Tree of Life - Binah

jmd

Qabalah - Tree of Life - Binah

Binah is most of the time translated as 'Understanding', but it also means 'Intelligence'.

Through Zohar reference, it is linked to the Great Sea, and, through various references, including the Golden Dawn and its many derivatives, to Saturn.

It is through Binah that the forces which lead to manifestation take their power for form - or are 'carved' out, and later take their definite or specific shape through the process of descending through the following seven Sephirot.
 

Laurel

It is the uppermost feminine element in the tree, relating to the first Heh in the Tetragrammaton, and is symbolized as the mother of the Shekhinah. Many of the symbols associated with Binah are identical to those of the Shekhinah, God's beloved.

"She so pervades this lower world ...
that if you search in deed, thought and speculation,
You will find Shechinah
for there is no beginning and no end to her."
-Rabbi Joseph 13th-century.


Laurel
 

wetsheep1

With Wisdom a house is built, with Understanding it is established, and with Knowledge its rooms are filled.

--Proverbs 24:3-4

Ok. I bought a book to help me understand the Tree, and there's something confusing here. The author states in her dissertaion on Binah that:

Moving from the realm of Atzilut to Beriah, Binah represents the movement of the Divine light into the world of creation....Like Keter and Chokhmah, Binah is an essential attribute of creation.
Janet Berenson-Perkins, Kabbalah Decoder

(Yes, it's a short book and way too brief for my tastes, but it's a decent overview for now...)

What's confusing me is this: if Binah represents the movement of light down the Tree, why would this same statement not apply to Chokhmah?

Thanks for your help, all :)

Trying to understand (and yeah, hoping for a littel wisdom, too;),
-- k
 

jmd

The four worlds, of which the two 'highest' are (using your spelling) Atzilut to Beriah, are used in relation to the Tree of Life by Kabbalists in two common ways.

One is to repeat a whole Tree within each world, so that the image which results is of four Trees one above the other, the Keter of the lowest being the Malkuth of the one above.

The other (which I prefer) is to talk of each part of the Tree as one of the four worlds. In this instance, there are variations as to how the Tree is divided.

I do not have the book you mention (Janet Berenson-Perkins's Kabbalah Decoder), but I suspect that she follows one of the main schools, allocating Keter and Hockmah to the Atzilutic plane, an Binah (alone) to the Briahic. The next plane, the Yezirahic, are allocated the six ensuing Sephirot, leaving Malkut to the Assiahic plane.

Binah, then, in B(e)riah, is the womb through which (lower) creation later takes place. The Light, within Azilut, does not in itself metamorphosise into any created level without the channel provided by Binah.

But, as she says in the quote you give, each of the levels are themselves created, and have thus, in some way, manifested through the activity (womb) of Briahic Binah.

To assist in making sense of this, imagine a Tree at right angles to the one being considered, and yourself looking at this creation as though from Binah, yet seeing the whole Tree...

I presume that if this does not help, it will only add to the confusion - in which case, forget it and await more sensible answers!
 

wetsheep1

I presume that if this does not help, it will only add to the confusion - in which case, forget it and await more sensible answers!

LOL! -- That may happen after all, jmd, but I thank you for your help :)

Would this "womb of (lower) creation" idea have anything to do with the fact that the leg between Chockma and Binah is the second, moving down the Tree, in the Lightning Path?

?? -- k
 

Laurel

It could also have something to do with some of the common attributions of both Binah and Briah/Beriah.

Beriah, for example, is the archangelic or creative world. If the Tetragrammaton (YHVH) is compared to the 4 Worlds, Beriah is the first Heh. The most common element associated with Beriah is water, and the most common tarot suit is cups. Beriah is the realm where the archangels establish the Will of God. You can think of it as the place where creation's "blueprints" are drawn or plans established so that further along the Worlds material manifestation is possible. All of this is very womb-like.

Binah is giving very simple/almost identical attributions on its own, as well. The Supernal mother, the great dark sea (Marah), the cosmic womb, etc.

Laurel
 

AmounrA

Binah , to me, lies with [c]hockmah in the creative world, with Kether alone in the archetypal world. [spheres 4 -9 in the world of formation].

A question here is where does matter in our universe come in? Does it come with kether, or later between the binah and chessed?

I personally think it happens between binah and chessed, with daath not as a sphere but as a 'gateway' or 'opening'. The supernals I feel are in a dimension outside the logical reasoning of the human mind......[perhaps the supernals dimension 'is' pure conciousness, and perhaps conciousness does not require energy or is not in any way connected to matter-our brains viewed as a ' mind-numbing machine' for localizing conciousness]....what I mean here is that conciousness created 'matter' and is not a side-effect of matter, in which case the supernals and the womb of binah seem to be powerful 'magicians---wise and full of understanding' and also have the ability to create matter.....seemingly out of nothing, understanding these spheres to me is almost impossible , to me its where relative concepts hit a wall, and without relative concepts and systems our brains seem to hit a wall also......it seems to get hopelessly subjective when attempting to describe the undescribable:)
 

jmd

In terms of the four worlds, the correlation made by Laurel to the tetragrammaton are well worth considering.

I personally, like AmounrA, do not tend to use the system I outlined above. Unlike AmounrA, however, I tend to prefer the following:

Azilut:

-----Keter-----
Binah---Keter

Briah:

Gburah---Hesed
-----Tipheret-----

Yezirah:

Hod-----Netzah
----Yesod----

Assiah

----Malkut----
 

Laurel

I personally put all manifestations of matter/physical form with Assiah. Everything above in Yetzirah, Briah, Atziluth deals exclusively with the non-material/non-physical in my mind.

Sometimes, I think of Kether alone in Atziluth. Most other times, I include the entire first Triad (Kether-Chokmah-Binah) making the exact same correspondences as JMD above between the spheres and the worlds. It depends really on what concept I'm trying to "map" or wrestle with. I don't see there being a right way and a wrong way to approach this at all, just different ways that doubtlessly all work effectively for the situation.


Laurel
(minor editting for clarity)
 

AmounrA

I also like the 3 triads way , as it has a nice symetry to it. It also makes the creative force interact with spheres Geburah, Chessed and Tiphareth, which makes more sense to me when bringing physical matter in between binah and chessed.

The creative interaction (Briah) could be seen as the atomic [and sub atomic] begginings of the physical universe, and the subsequent evolution into different base elements.

The next triad (Yezirah), containing hod,netzach and yesod, as the formative realm could be seen as the formation of molecules.

The final lone sphere (Atziluth, actual) would be seen as cellular systems.....and with that a whole new level to observations and interactions.

This though I guess is not looking from the psycho-logical and 'conciousness' side of the tree, and perhaps on such a model the 'psyco-log' tree fits within malkuth and connects to kether in a reflected manner?

If I look at a body, I may class it as one thing, if I look closer I may class it as millions of cells working in harmony[biology--atziluth], If I look closer I may class it as billions of molecules perfectly balanced [chemestry--Yezirah], If I look closer still I may class it as trillions of atoms hived [Quantum physics--briah]....if I look closer.........

[As a sidethought here--do you think there is such a thing as a fundermental 'particle'?..In the sense of you do come to a point where nothing is smaller and it is not composed of smaller 'elements' ?]