No Fast Food
Food is a metaphor for spiritual nourishment. However, food itself contains a spiritual dimension. It is just as important to insure that that which comes into our mouth is as pure as that which comes out of our mouth. Reciting the Grace after Meal insures that we capture the spirt of the food and the food of the spirit.
Food is Serious Business
Eating is one of the most important aspects of life. The food industry is one of the most pervasive influences in our lives. One of the most popular forms of food consumption is “fast food,” which allows a person to get his food, eat it and be off to the next thing as quickly as possible.
Yes Esau, the man who symbolized brute force and uncouthness, is credited with “fast food” when he gulped down the lentils he bought for his birthright. The Torah describes his meal as: “He ate and he drank, he arose and left. Esau disgraced the birthright.”
Judaism, however, does not have a concept of “fast food.” Eating is serious business, as the commandment to bless G-d after eating, that we read about in this week’s parsha, attests.
Interestingly, the only place where the Torah requires that we recite a blessing is after a person eats his meal. All other traditional blessings, including the one to bless G-d before we eat, were mandated by the rabbis.
Where’s the Manna?
How many people spend any time thinking why did G-d create a world in which a human being would have to ingest other lower forms of existence such as minerals, plant life and animals, for survival? Wouldn’t it have been more “logical” for G-d to have given us “manna” from heaven?
The answer, provided, by the great kabbalist, the Arizal, is that every piece of food contains hidden “sparks” of holiness. This spiritual energy engendered by eating physical food is more potent than the spiritual energy we can access from spiritual experiences.
This, the Arizal, based on a principle of Kabbalah that the “higher something is the lower it falls.” The most sublime G-dly light can be found in the lowliest aspects of life.
To underscore the material and spiritual significance of the culinary experience, the Torah commands us to recite the Birkat Hamazon, or the Grace After Meals, that comprises four separate blessings.
Grace after Meals: Part One-Manna from Heaven
The first blessing “Hazan es Ha-olam-Who sustains the world,” our sages tell us, was instituted by Moses, to thank G-d for the Manna that descended from heaven.
This blessing is intended to teach us that all our food is the equivalent with Manna from heaven.
Notwithstanding all of our efforts to produce this food, we have to realize that it is in essence Manna from heaven. Without G-d’s blessing there would be no food.
The story is told of the great Chassidic Master, Reb Zushe who had an attendant who used to bring him his breakfast daily. Each and every time Reb Zushe would sit down to eat he would address G-d by saying “Zushe is hungry” and would then recite the blessing and eat the food.
The attendant was upset that Reb Zushe made it sound that G-d was directly responsible for his food. He decided to leave now food for Reb Zushe the next day. “Let me see G-d give him food tomorrow,” he said.
That day Reb Zushe was walking in the street and some rich man decided to have fun at Reb Zushe’s expense and pushed him into the mud when he was walking on a precarious log.
Onlookers were aghast and told him that the man he pushed into the mud was a saintly man. The rich man decided to mollify Reb Zushe and delivered him a lavish breakfast the next day… Grace after Meals: Part Two-Bread from Earth The second blessing “Nodeh lecha-We thank you,” our sages further inform us was enacted by Joshua, when the Land of Israel was conquered and settled by the Jewish people. This teaches us that it does not suffice to thank G-d for the food alone; one must also express gratitude for the ability to grow our own food, by having access to the land.
Notwithstanding the superior quality of Manna that descended from heaven that had no undesirable parts to it, we are nevertheless, grateful to G-d for giving us the “lower grade” food — Bread of the Earth.
The advantage that this bread has over the Manna is twofold:
Firstly: according to the aforementioned teaching of the Arizal, that the “higher something is the lower it falls,” it follows that the spiritual energy that comes from the earth is actually more potent than the spiritual energy that comes from the heavens.
Secondly, the Talmud states that “A person prefers one small measure of his own than a much greater measure that one can get from others.”
Thus, the second part of the Birkas Hamazon is our way of expressing gratitude to G-d for giving us the opportunity to expend our own efforts in sustaining life.
Indeed, Judaism is based on the belief that G- d created the world for us so that we will enhance the world, fix the world and ultimately bring the world to a state of perfection in the Messianic Era. But, we cannot reach that objective with just G-d given energies. It is crucial that we invest our own efforts in the performance of Mitzvos to make the changes occur.
To use a culinary metaphor, there are no
“fast food” establishments in Jewish life. Everything must come with effort.
Grace after Meals: Part Three-Temple and Davidic Dynasty
This may explain why the third component of the Birkat Hamazon speaks of the building of the Temple and the Davidic dynasty.
In order to reach the desired goal of bringing Moshiach who will build the Temple that epitomizes the state of perfection that will ultimately prevail, we must first “cultivate the land,” i.e., expend our own energies in making the world an ideal place.
Grace after Meals: Part Four-Gratitude for Little things
The fourth blessing, “Hatov V’Hameitiv” was composed as a result of the amelioration of the horrific conditions that prevailed shortly after the destruction of the city of Beitar. After destroying Beitar on Tisha B’Av, the Romans did not initially allow the Jews to bury the dead. Finally, on the fifteenth of Av, they relented. Miraculously, the bodies did not decay.
For this double kindness — that the bodies did not decay and the opportunity to bury their dead — the Rabbis instituted the fourth blessing of Birkat Hamazon.
This blessing is a vivid reminder, that even as we wait for the Redemption to occur, we must be grateful for all the “little” things and “minor” changes for the good that we experience now in the time of exile, because they represent the seeds that will lead to the blossoming of an age when we will be able to thank G-d for complete, unmitigated, goodness that we will experience.
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Ekev by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
