Let us continue with the Alter Rebbe's words: "שעלה ברצונו" ("that it arose in His will"). Whatever halachah a person opens in the Shulchan Aruch, whichever one it may be, what he is studying there is the wisdom of the Holy One, blessed be He.
This is not the wisdom that this or that sage invented. Even the sages who wrote the words, "the word of G-d spoke through them, and His speech was on their tongue," and every word recorded there is the Torah of Hashem. It arose in the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, that when Reuven will claim such and such and Shimon will claim such and such, the ruling between them shall be such and such; and therefore one who studies that halachah is studying the wisdom of Hashem.
Up to here we have the idea itself. But in these last lines that we have read there are several beautiful dikukim, precise nuances in the Alter Rebbe's wording.
The Shulchan Aruch has four sections, each covering a different area:
Orach Chaim - all the laws bound up with a person's daily conduct: rising in the morning, tzitzis and tefillin, Krias Shema and davening, Shabbos and Yom Tov.
Yoreh Deah - the laws that belong to a rav who issues rulings, such as the laws of kashrus: meat and milk, mixtures, salting and blood, and the like.
Even HaEzer - the laws of marriage, such as kiddushin and gittin.
Choshen Mishpat - all the monetary laws and the laws governing relations between one person and another: the laws of neighbors, of loans, and so forth.
Why an example specifically from Choshen Mishpat:
The Alter Rebbe wants to give an example of a halachah in whose study a person is studying the wisdom of Hashem. He could have written that it arose in the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, that one who studies the laws of Shabbos is studying His wisdom; or he could have taken an example from Yoreh Deah, a drop of milk that fell into a pot of meat and is nullified in sixty; or from Even HaEzer, a chosson saying to his kallah under the chuppah, "You are betrothed to me." Instead he chose specifically an example from Choshen Mishpat: "when Reuven will claim such and such and Shimon such and such." Why?
Because Choshen Mishpat contains a greater chiddush, a greater novelty, than the other sections of Shulchan Aruch. When a person is learning the claim of Reuven and the claim of Shimon, who have come before a beis din, he knows that one of them is not telling the truth (and there are cases of deliberate falsehood and cases of honest error). And yet, even while he is analyzing the reasoning of a liar, since the matter is written in the Torah, at that very moment he is studying the wisdom of Hashem.
In the laws of Shabbos, tefillin and kiddushin this is obvious: a ruling that determines what is permitted or forbidden on Shabbos is nothing but the wisdom of Hashem. The chiddush is that even in the reasoning of a liar, the kind of reasoning found in Choshen Mishpat, the wisdom of Hashem has clothed itself. And if so there, then all the more so in the other sections.
Why specifically "Reuven and Shimon":
In Tanya every word is exact. Why did the Alter Rebbe use the names Reuven and Shimon, and not Avraham and Yitzchak or some other names? After all, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov came before the shevatim. The answer is that the first dispute in the Torah in which one claims one thing and his fellow claims another is the one between Reuven and Shimon.
At the sale of Yosef the verse says, "And they said one to another: behold, this master of dreams is coming." Rashi explains who these were specifically in Parshas Mikeitz, where it says that Yosef took Shimon from among the brothers and bound him before their eyes. Why Shimon in particular? In order to separate the two dangerous ones, Shimon and Levi, who are the "one to another" spoken of in that verse. That is, it was Shimon who spoke his words to Levi. And against him Reuven argued that they must not take a life, but rather cast him into one of the pits. Here, then, is the first case in the Torah where this one claims one thing and that one claims another: Reuven and Shimon. That is why the Alter Rebbe was precise in choosing these particular names.
"Such and such" versus "such":
At the outset the Alter Rebbe uses the expression "כך וכך" ("such and such"), yet a few lines later he writes: "ואף אם לא היה ולא יהא הדבר הזה לעולם לבוא למשפט על טענות ותביעות אלו, מכל מקום מאחר שכך עלה ברצונו ובחוכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, שאם יטען זה כך וזה כך יהא הפסק כך" - "and even if this matter never was and never will be, that anyone should come to court over these claims and demands, nevertheless, since it arose in the will and wisdom of the Holy One, blessed be He, that if this one claims such and that one such, the ruling shall be such." Here only a single "כך" is written. The Alter Rebbe's language is exact in every word; what lies behind the change?
And there is something else to understand: what does "כך וכך דרך משל" ("such and such, by way of example") mean? When one says "by way of example," he is supposed to bring an example. Had it been written, "when Reuven will claim: it is all mine, by way of example" - as in the case of two people holding a tallis, this one says it is all mine and that one says it is all mine - then an illustration drawn from an actual situation would have been given. But "such and such" are abstract words that contain no example at all, and seemingly the phrase "by way of example" does not fit here.
In one of his letters the Rebbe brings an astonishing explanation that reveals just how precise the Alter Rebbe's words are. In chapter 4 we learned that the Holy One, blessed be He, contracted His wisdom and will and brought them down into the 613 mitzvos of the Torah, and even clothed them in physical things in this world. So there are three stages here:
The Torah is called "משל הקדמוני", the parable of the Ancient One, a mashal for the One who preceded the world. On its highest level, the Torah is a parable for the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself.
The descent of that wisdom and will into the 613 mitzvos of the Torah.
Their enclothement in physical matters here in this world.
Accordingly the Alter Rebbe is precise: "when Reuven will claim such and such, by way of example." "By way of example" hints at "the parable of the Ancient One," the wisdom and will of the Holy One, blessed be He; the first "such" is their descent into the 613 mitzvos of the Torah; and the second "such" is their descent into the physical object over which Reuven is making his claim. Later, however, where the case is one that "never was and never will be" - there is no actual quarrel and the matter never comes down into a physical act - the matter remains in Torah alone, and therefore only a single "such" is used. From this we see how utterly precise every word in Tanya is, even what looks like a passing remark.
To summarize: In this section we learned, as a continuation of chapter 4, the greatness of Torah: a Jew learning Torah here in this world must know that his union with the very Essence of the Creator in this world is incomparably and infinitely greater than in the World to Come, and therefore "one hour in this world is more precious than all the life of the World to Come." We also saw the precision of the Alter Rebbe's language: the choice of an example from Choshen Mishpat, where the chiddush is greatest; the names Reuven and Shimon, the first dispute in the Torah; and the distinction between "such and such, by way of example" and the single "such" later on, which reflects the stages of the descent of the wisdom and will of the Holy One, blessed be He.
In the next section we will complete the theme we began in chapter 5: what it means that the learner "grasps" the Torah. The grasp is two sided, the person grasps and is also grasped, he embraces the King and the King embraces him, and all of this takes place within the very process of learning, through all those stages of the intellect grasping the concept and being grasped within it.