sefirot. How do you translate Sefirot? Uh it's a little bit difficult to uh to translate it, but you might call the the Sefirot the 10 emanations. These are 10 godly qualities or god godly attributes. Obviously, God is infinite and cannot be described because that itself would be a limitation, but from our finite perspective, these are 10 contexts within which creation experiences Hashem. So, we're going to talk about the Sefirot, these uh divine attributes, not only as they are uh divine, but also as they are human. Because we learn that there's a structure, a repeating pattern, whereby the the 10 Sefirot within Hashem are repeated in the Sefirot of Nefesh, the 10 soul powers of the person. And it's the same exact structure, it's the same uh qualities, same names, same functions, same relationships between these different functions. It's just one is the the source and the other is the the copy. Um And and as such, this lends itself to learning in two directions. There's the direction of below to above, and there's the direction of above to below. So, below to above, what we call uh Hafshata, means to take the human experience of this concept and to strip it away from its human limited context and use it as a a metaphor to understand, to lift it up and to understand how that same structure exists within the creator. So, by in other words, put put in very simple terms, by understanding a little bit about human psychology, we have wonderful metaphors to understand the way God relates to us. So, that's that direction, below to above. But then there's above to below. That's what we call Halbashah. Halbashah is when we invest, we take the idea and we we clothe it within some type of relatable context. And that's the the exact opposite where you take the abstraction or the archetype, the description of the divine attribute, and when you have an insight about how that functions, you can actually then bring it down and apply it to the human experience. So, you can go both directions and we do go both both directions. And what that means is that once you realize that these are like fractals in mathematics repeating themselves, patterns, um then you realize that a metaphysical insight is a psychological insight and a psychological insight is a metaphysical insight because it's the same pattern, it's just the the question of where you're starting and where are you finishing. Okay. So, I want to start with a text which many people know, especially if you daven Nusach Ari, you know it as um part of the prayers on Friday afternoon for the preparation for Shabbos. But it's actually it's not a prayer, it's actually uh it's study. We study a text, a Kabbalist a Kabbalistic text before Shabbos. It's from the Tikunei Zohar, which is a portion of the uh Kabbalistic text, the Zohar, and it's called Pasach Eliyahu. Pasach Eliyahu means Eliyahu or Elijah opened, which means he opened his discourse. Who's the Elijah? Elijah the prophet. So, Elijah the prophet gave a discourse. And we're not going to read the entire text, but um I'll just read you parts of it. He explains Eliyahu, Elijah, that Rebon This is in Aramaic, by the way, cuz Zohar is in Aramaic. Rebon Olamin, master of the worlds, de antu chad v'lo v'chushban. You are one, but not in the numerical sense. Meaning to say, if it's one in the numerical sense, so that mean might might mean that God is the first, he's one, but then there's a two, a three, a four, God forbid. But God is absolute oneness. Um antu ilah al kol ilain. You are elevated beyond all of the elevated. Stima al kol stimin. You are more hidden than all the hidden. Lays machshavah t'fisa bach klal. And no thought can grasp you whatsoever. Now, having said that, that Hashem is absolute oneness, elevated and hidden, unrelatable, uh then we're told, however, and this is a paradox, antu d'apikusa d'satin d'kunin. You are the one who you you bring forth or brought forth 10 garments. The kadmin l'hohin asar Sefirot, and we call them the 10 Sefirot, l'hanhaga b'hohin olamin, which you use to conduct worlds. And then it goes on You understand what we're saying, that Hashem is oneness. Do not think that he is, God forbid, a composite of these traits. But this oneness is expressed in these different ways. Think of like light through a prism. It's really one light. And it goes on and explains these different Sefirot or emanations. Um Skip ahead just a little bit. The the the description here uses anthropomorphism. And as I mentioned before, the pattern is a repeating pattern, as above, so below. When we describe these qualities in the context of an anatomical configuration, do not, God forbid, think that this means that we're describing God as having a body. But rather understand that it's probably more more helpful to understand like this, that we're speaking metaphorically, and we are the metaphor. So, when we say, for instance, that God's right arm is kindness, that's actually not a metaphor. That's whatever God's right arm, so to speak, is, um that is the archetypical true sense of kindness. This this thing that I'm waving at you over here, that's the metaphor. That's the approximation. That's the uh the the simulation that gives us a glimmer of what the actual thing is. So, when we use the anatomical imagery, don't get confused. And this is by by the way why traditionally, historically, Kabbalah was not always studied by all people at all times because you do have to be careful, it takes a certain amount of maturity. But in this generation, all of those restrictions have been removed and when everybody does study Kabbalah. And this is real Kabbalah, by the way. This is Tikunei Zohar. This is actual Kabbalah. It's not like sometimes people learn other things and it has a little Kabbalistic uh jargon in it, so they tell you you're learning Kabbalah. This is actual Kabbalah. So, um he he he goes on and he explains with a with a anthropomorphic anatomical uh model. Chesed d'reya yemina. Like we said earlier, kindness is the right arm. Gevurah d'reya smola. Severity is the left arm. Tiferes gufa. Uh compassion. It literally means beauty, but we'll explain later why that's compassion, is the torso. Netzach v'hod train shakin. Uh Call it um perseverance and poise are the two thighs. Yesod sima d'gufa is bris kodesh. And the Sefirah of foundation is the reproductive organ, the place of the circumcision. Malchus patach rishah b'peh karinin lo. Malchus, kingship, sovereignty is the mouth, the mouth of the oral Torah. Um and then he goes on and explains the intellectual Sefirot, Chochmah and Binah, as well. Okay. So, let's let's unpack this. What are we talking about here? There's a section in Tanya. The section of Tanya called Iggeres Hakodesh, which are letters that the Baal HaTanya wrote on different occasions. And they were compiled as a volume of Tanya. In Siman Taz Vav, that's Iggeres Hakodesh, letter number 15. The Baal HaTanya breaks it down and explains these Sefirot very, very clearly. And he explains it like this. He says, "We're going to look at it as it exists within the human experience with the understanding that this is how we glimpse the model for it. Imagine if someone showed you, for instance, a scale model of an architectural project. So, you would understand that that's to scale, that that's not an actual You're not going to go live in that house. You're not going to open the door and and see Can I turn on the lights? Is there Is there running water? You understand it's a representation. But it's a useful representation. So, the Baal HaTanya says, "Let's look at the Sefirot as they exist within the human experience and understand them as divine energies as well. Okay. So, I'm I'm going to read to you the text. Um this is This is not from the beginning. I'm I'm skipping to the the middle of the letter. Like I said, it's Siman Taz Vav, letter 15. Vehinei klalus hayuts Sefirot shebe nishmas Adam. The generality, the totality of these 10 Sefirot as they appear within the soul of man. Noyda lakoyel bederekh klal she'amidis nekhalkis bederekh klal azayn midos. That the these attributes break down into seven. Vekhol protay hamidos shebe Adam boyis ma achas mizayn midos eylu. And all of the various different emotional attributes of a person can be traced back to one of these seven. In other words, you may have more hues and shades of emotions, but they all fit into one of these seven categories. Shehayn sheyders kol midos klaluson, which these seven are the the categories. Shehayn. And then they are, namely, Midas Hakhasid Lashpiya Bligvul. So, the first one he he says Midas Hakhasid, the attribute of kindness, Lashpiya Bligvul, to give endless influence. Now, if you remember from the Pasuk Eliyahu, he called that Draya Yemina, the right arm. Over here, he describes it not with a anatomical uh symbol, but rather he describes the functionality of it. Lashpiya Bligvul, to give endless influence. What is this energy? What is this energy called Chesed? It is the drive to give. To give until whenever. Just to give. There are no limits. That's There's another Sefirah for that. Pure, unadulterated Chesed is just giving. That's what it does. It gives. Sometimes, by the way, we use a different word for this Sefirah. Um there's a verse actually you may be familiar with that we say in in davening, the prayer services, specifically during the Torah service, when we uh take the the Torah out of the ark, we say Lekha Hashem Hagdula VehaGevurah VehaTiferes VehaNetzach VehaHod. So, you'll recognize a string of those words, Gevurah and Tiferes and Netzach and Hod. You recognize we I read that from the Pasuk Eliyahu a minute ago. So, but the first word wasn't Chesed, was it? What did he say? Lekha Hashem Hagdula. VehaGevurah VehaTiferes VehaNetzach VehaHod. He calls it Gedula. Gedula is like the word Gadol. It means big, bigness. Gedula is bigness. Why is that Sefirah called bigness? Chesed means kindness. Gedula means bigness. Because it is the drive for expansion. Now, I mentioned how these these models repeat themselves on different planes. The truth is when I say it exists within the human within the human um psyche, that's an oversimplification because it actually it reproduces itself multiple times within the human psyche on different tiers. In other words, there's the way that it's present within the godly soul, which is a soul which is totally God conscious and surrendered to God. But that those same patterns reproduce themselves also within what we call the Nefesh HaSichlis, which is more of what you might call a philosophical soul. And then there's the Nefesh HaBehamis, the animalistic soul, which is self-serving and survival-driven, and it is also composed of those same that same configuration. In the animalistic soul is where you see this very poignantly. The Chesed of the Nefesh HaBehamis. Don't get nervous from all those Chassidic or Kabbalistic terms. I'll say I'll say it in plain English. That this faculty, which sometimes we call Chesed, sometimes we call Gedula, in the animal soul, which is bent on survival, is not too interested in spirituality. It's interested in looking out for itself. So, when it expresses Chesed, it can express it in a way that is domineering, expansive, uh conquering, because the function of Chesed is to go big. And if there's not that sensitivity of holiness to give for the right reasons in the right appropriate context, if it's just driven by ego, then it can be um it can be invasive, encroaching. But it's the same concept. It's just that's the way it reiterates itself on that lower plane. Now, if you trace it back to like the highest archetype, which is Hashem's Chesed, Hashem's energy of giving, then that would be the source of Hashem's creativity, the fact that Hashem decided to make a world. And that he decided to sustain that world, and he continues to sustain that world. That's an expression of Hashem's Chesed. The Chesed is always expansiveness. It's always going out of yourself. Umidos HaGevurah, he continues. The attribute of the attribute of Gevurah. Gevurah literally means strength, but we might translate it as self-containment. Litzamtzeim milahashpiya kol kakh. To compress or put a filter or a damper on the level of influence. So, you see how it counterbalances Chesed. Chesed is Lashpiya Bligvul, to give limitless influence. And that's what it is. There are no limits inherent in Chesed. But it is offset and complemented by its opposite, which is Gevurah, which puts the brakes on the Chesed. Sometimes when I talk to people about relationships, I'll tell them um Chesed and Gevurah is like love and respect. That in a healthy relationship, love is what you do for the person, how you approach them, how you give to them. Uh respect though is what you don't do because of them, the space that you give them, the the fact that you back off in certain things. You don't go there. This They don't want it. Back off, right? So, there's the gas and there's the brakes. There's getting close and there's backing off. Okay. So, that's Chesed and Gevurah. And he continues, "Umidos Harachamim." Now, he calls it Midos Harachamim here, which means compassion. In the Pasuk Eliyahu originally, he called it Tiferes. Why Tiferes literally means beauty or harmonic beauty. Rachamim means compassion. What's the What's the relationship there? So, I'll explain while I read to you. Leracheim al mi sheshayakh lashon rachmanus alav. To bestow compassion upon one who is befitting to receive compassion. To give to pity the pity the pitiable. Vehimida mumtza'as beyn Gevurah le Chesed. And that is an intermediary attribute that falls between the extremes of kindness and strength. Because kindness is to give to everyone. Even to one who is not pitiful. Because he's not lacking anything and he's not in pain. Because it's an intermediary trait, it's called beauty. It's like a which is made from many different colors which complement each other. It's like a beautiful garment which is made from many different colors which complement each other. It's like a beautiful garment which is made from many different colors which complement each other. In a way that is beautiful. Follow what he just explained. What's the difference between kindness and mercy? Kindness and mercy. Kindness gives because that's what kindness does. It has nothing to do with the recipient. It gives because that's what it does. It gives. So you're walking down the street handing out $100 bills. You're giving $100 bill to the to the rich guy, you give $100 $100 bill to the homeless guy. It doesn't matter. You're not asking who needs $100. You're just walking down the street giving out $100. That's kindness. It's not looking at the recipient. It's just giving. Kindness he says or mercy is only giving on a need and and and a basis of need. That the person who needs it. You look and say, "Oh, look at this person. They they could use $100. I'm not going to give it to that guy. He doesn't need it. That guy needs it." Why is that considered the intermediary between kindness and strength? Well, remember we said that strength is the brakes. It throttles the giving. Says, "Let's not give so much." Uh there's another name for strength by the way. Just like we said kindness is sometimes called greatness. And all these spheres have various different names. Strength is sometimes called judgment. Judgment means judgment. Why is strength judgment? Because it makes a judgment. It says, "Maybe not. Let's not give. Maybe the recipient's not worthy. Maybe the recipient can't handle it." So strength says, "No. Let's not give." Kindness says, "Let's give." Strength says, "Let's not." Mercy is the mixture of both that says, "Let's make a judgment. Yeah, true. Let's not give to everybody. True. Let's give when we judge somebody's situation worthy of giving. Oh, look at this guy. He's so pitiful. Got to give to him. That's mercy." So you might even say like kindness is indiscriminate kindness cuz it's not really taking the recipient into account. Mercy is judicious kindness. It has the judiciousness of judgment and strength. But what's it doing? It's giving. It's just doing it strategically. And it's called beauty because it has properties of kindness and strength. Just like something that's monochromatic generally is not so beautiful. Beauty, aesthetically speaking, is where you have opposites that are harmonized. So he said if you have a garment with many colors, so that's beautiful. A garment of one color is, you know, kind of boring. Black and white, you know. But you have a nice, you know, like Joseph's multicolored garment. Beautiful. So that's that's why it's called beauty. And if you remember from the past anatomically how it was described, you remember? We said kindness right arm. The right arm. Strength left arm. Strength is the left arm. Beauty body, the body, the torso. Yeah. So I I mean again, God doesn't have arms and torsos, but the point is just like a torso is the bridge between the arms. Uh actually I should I should reverse it. It's making it sound again, I told you which one is the metaphor. We're the metaphor. So it's the fact that there's a torso connecting your arms is a lower level manifestation and derivation of the fact that there's a middle called beauty which connects kindness and strength on the godly plane. Okay. And then afterwards, what does it mean afterwards? Before and after are chronological terms. Like what's the time frame here? What do we What are we describing here? Well, let me ask you a question. That whole anatomical configuration um arm arm body and then you have the legs and all that stuff. Aside from the fact that you can't describe God anatomically, can you even describe God spatially? No. So we don't obviously mean something that we're plotting on like a Cartesian grid. Like, "Oh, here you know, like you sank my battleship." We're not trying to figure out where something is. We're describing a process. And the process we we we talk about earlier phases and later phases. We're not speaking chronologically. Now, perhaps on the human level you can say that we experience these things broken up as under the dominion of time space. So we only I mean it happens in a lightning flash, but these things are happening in the on the human level in in a time sequence. When we're talking about the the divine paradigm, we're talking about a process, but it's not a it's not a process in the in the temporal sense. It's it's a process in the sense that we said the spheres are for the infinite to relate to the finite. They are interfaces for the finite to experience the infinite. So as such, you can think of it like this. This process is the process of how infinity creates a relationship with the finite. So for instance with with with God, there's this impulse to give, to create. Then there's an impulse, "No, don't." Because if you don't put a filter on it, you won't be able to create because if God just projects his infinity, then he'll just have more of himself. He has to mask himself. He has to withhold himself in order to create the possibility for finite beings to have an experience of finitude and not be overwhelmed out of existence. So we're describing a process. So he says, "You have kindness, strength, beauty which is like let's say the first plane. And they are on a plane, you know, the arms and the torso are on a plane. Then he says, "Afterwards, as this energy is coming closer to actual application, that means when it's actually being delivered, when it's going from conceptual to practical, when it's going from conceptual to practical, there's an internal consultation about how to do it. Kindness and strength is whether to do it. This next line is, "Okay, we've decided whether to do it. We've even decided how much to do. How should we do it?" The fine-tuning. In a manner in which the recipient will be capable of receiving. For going. For instance, he wants to teach wisdom to his son. If he, the father, will tell it all to his son as the father understands it in his mind, the son will not be able to receive it. So if you have a professor come in and give a lecture the way that he would speak to his colleagues, it's a waste of time. Nobody's going to understand a word of it. Rather he has to organize it in a new system, in a new context. Dover al oifnav. Every word spoken in the proper manner. Ma'at ma'at tzo bislach, a little bit at a time. He has to dole it out. Meet it out carefully. U'vechines eitzah tzuney kras. Netzach v'hod. This internal consultation or fine-tuning is netzach v'hod. Now, I I think I before I translated it as um perseverance and poise. If I remember correctly. And there are a lot of different Look, literally netzach means uh eternality. Uh hod means splendor. So, the the literal translations are not necessarily so helpful. Shehein kloyos yoitzos, these are the kidneys that advise. The kidneys that advise. Again, anatomical metaphors over here. The kidneys are sort of the last filter. This is sort of like the last filter before delivering. V'gam trein bein. They are also the two male reproductive organs. Hamavshlim hazera, which prepare the seed, the reproductive seed. Shihiya tipa hanimshachas mah mayach, which is the drop that originates in the brain. D'heinu dvar chochma v'sechel animshach misechel av, sh'lo yumshach k'meishu hu sechel dak m'eid b'meichav sechel. In other words, taking this refined wisdom that's in the father's brain and delivering it to the child in a way that he'll be able to handle it. D'rak yishtanik tzas midak u'sechlo v'yischaver sechel she'einah dak kolkach. It has to be brought down a level. It has to be coarsened. It can't remain in its abstract version as it is in its source. K'dei sheyichol habein l'kabel b'meichav av onosay, so that the child will be able to receive it in his in his mind. V'hu mamash al derech moshal k'tipa hayoredes mah mayach. And this is literally like reproduction. That's why we use that metaphor. She dak m'eid m'eid v'na'asis gas v'chomer mamash b'kloyos hatrein bein. He says, the energy is a little bit of under you know, you know, kabbalistic understanding of um of genes. But he says that basically the essential energy that the the father contributes, the mother as well, but they both contribute obviously genetics. But the seed, the energy, which is the essence of the child that the child is built from originates in the brain. Now, it doesn't mean that it it It's a piece of the brain. It says that Alter Rebbe actually speaks about this elsewhere, not in Tanya, but in Torah Or. He says, obviously it's not a piece of the brain. That's the whole point. That in the brain it exists energetically. And it it has to be drawn down and become physicalized or materialized and turned into substance. And then it's turned into the genetic material, to the seed that is used for conception. V'gam netzach v'hod nikraim shchokim v'richayim, sheshochekei kimon latzadikim. And there also these two properties called the millstones that grind the mana for the righteous. Again, why are they millstones? Processing. It's processing. It's breaking it down. It's making it more deliverable and more consumable on the user end. So, what did he just describe here? He said, we have one level, chesed and gvurah. And tiferes. But that's not enough to be ready to deliver it. If you're talking about Hashem's relationship with the finite creation, so it's not ready yet to practically create a world. If you're talking about the way it exists within us, um then meaning it's not ready yet to be delivered to a person. I'm not ready to go deal with the other person yet that I'm relating to. So, there's another line that needs to to to get in its its to contribute its its um function over here. And that's what we call netzach and hod. So, he compares it to the kidneys, he compares it to the reproductive organs, he compares it to millstones. But he says very clearly what it does is it's a it's another layer of processing. Kind of like the the triple filtered vodka. What which which company has that on the bottle? The triple filter. Whatever. Okay, I don't know. Um K'meihu toychen chitim v'richayim al derech moshal, sh'mifored achitim l'chalakim dakim m'eid. Like millstones where you take the kernels and you break them down into little uh specks of flour. Kach tzorech av l'haktin hasechel so too, in the metaphor of the father teaching the child, the father has to break down his wisdom u'dvar chochma she'reitzah l'hashpil l'veinai d'hi want to teach to his teach to his son u'lachalekam l'chalakim rabim, and break it down into little pieces. V'layma layma at ma'at b'meitzas v'da'as. And he has to say to him a little bit gradually at a time with different devices and discernment. V'gam b'chlall b'chinas netzach hu l'natzayach v'lamed neged kol minei hashpa'os al im mibnei mebayis u'm'chutz. Also, netzach is he says l'natzayach, that means to be victorious, to triumph. There's that's that's another meaning of the word netzach. To triumph over any opposition internally or externally. Remember earlier I translated it as perseverance. Netzach is a push to break through anything that would hold back this process from moving forward. So, that's why to be m'natzayach means to be victorious, it means to overcome. If you think about also spatially or anatomically, we've been speaking about lines, chesed, gvurah, tiferes, netzach and hod. But also you can speak about axes, meaning vertical lines. So, just like chesed is on the right side on this plane, you know, in like uh uh when you look at your ticket for your seat, there's the aisle and there's the row. The x-axis and the y-axis, okay? So, you have here this plane. The right side of the higher plane is chesed. On the lower plane, the right side is netzach. You understand why netzach would be a lower level expression of a similar concept as chesed? Do you understand why they're both on the right side? They're both both pushing things through. Now, what's the difference then? Why then they're synonymous. No, because chesed is more conceptual. Chesed is more like I'm in the mood to give. I want to give. Give what? I didn't work that out yet. Netzach is the fine-tuning that when we get there, we're in the thick of it, and we need to negotiate through whatever the obstacles are. So, netzach is the one that's actually Okay, give this, give here, give how. But the same thrust as chesed, but it's more um it's closer to delivery. Now, he doesn't explain here um so clearly the function of hod, so I need to unpack it a little bit more. Um Hod I said before means splendor. But that that's not helpful. Um hod is related to another word, hodaa, which is gratitude. Like toda raba, right? Toda. Thank you. Gratitude. What's the concept here of gratitude? Remember how I translated it before when I was reading the Pasach Eliyahu source? I said netzach and hod, perseverance and poise. So, I sometimes I translate hod as poise. Um poise I I think is like someone who has poise, they don't burst into the room. They don't make loud noises. They have certain like refinement. They know how to control themselves. You understand why that would be on the same axis as gvurah? Right? That makes sense. So, just like netzach is a lower level of chesed, they're both on the right axis. So, hod is a lower level of gvurah, it they're they're both on on the left axis. So, hod hodaa, gratitude. Gratitude is also related to the concept of admission. Admission. Like in a legal proceeding where one litigant concedes to the other, you would say he is modeh. It's the same word. He admits that the other person's uh claim is is true. Now, why are gratitude and admission related? Why are they from the same word? Um because you know, it's interesting. Most people um it when they're grateful for something then they let it into their reality. They admit that it's true. And if they are not grateful for it, they don't like it, then they have this neurotic sort of reality rejection where they like to ignore it or be in denial of it or or at least be resentful of it. Shouldn't be true. I know it's true, but it shouldn't be true, right? Um when we talk about Hod, it's actually the reverse. It's not that you admit something is true cuz you're thankful for it, but you're thankful for it because you admit that it's true. That if it's real then it's got to be what it's supposed to be. God knows what he's doing. So, the poise, the ability to step back and sort of not have your judgment and to receive. Hod is an ability to receive. Um that is related to gratitude and it's related to acceptance. Obviously, a person who has acceptance is going to live in gratitude. Um, now when we talk about Hashem's Hod, again, we're talking about Hashem quote-unquote taking a step back. Obviously, he's not literally taking a step back. Where would he step to? You know, where would he go? Where would he go that he's not there? But meaning um again, masking himself allowing us an experience and an experience of autonomy not objectively ontologically uh autonomous because God forbid, there's nothing separate from God. But to have the experience of autonomy. Um which by the way is not free will. But it's not the time to discuss that right now. Free will is actually quite the opposite. It's not time to discuss that. Um so you have you have Netzach and Hod the perseverance and the poise which are sort of making last-minute adjustments how much to either push or pull back. Okay. But we have to continue here. We'll begin with Yesod. Then we have Yesod. Yesod literally means foundation. Like a building is built on a foundation. He held Derek Marshall his kashrus shema kashrus of sichlei besichlei denach. If you want to use the metaphor again of the father teaching the son, it's the relationship of the father and the son. Yesod is the relationship of the father and the son. The hiskashrus, the kesher. It literally means a knot. Means that they're tied together. Bishas limudah imei ba'av avaros in sharaits sheyavin benai. When they learn together in an environment of love where he lovingly desires that his son should understand. Umlav deizeh and without this, without this feeling of connectedness gam im hoya haben shomeya diburim eilu atzmo mipi aviv. Even if the son would hear the very same words being spoken by the father shemedaber ba'av deiva lo made atzmei where the father is speaking to himself. Let's say the father is a public speaker and he's practicing his lecture for tonight pacing around in his office at home and saying his lecture. And the son is sitting outside on the other side of the door overhearing every word. Lo haya meivin kol kach kima achshav. The son will not understand it to the same degree she'aviv mekashir sichlei eilu medaber imei panim el panim ba'av avacheishek beshacheishek mayishiyavin benai. The same way, he will not understand to the same way as if the father is lovingly speaking face to face to the child. Yesod is a very intangible but extremely decisive factor in this process. I say intangible because technically what difference does it make? We already have the chesed, gevurah, tiferes, netzach, and hod. The father already basically decided here's the lesson plan, here's what I'm going to deliver, here's how I'm going to say it. The Yesod just means how he feels about his son when he's doing it. What does that have to do with anything? And yet the Baal Tanya says it makes all the difference. That when there's that loving connection the son understands better. I tell this to parents all the time. It's not what you're saying. They say, "Well, what can I say to my my child that they'll listen to me? Are there different words I could memorize? Give me a script." They don't literally say give me a script, but you know, in so many words, that's what they ask for a lot. And and and I always tell them, "It really doesn't matter what words you use. If there's a connection and you can't fake a connection. If there's a connection, an emotional connection, what we call Yesod what he calls hiskashrus a being bound up together then the words will work. But if there's not a connection, then then then it doesn't. So Yesod is the the relationship between the giver and the recipient. Um you see when you speak to crowds that in the end of in in the in the end and it really is literally the end cuz Yesod is like the last link or it's the penultimate because we have to get to malchus, but it's the last thing before um the delivery. Remember by the way in the pasuk of Yesod anatomically what he said that Yesod was? He said Yesod was ice bris kodesh. Siyuma degufa ice bris kodesh. Siyuma degufa means the end of the body. Um means the the terminal point. If you think about uh many times as the kabbalists will use um reproduction as the ultimate metaphor for creator and creation or for the creative act. So, like that terminal point which is the actual bridge between one party and the other. So, that's why it's likened to the place of the circumcision. So, you know, obviously people who are not mature, they hear this and you know you can't handle the fact that it's speaking about the these types of uh these things and you get very distracted. But if you understand the the the the metaphor properly really what it's saying is this is like the final delivery. So, this is the bridge that connects the giver to the recipient. Um in emotional terms, he says it's the relationship between the giver and the recipient. What I'm saying is it's not inherently sexual. Sexuality, human sexuality is a lower level manifestation or metaphor of this concept. In its archetype, it is the essential concept of connection. It just in on on on the physical plane, this is how it's manifested. At any rate, the point is you you see with with with a when you're speaking to a group you know, you have to prepare what you're going to say, you have to know what you're saying, you have to care about the subject, then you have to think about your audience and you have to think, well, you know, how should I say it to them? Which jokes, which references should I use? Um how much should I give them? What will be cognitive overload? What will be too much? What will be too little? That will be too boring. And you do all that stuff. That's the chesed, gevurah, tiferes, netzach, and hod. But at the end you walk into the room and you feel the connection with the crowd. And I mean I I do a lot of speaking, so to me this is a very common experience in my life. I don't know how often all of you are on this side of the podium, but after all the preparation and all the decisions about how you should say it and how much and at the end it really comes down to the emotional connection that if I'm feeling like I I care, if I feel I I can't be eloquent for an audience that I don't care about. So if I feel uh that I care about this, that I want you to get this and not that I want you to get it because I want you to tell me I said it well. Then then it's about me. But I want it for you. I think that this is going to help you. And therefore, I'm going to only say it in ways that are helpful to you. I'm not going to say more than is helpful. I I'll try not to say less than is helpful. So, that's the Yesod part. Okay. What I didn't speak about is I mentioned that there are 10 sefirot. Right? So, there there's 10. And 10 koachot hanefesh, 10 soul powers. So we're missing three. Oh, I didn't do malchus, did I? Skipped malchus. Sorry. Getting ahead of myself. So, malchus is the seventh of the seven. And that is called literally malchus is kingship. Kingship means um an administrator. That's what a king is. A king is an administrator. Malchus is executive functioning. It's the final delivery. So, if you remember in the possible of the year, he called it the mouth. Malchus peh. It's the It's the mouth. That's the final delivery how I actually And the mouth is a metaphor because sometimes we speak without our mouth. You can speak in many ways. There are different languages. There are different modes of communication. But, the point is communication is always for an other. So, malchus is for an other. When we speak about Hashem's malchus, we mean Hashem as he is therefore an other. What's the other? Creation. So, Hashem as he becomes a creator and we have a relationship with creation is the attribute of malchus. Hashem's self-expression. And the same within us that when we express ourselves, that's called malchus. The way I interface with that which is outside of myself is called malchus. Okay. So, we have the seven. Chesed, gvurah, tiferes, netzach, hod, yesod. Did I do it? Chesed. No, I'll do it the way you're facing. Chesed, gvurah, tiferes, netzach, hod, yesod. And usually it's drawn malchus down here just to illustrate that it's even more close to the culmination of the process. So, we have seven. And that corresponds to the seven weeks between uh Pesach and Shavuot, the Exodus and the revelation at Sinai. But, I didn't speak But, I didn't speak about There are three more. Okay, very good. So, where are these other three? The other three as opposed to these seven, these seven generally at the very beginning I call them attributes. I translate the word middos as attributes. You can also translate them as emotions. They're all emotions in the sense that an emotion is um an energy that compels me to relate to that which is outside of myself. But, then there's a higher plane of chochmah chochmah, binah, da'at, which are the intellectual traits. So, I just want to speak quickly about what they are and their relationship with the seven. Chochmah and binah are called father and mother respectively. Middos are the children. The emotions are the children. And And the concept is that the way that you cognitively process information is the way that you're going to end up feeling about that subject matter. So, emotions don't materialize out of thin air. They're not out of nowhere. You're processing information and you're coming to intellectual decisions about what it means. And based on your interpretation of the data then you come to emotional conclusions. So, the emotions are the children, the offspring of the intellect. He says something very interesting here. And And I'm again I'm reading from uh Iggeres Hakodesh Tazvav from letter number 15 of Iggeres Hakodesh. So, he says um makor deshaish middos eilu the source and the root of these attributes, the seven attributes, hu mechochmah, binah, da'at shebe nafshi are from chochmah, binah, and da'at. And I can translate that literally the way they do it as wisdom, understanding, knowledge. I don't think it's helpful. I'll get into what they actually are in a moment. Kilfi seichel adam kach hein middosav. Because as a person's intellect, so are his emotions. As a person's intellect, so are his emotions. K'nireh ba chush, as we observe empirically. And I love this example. Sh'ha katan, that a child she chochmah, binah, da'at she le hein b'chinat katnus, his chochmah, binah, da'at, his intellectual faculties are immature, kach kol middosav hein b'dvarim ktanei o erech. Therefore, his emotions are about trivialities. Right? He gets all gleeful about something as silly as a candy. And he gets heartbroken in gut gut-wrenching sobs, falling on the floor crying over something as trivial as also a candy. Right? The candy fell. Now, he's crying. So, he explains that emotions are the product of the intellect. Cognitive capacities determine emotional capacities. You cannot have an emotion for something you're not cognitively capable of appreciating. So, as you mature and you become able to understand things more deeply, then the things you care about become things of greater consequence, things that really matter in the long run. But, when you don't have that cognitive capacity, so then you just have strong emotions about candy and other little trivialities. Okay. But, what What's Let's break it down. I mentioned chochmah is called father, binah is called mother. Chochmah is father and binah is mother in the sense that these are two partners in procreation. And I mentioned that that the emotions are the children. And chochmah's contribution is like the contribution of a father to rep- to to to reproduction where he gives a tiny tiny little packet of of genetic code. Little microscopic zip file of genetic code. And then from that is unpacked this complex being called the child. Chochmah is hyper-condensed. Chochmah is sometimes called barak amavrik, the lightning flash, because it's the aspect of cognition which is often brought on through sudden inspiration. I suddenly had an idea. Boom, it hit me. I have an invention. That's chochmah. Um sometimes chochmah is compared to seeing because when you see something, you can see it all in a flash. You can look at a complex painting and you've seen the entire painting immediately. Now, you may not You may not remember what you saw. You didn't process all the details, but you've seen all the details. As opposed to hearing where if you hear 1 second of a symphony, you haven't heard it. You only heard 1 second of it. But, seeing, you could see the whole painting in 1 second. So, that's chochmah. That initial flash. Binah is the mother in as much as it is akin to the womb of cognition wherein chochmah becomes expanded and elaborated upon and articulated into details. Which is Which is why, by the way, binah is often compared to hearing. Just like chochmah is compared to seeing, binah is compared to hearing. Because with hearing, you can only hear one note at a time. I mean, you could play double speed nowadays, but you still There's a certain amount of time that it takes to listen to the whole song. Binah is breaking it down and processing it. Taking it apart. Now, a little retention here. Remember when we spoke about the emotional plane? Chesed, gvurah, tiferes. So, these axes extend all the way up to the intellectual plane. Chochmah, binah, da'at. Chochmah is on the right axis like chesed. Binah is on the left axis like gvurah. Would it make sense to you if I were to say that binah is related to gvurah? They're both on the left side because just like gvurah is judgment on an emotional level, like should I give? Should I not give? Binah is cognitive judgment. It takes the concept and breaks it up. Makes distinctions. Makes Makes analysis. So, that's the father and the mother that create the emotions. Um I was actually I was just telling my daughter Friday night on Shabbos. She went to look for something in the fridge. And I told her um I said, "You know, sometimes men go look for something in the fridge and they can't find it." And then their wives tell them, "Well, go look again." And they still can't find it. And then the wife takes the thing, the jar of mustard, whatever it was, and she says, "It's right here." "Why didn't I see it?" So, I was explaining to my daughter the difference between Hochma and Bina. That a man, being a man, is not purely a manifestation of of divine masculinity, but generally, you know, that uh you know, we all have different uh aspects. We're complex beings. But generally speaking, a man has more masculinity than femininity. And a woman has more femininity than masculinity. And on a cognitive level, that means that men have more Hochma and women have more Bina. What that means is, in general, we're speaking generalities here. Obviously, you'll find exceptions. But what that means, I told my daughter, I said, "A man will sometimes look at he'll open the fridge and he'll look at what's there, and he just sees the big picture. He can't see the details." So, he doesn't know that the the jar of mustard is right there. The beauty of Hochma is that it's the initiator. It's the beginning of the process. It's the one that comes up with the concept. And you can't do anything without it, without its contribution. On the other hand, if it doesn't quickly deposit itself within Bina and get something going over there, it will dissipate. It'll it'll disappear. It's not sustainable because it's so abstract. It's like that thing where "Oh, I just had the coolest idea. What was it?" "I can't remember." "I can't" "Well, if it's important, you'll remember it." "No, that's actually not true. Sometimes it's important you don't remember it." If you don't put it in Bina right away, you'll lose it. So, what's putting it in Bina? Bina is articulation, breaking it down. Like I saw this thing, it was a picture speaks a thousand words, but if I don't start putting it into words, I'm going to lose it. So, Bina is the breaking it down, the process of putting it into or articulating it in in in details and words and descriptions. Um Bina is expansive and elaborative. Um as far as a cognitive tool, metaphor is a primary example of Bina. When you compare one thing to another thing, a parable, an analogy, that's that's Bina thought, horizontal thought. Where you use a different thing to get a new angle on something else. That's Bina. Okay. Now, I mentioned that there are three intellectual faculties. So, what's the third one? Right, Das. But there's only two parents, there's a father and a mother. So, what's this third what's this third dude here? Das is not a parent. It is the relationship between the parents. The first time we find that word biblically is where it says the Adam, that Adam, the first person, yada, knew Chava, Eve, his wife. What does it mean he knew her? Well, you read the rest of the sentence, he knew her and they begat a child. It means he was intimate with her. And they uh they had offspring. Das is intimacy. What does that mean? Well, remember how like at the end of the emotions, we had that center axis of Yesod, and we said Yesod is hiskashrus, is connection. If you go all the way up to the top plane, the intellectual, the center axis is Das. It's also connection. It's also connection. The only difference is Yesod is a connection between me and the other. Das is all connections going on internally, within inside inside myself. It makes sense, by the way, that the central axis would be a connector, right? Because thing in the middle, right? That's the glue. And and again, we're not speaking spatially over here. So, when you say something's in the middle, we don't mean in the middle spatially. What we mean is functionally, it's in the middle. When you say one thing connects another thing, so that thing is {quote} {unquote} in the middle. So, Das performs internal connection. What to what? When you connect, you connect one So, one thing to another thing. So, what's Das connecting? There are two levels of Das. There's Das Elyon and Das Tachton. Higher Das and lower Das. Higher Das, Das is always a connection. Higher Das is the connection between Hochma and Bina, the father and the mother themselves. Their intimate relationship. Lower Das is the connection between Hochma and Bina together and their children, the middos, the emotions. So, the higher Das connects the father to the mother so that they can have children. The lower Das is the connection between the parents and the children. What was that? It's very abstract. What does that mean? Very simple. In in terms of the human experience, Das is called concentration or focus. If you don't continue to focus, so then Hochma is not marrying Bina. And your great idea will just disappear. And if you don't continue to focus, then the marriage of Hochma Bina can remain academic or theoretical, and it won't turn into an emotion. So, it's the focus both on on both planes that sees to it that the process gets to the next phase. Hochma and Bina will not unite with each other and have children if there's not continued focus. They just go their separate ways. And Hochma and Bina together will not end up sustaining the children if there's not a connection between them and the emotions. In other words, you might say, "Well, I used to be passionate about that subject. I'm not." Well, what was happening when you were passionate about it? Probably you were thinking about it a lot. And I stopped thinking. I got bored. I had I don't know, I had burnout. I couldn't deal with it anymore. Got distracted with other stuff. All right, would you like to feel strongly about it again? I mean, it depends what it is. Maybe it's something you don't want to feel strongly about again. But would you like to feel strongly again? Yeah, okay. How do I do that? Well, just start focusing on it again. Start thinking, perseverating on a cognitive level. I promise you, it will lead to an emotional outcome. It's inevitable. That's just what happens when Hochma and Bina get together and stay together, then they have children. So, Das is that connector that makes sure that everything continues, that there's continuity. Okay. Um Let's just maybe wrap this up like this. We understand this idea that these are patterns that repeat themselves in on every level. So, a lot of times people ask, "Why do we learn this information? Like it's so uh abstruse." What How will this make me a better person? So, let's look at it like this. If you if you understand better how these archetypes operate on the spiritual plane, you will gain new insights into how you are wired. And if you gain new insight into how you are wired, obviously, that kind of self-awareness lends itself to being a better person, making better choices. So, you can study these spiritual concepts, and it can actually lead to personal growth, self-refinement. Conversely, you can work it the other way around, like I said. And that when we learn these things as the metaphors of human experience, we can glimpse a little bit of appreciation for the way God relates to his creation. And if you can appreciate even a little bit how God relates to his creation, that will increase your love and awe of God. Which, first of all, are mitzvahs. It's a commandment to love God and to be in awe of God. But uh secondly, this also causes you to become a more refined person. The more you love and awe God, then the the more refined your pursuits and your goals and your values will be, the more you will be able to to commit yourself to what really matters, the more you will be able to pursue things that actually have eternal value rather than just doing what feels good in the moment. So, even though these concepts, these spiritual concepts are very, very lofty, the more you learn them, whether you do the Hafsha'ah or the Halbashah, the you strip it away and go from below to above or you take from the archetype and you bring it down to the to the terrestrial manifestation, either way you do it, and both ways that you do it, will make you more of a mensch. Will make you more refined. And who who doesn't want to become more refined? That's what we're here for. We're given a lifetime to work on a project, and we are the project. And these keys, these 10 Sefirot, are the language that we use for for working on that project.