Ci sono quattro middoth (cioè tipi di personaggio) in un uomo: Uno che dice: "Il mio è mio e il tuo è tuo" [Non voglio darti nulla del mio, e per favore non darmi niente del tuo .] Questa è una middah mediana. Alcuni dicono: questa è la middah di Sodoma. [Si avvicina alla metà di Sodoma. Perché se uno si abitua a ciò, allora anche se il suo vicino beneficia (da ciò che gli dà) e non gli manca nulla, non vorrà darglielo. Questo era il middah di Sodoma, con l'intenzione di allontanare gli altri da loro— anche se la loro terra era ricca e non gli mancava nulla.] "La mia è tua e la tua è mia" —am ha'aretz (un ignoramus). [Perché prende e dà ugualmente, e questo "risolve la terra". Ma non (ha la sagacia di) sapere che (Proverbi 15:27): "chi odia i doni vivrà". Questa è la connotazione generale di am ha'aretz, uno che vuole apportare miglioramenti ma che manca della saggezza per discriminare tra ciò che è e ciò che non è un miglioramento.] "Il mio è tuo e il tuo è tuo"—un chasid. [Aiuta gli uomini con i suoi beni e non beneficia dei beni degli altri. È un chasid, che agisce al di sopra e al di là della lettera della legge.] "Il mio è mio e il tuo è mio"— malvagio.
Mei HaShiloach
The idea of the Shemita year and the Jubilee year corresponds to the characters mentioned in Avot (Avot 5:10) - what is mine is yours, what is yours is yours. That is, even if the land was given to human beings, to the point that there is such a thing as acquisition of the land, that one can take from the land all the good things in the world - you know, that all good things in the world come actually from the land, as it says "all came from the dust" (Kohelet/Eccl. 3:20). And in the seventh [year/day], [when] one gives the land to the Holy One of Blessing, since one stops from working and tilling the land because of God's desire, and one observes God's commandment, one is called "mine is Yours" - that is, a person acquires for the Holy One of Blessing all one's possessions in the land. And the Jubilee corresponds to "Y/yours is Y/yours" since the mitzvah of the Jubilee is that a person returns to their holding and to their family, because in truth E-lohim made humans be on the earth, and distributed to each human an inheritance that corresponds to one's soul-root, and set each under their banner, and said to them: you are My servants. But due to the many desires of making many accounts, until one comes to expand one's boundaries and even acquires one's friends as servants, and this [friend] goes down and sells [the friend's] inheritance to the point that eventually [the friend] sells their own person, it was [necessary to establish that] God's word will exist forever and that it wouldn't, God forbid, change because of the deeds of humans, therefore even though they transgressed the laws regarding humans, [the transgression] does not reach the soul-root, since the Holy One created times when everything returns to their holding, and the [laws of the] Jubilee year were created so that every person will return to their place and the inheritance that belongs to them.
From various statements of the Sages, we may infer that a hasid is one who performs all his deeds by going beyond the letter of the Law.432Hebrew, Lifnim Meshurat haDin. See, for example Talmud Berakhot 45b; cf. the related notion of ‘middat hasidut’ (e.g. Talmud Bava Metziah 52b). Further, the Mishnah in Avot 5:10 states: “What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours—this is a hasid.” Yet also other actions which are not related to the Law nor going beyond it are correlated by the Sages with the hasid, such as “the early hasidim would wait one hour before prayer…”433Mishnah Berakhot 5:1 Note, they did not say that they prayed an hour earlier or took longer to pray, in the sense of working within the parameters of the laws of times for prayer and going beyond the letter of those laws. Rather, they did something new, waiting an hour before and an hour after.434R. Shapiro notes that, while some talmudic texts imply that the hasid is one who executes his legal obligations in a superogatory manner (such as praying even earlier than is mandated by the law), others associate the hasid with one who adopts extra or supra-legal behaviors entirely (such as preparing for prayer before beginning the mandated prayer itself). Yet, see Bava Kamma (100a Tosafot s.v. Lifnim Meshurat haDin), that the principle of going beyond the letter applies only to cases in which others would have been obligated.435And as such is correlated with legal requirements. R. Shapiro is evidencing his claim that the definition of the hasid extends beyond acting lifnim meshurat hadin, for his path extends into non-legal engagements while (according to the Tosafot) actions characterized as lifnim meshurat hadin are indeed legally required—they are just not required for this particular actor! And in the ‘teaching of R. Pinkhas b. Yair’ at the end of Sotah,436Actually, Talmud Avodah Zara 20b. hasidism is mentioned after all the other levels of avodah, even after the level of ‘separation,’ that is separation from that which is permissible, as Rashi explains;437Rashi ad locum. and it is the highest of the levels, bringing one to divine inspiration. This implies that the term hasid does not just describe one who performs a set of actions and is stringent with himself, but rather describes a spiritual state and lofty path of avodah. His additional avodah, as expressed in going beyond the letter of the law yet also in other manners, are the result of his spiritual state and path of avodah.