Before we continue explaining the various levels of understanding one may attain, we must first preface with an understanding of the faculty of Chochmah.
As mentioned earlier, Chochmah is compared to a spring, from which flashes of understanding into a subject trickle forth. Actually, this is only Chochmah as it relates to Binah (Comprehensive grasp). These flashes of understanding come from the “Ein (Nothingness) of Chochmah into the Yesh (Somethingness) of Binah, that is, they take on tangibility within the “grasp” of Binah, in a way of a “somethingness”.
In Chochmah too, there is length, breadth and depth, just as there is in Binah. This is to say that even though a spring may be concealed beneath the ground, it, nonetheless, has dimensions. The depth of the spring is the aquifer, which is its subterranean source in the depths of the earth. From this depth there spread forth a length and breadth, until drops of water trickle forth into revelation as the beginning of the river.
This being the case, the terms Ein (Nothingnesss) and Yesh (Somethingness) are relative. Binah is only called “something” relative to its depth, which is the “nothingness” of Chochmah. However, Chochmah is likewise called a Yesh (Something) relative to its depth, as stated, “Chochmah is found from “nothingness”.
