Halakha Mazmur 23:5: Shulchan Shel Arba

And the meal is for the world to come after the resurrection of the dead, and “the cup of blessing” – this is an allegory, for it was already explained that the world to come has in it no eating and drinking, and it comes to teach us about King David (peace be upon him), that he is the first of all the righteous to praise the Holy One Blessed be He. And they said in Tractate Yoma:⁸⁴B. Yoma 76a. “The cup of David in the world to come will be two hundred twenty-one logs, as it is said, ‘You have anointed my head with oil, my cup runs over [revayah].’⁸⁵Ps 23:5. ReVaYa”H by gematria is numerically equivalent to two hundred twenty-one.” All this is an allegory for the matter of the virtues and praises with which he will praise him, and he will be first of all of them in the status of kingship. And already our rabbis z”l explained to us that he is the first of all the righteous in the Garden of Eden, which is the world of souls, which we get from what they said that the Holy One Blessed be He said to Jereboam: “Repent, and then I, you, and the son of Jesse will walk with the righteous in the Garden of Eden.” He replied, “And who shall be at the head?” He said, ‘The son of Jesse.” He said, “Then I do not want to.”⁸⁶B. Sanhedrin 102a. You find yourself learning that just as he [David] is the first among all of the righteous in the Garden of Eden, so, he explained, here in the world to come after the resurrection of the dead, that he is the head of all of them and the first to bless and praise.

However, we are distinguished by our regimen of pleasures [dat sha’ashu’im] from the nations who err, rebel, and sin. For we found our Rock in the desert in the land of souls, and there He set for us a table against the nations, and thus David, said, ‘Set before me a table against my enemies’ [Ps 23:5). There the Lord gave us an abundance of charity and good things. There He gave us a marvelous portion of the bread in our law, bread from heaven through no toil. There He showed us through great love something like the world to come—where the divisions of His marvelously formed angels are fed without toil, hewn from flames and awesome fires; and the planting of the Lord of Hosts. Our holy race is lovely because our heart was tested in the desert. We rose up like sweet-smelling incense to thank the Lord and said a blessing over the table. As it is written regarding the manna: “In the morning you shall have your fill of bread and you shall know that I the Lord am your God.”¹⁹Ex. 16:12. Even while we were in the land of our enemies bearing our punishment,the manna soothed our dry and shriveled gullets,²⁰Nu. 11:6. while the flowering vines of our enemies spread heavy on the ground. Even without temple or altar, no medicine-making; the Torah of the Lord with us will save us from breaking. Marked as we are by our circumcision, fringes, and shaving–– the food on our table will help us recognize and remind ourselves to respect His greatness. Let us bless over the table of Him whose food we have eaten.²¹An allusion to the wording of the grace after meals. It is not so with the wicked, whose sins have earned them aninextinguishable fire;²²Ps. 14:4. their table lies before them like mire. Rising early in the morning they devour food and they do not call to the Lord; their hearts and eyes they raise to what delights them, but toward the One above not even the slightest look. Such is the sentence of the nations, that they are a vile and foolish nation filled with folk devoid of sense. Unlike those other nations is Jacob, for he will bless the sacrifice and then eat it.²³Jer 10:16; I Sam 9:13. All his fruit shall also be set aside for jubilation before the Lord;²⁴Lev 19:24. he will withdraw his right hand until the blessing is drawn back into the ‘palace that is before Me.’²⁵I Kg 6:17 [heykhal lifnay], usually translated as ‘the front part of the House’ (i.e., the Temple). Bahya reads lifnay as “before Me,” in order to allude to the mystical idea that saying a blessing returns the vital energy in what is eaten back to its source in the heavenly realm. This is among the ways of wisdom to keep the heart of man straight upon the path of the Lord’sbright lights, to prevent one straying from the service of his God; so that the temptationsof pleasure would not draw our purpose away from being drawn to Him, nor our sinfulinstincts seduce us from serving our Creator,²⁶An untranslatable wordplay here on yetzer and yotzer. from waiting for Him at the doors of His gates.²⁷Prov. 8:34.