Halakhah sur L’Exode 16:4

It is good to recite the passage of the Binding (Genesis 22:1-19), the passage of the Manna (Exodus 16:4-36), the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-13), and the passages of the burnt-offering (Leviticus 1:1-17), tribute-offering (Leviticus 2:1-13), peace-offering (Leviticus 3:1-17), sin-offering (Vayikra 4:27-35), and guilt-offering. Rem"a: But only in private is it permissible to recite the Ten Commandments each day: it is forbidden to recite them in congregation (Rashb"a Responsum 144).

It is good to recite the passage of the Binding (Genesis 22:1-19), the passage of the Manna (Exodus 16:4-36), the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-13), and the passages of the burnt-offering (Leviticus 1:1-17), tribute-offering (Leviticus 2:1-13), peace-offering (Leviticus 3:1-17), sin-offering (Vayikra 4:27-35), and guilt-offering. Rem"a: But only in private is it permissible to recite the Ten Commandments each day: it is forbidden to recite them in congregation (Rashb"a Responsum 144).

And you knew that there are many other particulars in the laws of netilah, such as water that has dripped from an animal drinking, and water which is salted, and with water that a baker rinses his hands in, and two that have taken from a fourth, and with one of one’s hands rinsing, the other taken up to wash which they call in the Talmud, Massakhet Gittin “clean hands,” and if one is permitted to accept water from a gentile or from a menstruating woman, since there are those who have written that water is not accepted from a foreigner, and so on in many other things like this. And it is the rule with the laws of “ha-motzi’”, and likewise the rest of the blessings we are going to discuss, and other blessings of the table, for which there are many other particulars that I have omitted and not written about, for if I had decided to write about these particulars, the book would have been too long. For it is my intention to speak only briefly about generally known rules. Those in the know will know the particulars that go with them.

A second blessing “Ha-motzi’ lehem min ha-aretz” is from the words of the scribes, which they derived a fortiori: “If one who has satisfied his hunger says a blessing, how much the more so ought one when he is hungry say a blessing.”⁵⁸B. Berakhot 35a. The explanation is that when one has satisfied his hunger and has already enjoyed the holy things of Heaven, which until he has said a blessing are prohibited to him as if they were hekdesh, how much the more so when he is hungry and about to enjoy the holy things of Heaven ought he say a blessing before eating them, so as not to be penalized with having to make a sacrilege offering (korban me’ilah).⁵⁹That is, the offering required for someone who has “stolen” the sacred food set aside for the priests. You would think that one should say “min ha-adamah” – “from the ground” in this blessing, but it gets the expression from Scripture: “le-hotzi’ lehem min ha-‘aretz.”⁶⁰Ps. 104:14: “to get food out of the earth.” Though ‘adamah and ‘eretz can both mean “earth,” ‘adamah is the term more commonly used when speaking about harvesting food grown in a field. And if you take issue with the precise meaning of the expression “lehem” – “bread,” you will find that it means food in general, as in “he [King Belshazzar] gave a great banquet [lehem],⁶¹Daniel 5:1 (JSB) translating the Aramaic “’avad lehem rav.” since the bread itself is not what comes forth from the earth, but rather the produce from which they make bread. And so you will find with the manna: “I will rain down bread [lehem] for you from the sky.”⁶²Ex. 16:4. It is well known that bread did not come down from the sky, but the manna out of which they made bread,” as it is said, “they would make it into cakes.”⁶³Nu. 11:8.

And it is necessary that you know that human eating is nothing but an illusion, that it is not a true thing or a real activity, that it is something deceptive, something that keeps changing as it goes through the internal organs in a sequence of causes and effects. But ideas refined through wisdom, and by the attachment of one’s thought to the light of the intellect to the Upper Wisdom is itself “real and lasting eating,” as in the way that our Sages of blessed memory interpreted the verse: “‘And they envisioned God, and they ate and drank.’¹²Ex 24:11. R. Yohanan says, ‘real eating,’ [akhilah vada’it], as it is said, ‘In the light of the face of the King – life!’¹³Prov.16:15. And it is necessary for you to think hard about this verse, why it was necessary to say, ‘they envisioned,’ and why wasn’t it written as it was just before, ‘they saw?¹⁴Ex. 24:10. But rather because it specified ‘they saw’ so you would not understand [what happened next] as actual seeing with the sense of your eye, it follows that it was necessary to say ‘they envisioned’ immediately afterward to teach you that this wasn’t this prior kind of ‘seeing’ [re’iyah], but rather seeing by means of prophecy, and that is why it said, ‘And they envisioned [va-yehezu] God, and they ate and drank,’ from the term for prophetic “vision” [mahzeh]. And the explanation of the Scripture ‘And they envisioned God, and they ate and drank,’ is that the leaders merited to see with the prophecy of ‘a glass that does not reflect,’ without a barrier, while the rest of Israel had a barrier, and Moses really “saw” directly.¹⁵That is, the leaders’ prophetic vision was better than the Israelites’, but not as direct as Moses.’ “And they ate and drank,” that is to say that their eating and drinking by this vision was indeed “real eating.” And it is also possible to interpret “And they ate and drank” as that they saw by prophecy the very attribute from which they “ate and drank,” that is, from the very same attribute from which the manna came to them, which is the principle behind all their material support, about which matter it is written, “She rises while it is still night,”¹⁶Prov. 31:15. and it is written “Here I am causing it to rain down.”¹⁷Ex 16:4. And you already knew that this was material support that occurred at night, for this is to what ‘She rises while is still night’ is referring. And thus the manna used to come down during the third watch of the night, when the Israelites were sleeping in their beds in the desert. And on the next day they would get up early in the morning and find their sustenance ready for them. This is the meaning of what is written: “So they gathered it every morning.”¹⁸Ex 16:21. And thus you will find in First Temple that the rains used to fall on Wednesday and Shabbat nights, and on the next day they would get up early in the morning to do their work, without wasting any time. And so you also find with King Hezekiah, who said, “Master of the World, I myself don’t have the power in me to pursue enemies, or to sing a victory song, but I sleep on my bed, and you do it.” And the Holy One Blessed be He replied to him, “You sleep in your bed while I do it,” as it is said, “That night, an angel of the Lord struck down 185,000 in the Assyrian camp.”¹⁹2 Kings 19:35. This story about Hezekiah is a midrash from Lam. R. 30. It was about him (or this) David spoke when he said, “In vain do you rise up early and stay up late…He provides as much for His loved ones while they sleep.”²⁰Ps 127:2. The meaning of the Scripture is that what the other peoples achieve through hard work, by getting up early and staying up late to eat the bread for which they toil,²¹An allusion to Ps 127:2. R. Bahya hints here that food “served” to Israelites without any toil, that is, good things God prepares for them while they are asleep, is angelic food. As R. Bahya put in his preface, “Our food is not their food. Their [the angelic beings’] food is conceived in their mind, when they see the face of their Maker. Our food is meager bread, water, and tears, gotten by hard work and toil.” It is like the food Adam ate before the Fall.God provides to His loved ones while they sleep! This is the thing the Holy One provides to the one He loves, at the hour when he’s asleep, with no need to bother about it at all. And from now on any reference to “they ate and drank” means nothing other than a reference to “real eating,” or to eating the manna that was the offspring of the Upper Light – which is “real eating.”