Types of Intelligence and the Parts of the Bible
Wonders | June 14, 2025
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Types of Intelligence and the Parts of the Bible

Wonders | June 27, 2025

THREE FACULTIES OF THE INTELLECT AND THE THREE PARTS OF THE BIBLE

In our previous teaching, we discussed the relationship between the mind and the heart and the liver, three levels of spiritual growth and life. We drew a further correspondence between the mind, the heart, and the liver to the Torah, Israel, and the nations of the world:

  • The Torah—referring to all three parts of the Bible—corresponds to the mind, meaning that the Torah is the mind of creation.
  • The people of Israel that receive the Torah correspond to the heart and are thus likened to the heart of Creation. Just as the heart distributes blood to all the limbs and organs of the body through the blood vessels, so the people of Israel are commanded and responsible for all 613 commandments—corresponding to the 248 limbs and 365 blood vessels in our bodies—given to us by God in the Torah.
  • The liver, which actually clarifies and purifies the blood before it sends it to the heart, represents the natural level of the soul, the vital level of the soul, and as the Torah says, “blood is the lifeforce.” Blood, is the lower level, but it is actually the basic level of the soul that resides and whose seat is in the liver.

Before continuing, we take notice of a very beautiful allusion in these three words in Hebrew, in the language of the Bible. The word used to designate the mind (מוח) is the word that literally means the brain. The heart (לב), pronounced lev, is almost cognate to love, which is of course in the heart. The liver (כבד) is pronounced kaved and what is unique about this word in Hebrew is that its value is 26, which is the exact value of God's essential Name, the Tetragrammaton (י-הוה), which we refer to as Havayah, the highest and most essential of God's holy Names. There is something very unique about the liver that only its value is identical to Havayah, while the value of the other two higher vital limbs are not only not equal to 26, they are not even a multiple of 26.

Part of BibleManifests ThroughVital OrganTorah (Pentateuch)TorahBrainProphetsJewish peopleHeartWritingsNations of the worldLiver

Another point we did not mention in the previous teaching is that parallel to the liver is another vital organ—the kidneys. Interestingly, the singular form for kidneys (כליה), in Hebrew, is equal to 65, the value of the Name of God Adni (אדני), which we use to pronounce the Tetragrammaton when it appears in the Bible because it is forbidden to pronounce the Tetragrammaton as it is written. This Name, Adni expresses God’s “sovereignty”—that God is the Master. 65 is also the value of the word for “chamber” (היכל), which is a permutation of “kidney” (כליה). Since the Tetrgrammaton, whose value is 26 is contained (i.e., pronounced), so to speak, within the Name whose value is 65, we can figuratively describe this as the Tetgrammaton resides within a Divine chamber. Together, 26 and 65 equal 91, the value of the word “Amen” (אמן), which we say after a blessing or after a wish, meaning, “may it so be.” So, the word “Amen” as explained in Kabbalah, is the unification of 26 and 65—the way in which God’s most essential Name is written and the way it is meant to be pronounced and read. In Kabbalah this is considered the unification of the masculine aspect of Divinity and the feminine aspect of Divinity.

What the Kidneys Do

The sages say something very important about the function of the kidney. The expression in Hebrew, which is brought in the Talmud, is that the kidneys give advice.

So, there is something about the kidneys that they possess a very important, very essential level of intelligence that we will explain more about later—the advice they give to the person, to the soul: what to do, what a person should do in a given situation, how to respond, how to react. It is a form of intelligence, which as we will explain, nowadays modern psychology would call instinctive intelligence. How to act on the spot, how to run from danger, how to be fruitful and productive, reproductive in one's life, which is one of the most important reasons we are here on earth, to reproduce. It is an instinct (not only of humans). It is not an intellectual intelligence, it is an instinctive intelligence. So now we have a very beautiful phenomenon; we have four words, the brain, the heart, the liver, and the kidneys, which in a certain sense combine and go together.

The initial letters of the three words for mind/brain, heart, and liver and mind/brain, heart, and kidney are the same, because the first letter in the word liver (כבד)—a kaf—is also the first letter in the word kidney (כליה). So, whether we refer to the basic level of the soul as liver, or if we refer to it as kidney, the initial letters are mem (מ), lamed (ל), and kaf (כ), which together spell the word for “king” (מלך). What is the explanation? We are taught that kingdom is rulership, to rule, and we are taught in the Zohar that “the mind rules the heart” (המוח שליט על הלב), which means that the brain is intended to rule the heart. In addition, “the heart rules the liver” (הלב שליט על הכבד), the heart is intended to rule the liver, or the heart is intended to rule the kidneys.

Now what's even more amazing is what we discover if we look at the final letters. The liver and the kidney do not have the same final level, but the basic allusion that we are taught in Kabbalah is regarding the word liver. In any case, the final letters, which are chet (ח) and beit (ב) and dalet (ד), spell the initial letters of the three faculties of the brain, of the mind itself, which are wisdom (חכמה), understanding (בינה), and knowledge (דעת), or chochmah, binah, and da’at. The final letter of mind (מוח) is the first letter of wisdom (חכמה), and the final letter of heart (לב) is the initial letter of understanding (בינה), and the final letter of liver (כבד) is the first letter of knowledge (דעת).

These are the three mental faculties within the mind which reside in the right lobe, the left lobe, and the back lobe of the brain, respectively, and they themselves shine their light and life force into the three general levels of brain, heart, and liver. Meaning that the wisdom shines into all three levels and faculties of the mind. Understanding is the understanding of the heart, the emotions, as we will explain. And the final letter of the liver, the dalet, referring to knowledge, the third faculty of the mind, shines into the intelligence that resides in the liver and the kidneys together. This type of intelligence is expressed in particular with regard to the kidneys, as we said before, that the kidneys give good advice.

Part of BibleManifests throughFaculty (Faculty in Hebrew)Vital OrganTorah (Pentateuch)TorahWisdom chochmah (חכמה)BrainProphetsJewish peopleUnderstanding binah (בינה)HeartWritingsNations of the worldKnowledge da'at (דעת)Liver and Kidneys

We have now learnt that the origin of all three levels of the soul within the three or four vital organs in our body all originate in the three levels of the mind itself. This is exactly what is now being proposed by science and medicine, that in reality everything comes from the mind, from the nervous system, and from our intelligence in general.

Another thing that we have not yet explained is that wisdom and understanding are both parts of the brain’s frontal lobe with wisdom to the right and understanding to the left. But knowledge, the third part of the mind, is in the middle, and it is situated to the back. It is also the origin of the spine, which descends and holds together the entire body. That is the seat of the nervous system, that actually controls almost everything in the body.

Four Types of Intelligence

In modern psychology, it is now taught that there are actually four types of intelligence. The normal intelligence, which is measured by an IQ test, is referred to as intellectual intelligence or just intelligence per se. It measures just how smart you are, which is obviously very important for a person to succeed in life. A person must be wise and has to be keen. The second type of intelligence, which is now understood much better than in the past, is referred to as emotional intelligence, which is the intelligence of relationships. How to love, how to respect, how to sense loyalty or confidence, how to give thanks and acknowledge. These are all emotions of the heart, and to express them properly and build long-lasting relationships, you need intelligence. But it's not measured by an IQ test. It's something which is referred to as emotional intelligence. It definitely exists, no question about it, but it is something else. It is not the intelligence that we usually think of.

But there are another two forms of intelligence. There is what's called instinctive intelligence, like the instinct to run away from danger, as we mentioned before. And we identify that type of intelligence with the liver (the 'partner' of the kidneys). Then there’s a fourth type of intelligence which is called intuitive intelligence, which is usually explained to be the most spiritual of all. The intuitive intelligence is where new flashes of insight come from; that is where creativity comes from.

We all want to be not just smart; we want to be creative in our lives. So, in general, these two, the intuitive intelligence and the instinctive intelligence, seem to be like the highest and the lowest—the most spiritual, the most material. But in truth, we are taught that the end is enwedged into the beginning, so there is a most definite relationship between these two apparently extreme types of intelligence. In a certain sense, they totally combine with one another, the instinctive intelligence and the intuitive intelligence. Where does that union take place? It happens within the two sides of knowledge, the third mental faculty. Because knowledge is in the middle, and the middle is the power to unite the two extremes of right and left. Everything, every spiritual or soul power which is in the middle, the middle axis, has two sides to it. One side connects to the right, and the other side connects to the left. Thereby, the middle is able to unite and combine the right and the left together, which is called spiritual balance. In Kabbalah the word is called matkalah (מתקלא), it's like a balance or scale that unites the two sides that it measures or weighs.

In the terminology of Kabbalah, the right side of knowledge is called the crown of loving-kindnesses (עטרת חסדים) which contains five levels of loving-kindness. Their origin is in the right side of knowledge. There are also five levels of gevurah or might. Might can also refer to constructive criticism in one's life and other properties or faculties of the soul which are identified as left faculties. There are five of those also. And those five unite in the left side of da’at, of knowledge, which is called the crown of mights (עטרת גבורות).

These exactly correspond to the two last types of intelligence that we just referred to—instinctive and intuitive intelligence. The difference between what we are now trying to explain and between what is taught in psychology is that in psychology, it is very clear that there is no actual structure for these four different types of intelligence. There is also no hierarchy, one above the other. It is taught that they are all necessary without choosing which is where in relation to one another. But as soon as we learn the Torah, and especially the inner dimension of the Torah, it becomes very clear that if you have four different types of the same whole, they must correspond and parallel some model with which we are familiar from the Torah’s inner dimension.

Now that we have this model in place, we can explain that the intellectual intelligence, which is a measure of how bright you are, corresponds to the right lobe of the brain, which is wisdom itself. The emotional intelligence is called “the understanding of the heart” (בינה שבלב). The two sides of knowledge, the right and the left, which are the origins of loving-kindness and of might, correspond to the intuitive intelligence (the right side of knowledge) and to the instinctive intelligence (the left side of knowledge).

Faculty (Faculty in Hebrew)Vital OrganType of IntelligenceWisdom chochmah (חכמה)BrainIntellectualUnderstanding binah (בינה)HeartEmotionalKnowledge da'at (דעת) crown of loving-kindnessesKidneysIntuitivecrown of mightsLiverInstinctive

The Three Parts of the Bible and the Four Types of Intelligence

Now, let's go back to our topic, which is understanding the structure of the Bible. We said that the Bible (the Torah in general) is the brain or the mind of reality, the mind of creation. The fact that it has three sections, three parts to it, correspond clearly to wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. Meaning that the wisdom of the Torah are the Five books of Moses, and the understanding of the Torah are the Prophets, and the knowledge—to know the Torah—is the Writings. Based upon our brain-heart-liver-kidneys model, knowledge, or da’at, which shines into the kidneys and the liver, corresponds to the Writings.

Since the tikkun, the rectification, of this level, is achieved primarily through the rectification of the righteous individual among the nations of the world, it means that in the Bible itself, what is possibly most related to the nations as a whole are the Writings. And again, in terms of intelligence, the Writings, which correspond to the intellectual faculty of knowledge also represent both intuitive and instinctive intelligence, together.

Recall once more that emotional intelligence is called “the understanding of the heart” (בינה שבלב) and thus corresponds with the faculty of understanding, which corresponds to the heart and the emotions. Wisdom is described as mind (חכמה מוחו) and it corresponds to intellectual intelligence.

The Five Books of Moses Require Intellectual Intelligence

What is the content of the Five books of Moses? The content is that God gives 613 commandments to the Jewish people, and to any non-Jew who chooses to become part of the Jewish people. And these 613 commandments must be understood in all their detail, for instance what it means to put tefillin or phylacteries on every day. The Torah thus has many verses that instruct and command us on what we are required to do.

But the Torah does not define exactly what tefillin/phylacteries are. It does not tell us how to make them, what to place inside them; there are myriad details that are not explicit in the Written Torah, in the written part of the Bible, in the Five books of Moses. To know how to perform the Torah’s commandments in practice, you must rely on the Oral Torah. This requires a great deal of learning and study and deep intellectual contemplation. Doing so mostly means studying the Talmud, and then to study the Shulchan Aruch, which is the code of law of the Jewish people. You must be very smart to understand the detailed arguments presented in these books. You study the teachings of the very smart rabbis that taught how to derive all of the details from the general principles and then learn the condensed versions of these derivations in order to know what to do on a daily basis. Thus, the wisdom of the Five Books of Moses requires primarily an intellectual intelligence, much more so than studying the Prophets or the Writings.

Studying the Prophets Requires Emotional Intelligence

Now, the Prophets are an expression of emotional intelligence. The Prophets are very emotional. That is probably why many people, including non-Jews, like to read Isaiah or the other Prophets, whether it is prophecies of rebuke or prophecies of love, they are all an emotional expression. It is another type of intelligence. Just as in the Torah (the Five Books of Moses), every verse in the Prophets must be studied, just like every verse in the Writings. But when studying the Prophets, we are called upon to use our emotional intelligence so that we may feel or sense the emotions that each verse of the Prophets—the true prophets of Israel—is conveying and expressing.

The Writings Require Intuitive and Instinctive Intelligence

Finally, when it comes to the Writings, they too require a different type of intelligence—both intuitive and instinctive types of intelligence. Intuitive intelligence is what a father teaches his son and this is the content of the Book of Proverbs. Instinctive intelligence is about being attracted magnetically to the good and likewise despise and instinctively push away evil. That is the basic intelligence of the Writings.

Faculty (Faculty in Hebrew)Vital OrganType of IntelligencePart of BibleWisdom chochmah (חכמה)BrainIntellectualPentateuchUnderstanding binah (בינה)HeartEmotionalProphetsKnowledge da'at (דעת) crown of loving-kindnessesLiverInstinctiveWritingscrown of mightsKidneysIntuitive

After all we have explained, we want to now begin to focus on the Writings themselves. We said that it all begins with Psalms. Psalms, obviously is also very emotional, but it is also the very instinctual reaction of King David to what happens to him in life. With everything that happens to him, all that he experiences, he turns, to the only source he can turn to—to God. But the book that is most related to intuitive intelligence is the Book of Proverbs.

1 Devarim 12:23.
2 . Shabbat 33b.
3 . Zohar 3:224a.
4 . R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Likkutei Torah, Rosh HaShanah 58d.

THREE FACULTIES OF THE INTELLECT AND THE THREE PARTS OF THE BIBLE

In our previous teaching, we discussed the relationship between the mind and the heart and the liver, three levels of spiritual growth and life. We drew a further correspondence between the mind, the heart, and the liver to the Torah, Israel, and the nations of the world:

  • The Torah—referring to all three parts of the Bible—corresponds to the mind, meaning that the Torah is the mind of creation.
  • The people of Israel that receive the Torah correspond to the heart and are thus likened to the heart of Creation. Just as the heart distributes blood to all the limbs and organs of the body through the blood vessels, so the people of Israel are commanded and responsible for all 613 commandments—corresponding to the 248 limbs and 365 blood vessels in our bodies—given to us by God in the Torah.
  • The liver, which actually clarifies and purifies the blood before it sends it to the heart, represents the natural level of the soul, the vital level of the soul, and as the Torah says, “blood is the lifeforce.” Blood, is the lower level, but it is actually the basic level of the soul that resides and whose seat is in the liver.

Before continuing, we take notice of a very beautiful allusion in these three words in Hebrew, in the language of the Bible. The word used to designate the mind (מוח) is the word that literally means the brain. The heart (לב), pronounced lev, is almost cognate to love, which is of course in the heart. The liver (כבד) is pronounced kaved and what is unique about this word in Hebrew is that its value is 26, which is the exact value of God's essential Name, the Tetragrammaton (י-הוה), which we refer to as Havayah, the highest and most essential of God's holy Names. There is something very unique about the liver that only its value is identical to Havayah, while the value of the other two higher vital limbs are not only not equal to 26, they are not even a multiple of 26.

Part of BibleManifests ThroughVital OrganTorah (Pentateuch)TorahBrainProphetsJewish peopleHeartWritingsNations of the worldLiver

Another point we did not mention in the previous teaching is that parallel to the liver is another vital organ—the kidneys. Interestingly, the singular form for kidneys (כליה), in Hebrew, is equal to 65, the value of the Name of God Adni (אדני), which we use to pronounce the Tetragrammaton when it appears in the Bible because it is forbidden to pronounce the Tetragrammaton as it is written. This Name, Adni expresses God’s “sovereignty”—that God is the Master. 65 is also the value of the word for “chamber” (היכל), which is a permutation of “kidney” (כליה). Since the Tetrgrammaton, whose value is 26 is contained (i.e., pronounced), so to speak, within the Name whose value is 65, we can figuratively describe this as the Tetgrammaton resides within a Divine chamber. Together, 26 and 65 equal 91, the value of the word “Amen” (אמן), which we say after a blessing or after a wish, meaning, “may it so be.” So, the word “Amen” as explained in Kabbalah, is the unification of 26 and 65—the way in which God’s most essential Name is written and the way it is meant to be pronounced and read. In Kabbalah this is considered the unification of the masculine aspect of Divinity and the feminine aspect of Divinity.

What the Kidneys Do

The sages say something very important about the function of the kidney. The expression in Hebrew, which is brought in the Talmud, is that the kidneys give advice.

So, there is something about the kidneys that they possess a very important, very essential level of intelligence that we will explain more about later—the advice they give to the person, to the soul: what to do, what a person should do in a given situation, how to respond, how to react. It is a form of intelligence, which as we will explain, nowadays modern psychology would call instinctive intelligence. How to act on the spot, how to run from danger, how to be fruitful and productive, reproductive in one's life, which is one of the most important reasons we are here on earth, to reproduce. It is an instinct (not only of humans). It is not an intellectual intelligence, it is an instinctive intelligence. So now we have a very beautiful phenomenon; we have four words, the brain, the heart, the liver, and the kidneys, which in a certain sense combine and go together.

The initial letters of the three words for mind/brain, heart, and liver and mind/brain, heart, and kidney are the same, because the first letter in the word liver (כבד)—a kaf—is also the first letter in the word kidney (כליה). So, whether we refer to the basic level of the soul as liver, or if we refer to it as kidney, the initial letters are mem (מ), lamed (ל), and kaf (כ), which together spell the word for “king” (מלך). What is the explanation? We are taught that kingdom is rulership, to rule, and we are taught in the Zohar that “the mind rules the heart” (המוח שליט על הלב), which means that the brain is intended to rule the heart. In addition, “the heart rules the liver” (הלב שליט על הכבד), the heart is intended to rule the liver, or the heart is intended to rule the kidneys.

Now what's even more amazing is what we discover if we look at the final letters. The liver and the kidney do not have the same final level, but the basic allusion that we are taught in Kabbalah is regarding the word liver. In any case, the final letters, which are chet (ח) and beit (ב) and dalet (ד), spell the initial letters of the three faculties of the brain, of the mind itself, which are wisdom (חכמה), understanding (בינה), and knowledge (דעת), or chochmah, binah, and da’at. The final letter of mind (מוח) is the first letter of wisdom (חכמה), and the final letter of heart (לב) is the initial letter of understanding (בינה), and the final letter of liver (כבד) is the first letter of knowledge (דעת).

These are the three mental faculties within the mind which reside in the right lobe, the left lobe, and the back lobe of the brain, respectively, and they themselves shine their light and life force into the three general levels of brain, heart, and liver. Meaning that the wisdom shines into all three levels and faculties of the mind. Understanding is the understanding of the heart, the emotions, as we will explain. And the final letter of the liver, the dalet, referring to knowledge, the third faculty of the mind, shines into the intelligence that resides in the liver and the kidneys together. This type of intelligence is expressed in particular with regard to the kidneys, as we said before, that the kidneys give good advice.

Part of BibleManifests throughFaculty (Faculty in Hebrew)Vital OrganTorah (Pentateuch)TorahWisdom chochmah (חכמה)BrainProphetsJewish peopleUnderstanding binah (בינה)HeartWritingsNations of the worldKnowledge da'at (דעת)Liver and Kidneys

We have now learnt that the origin of all three levels of the soul within the three or four vital organs in our body all originate in the three levels of the mind itself. This is exactly what is now being proposed by science and medicine, that in reality everything comes from the mind, from the nervous system, and from our intelligence in general.

Another thing that we have not yet explained is that wisdom and understanding are both parts of the brain’s frontal lobe with wisdom to the right and understanding to the left. But knowledge, the third part of the mind, is in the middle, and it is situated to the back. It is also the origin of the spine, which descends and holds together the entire body. That is the seat of the nervous system, that actually controls almost everything in the body.

Four Types of Intelligence

In modern psychology, it is now taught that there are actually four types of intelligence. The normal intelligence, which is measured by an IQ test, is referred to as intellectual intelligence or just intelligence per se. It measures just how smart you are, which is obviously very important for a person to succeed in life. A person must be wise and has to be keen. The second type of intelligence, which is now understood much better than in the past, is referred to as emotional intelligence, which is the intelligence of relationships. How to love, how to respect, how to sense loyalty or confidence, how to give thanks and acknowledge. These are all emotions of the heart, and to express them properly and build long-lasting relationships, you need intelligence. But it's not measured by an IQ test. It's something which is referred to as emotional intelligence. It definitely exists, no question about it, but it is something else. It is not the intelligence that we usually think of.

But there are another two forms of intelligence. There is what's called instinctive intelligence, like the instinct to run away from danger, as we mentioned before. And we identify that type of intelligence with the liver (the 'partner' of the kidneys). Then there’s a fourth type of intelligence which is called intuitive intelligence, which is usually explained to be the most spiritual of all. The intuitive intelligence is where new flashes of insight come from; that is where creativity comes from.

We all want to be not just smart; we want to be creative in our lives. So, in general, these two, the intuitive intelligence and the instinctive intelligence, seem to be like the highest and the lowest—the most spiritual, the most material. But in truth, we are taught that the end is enwedged into the beginning, so there is a most definite relationship between these two apparently extreme types of intelligence. In a certain sense, they totally combine with one another, the instinctive intelligence and the intuitive intelligence. Where does that union take place? It happens within the two sides of knowledge, the third mental faculty. Because knowledge is in the middle, and the middle is the power to unite the two extremes of right and left. Everything, every spiritual or soul power which is in the middle, the middle axis, has two sides to it. One side connects to the right, and the other side connects to the left. Thereby, the middle is able to unite and combine the right and the left together, which is called spiritual balance. In Kabbalah the word is called matkalah (מתקלא), it's like a balance or scale that unites the two sides that it measures or weighs.

In the terminology of Kabbalah, the right side of knowledge is called the crown of loving-kindnesses (עטרת חסדים) which contains five levels of loving-kindness. Their origin is in the right side of knowledge. There are also five levels of gevurah or might. Might can also refer to constructive criticism in one's life and other properties or faculties of the soul which are identified as left faculties. There are five of those also. And those five unite in the left side of da’at, of knowledge, which is called the crown of mights (עטרת גבורות).

These exactly correspond to the two last types of intelligence that we just referred to—instinctive and intuitive intelligence. The difference between what we are now trying to explain and between what is taught in psychology is that in psychology, it is very clear that there is no actual structure for these four different types of intelligence. There is also no hierarchy, one above the other. It is taught that they are all necessary without choosing which is where in relation to one another. But as soon as we learn the Torah, and especially the inner dimension of the Torah, it becomes very clear that if you have four different types of the same whole, they must correspond and parallel some model with which we are familiar from the Torah’s inner dimension.

Now that we have this model in place, we can explain that the intellectual intelligence, which is a measure of how bright you are, corresponds to the right lobe of the brain, which is wisdom itself. The emotional intelligence is called “the understanding of the heart” (בינה שבלב). The two sides of knowledge, the right and the left, which are the origins of loving-kindness and of might, correspond to the intuitive intelligence (the right side of knowledge) and to the instinctive intelligence (the left side of knowledge).

Faculty (Faculty in Hebrew)Vital OrganType of IntelligenceWisdom chochmah (חכמה)BrainIntellectualUnderstanding binah (בינה)HeartEmotionalKnowledge da'at (דעת) crown of loving-kindnessesKidneysIntuitivecrown of mightsLiverInstinctive

The Three Parts of the Bible and the Four Types of Intelligence

Now, let's go back to our topic, which is understanding the structure of the Bible. We said that the Bible (the Torah in general) is the brain or the mind of reality, the mind of creation. The fact that it has three sections, three parts to it, correspond clearly to wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. Meaning that the wisdom of the Torah are the Five books of Moses, and the understanding of the Torah are the Prophets, and the knowledge—to know the Torah—is the Writings. Based upon our brain-heart-liver-kidneys model, knowledge, or da’at, which shines into the kidneys and the liver, corresponds to the Writings.

Since the tikkun, the rectification, of this level, is achieved primarily through the rectification of the righteous individual among the nations of the world, it means that in the Bible itself, what is possibly most related to the nations as a whole are the Writings. And again, in terms of intelligence, the Writings, which correspond to the intellectual faculty of knowledge also represent both intuitive and instinctive intelligence, together.

Recall once more that emotional intelligence is called “the understanding of the heart” (בינה שבלב) and thus corresponds with the faculty of understanding, which corresponds to the heart and the emotions. Wisdom is described as mind (חכמה מוחו) and it corresponds to intellectual intelligence.

The Five Books of Moses Require Intellectual Intelligence

What is the content of the Five books of Moses? The content is that God gives 613 commandments to the Jewish people, and to any non-Jew who chooses to become part of the Jewish people. And these 613 commandments must be understood in all their detail, for instance what it means to put tefillin or phylacteries on every day. The Torah thus has many verses that instruct and command us on what we are required to do.

But the Torah does not define exactly what tefillin/phylacteries are. It does not tell us how to make them, what to place inside them; there are myriad details that are not explicit in the Written Torah, in the written part of the Bible, in the Five books of Moses. To know how to perform the Torah’s commandments in practice, you must rely on the Oral Torah. This requires a great deal of learning and study and deep intellectual contemplation. Doing so mostly means studying the Talmud, and then to study the Shulchan Aruch, which is the code of law of the Jewish people. You must be very smart to understand the detailed arguments presented in these books. You study the teachings of the very smart rabbis that taught how to derive all of the details from the general principles and then learn the condensed versions of these derivations in order to know what to do on a daily basis. Thus, the wisdom of the Five Books of Moses requires primarily an intellectual intelligence, much more so than studying the Prophets or the Writings.

Studying the Prophets Requires Emotional Intelligence

Now, the Prophets are an expression of emotional intelligence. The Prophets are very emotional. That is probably why many people, including non-Jews, like to read Isaiah or the other Prophets, whether it is prophecies of rebuke or prophecies of love, they are all an emotional expression. It is another type of intelligence. Just as in the Torah (the Five Books of Moses), every verse in the Prophets must be studied, just like every verse in the Writings. But when studying the Prophets, we are called upon to use our emotional intelligence so that we may feel or sense the emotions that each verse of the Prophets—the true prophets of Israel—is conveying and expressing.

The Writings Require Intuitive and Instinctive Intelligence

Finally, when it comes to the Writings, they too require a different type of intelligence—both intuitive and instinctive types of intelligence. Intuitive intelligence is what a father teaches his son and this is the content of the Book of Proverbs. Instinctive intelligence is about being attracted magnetically to the good and likewise despise and instinctively push away evil. That is the basic intelligence of the Writings.

Faculty (Faculty in Hebrew)Vital OrganType of IntelligencePart of BibleWisdom chochmah (חכמה)BrainIntellectualPentateuchUnderstanding binah (בינה)HeartEmotionalProphetsKnowledge da'at (דעת) crown of loving-kindnessesLiverInstinctiveWritingscrown of mightsKidneysIntuitive

After all we have explained, we want to now begin to focus on the Writings themselves. We said that it all begins with Psalms. Psalms, obviously is also very emotional, but it is also the very instinctual reaction of King David to what happens to him in life. With everything that happens to him, all that he experiences, he turns, to the only source he can turn to—to God. But the book that is most related to intuitive intelligence is the Book of Proverbs.

1 Devarim 12:23.
2 . Shabbat 33b.
3 . Zohar 3:224a.
4 . R. Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Likkutei Torah, Rosh HaShanah 58d.

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Wonders | June 14, 2025