Binah is the second sphere,
and as such it belongs to the trinity of spheres above the abyss in the Qabalistic world of Atziluth. These are the three
which are one, divided only for our understanding and not in reality; there is no plurality above the abyss, only unity.
In
many regards the spheres of the trinity equate to the Yin, Yang and Tao of Oriental esoteric philosophy. Binah, the sphere
of the Great Sea, is associated with the contractive,
passive, and feminine energy of Yin. It is the emptiness of pure awareness, as yet unattached to any particular object of
awareness. The philosophical formula for experiencing Binah is expressed admirably in Schopenhauer’s denial of the Will
to Live, culminating in the state of pure passive receptivity in which he experiences the ‘sublime’ (see The World
as Will and Representation in _). This state of Yin is also the esoteric purpose of all religious dogmas which teach absolute
submission or obedience.
Chokmah
is known as the sphere of understanding. It is important to recognize the distinction between the understanding of Binah and
the common usage of the word which indicates comprehension, usually of an abstract concept. Whereas understanding as the comprehension
of concept refers to an ability of the rational mind to follow a train of logical thought, the awareness is a direct act of
perception. Schopenhauer’s skeptical philosophy divides the world into subject and object; he notes that ‘we do not known a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth’,
meaning that the entirety of human experience, the entirety of reality insofar as we have any evidence for its existence,
is perceptual and hence can be divided into fundamental categories of the object of perception – including the material
world – and the subject of perception – the conscious mind; everything which exists for us is necessarily composed
of these two components. He goes on to define understanding in a manner wholly consistent with the nature of Binah:
‘As
the object in general exists only for the subject as the representation thereof, so does every special class of representation
exist only for an equally special disposition in the subject…The subjective correlative of matter, or of causality,
for the two are one and the same, is the understanding.’
A passage
in the Sepher Yetzirah which is of particular relevance here, as it deals with the power of the understanding to ‘spiritualize’
the world around us is chapter 1:4:
‘Ten
Sefirot of Nothingness
Ten
and not nine
Ten
and not eleven
Understand
with Wisdom
Be
wise with Understanding
Examine
with them
And
probe from them
Make
each thing stand on its essence
And
make the Creator sit on His base’
In
his commentary on this chapter the Jewish scholar Aryeh Kaplan says that:
‘In
this manner, one can learn how to perceive the essential nature of each thing. The Sepher Yetzirah says, “make each
thing stand on its essence” so as to parallel the next phrase “make the Creator sit on His base.”
The
Sepher Yetzirah is also indicating here that when a person perceives the true spiritual nature of a thing, he also elevates
that thing spiritually. “Standing” refers to such elevation. The expression “make each thing stand”
therefore says that when one “probes from them”, he elevates the thing that he probes.’
The
‘essence’ on which a thing stands is its ‘subjective correlative’, that is, the specific subject which
corresponds to it as a specific object. And through perceiving a thing with a clear understanding we cause it to ‘stand
on its essence’ uniting it with its higher nature.
