In the branch of Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah, Daʻat or Da'ath (Hebrew: דַּעַת, romanized: Daʿaṯ, in pausa: דָּעַת Dāʿaṯ, lit.
The perception of the Divine Light shining can clearly occur also in Malkuth, all the times that humans become self-giving (Altruism).
Alternate countings of the sefirot produce 10 powers ("10 and not 9, 10 and not 11" - Sefer Yetzirah) by either including Keter or Daʻat.
Zer Anpin personifies the revelation of the Torah and relates to the second level of the human soul called "spirit" (ruach), that corresponds to mental aspects, including reason and emotion.
[2] The lower level, referred to as Daʻat Tachton ("lower knowledge") or Daʻat hamitpashet ("extending knowledge"), serves to connect the intellect as a whole with the realm of emotion; thereby enhancing one's determination and resolve to act in accordance with the essential truths that one has integrated into consciousness.
While the significance of this duality is limited in Kabbalah to its discussion of the Heavenly realms, the significance, and the terminology of "Higher" and "Lower Knowledge" emerges in the Hasidic internalisation of Kabbalah to describe alternative, paradoxical conscious perceptions of Divine Panentheism in this material World.
The alternative Kabbalistic terms Ayin and Yesh ("Non-Being and Being") are more commonly used in wider Hasidic mysticism.
In this Daas Elyon and Tachton take on a related, but wider conceptual connotation than Ayin and Yesh, as they become the two alternative conscious perception paradigms of all Hasidic mysticism.
Hasidism had extended the significance of Ayin and Yesh beyond its Heavenly abstract Kabbalistic meaning, to describe how this physical realm is alternatively Being or Non-Being, as perceived by Creation, in its nullification in the Panentheistic Divine All.
[19] Hasidic thought adapted Kabbalistic terminology to its own concern with direct psychological perception in deveikut cleaving to God.
It related the sephirot to their corresponding parallels in the Kochos hanefesh (soul powers) devotional experience in Man.
While Hasidic thought universally retains the Kabbalistic meaning of Ayin (Non-Being) to refer to the inaccessible grasp of the Infinite Divine from the Creation's perspective, and Yesh (Being) to refer to Creation's perception of its own existence, this ascription only reflects the Lower Knowledge view.
Nonetheless, as Hasidic mysticism describes man's devotion to God, it still uses the terms Ayin and Yesh in their Lower Knowledge, traditional Kabbalistic reference, and not reversed.
This alternative paradox is explained in the second section of the Tanya, reflecting the author's most metaphorical interpretation of the Lurianic Tzimtzum, tending to Acosmic Monism.
Yet in regard to the Holy One, blessed be He, there is no tzimtzum, concealment and occultation that would conceal and hide before Him ... for the tzimtzumim and garments are not things distinct from His blessed Self, heaven forefend, but (Genesis Rabba 21:5) "like the snail whose garment is part of its very self"[9]Higher and Lower Da'at relates to the Upper and Lower Chokmah (Wisdom), the first of the three intellectual sephirot.
The Zohar predicts, based on its interpretation of the upper and lower waters of Noah's flood (rains from above, wellsprings from below), that in the sixth century of the Hebrew sixth millennium (corresponding to the secular years 1740-1840) Wisdom will flood the World in preparation for the Messianic era.
In comparison to the lower two Worlds, also Beri'ah has some relation to Higher Bittul through the enclothement of Wisdom (Atziluth) descending into Understanding (Beriah).