Pesach Feature
Watch what you eat!
By: Rabbi Schnerb
“Every one of us has the power through all of our actions to completely vanquish all of our enemies.”
Food! It’s one of our most enjoyable topics of conversation, and possibly our favourite pastime. We all know why food is so important. We need it to support growth and development, reduce the risk of chronic disease, and provide us with all the macro and micronutrients that we need. We all fully understand that many factors can affect the nutritional value, the taste, and the effect of the food that we eat. The way in which they are cooked or prepared, variations in the ingredients that are added or left out, and freshness all play a factor; as does our age, health, expectations, and even our emotional state.
However, there may be a much more subtle and hidden factor that can influence the effect that food is going to have upon us, and that is the attitude, and perhaps emotional state of those who are actually providing us with the food.
The Zohar, at the beginning of the Book of Shemos, brings a verse: “Do not eat of a stingy man’s food, and do not crave for his dainties.”[1] Rebbi Chiya teaches that this is because a person who lacks the attribute of generosity, introduces a type of spiritual negativity into the food he gives others to eat. He posits that if the family of Yaakov had not eaten from the food that was ultimately provided to them by the Egyptians, there would have been no need for them to have been enslaved in Egypt. The Zohar continues with Rav Yitzchok asking Rav Chiya: “The decree that the Jews had to go into exile and endure slavery had been announced to Avraham some 150 years before, by the Covenant Between the Parts, so how can you say that it was dependent on the food that was given by the Egyptians to Yaakov’s family, when it really was predetermined much before that?” Rav Chiya responded that the original decree was that the Jews had to be “strangers in a land that was not theirs”. There was no stipulation that it had to specifically be Egypt. In fact, the Jews could have remained in the land of Canaan, which at that point was inhabited by other nations, and therefore was not their land. They did not have to suffer at all the rigors of slavery! Only when Yosef’s brothers went to Egypt to buy provisions that were supplied by the Egyptians, was the decree updated that they had to specifically go to Egypt and be slaves. The Zohar concludes that if a person has occasion to be in the presence of a host who is known to be a stingy person, he should not eat his food, because there is nothing worse in the world than the food of the stingy man.
Rav Chaim Vital[2] brings that the root cause for all of the Jews’ exiles amongst the nations dates back to Adam HaRishon, whose soul included the composite of all the other souls that would ever be implanted into a Jewish person. When Adam committed the first gargantuan sin, all of those neshamos, so to speak, fell into a pool, laced with spiritual filth and impurities; those impurities later developed into the 70 nations of the world. Therefore, at various times during their history, the Jews need to be subjugated under the control of every single one of those 70 nations, in order to bring back those neshamos. This is alluded to in a statement of the Gemara[3]: “Why are the Jews sent into exile amongst the nations? In order to add to their numbers by attracting converts.”
“We have the potential to purify and bring rectification to every type of available food in the world.”
Perhaps we can add to the words of Rav Chaim Vital that since the first sin of Adam came through an act of eating, namely, eating from the Tree of Knowledge, the greatest challenges to all of those neshamos is in the area of food. As our travels and persecutions send us to every country in the world, and we eat all the different types of cuisine offered in that environment, we have the potential to purify and bring rectification to every type of available food in the world, and remove that ensconced poison, injected into it at the time of Adam’s sin. By preceding our eating with a proper Bracha, and eating with the dignity and sense of holiness that every Jew must apply to everything he does, we can elevate and sanctify all the food we imbibe. However, if, chas v’shalom, we eat the food brutishly, or in an uncouth manner, then, on the contrary, that nation is given permission to have control over us, and we are then subjugated by them.
When the brothers of Yosef, the 10 tribes, descended to Egypt, they saw the neshamos that had been scattered in the land of Egypt, and they believed they would be able to raise those souls by eating the produce of Egypt, but unfortunately, the poison of Egypt overcame them, and the Egyptians were given permission to dominate and enslave the Jewish nation. 210 years later, the Jews were redeemed from Egypt. They merited the holiday of Pesach, whose main mitzvah is the eating of matzah. Matzah is composed of 100% kedusha – holiness, without even a tinge of the impurity brought to the world by the sin of Adam HaRishon. As a result, there is no potential in the matzah to allow any nation to control the Jews, and, on the contrary, the matzah is called “the bread of healing” and provides an immunisation to those who eat it. For the entire subsequent year, no matter what local cuisines we are required to eat, we will be protected from the malevolent spiritual effects of that food.
We can then possibly understand the opinion of the Sfas Emes[4] that just as in order to fulfil the mitzvah of taking the four species on the first day of Sukkos they must actually belong to the person who wants to fulfil the mitzvah, so too there is an obligation on every host on seder night to gift to each guest the matzah they are going to eat, so that it is actually theirs. It’s okay, don’t worry, because most of the other authorities argue and posit that so long as the eater has permission to eat that matzah, it is considered sufficiently his. However, based on what we have said above, we can perhaps present a rationale why the matzah specifically needs to belong to the person who is going to perform the mitzvah. When the host happily and willingly gifts the matzah to his guest, we can be sure that this matzah contains only positivity and is not the bread of a stingy person. This is the ultimate actualisation of the freedom from Egypt, when our food is completely free of any spiritual contamination.
The Chiddushei HaRim writes that the language of a particular nation is very indicative of the core elements of their national persona. He cites, as an example, that the French language is very sensual, because that plays a huge role in the psyche of the French people. Therefore, if one eats a croissant in Paris, with a feeling of holiness and purity, then he raises the level of that food to be almost like a sacrifice; but if it’s just a mere act of carnal enjoyment, then he is affected by the characteristics of the food he has eaten, and places himself in a compromised position. It may very well be that when the Gemara[5] says that the entire persecution in Persia occurred because the Jews enjoyed the feast of King Achashverosh, that very act may have made them susceptible, and gave Haman control over them.
“Shabbos food creates a fortress of purity that can raise us above all of these traumas.”
This also explains the Gemara[6] which says that anyone who conscientiously eats three meals on Shabbos is saved from three terrible types of suffering: from the upheavals in the period leading to the coming Geulah, from being judged in Gehinom, and from the final battle of Gog and Magog. This is because all of our Shabbos food which is super charged with holiness, like the matzah, provides intense levels of protection from all types of external influences, and creates a fortress of purity that can raise us above all of these traumas.
This gives us a very new appreciation for the produce grown in the land of Israel. The Bach writes that the fruits of the land of Israel are so elevated, because they are nourished by a land that is intrinsically holy. Eretz Yisrael is referred to as the land flowing with milk and honey which, while certainly is meant to be taken literally, also signifies a connotation of the sweetness of Torah, and a close relationship with Hashem. It is interesting to note that the last letter of those three words (shin, beis, and tav) make up the word Shabbos, because what one can achieve by eating Shabbos food as well as the produce of Eretz Yisroel is potentially elevating and life-changing. The only conditions necessary for a person to be able to accrue all of these amazing benefits are, firstly, an awareness that he is doing something more than the animalistic act of “stuffing his face”, and that he eats, as always, in moderation.
The Gemara[7] relates that Rav Chisda and Rav Hamnuna were sitting together and were brought dates and pomegranates. Rav Hamnuna made the bracha over the dates and Rav Chisda protested that in the verse which lists the seven species for which Eretz Yisrael is praised, pomegranates come first. Rav Hamnuna explained that in that verse the word ‘Eretz’ appears twice, and whatever is closer to either ‘Eretz’ gets precedence. Rav Chisda was so overwhelmed by Rabbi Hamnuna’s genius that he said, “If only I had iron legs, I could follow you wherever you go.” This is the only place in the entire Shas where the expression iron legs appears! What does it mean? The Ben Ish Chai says that Rav Chisda understood that Rav Hamnuna’s greatness emanated from a love for Eretz Yisrael and its Torah scholars, to the extent that he was able to destroy all of the negative energy. This facilitated the respite to achieve total clarity in his Torah scholarship. He explains that the prophet Daniel refers to the Roman empire as having iron legs[8], and Rav Chisda understood that this power of Rav Hamnunah’s Torah could break the legs of all our physical enemies.
In fact, every one of us has the power through all of our actions to completely vanquish, and cause a “cease to exist” to all of our enemies. Every Friday night we recite the Kiddush, which ushers in the holiness of Shabbos. Kiddush contains two main components, the paragraph beginning with the word “Vayechulu” and the actual blessing over the day. The paragraph of “Vayechulu” contains 35 words and the blessing of Kiddush (using the text of nussach Sefarad) also has 35 words, alluding to the 70 nations. Our sanctification of ourselves, and our ability to connect to Shabbos, to Torah, and even to our own gastronomy, gives us incredible energy and power to become impervious to the influence of the seventy nations (35+35), and ultimately to completely overpower them.
