Futile to seek exact answers to pi through Kabbalah; however much one studies Kabbalah, it remains infinitesimal compared to what lies beyond; Kabbalah emphasizes the primacy of mitzvah performance, whose unknowable essence transcends understanding.
By the Grace of G-d
10th of Tammuz, 5723
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Mr. . . .
L.A.
Greeting and Blessing:
This is in reply to your letter of June 8, with enclosure which is returned herewith, as requested.
Your letter concerns the problem of "squaring the circle," or the problem of the Pi, and contains your suggested method of ascertaining the circumference, as well as the square area of any circle, without the use of the Pi; and you ask my opinion regarding your method.
Needless to say, the problem is not to find approximate values, since this could be achieved even by simple measurement, producing the result, for practical purposes at any rate, of 3 plus, or more closely - 3.14, etc.
The problem is to set down Pi in exact figures.
The methods you suggest do not, of course, produce the desired exact values. If you apply your methods to circles of large dimensions, the inexactitude of your method will become more apparent.
The sources dealing with the history of the search for the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of any circle (Pi) trace its development from the simple 3:1 to computations running to numerous decimals, and while the approximation has been narrowed, it still remains and will remain an approximation. In the light of this, your method offers no solution.
A propos of your interest in kabbalah, I trust you know that Kabbalah stresses the practical fulfillment of the Divine commandments, even if they appear “irrational” (as Pi is unjustly called an “irrational” number). For, generally speaking, the Kabbalah is called the “Esoteric Discipline,” and however much one may grasp of it, the grasped quantity will always remain infinitesimal in relation to the unfathomable part of it. Similarly in the matter of the Divine precepts which we are to fulfil in our daily life; their most important aspect is not the amount of knowledge that one can amass about them at any given time, for their unknown and unknowable quality will always exceed the capacity of the finite human mind. What I wish to bring out is the absolute necessity of the fulfillment of the Divine commands in the daily life, beginning with putting on Tefillin every weekday morning, and so on, leading up to the seventh day, Shabbos, which is holy unto G-d, being the culmination of the basic time cycle (and as the significance of the number seven is amply explained in the Kabbalah) which must be observed by cessation of work and the other ways of keeping the Sabbath holy, as explained in detail in the Shulchan Aruch.
I hope and pray that you make steady advancement in the fulfillment of the daily precepts, which experience in itself gives a deeper insight into their meaningfulness, which no amount of study alone can supplant, any more than the study of the digestive process can satisfy the hungry; nor can the hungry man put his mind to such study, while if he is well-fed all his capacities will increase. The analogy is obvious.
Hoping to hear good news from [you],
With blessing
By (secretary)
