The Seba library treats Binah in 8 passages, across 5 authors (including Armstrong, Karen, Pollack, Rachel, Edinger, Edward F.).
Binah (Intelligence) becomes the third parzuf, called Ima: Mot
Armstrong documents the Lurianic transformation of Binah from a sefirah into the parzuf Ima (Mother), showing how the Kabbalistic tradition personifies Understanding as the divine maternal principle within the process of Tikkun.
, A History of God, 1993thesis
The Zohar describes Binah as the Supernal Mother, whose womb is penetrated by the ‘dark flame’ to give birth to the seven lower sefiroth.
Armstrong establishes Binah’s foundational mythological identity in the Zohar as the generative cosmic womb from which the seven lower sefiroth are born, underscoring its maternal-cosmogonic function.
, A History of God, 1993thesis
Completing the triangle is Binah, Understanding. In Kabbalah the difference between Wisdom and Understanding refers primarily to the manner in which the soul contemplates God and itself.
Pollack translates Binah’s Kabbalistic meaning into a psychological divinatory framework, positioning it as the seat of the soul’s self-reflective contemplation and, phenomenologically, as the register of restriction, sorrow, and burden.
, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey to Self-Awareness, 1980thesis
In the three highest sefiroth—Kether, Hokhmah and Binah—when, as it were, En Sof has only just ‘decided’ to express himself, the divine reality is called ‘he’
Armstrong situates Binah within the supreme triad of emanation in the Zohar, at the threshold where the impersonal En Sof begins its movement toward personhood, making Binah a liminal category between the ineffable and the personal divine.
, A History of God, 1993thesis
He founded a new form of Hasidism which attempted to blend mysticism with rational contemplation. It became known as the Habad, an acrostic of the three attributes of God: Hokhmah (Wisdom), Binah (Intelligence) and Da’at (Knowledge).
Armstrong traces Binah’s incorporation into the Habad movement of Rabbi Shneur Zalman, where it functions as one of three cognitive-spiritual attributes bridging mystical and rational approaches to God.
, A History of God, 1993supporting
Kether combined with his emanations of Hokhmah and Binah undergoes personification in Tifereth which will be wedded to the split off Malkhuth ‘when the Messiah comes.’
Edinger, reading Jung’s Kabbalistic sources, shows Binah as part of the supernal triad whose combined energy descends and is personified in Tifereth, framing the sefirothic structure as a map of the God-image’s psychological evolution.
, The New God-Image: A Study of Jung’s Key Letters Concerning the Evolution of the Western God-Image, 1996supporting
Binah, 312
Jung’s index entry for Binah in Alchemical Studies confirms its explicit presence in his alchemical-Kabbalistic synthesis, pointing to its role within the Sefirothic tree as a node in the symbolic matrix of the opus.
, Alchemical Studies, 1967supporting
Vigenère had some knowledge of the Cabala and is here comparing the philosophical tree with the tree of the Sefiroth, which is actually a mystical world-tree.
Jung notes the Renaissance alchemist Vigenère’s use of the Sefirothic tree — the system in which Binah holds a central position — as a template for the alchemical philosophical tree, situating Binah implicitly within the world-tree symbolism of the opus.
, Collected Works Volume 3: The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease, 1907aside