Let's pick up, it's skipping a couple of pages, perhaps we'll come back and read some of what page 54. אינה דומה במעט למתמטיקה השולטת באינסופיות ורק לשם מציאות סופית מוגבלת במספרים ובשיעורים מתמטיים ולהכרתה. ההלכה מבחינת מידת הצמצום משמשת גם היא במתודה של הקוונטיפיקציה ומכמתת היא את האיכות.
It quantifies quality and the subjectivity, religious subjectivity, in the form of objective, concrete expressions, phenomena, be'alot shiurin u-middot. שיעורין וחציצין ומחיצין הלכה למשה מסיני. ההלכה קובעת דינים חוקים ומידות מוצקים ומוגבלים לכל מצוה ומצוה. מהי אכילה ושיעוריה, מהי שתייה ומידתה, מהו פרי ושיעורו וסימניו, ל"ט מלאכות שבת ושיעוריהן, שיעורי אהל הטומאה, מחיצות, שיעורי ממון וכן כל כיוצא בהם. והנה לפי שהמצוות ניתנו לנו על ידי התלבשות במידת הגבורה וצמצום האור
ve-chulu, לכן ברוב המצוות יש להן שיעור מצומצם. So the Baal HaTanya is now sort of expressing in Kabbalah vocabulary this idea that the Rebbe is presenting, that in Halacha, spiritual, qualitative concepts, realities, ideas, are objectified and quantified. And that's what it means that Mitzvos were given to us through Middat HaGevurah. Right? Chessed represents expansion, and Middat HaGevurah represents contraction. לכן ברוב המצוות יש להן שיעור מצומצם כמו אורך הציצית י"ב גודלין והתפילין אצבעיים על אצבעיים ומרובעות דווקא והלולב ד' טפחים והסוכה ז' טפחים והשופר טפח והמקווה מ' סאה וכן בקורבנות יש להן שיעור מצומצם לזמן כמו
kevasim bnei shana, but what the age of the animal is, ואילים בני שנתיים ופרים וכו' וכן במעשה הצדקה וגמילות חסד בממונו.
Again, all these are ideas, values, concepts, experiences, and everything is translated and expressed in quantitative terms. אף שהוא מעמודים שהעולם עומד עליהם וכתוב עולם חסד יבנה.
And in that sense you would think that it can't be delineated, it can't be circumscribed. No, this is all of Halacha operates this way. אפילו הכי יש לו שיעור קצוב, חומש למצוה מן המובחר ומעשר למידה בינונית וכו' לפי שהעולם בחינת גבול ומידה. שד"י מי שאמר לעולמו די.
Kadosh Baruch Hu's briyah, the axiom of the briyah is that there are gvulos, there are measurements, there are borders, there are boundaries. So since that's true in the physical world, it's true in the, therefore in the. מיסודות החסידות חב"ד המאור הגדול בהלכה ובסוד הרגיש בזה כי השיטה היסודית של הלכה
that the fundamental approach and method of halacha hi peulas hakvantifikatsya is the act of quantification haklula besod hatzimtzum. Again, in this mystery of contraction. Shiurim, what shiurim represent, what shiurim constitute, again, is a quantitative expression and definition of something qualitative. And that's why in, the Rav is presenting this in philosophical terms from the Ba'al HaTanya in terms of Kabbalah. And that's why in, the Rav is presenting this in philosophical terms from the Ba'al HaTanya in terms of Kabbalah. There is an explanation advanced by some. The halacha is, so min HaTorah, right, it's assur min HaTorah to be מעביר ד' אמות ברשות הרבים. So if you begin at point A in Reshus HaRabim and you then traverse daled amos and end up at point B, so that's a chiyuv shel hotza'ah. Now, in kol HaTorah kula, chatzi shiur assur. So in order to get malkos for eating neveilah, you have to eat k'zayis shel neveilah. But even if you eat a mashehu of neveilah, chatzi shiur doesn't mean literally that it's fifty percent, it means part of. It's a מחלוקת ריש לקיש ורבי יוחנן. Reish Lakish thinks it's d'rabbanan. We pasken like Rabbi Yochanan that חצי שיעור אסור מן התורה. So even a mashehu of neveilah, of whatever, is assur min HaTorah. That notwithstanding, it's mutar halacha l'ma'aseh, no, mutar min HaTorah, it's mutar halacha l'ma'aseh to carry pachas mi'daled amos. If you do pachas pachas, that's assur mi'd'rabbanan. Meaning if you carry two amos, you make an akirah, you carry two amos, you make a hanachah, and then you go again, akirah and hanachah, another two amos later. Don't worry, it's easy, demonstrations coming in. So it was a red light green light. So that's assur mi'd'rabbanan. So pachas pachas is assur mi'd'rabbanan. But pachas is even mutar halacha l'ma'aseh. Even mutar halacha l'ma'aseh, even in Reshus HaRabim, אחת כמה וכמה בכרמלית. Let's say you go out into your backyard, and not this time of year, but if the snow has melted, right, you go out into your backyard and you have lawn furniture, and let's say it's not, it's mukaf mechitzos, and so you're sitting down, so you're moving the chair around a little bit. That's fine. It's pachas mi'daled amos and even in Reshus HaRabim that's mutar. The question is why isn't it assur, why isn't it assur mi'din chatzi shiur? One of the answers given is that the issur chatzi shiur again the the braisa in Yuma in the beginning of the eighth perek which is the main main source for chatzi shiur in the Gemara is by chelev, issurei achila, by maachalos assuros. So there the shiur is quantitative. Kezayis is a certain quantity that you have to eat. Mah she-kein the Baal Ha-Maor in Masechet Shabbos explains that the shiur daled amos is that mekomo shel adam is daled amos. And let's say if a person ends up chutz let-chum Shabbos he has to stay within the daled amos. Daled amos is mekomo shel adam and what it means when you go from point A to point B in reshus harabbim and you you traverse daled amos is that you went from one makom to another makom. So that the shiur daled amos represents a qualitative shiur, not a quantitative shiur, and the issur chatzi shiur is only by a quantitative shiur. That's a yaduah and known explanation. But the emes is it's it's difficult. Because the pashus is is like this. The Mishna says in the beginning of the third perek in Makkos that if you eat a beriah, let's say you eat an ant, some kind of a sheretz, and and you eat the entire beriah, even though that entire beriah is smaller than a kezayis, but you'd be chayiv malkos. You'd be chayiv malkos. So what's the pshat? So the pashus is that the pshat is as follows: is that what kezayis and then it's a diyun Tosafos, Tosafos in different places has a diyun whether or not that din carries over let's say to hilchos brachos. If you eat, I don't know, you eat one raisin or one one grape and assuming that that keshel-atzmo is pachot mi-kezayis, so whether or not you you would make a bracha achrona. Maybe the same way in terms of maachalos assuros you get malkus for one for eating a beriah, so maybe the same thing is true in terms of hilchos brachos. And says the Shulchan Aruch we're supposed to avoid that because it's a safek brachos whether or not you'd make a bracha achrona. So to eat a beriah pachot mi-kezayis one one avoids doing that. But so what is the pshat in that din of beriah? So the pshat in that din of beriah is adderaba that the shiur kezayis is that's how the halacha quantifies an achila chashuva. It's not it's not be-yesodo it's not an expression of something quantitative, it's a quantitative expression of something qualitative. It says that for malkus to get malkus for issur neveilah, for sheretz and other maachalos assuros, you have to eat an achila chashuva. Achila chashuva is a again, that's a qualitative concept, it's not a quantitative substance, right? It's a qualitative concept. And that's what the halacha does, again, that's what the Rav is talking about. The halacha and and that's why, I think as we mentioned last time, that's what the Rav is implying, this has to be הלכה למשה מסיני because bidei adam it would be arbitrary. For a person to say oh this represents an achila chashuva, meiheicha taisi? So one crumb less than one microscopic almost microscopic crumb less than than a kezayis is not choshuv and then that that extra tiny crumb so that makes it choshuv. If you eat it within kedei achilas pras, so then it's mitztaref. But if it's a half a second more than than kedei achilas pras, so then it's not mitztaref, so then you didn't eat the kezayis. Bidei adam that would be arbitrary. Shiurin הלכה למשה מסיני because only HaKadosh Baruch Hu can can in an authentic way, in the authentic way translate the eichus into terms of of kammus. So the pashus is That that's not the pshat by the din of דף נ"ד ד' אמות because every shiur represents something qualitative. Kezayis is also something qualitative. Kol zman that that you've eaten less than a kezayis, it's not an achila chashuva. So it's not, again, the svara is that that if it's something qualitative, you haven't done part of it, right? It's an all or nothing. That, that's what the, that's what that svara is, that chatzi shiur means you've done part of it. And, and if the shiur is something qualitative, then you haven't done part of it, right? If, if the shiur daled amos represents going from one makom in reshus harabbim to another makom in reshus harabbim, so, so you're still in the same makom. You haven't, you haven't done, it's not nispas in, in happening incrementally. Something which is purely quantitative, that does happen incrementally. But the emes is all shiurim, and that's what the rav is talking about here, all shiurim. And that's what you see. You see it in halacha, you see it in halacha. That's why berya is the, is the equivalent of, of kezayis. So what's pshat by, by מעביר ד' אמות טאקע? So the other explanation they give, which, which doesn't, you know, which isn't pushed aside by, by, by these yesodos, is that, that you say chatzi shiur when, again, it seems similar, but, but it isn't. When all you have to do to be over the issur is more of the same. So by, if you're beginning to eat neveila, to be over the issur, all you have to do is more of the same. Again, not, not because the shiur represents something quantitative. No, even though the shiur represents something qualitative, but to get to the shiur, all you have to do is more of the same. But that's not true, because it's not enough after you take the first step in reshus harabbim. It's not enough to keep going to daled amos. You have to make a hanacha. If, if a person will, will, you know, he'll, he'll jog all day long in, in reshus harabbim, so he won't be chayav misa for daled amos. He'll probably drop dead from exhaustion, but that's a different story. But he won't be, he won't be chayav daled amos for, for מעביר ד' אמות רשות הרבים, because, because there was no hanacha. So it's not enough to do more of the same. Ma she'ein kein by in, in other contexts where chatzi shiur is assur, so all you have to do is, is more of the same. Mechitzos also is, again, also is delineating, objectifying, quantifying. And that's what the rav is saying. It's, that's why he quotes the whole, the whole phrase from, from the gemara. It's not only shiurin that, that represent, you know, I don't know, reshus harabbim has to be shesh esrei ama wide, and, and a reshus hayachid has to be ד' על על ד', and it has to have asara t'fachim. The shiur of mechitza is asara t'fachim. All these things are, again, they're objectifying, delineating, quantifying. But in each case, it's always something conceptual that's being quantified. Chok pelaim zeh on the top of page fifty-five, this is what we mentioned yesterday, without last week, excuse me, without reading it in, in the rav's words. Chok pelaim zeh this wondrous law of creation misbatei expresses itself bishnei kivunim makbilim in two parallel directions. Be'olam ha'briah bimtzius hamuchashet in the physical world again the qualitative experiences we have are a function of can be understood manipulated by the quantitative analysis uve'olam ha'ideali biyetziras ha'halacha and that's what we mentioned last time that the rav. between those two realms. Haratzon ha'elyon Hakadosh Baruch Hu's supreme will נתלבש בשתי יצירות אלו became clothed in these two creations venitgalem al yedeihem and became embodied within them bemidat hagevurah vehatzimtzum again using the Kabbalah vocabulary שמתוכה שופעת שיטת הקוונטיפיקציה and that's from within this again the whole approach the whole method of quantification flows. זה לעומת זה עשה אלקים. כשם שהמציאות האיכותית המתגלית לנו בתחושתנו
just as the qualitative dimension of life of the world of existence which is revealed to us משתעבדת לעיקרון הקוונטיפיקציה ולאמת מידתו של איש המדע the scientist writes all kinds of equations again for heat for cold for motion. כמו כן נתונה וכפויה ההארה העליונה שנתפסת על ידי צמצומים רבים ועצומים בהשתלשלות המדרגות למעשה צמצום כמותי.
Hatnuah the movement מן האיכות אל הכמות from qualitativeness to quantitativeness hamitkayemet ba'olam hareali which happens again in the physical world the natural world ba lidei vituy it expresses itself also גם בתחום האידיאלי של ההלכה also in the ideal realm of halachah. Ma'amaro shel Galileo that shesefer hateva כתוב באותיות של משולשים מרובעים עיגולים כדורים ושאר צורות מתמטיות
that the book of nature is written in letters of triangles and squares and circles etc. חל גם על ההלכה. It's true for halachah also. ולא לחינם אמר הגר"א לאיש שתרגם את הגיאומטריה האוקלידית לעברית
and not for nothing did the Gra say to the man who translated the Euclidean geometry into Hebrew כי כשתוחסר לאדם מידה אחת בחוכמת המתמטיקה תוחסר לו עשר ידות בידיעת התורה. אין זו רק מליצה יפה המעידה על רוחב דעתו של הגאון אלא אמת קבועה בתורת ההכרה של ההלכה.
Now that vort of the Gaon that the Rav says reflects again this yesod of the that halachah functions again in a parallel sense to mathematics. When parents would come to it happened sometimes over the years they'd come to the Rav and they tell him that their son was struggling in learning and he wasn't matzliach and either implicitly or explicitly they were saying that he doesn't have a head for it. So he used to say how does he do at math and they'd say oh he's very good at math he used to say if he can study math then he can Gemara. הנטייה היסודית של ההלכה the, the basic tendency, thrust of Halacha היא להחזיר את האיכות של הסובייקטיביות הדתית, את תוכן תודעת איש הדת, השוטפת חמשה כגלי הים, והמתנגשת בחוף הריאליות ונשברת בכמויות מוצקות וקיימות, להלכות, להלכות נטועות כמסמרות אשר כל רוח לא תעקרן ממקומן.
This is a theme that the Rav has in many places in his ksavim that purely subjective, purely subjective religious feeling doesn't endure and and doesn't doesn't bring a person to the Ribbono Shel Olam. The subjective dimension in avodas Hashem has to be translated, which is what Halacha does, has to be translated into fixed objective performances. That has a kiyum. That's that's anchored. That's rooted. When a person just has just has the the the emotion, the feeling, it's it's not rooted and it doesn't doesn't have a kiyum and it doesn't doesn't bring doesn't bring one doesn't bring one closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The subjectivity is of course is crucial, indispensable. Rachmana liba ba'ei. But that's what Halacha says. It needs to inform and permeate the objective and quantified and established and anchored actions and activities of Torah mitzvos. Hakadosh Baruch Hu structured the spiritual world the way He structured the physical world. The physical world operates according to laws. He fashioned the spiritual world the same way. All of which is you know it's not right it's not just a coincidence you know let's say that the Rav again and again and again you know uses the the analogy, the metaphor, it's it's more than an analogy or metaphor, but the parallel of of of mathematics to Halacha, you know, it's not a fortuitous coincidence that that metaphor, analogy or parallel exists. It's all part of אסתכל באורייתא וברא עלמא. There's one Hakadosh Baruch Hu had one one mold for for for the beriah. There are different realms and different dimensions within the beriah, but there's one mold for for the beriah. הרצון העליון משתקף בין בראי המציאות ובין בראי ההלכה האידיאלית על ידי שיעורין ומדות.
So again, which is why as long as we live in this world, that's where the avodas Hashem is, that's where the kedusha is, because Hakadosh Baruch Hu translated again all the and expressed and compressed middas hagevura, tzimtzum, He translated, expressed and compressed all of these things into shiurin u'middos. אין דתיות סובייקטיבית קיימת. There is no such thing as an enduring subjectivity וכל אלה השאיפות הנוטות אחרי הסובייקטיפיקציה של המעשה הדתי, the exact opposite of halakha, to to make everything subjective השוללות מוחשיות וגשמיות של חיי הדת, that negate the the physical dimension and the expression of religious life ומכניסות את האדם כאילו, they bring a person לעולם מופשט וזך שאין בו לא אחיזה ושיה אלא אנשי הדת יושבים ועטרותיהם בראשיהם ונהנים מחווייתם הפנימית מסערת רוחם השואף אל על.
I think the Rav wrote this before the elan מקמיהותיהם התמימות מגעגועיהם הנעלמים ומכסופיהם המסתוריים, their mystical longings, sofan l'hibatel. It doesn't, it doesn't last, no, it doesn't, doesn't endure. That's why the, again, that's why halakha is so action-centric for that, for that reason, because a just pure subjectivity, it doesn't, it doesn't endure. So if there's no, again, constant objective discipline to which a person is subject, so one minute he can think that he's experiencing some spiritual high and who knows what he's doing the next minute, not something which is entirely consistent with what he thought was a spiritual high a minute earlier. כוחה הסטיכי של הדת התוקף על האדם ומשעבדו וכובשו, שולט רק כשהדת היא דת ממשית.
The the force of of religion to to impact a person is only when it's dat mamashit, when it's a something concrete. דת חיי מוחשיים שיש בהם מריח ומישוש דת שבשר ודם מרגיש בכל חושיו ועורקיו ואיבריו בכל מהותו וישותו,
dat sensualit, a sensual religion, something that encompasses the reality of of man. Again the reason, just as, not just as we discussed earlier, the same idea, but just as we discussed earlier that the the desire to transcend the world and and to express religious longing that way is is futile, because a person can't transcend what he is, so too if the if the religion is purely subjective, purely it's all about emotion and and experience and it doesn't have the quantitative discipline of halakha, so it ignores the reality of of who we are, of what we are, and because of that, that's why it just, it doesn't endure and it just opens us up for, it just enshrines at best inconsistency. Then at least in my edition there's a misprint, it says ish but it should say esh, the yud doesn't belong there. שאש התאווה באה עמה במגע ומשא על כל צעד ושעל דתיות סובייקטיבית של עמדות וחוויה. ושאיפות אינה ראויה להימנות בהלכה.
If it's only emotions, only affects, it doesn't yield, it doesn't turn out, doesn't turn out well because it doesn't... for instance like this, let's say to eat a balanced diet. So there's lots of things that the body needs. Body needs lots of different vitamins, lots of different minerals. So if a person, I don't know, he has a diet where he makes sure he gets enough potassium, but he's not getting the magnesium that his body needs. So he's not going to be healthy because his diet doesn't reflect the totality of the person. Religious life has to reflect the reality and the totality of the person. Yeah, do we have emotions? Of course we have emotions. Do we have a capacity for subjective experience? Of course we do. But we're also physical beings. And when religious life isn't, again, doesn't have that, when you don't have that, what Hakadosh Baruch Hu did with Halacha, that he translated and expressed and compressed the subjectivity into, again, physical action which encompasses the whole person, so then without that, the person's, the same way one's physical life is going to be out of sync and there's going to be imbalance in one's diet, so the same thing would be true in one's, one's spiritual life. Okay, we'll stop.