Let us learn the sugyah of stilling the ferocious waters of machlokes, and later we will see how to apply these same tools to calm the ferocity of the machlokes that takes place within a person: the constant battle between body and soul. As we know, there is constantly a raging battle between these two entities, and we must bring about peace and tranquility within ourselves.
Chazal tell us that talmidei chachamim increase peace in This World; tzaddikim explain that this refers to the fact that a talmid chacham has taught his body to be at peace with the needs of his soul, and, at the same time, he has taught his neshamah to acquiesce to the demands of his body regarding the necessities of life. A talmid chacham lives in peace, because for him there is no strife between the body and the soul.
The World Is a Blend of Good and Evil
The Me’or Einayim (on Parashas Shelach and in the Likuttim), writes as follows on the topic of bechirah, the choice between good and evil with which we are each faced:
A person must choose between good and evil. HaKadosh Baruch Hu made this world in a way that good is mixed with evil. The sin of Adam HaRishon exacerbated this, but the event of הכלים שבירת (breaking of the vessels during Creation) that preceded it resulted in the world becoming a blend of good and evil.
There had to be הכלים שבירת, explains the Me’or Einayim, for if HaKadosh Baruch Hu would have only been מצמצם, only reduced His light, level after level—in order that This World would be able to tolerate His light—it would have required millions of reductions to reach a tolerable level of אור.
Therefore, HaKadosh Baruch Hu caused there to be more אור than the vessels could tolerate, and they broke. This caused a great fall for the light, and with this the great light was mixed with lower matter.
This is comparable to sending a space shuttle into outer space. Ascending with a ladder would be impossible. It is necessary to create a type of destructive rocket that would propel it to the necessary great distance. Similarly, the distance was too great to be bridged for the light of HaKadosh Baruch Hu to reach the lowliness of This World. It required an epic event of breakage, הכלים שבירת.
Now there are elements of קדושה mixed into the most mundane things and a person must choose the good from within the evil.
Not a Clear Choice
Let us attempt to explain in a simple way the concept of the mixture of טוב and רע.
When there are two foods that are next to each other, they are not considered mixed. “Blended” means that two entities are combined with each other. One way to recognize that two things are blended is that one entity has absorbed the taste of the other entity and vice versa.
When we say that there’s a mixture of טוב and רע, it is not as simple as saying “I will take the good and leave the bad behind...” After all, who wants to take the bad. The problem is that there’s still an element of good within the bad. It is not a clear choice. On one side, we see a number of points in favor, and on the other side we also see points in favor. It is difficult to see with clarity how to choose. This is the definition of what it means to have a mixture of ברע טוב in our world.
Choosing Between Good and Bad Through דעת/Wisdom
Now, if a person were pure, and he had a Torah’dige lens, the choice would be clear for him. He would quickly and easily be able to weed out what is called a מעלה and what is called a חסרון. “It is clear as day that this is the proper course to take.” Says the Me’or Einayim, “the attribute a person needs to make good choice in life is the middah of דעת, wisdom—
for without wisdom, one cannot separate.” And without separating the good from the bad, one can’t arrive at a proper conclusion.
As an example, let us examine the difference between לעמים ישראל, between Klal Yisrael and the nations of the world. Some will say that we often see a gentile who is so refined and so proper... what is the difference between him and a Yid? Says the second person, “You obviously don’t have da’as to separate properly.” Retorts the first person, “Don’t be upset, and don’t call me names.... I am telling you what my eyes see in front of me. This goy has worked for me for ten years, and I wish that many Yidden would behave in as refined a manner as he does—as painful as it is for me to say this!”
The answer is that da’as gives a person the ability to look deeper, beneath the surface. After we look beneath the surface, the picture becomes much clearer. Chazal and the tzaddikim have taught us, חסד חטאת לאומים, kindness of the nations is a sin... (Mishlei 14: 34); when we see kindness among the nations, it is only an outer layer, it is not a part of who they really are.
This is one example of the way דעת gives us an ability to separate out the truth when there is a mixture in front of us.
Utilizing בינה ,חכמה, and דעת in Making Choices
When a person is faced with a mixture of good and bad, he must choose the good from the bad. That is our mission on This World. But it is impossible to make this choice using חכמה, wisdom alone. We must employ דעת, the beneath-the-surface understanding, to arrive at the depth of the matter. Only דעת can give a person the necessary clarity and the breadth of insight to make the choices before him.
The Me’or Einayim in the Likkutim explains this yesod:
When a person’s mind uses its wisdom to innovate an idea, this is called חכמה. However, בינה, understanding, comes along and immediately seeks to take apart the idea that he devised, putting it to a rigorous test. The בינה attribute within the person asks, “Is it really so? Is this really a good idea?” And he begins to weigh all sides and aspects of the matter.?
Thus, בינה takes the initial idea and puts it to the test, refining it and asking all kinds of questions to see if the idea really holds up in the real world (often, a person has trained himself to bypass בינה altogether, not paying attention to it, proceeding with his idea straightaway, without doubts).
Deciding With Da’as
Comes along the attribute of דעת and decides between the two sides. The da’as is the power of decision, putting both sides of the question in their place and finding the proper way forward. This is amazing. A person has very strong points in favor of each side, and he can’t make a decision. Sometimes we see a wise person asking a question... and it is incredible to see: He knows how to ask a question—with every aspect of every side being presented! And thus, it isn’t so easy to make a decision.
Only da’as can decide what he will ultimately do.
Abstention is not always the right course. The Mesilas Yesharim warns us of being overly cautious—for this will prevent us from making the proper positive decision in many cases. A person must weigh the pros and cons and make a decision—using his attribute of da’as—to understand the depths of each side and thus make the correct decision. A person so often finds himself at a crossroads... he senses good on both sides, and he senses problems on both sides. He needs da’as in order to decide.
Meriting Da’as
And how does one merit the proper da’as to see the world correctly? Says the Me’or Einayim in Parashas Shelach, “Every person according to his level of being an אדם, so too is his level of דעת developed... and sometimes, our own sense of דעת is broken, and it is itself a mixture of טוב and רע—and thus it isn’t able to guide us in the right way. Just as when we use a scale to weigh an item with accuracy to know its exact weight, if the scale is broken, it isn’t able to give us the information that we need. So too, a person has a scale in his heart and in his mind that helps him make decisions—and sometimes it is broken.
