Chasidut su Salmi 78:25

Genesis ‎18,5. “let me take a piece of bread so that you can refresh ‎yourselves,……he presented it to them and they ate.” The true ‎meaning of this verse has been best explained by the Or ‎Hachayim, according to whom even the highest ranking angel, ‎Michael is on occasion referred to as “High Priest,” whereas on ‎other occasions he is known by another name. [Not in my edition ‎of the ‎אור החיים‎. Ed.] The point of this is to alert us to the fact ‎that the standing, or even existence, of the angels in the celestial ‎spheres, is affected by the mitzvah performance of the ‎Israelites in the terrestrial part of the universe. When Israel is ‎meticulous in the performance of G’d’s Torah, then the most ‎senior of the angels in the celestial spheres assumes the title: ‎‎“High Priest.” When Avraham spoke about a ‎פת לחם‎, instead of ‎merely ‎פת‎, bread, he alludes to both the written and the oral ‎Torah. The word ‎פת‎ refers to the written Torah, whereas the word ‎לחם‎ refers to the oral Torah. The word ‎לחם‎ in psalms 78,25 i.e. ‎לחם אבירים‎, is an allusion to the Torah. According to the Talmud ‎‎Menachot 34, the word ‎פת‎ amongst the Africans means ‎‎“two.” [The latter half of the word: ‎טוטפת‎. Ed.] The word is used ‎as an allusion to Torah also in Proverbs 9,5, ‎לכו לחמו בלחמי‎, “come ‎and partake of My bread.” [Compare Alshich, pages 171-172, my ‎translation of Proverbs. Ed.] When Avraham is now described as ‎serving the angels, we may see in this the reward both for ‎Avraham‘s having performed the circumcision on himself, as well ‎as reward for the angels, their being hosted by a person of ‎Avraham’s standing. [Perhaps the mitzvah of hospitality ‎shown the angels by Lot in the following chapter was a factor in ‎his being saved, whereas his wife was not. Ed.] When Avraham, in ‎verse 8, is described as standing next to the angels while the latter ‎were seated while eating, the “tree” mentioned in that verse may ‎be a reference to the tree described as “tree of life” in Proverbs ‎‎3,18, i.e. an allusion to the Torah.

The matter is that when Israel was in Egypt, the iron furnace, they were so clarified that after fifty days they were able to receive the Torah because of their bodies’ clarification. And because of this the Sea of Reeds needed to split for them so they could walk through the sea; this needed to be the order so that they could clarify more and more to the point that afterward, at the Giving of the Torah, our Sages of Blessed Memory said that their impurity ceased (Shabbat 146a). And they continued clarifying in this way, that the materiality continually diminished to the point that after the splitting of the Sea of Reeds they had clarified so much to the extent that they could receive Upper Life-Force without any garment, because of the clarification of their physical materiality. For the abundance flows from above according to the thickness or thinness of the recipient. And the life-force that comes from above is drawn by way of the speech that is fixed in a person’s mouth, as is known. Therefore immediately after the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, the passage of manna is stated, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that each person received Upper Life-Force without any garment, just Man eating the bread of the angels (Psalm 78:25). And by way of what will it be drawn? A day's portion [davar] every day, which is to say by way of the words [dibburim] that they speak from day to day in words of Truth and Torah, until after they have returned to their materiality and their physicality has thickened – therefore the flow descends from above garbed in several garments according to the power of the recipients. And if so, even today in the present there is the aspect of “manna,” but it comes by way of garments; for each person, his life-force is garbed in a vessel, each person according to his aspect, meaning the thing from which his sustenance comes. And the wise person has his eyes in his head (Ecclesiastes 2:14) to understand that the Blessed Creator’s life-force is what is garbed in that thing, and [God] has contracted [God’s] self in that thing, and it is merely a vessel for the Upper Life-Force. Therefore Blessed God said to Moses, Take a jar, and put [an omer of manna in it,] and place it before the LORD to be kept throughout your generations (Ex. 16:33), which is to say that since in the coming generations their physicality will thicken until they can only receive the life-force through a vessel – it needs to garb itself in the material vessel according to the recipients. And that is [the meaning of] Take a jar, which is to say a vessel, and put an omer of manna in it, which is to say manna, the life-force, is garbed within the vessel, which is the jar. And similarly today there is also the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, and afterward the manna comes; for every day we recite the Song of the Sea, and one must imagine in his awareness as if he is reciting the Song at the Sea as in that time. And then it will truly cause the aspect of the splitting of the Sea of Reeds above, as is known, when he recites it with whole intention as is stated regarding this in the Holy Zohar. And afterward he receives life-force as we have said, each according to his aspect. Therefore the Shulhan Arukh wrote, “It is good to recite the passage of Manna” each day (Orah Hayyim 1.5), so that he will know that his sustenance comes from Upper Supervision, and understand this.