From:                              JoshHoff@aol.com

Sent:                               Friday, August 22, 2008 3:44 AM

To:                                   JoshHoff@aol.com

Cc:                                   BigBLUE16@aol.com

Subject:                          Netvort:parshas Eikev, 5768

 

   Body and Soul
                        By Rabbi Joshua (gastronomically known as The Hoffer)Hoffman
                
                 Moshe, in admonishing the nation to adhere to all of God's mitzvos,tells them to remember all that,during their forty years in the wilderness, God led them and afflicted them in order to test their fealty to His mitzvos.He then tells them,"He afflicted you and let you hunger, then He fed you the manna...in order to make you know that man does not live by bread alone,rather by everything that emanates from the mouth of God does man live"( Devarim,8:3).This verse,as a unit,does not seem to cohere. Rabbi Jacob Hertz, in his commentary, explains that ,through the manna,God taught His nation that man has not only a body, but also a soul,and a person should not think that he can exist by providing for his body alone while neglecting his soul..While this statement is certainly true,and this lesson  does emerge from the experience of the nation in the wildernes, it is not at all clear how the manna, in particular,taught them this lesson.
                
                 Rabbi Avraaham Korman,in his work HaParshas LeDoroseiha,re-formulates a teaching of the great kabbalist, Rav Yitzchak Luria, in which he states that through the manna,the people were able to understand that  the physical aspects of man and his soul need to work together.,and that  the physical aspects of the world are sustained by God.I believe that this teaching can be derived from our verse,based on a teaching of the Maharal of Prague, in his Novella to the Aggados of the Talmud  Bava Basra, 74 (my thanks to  my chavrusah, Dr. Henry Hersh of Washington Heights, for pointing this Maharal out to me)..He writes there  that the word achilah, generally translated as 'eating,'  actually has a much wider meaning. For example, in the beginning of parshas Eikev, Moshe tells the people that, in Eretz Yisroel,"you shall devour ( ve-achalta) all of the peoples that the Lord,your God delivers to you ( Devarim, 7:16).Although most commentators explain the word 've-achalta' used here to mean devour, in the sense of destroying, Maharal gives a much different explanation. He says that the word 'achol' means to provide for someone's needs.In the case of the nations in Cana'an that the Jewish nation will 'devour,' what Moshe is saying is that each of the nations has a certain national characteristic ,a certain talent that characterizes the nation.This is, in fact,true of all of the seventy nations,and the Jewish nation needs to adapt each of these characteristics and use them for its overall goal in this world. When Moshe tells the people that they will devour these nations,what he means is that they will take over the various characteristics of these nations,thus providing for their own national needs. According to Rav Kook,once the Jewish nation adapts these characteristics,it then places them in the prism of their connection with God,and thereby purifies each of them.In any case,we see from the Maharal that the term for eating actually means to provide for one's needs. Transferring this meaning to the experience  that the nation had with the manna,we can then say that when God fed manna to the nation,he was providing for their needs,meaning that through the manna He made them aware of the intrinsic connection between body and soul. However,we still need to understand what it was about the manna that taught the people this message.
                
                 The midrash tells us that a feature of the manna was that it tasted like whatever the person who was eating it thought about,or wanted it to taste like.What was the purpose behind this feature? Why couldn't the manna simply  taste like the most delicious food imaginable? I would like to suggest that God wanted the people to develop their powers of imagination, as a means of readying them for His upcoming revelation at Mt.Sinai ( my thanks to the author of tikkun rachel@gmail.com, a weeky parsha mailing,for inspiring this idea, although her approach in answering the question is somewhat different). According to some major medieval Jewish philosophical writers ,the imaginative faculty plays a major role in the attainment of prophecy. While the Jews were in Egypt,they had no opportunity to use this faculty,and there was now a need for them to change this situation. By leaving the taste of the manna up to the imagination of each person,  God was  forcing them into a situation in which they had to develop their imagination as part of the process of eating their daily bread. Interestingly,Rabbeinu Bachya, in parshas Beshalach,writes that the special nature of the manna prepared the people for the revelatlon at Mt.Sinai,but he does not explain how this occurred. Perhaps,then,it was the very use of the imagination as part of the experience of eating the manna that helped prepared the people for the attainment of prophecy that they achieved at Mt.Sinai. Although this level of prophecy was not sustained after the experience of the revelation,,the Ramban writes, in the beginning of parshas Terumah,  that the purpose of the mishkan was to carry over the experience at Mt.Sinai into the daily life of the people, albeit in a less public way. Moreover,when Yehsohua complained to Moshe that Eldad and Medad were prophesying in the camp,Moshe replied that he would like all of the people to be prophets ( Bamidbar,11:29).. The continued consumption of the manna throughout the forty years in the wilderness helped aided the people in the achievement of this ideal.
                 
                 
                 
                 Although the experience of the manna was unique to the wilderness,the connection between body and soul that it taught applies to the eating of ordinary food,as well, through the institution of berachos, the blessings we make before we eat. There is a halacha which is derived from a verse in this week's parsha ( Devarim,11:15) which requires a person to feed his animal before he partakes of his own food.The Torah tells us"and I will give grass in your fields for your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied." The simple meaning of this verse, as once noted by the late Rabbi Dr. Louis Rabinowtiz of South Africa, is that God will provide food for our animals, which will, as a result, become robust and provide us, after their slaughter, with some tasty steaks. However, the Talmud (Berachos, 40) learns from the order of events in this verse that a person should feed his animals before he himself eats.  Rav Avrohom Yitzchok HaKohein Kook, in his commentary to the aggadic sections of the Talmud, Ein Ayah, explains  that whereas a human being, when he is waiting to eat, can engage in other activities, which involve the intellect, an animal does not have that option. Its sole concern is satisfying its hunger, and every moment that we withhold its food is a kind of torture. That is why it is more important to feed the animal than to indulge in our own food( see Netvort to parshas Eikev,5764,for more on this)..  Following our  explanation of the workings of the manna,in teaching man the connection between body and soul,we can say that when man is hungry, he has an opportunity to contemplate the fact that it is God who provides him with his food,and,in this way, connect the physical act of eating with the spiritual underpinning of his connection with God. and  his dependence on Him. Although most berachos are not Biblically ordained,the author of the medieval halachic work,Shibolei HaLeket, writes that the requirement of reciting one hundred berachos each day,which is also attached,by the Talmud, There is another a verse in this week's parsha,"And Now, Yisroel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul" ( Devarim, 10, 12),from which the Talmud derives a requirement to recite one hundred blessings a day.) The Hebrew word for 'what,'- 'mah'- can easily be read as 'meah,' which means 'one hundred.' This requirement is generally understood to be rabbinic, not actually derived from the verse, but connected to it merely through a hint. There is, however an opinion among medieval authorities, mentioned in the halachic compendium Shibbolei HaLeket, that the institution of one hundred daily blessings is of Biblical origin. This opinion is difficult,since almost all berachos,with the exception of Birchas HaMazon, or 'grace after meals' and perhaps the blessings over the Torah,are only of rabbinic origin.Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, however,explained that,according to the Rambam,the idea behind the requirement of reciting one hundred blessings a day is to turn to God constantly throughout the day,and thereby attain the fear and love of God,which are Biblical requirements ( see Netvort to parshas Eikev,5758,for more on this)..  Thus,the model of the manna,through which the daily activity of eating taught the nation how to keep body and soul together through the act of eating, has been  carried over into our daily activity of eating ordinary food,as well, as well,when seen with the proper perspective.In this way, we can constantly remind ourselves that,indeed,man does not live  on bread alone.




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