Our Gemara on Amud Beis describes the right of a king to appropriate passageways through private property:

The Mishna teaches: A king’s thoroughfare has no maximum measure. The Gemara explains: This is because the halakha is that a king may breach (poretz) the fence of an individual in order to create a thoroughfare for himself, and none may protest his actions.

The Hebrew word for this domain expansion is “poretz”, which is also used to connote any form of spreading out. For example, the verse (Bereishis 28:14) states:

Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread (paratzta) the out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. 

This royal quality to expand is a dimension of the human spirit, as relative to the situation, every human can be royalty. A human is royal and privileged in comparison to a beast, and the Chosen People can be a “Kingdom of Priests and a holy nation” (Shemos 19:6) in comparison to other nations.

Sefat Emes, (Genesis, Vayetzei 4.7 and Devarim Re’eh 2:3) also sees this as a description of the human soul’s ability to tap into the infinite. When a person allows for awareness of God to enter, he opens his soul for abundance and expansion that is limitless. The human experience of physical desire is a reflection of the metaphysical yearning for attachment and wholeness via Unio Mystica, to return to the source.

He says, this is the deeper meaning of the verse (Devarim 12:20):

When Hashem enlarges your territory, as promised, and you say, “I shall eat some meat,” for your soul has the urge to eat meat, you may eat meat whenever you wish.

The verse literally means soul, as it is hinting at the desire for expansion and connection that comes from arousal of the soul’s yearning.

Translations Courtesy of Sefaria, except when, sometimes, I disagree with the translation

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