HOW WE CAN ACCOMPLISH INTERNALIZATION
How do we internalize the knowledge of our mind into our heart? We get to know the Torah by learning it well, but how do we internalize it into our heart? There are two general ways described in the works of our Rabbis of how we can accomplish this.
The First Way: Da’as
One way is as follows. We have three different mental abilities: chochmah [lit. wisdom] tevunah [from the word binah, contemplation] and daas [knowledge, or understanding].
Chochmah is what one learns from his teacher. Tevunah is when we think on our own. Daas is when we connect to our knowledge.
Daas is when a person is always thinking about Torah, because he connects to the knowledge of his mind. Daas is an inner kind of thinking, not a superficial kind of thinking. When a person merely intellectualizes about his learning, he’s either using chochmah or tevunah, but this isn’t yet daas. Daas is only when a person thinks all the time about his learning because he is truly connected to his learning.
When a person uses his daas, he is connected all the time to his learning as he thinks constantly of Torah – and in this way, his mind’s knowledge enters his heart. This is when a person learns Torah along with emunah in Hashem in his life. The Torah then penetrates into his heart.
The Second Way: Verbal Repetition
The second method brought by our Rabbis how to internalize the knowledge of our mind into our heart is by making a direct imprint on our heart. This is accomplished when we review matters repeatedly using our simple emunah. As it is written in the verse, “I believed, for I spoke.”
When we constantly repeat a fact, it eventually settles into our heart, where it becomes internalized knowledge.
Pharoah knew that Hashem existed, but he didn’t internalize this information. Pharoah means peh rah, “evil mouth.” In other words, he didn’t use his mouth in the right way, and thus he didn’t internalize his mind’s knowledge. So one way to internalize is to use daas, which is by learning Torah in a way that we connect to it; and this is accomplished when we learn Torah together with having emunah in Hashem. The second method to internalize is to use our power of speech, to affect our heart.
The Third, Deeper Way: Repeating the Facts of Our Da’as to Our Heart
But there is also a third way, which is deeper than the above two ways, and it combines the two methods together: to speak to ourselves facts that we know from our daas, with the intention that it should affect our heart.
This is also the deeper meaning behind why we count Sefiras HaOmer for 49 days. Since we repeat to ourselves that today is another day towards Shavuos, it eventually internalizes in our heart. Through the power of constant verbal repetition, the facts of our brain settle into our heart and become internalized.
Most people when they learn Torah are only using the lower power of chochmah, which is located in the brain. This is mere intellectual knowledge, and it doesn’t always affect a person. But the higher, deeper kind of chochmah is called chochmas halev – the wisdom of the heart – and it is rare. It is accessed when we verbalize our mind’s knowledge to ourselves and we repeat the facts, over and over again, until it penetrates our heart. It then becomes chochmas halev.
