Halakhah su Esodo 24:78

A third blessing is “boray peri ha-gafen” – “Who created the fruit of the vine.” One cannot say that blessing the bread exempts one from saying it, because wine “attaches” a blessing to itself.⁷⁹An expression used by the Tosafot on b.Berakhot 44a. It would seem preferable for us to say “boray peri ha-etz” – “Who created the fruit of the tree” – but because of the high status of wine, they specified the name of the tree, that is, “the grapevine” [ha-gafen]. For had they not wanted to specify the name “the grapevine” because of wine’s importance, they could have fixed the blessing to say “boray peri ha-anavim” – “Who created the fruit of the grapes” because grapes themselves are the fruit of the grapevine, and wine is the fruit which comes from grapes, just as oil is the fruit that comes from olives. Accordingly, they fixed the blessing “boray peri ha-gafen” even though truthfully, grapes are the fruit of the vine, still, the drink which is pressed from the grapes is the fruit of the grapes themselves, and this is because it is considered more important than grapes, just as oil is considered more important than olives. And the Tosafists z”l went back and forth on this topic a lot, and they proved that wine is not called “fruit”, as it is taught in Massekhet Bikkurim:⁸⁰Chavel says this tradition appears in b.Hullin 102b, not in the Mishnah Bikkurim. “’from the first of every fruit of the earth:’ the fruit which you bring as first fruit offerings, and you do not bring drinks as first fruit offerings; therefore wine is not a fruit.” However, they brought these matters up again at the end, and said that wine is called “fruit” by gezerah shavah,⁸¹Verbal analogy, one of the classic forms of Talmudic hermeneutics. since in another context, the word “fruit,” namely “fruit of orlah”⁸²Orlah is the term for fruit that grows from a tree in the first three years after it was planted; it is forbidden to eat or profit from it (Lev.19:23). refers to wine, in Massekhet Orlah:⁸³Likewise Chavel found the source not here, but elsewhere in the Talmud. “They absorb the forty because of orlah only for what comes out of grapes and olives, namely, wine and oil.” And hear from this that just as in regard to orlah wine is called “fruit,” so in regard to blessings it is called “fruit.” The drinks that come from them are like them. And so from this one ought to say the blessing over wine with the expression “boray peri ha-gafen,” and thus to specify the name “gafen” by saying “peri ha-gafen.” And so our sages z”l explained it for us when they said in Massekhet Berakhot, “From where do we get that you only say a song over wine, as it is said, ‘But the vine replied, ‘Have I stopped yielding my new wine which gladdens God and men?’’⁸⁴Judges 9:13. If it gladdens men, how does it gladden God? From here you get that you only say a song over wine.⁸⁵In other words, since God does not actually drink wine, this tradition says that songs inevitably accompany wine-drinking, and must be what gladdens God. And thus an objection was raised among the Tosafists: “But surely it is over several things that we say Hallel, like when they came from battle, as it is said about Jehoshaphat in the Book of Chronicles,⁸⁶2 Chronicles 20:21. or on the Fourteenth of Nisan, when they slaughtered the paschal lamb!” They answered and explained thus, “From where do we get that a song is said over nothing that has to do with the sacrificial altar, such as the flinging of blood, the burning of incense, the water libation, and the rest of the activities of the altar – except for the wine libation, as it is said, ‘But the vine replied to them, ‘Have I stopped yielding my new wine [tiroshi]?’’⁸⁷Judges 9:13. And they said in the Aggadah: “Nine hundred twenty-six kinds of grapes were created in the world, the numerical equivalent of the letters of the word tiroshi – “my new wine,” but all of them were stricken when Adam sinned, and only one remained for us.”⁸⁸Chavel says he could not find the source for this midrash. The status of the grapevine is further enhanced in the way the prophets would always compare the community of Israel to a grapevine, and this is what Scripture meant when it said, “You plucked up a grapevine from Egypt.”⁸⁹Ps. 80:9. And there are still other weightier reasons, but it is not necessary to go into them at length here. Know that the point of human wine-drinking ought to be only in service of food for health reasons alone, so that the food and drink will be mixed internally in a moderate manner, and that one direct the way he conducts his drinking to overcome his hunger and thirst.

If the wine is changed, one must say a blessing, because even though he has already said “boray peri ha-gafen” when he was about to drink in the beginning, he is required to say a blessing for this change of wine, and this is the blessing “ha-tov ve-ha-metiv.”⁹⁴B.Berakhot 59b; Tur and Orah Hayim 175:1. So why did they say this for a change a wine, and not for a change of loaf or other things? For many reasons: (1) The crucial component for rejoicing at a meal is none other than wine. The way of kings is to change their wine, but not their loaf, and the people Israel are “the sons of kings.”⁹⁵B. Shabbat 67a. (2) Every table onto which they bring wine after wine is an expression of the multiplication of joy, but a person should not multiply his joy too much in this world, as it is said, “Our mouths shall be filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. They shall say among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them!’”⁹⁶Ps 126:2: Az yimalay s’hok pinu ulshonenu rinah az yomru ba-goyim. Higdil Adonai la’asot im eleh,” from Shir Ha-ma’a lot that we recite on holidays and Shabbat before birkat ha-mazon.Our rabbis taught in a midrash,⁹⁷B.Berakhot 31a. “When ‘will our mouths be filled with laughter’? When the nations (i.e., the Gentiles) say, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ Another verse completes this thought, “They will rejoice with trembling.”⁹⁸Ps. 2:11 They said, “In a place of rejoicing there will be trembling.” The explanation is that even in a place where there is rejoicing and joy from doing a mitzvah, there it is necessary that there be some trembling, too, to remember how the world is subject to the evil inclination and is shaken by it, so that it should not be shaken by our joy. Therefore it is a custom in a few Jewish communities at life cycle celebrations and meals celebrating a mitzvah to break there a vessel of glass or “flagons of grapes”⁹⁹Assisay ‘anavim, from Hos. 3:1– variously translated as “cups of the grapes” (JSB); “flagons of grapes (KJB); or even “cakes of raisins.” (RSV). to sadden those rejoicing, so that the simhah be mixed a little bit with trembling. And there is no greater simhah than Israel’s rejoicing at receiving the Torah [Simhat Ha-Torah] on Mt. Sinai, in the presence of the Holy One, about which it is written “like the Mahanayim dance,”¹⁰⁰Song of Songs 7:1. Mahana’im (lit., “two camps”) is the dual form of the word for “camp” – mahaneh. When Israel “married God” as it were at Mt. Sinai, the dancing at that “wedding,” that is the joy they expressed then, was like no other joy experienced on earth. Even the angels came down from heaven to celebrate and dance with them! This is an allusion to a midrash that applies this verse to Ex. 19:17 (M. Tanhuma Titzaveh 11), which R. Bahya brings in his Commentary on the Torah to Ex. 19:17: “Moses led the people out of the camp [mahaneh] toward God.” He says there
Our rabbis taught in a midrash, “600,000 ministering angels descended there corresponding to the 600,000 Israelites. And about them Jacob hinted, “He named that place Mahana’im.” (Gen 32:3), for there were two camps, one next to the other. And it is about this that King Solomon (peace be upon him) was talking when he said “like the Mahanai’m dance.” (S.S. 7:1). It was because the Israelites have been enslaved to four empires, and each one of them says that the Israelites should turn from their own faith and believe in them, which is why the verse in Song of Songs (7:1) repeats the imperative “turn” four times. And we today are subject to the fourth empire, who says, “Turn and let us seek out from among you” [nehezeh bakh], that is, “Let us make some of you political authorities, and give you all kinds of ruling power,” with the expression “nehezeh bakh” [literally, “let us gaze upon you”] having the same connotation a similar phrase has in Ex. 18:21: “You shall seek out from among all the people – tehezeh mikol ha-‘am – [all the capable men … to set them over the people as chiefs of thousands, hundreds, etc.”]. And our rabbis also taught this midrash (Song of Songs Rabbah 7:1): “’The Shulammite’ –is ha-ummah she-shalom ha-olamim dar be-tokhah– the people within whom the peace of the world resides [i.e., the Israelites], and she replies, ‘What would you ‘seek out’ [for leaders] from the Shulammite? [Mah tehezah ba-Shulamit?], that is, “What ruling power, status, and glory could you give to the Shulammite that you could ever find comparable to the state of joy the Israelites experienced at Mt. Sinai. This is “like the Mahanai’m dance:” two camps that would go out one before the other. And they compared the pleasure of the experience they achieved at the revelation there to a dance. To the same point our rabbis z”l taught, “In the future the Holy One Blessed be He will arrange a dance for the righteous in the Garden of Eden, so that I will never be able to turn to your [Gentile] faith, because I remember this dance – that is, like the one at Mt. Sinai. (Chavel, 2:173).
And yet, even at this peak of joy, there was the breaking of the tablets, like the breaking of the glass now to temper the pure joy at weddings. yet you know that even there, the tablets of the covenant were broken. And if you would think hard and lift up your eyes to “ever since God created human beings on the earth,”¹⁰¹Dt. 4:32. you will find in the Holy One Blessed Be He His boundless joy: “May the Glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works!”¹⁰²Ps. 104:31.But His joy has a limit with respect to the human race, “because he too is flesh.”¹⁰³Gen 6:3. That is, humans are mortal. That is what is written about Him when it says: “And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and His heart was saddened.”¹⁰⁴Ibid. 6:6. Even in the Mishkan, which was a microcosm of the world, on the eight day of the priests’ assigned service, which was the day of the New Moon for the month of Nisan, on that very day there was nothing like it in its degree of joy, its intensity multiplied tenfold, to what our sages z”l referred when they said, “On that very day they got ten crowns”¹⁰⁵Sifra Shemini. – you already knew what happened, and to what end that joy came. On that very day Nadab and Abihu died, like whom, after Moses and Aaron, there were none among the Israelites to compare. And this is what Scripture meant when it said, “Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel ascended.”¹⁰⁶Ex 24:9. I.e., in that order was their “ascendence,” their status, relative to one another. And see also what Ecclesiastes says about the joy of this world: “Of revelry I said, ‘It is mad!’ Of joy (simhah), ‘What good is that?’”¹⁰⁷Eccl 2:2. And the explanation of this statement is that because joy and sorrow are brothers attached to one another like day is attached to night, just as a person is sure in the day that night will come after it, and as sure at night that the day will come after it, so is he sure that joy will come after sorrow, and likewise sorrow after joy. And so he said, “The heart may ache even in laughter, and joy may end in grief,”¹⁰⁸Prov 14:13. to explain about sorrow after joy, and he said, “From all grief there is some gain,”¹⁰⁹Prov 14:23. “Grief” (‘etzev) here and “sorrow” (‘itzavon) in 14:13 come from the same Hebrew root. to explain about joy after sorrow. From this you learn that the joy of this world can never be complete, but rather any good in it and contentment with it is “futile and pursuit of the wind,”¹¹⁰Eccl 1:14. all glory in it is to be mocked,¹¹¹An allusion to Ps 4:3. its “glorious beauty is but wilted flowers.¹¹²Is 28:1, referring specifically to the fleeting pleasures of the table: “Ah the proud crowns of the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is but wilted flowers on the heads of men bloated with rich food, who are overcome by wine!” For right at the moment when a person’s hopes are highest in the midst of joy, it stops, flickers out, and goes away. For this reason they ruled that the blessing over a change in wine should be “ha-tov ve-ha-metiv” (“Who is good and Who does good”), the same blessing they added to the grace after meals to remember the martyrs of Beitar when they were permitted to bury them.¹¹³B. Berakhot 48b. The battle at Beitar was the Bar Kochba revolt’s unsuccessful “last stand” against the Romans in 135 CE. The explanation: Ha-tov – “Who is good” – because He didn’t let the bodies putrefy; ha-metiv – “Who did good” – by letting the bodies be buried.¹¹⁴Ibid. And all this is to make human beings feel sadness, being fashioned from clay, composed of natural elements which are dead bodies, sunken in the desires of our senses – so that we’re brought back from a surfeit of joy to the middle way.

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.”

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.”

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.”

Therefore the reverent person ought to have his intention connected to the higher things, and have his eating be to sustain his body alone and not to be drawn to physical pleasures, for being drawn to physical pleasures is the cause for the loss of both body and soul, and the cause for forgetting the point, for out of eating and drinking he will become full of himself [lit., lift up his heart] and stumble into great pitfalls and sins, and do things which should not be done. See how Joseph’s brothers sold him only in the middle of eating and drinking, as it is said, “They sat down to a meal, and looking up…”²²Gen 37:28. While eating the brothers looked up and saw the Ishmaelites to who they sold Joseph. R. Bahya expands upon this more fully in his commentary to the Torah on this verse. And for this reason the Torah said not to eat on Yom Kippur, which is the day of judgment for criminal cases involving people, because one’s eating might cause his soul to sin. And they even said in civil cases dealing with monetary compensation: “akhal ve-shatah al yorah” – “Don’t instruct right after eating and drinking!”²³A rhyming proverb in the Hebrew. Yorah, which means to instruct or teach, is the same verb used in the Biblical passage from Lev. 10:11 that R. Bahya cites. It is from the same Hebrew root as the word Torah. R. Bahya subtly makes another point here besides the obvious one that people are inclined to make bad judgments right after they’ve eaten and drunk. Namely, with this wordplay and the analogy to the Biblical priests, he’s reiterating his general contention that engaging in torah is a sacramental priest-likeactivity, even when done by non-priests – i.e., rabbinical torah scholars, or even ordinary Jews fasting on Yom Kippur. Why is this so? From what is written, “Drink no wine or other intoxicant, you or your sons,”²⁴Lev 10:9, addressed to Aaron and his sons, that is, the priests. and connected to it, “to instruct [le-horot] the Israelites.”²⁵Ibid., 10:11. When they were commanded to instruct [le-horot], they were warned to avoid wine, because wine confuses the mind, and it does not distinguish between the holy and the profane, which is why it is written “to distinguish.”²⁶Ibid., 10:10. All this is proof that eating and drinking causes human beings to move themselves away off the track of Torah and worship, and to cast aside all the statutes of Ha-Shem, may He be Blessed. All this is caused when one has eaten and is satisfied, and therefore the Torah commanded, “And you shall eat and be satisfied, and you shall bless” (Deut 8:10). That is to say, after you will have eaten and have been satisfied, and you are close to throwing off the yoke of the commandments, “You shall bless YHWH your God” at the very moment you need to bless Him, so that you will take upon yourself the yoke of His rule and bless His name. And this in my opinion is the meaning of the Scripture, “In all your ways, know Him;”²⁷Prov 3:6. it means even at the time of eating when you are close to forgetting Him and to severing your reason from your mind, at that very moment, “know Him” and cleave to Him. And if you do this, “He will straighten your paths,”²⁸Prov 3:6. He will straighten your ways on the paths of life, namely, the soul’s successful attainment of the world to come. If so, then a person ought to eat only for the sustenance of his body alone, and it is forbidden for him to pursue any sort of pleasure unless it is to make his body healthy and make the eyes of his intellect clear-sighted. In order for his body to be healthy and strong, he should pursue what pleases [his intellect] and his Creator, for his organs are combined and possess the capacity exactly in the measure that enables him to bear the yoke of the Torah and its commandments, which is the point of the verse written about the tribe of Issachar, “he bent his shoulder to bear the burden” (Gen 49:15), which is the same language used to refer to the giving of the Torah, “He [God] bent the sky and came down” (2 Sam 22:10). And anyone whose intention is this, is an angel of the Lord of Hosts, but whoever does not direct their intention to this end, is “likened to the beasts that perish.” (Ps 49:13,21). “You can see for yourself”²⁹1 Sam 24:12: Re-eh gam re-eh – “you can see for yourself” (JSB). Joseph the righteous, who was noted for his quality of reverence [yir’ah], from what is written, “I am a God-fearing man”³⁰Gen 42:18. and “Am I a substitute for God?”³¹Ibid. 50:19. hinted at this point when he said, “take something for the hunger of your houses and be off.”³²Ibid. 42:33. He comes to instruct and to teach people to know that they should only eat to break their hunger, not to fill their belly and be drawn by the taste, which is base and to be scorned, because that is a disgrace to us, utter waste, and a thing which has no point to it. And do not say that this because it was a time of famine, because when Joseph was “a prince and commander of peoples,”³³Is 55:4.and the treasuries of the king were under his control, he had the power to supply bread and food to his father and brothers, as in the other the years of plenty. However, instead he made it known to us that this is the way of Torah and fear of Ha-Shem (may He be blessed!), that a person should only eat, satisfy himself, and fill his belly to satisfy his soul.

And know indeed that what kind of person one is, is determined at the table, for there his qualities are revealed and made known. And thus our rabbis z”l said, “By three things a person is known: through his purse, through his cup, and through his anger.”³⁴B. Erubin 68b. The clever wordplay of be-kiso, be-koso, be-ka’aso of the saying is lost in the translation. For being drawn to wine and other pleasures – surely these are “the drippings of the honeycomb”³⁵Psalm 19:11, that is, the flowing “honey, the drippings of the honeycomb” than which the “fear of the Lord” and “judgments of the Lord” (19:10) “are sweeter.” – is one drawn to the drug of death, and by his grasping this path he will die an everlasting death. But whoever wants to live ought to keep far from this path; “he will eat and live forever.”³⁶Gen 3:22, an allusion to the immortality that would have come from eating from the Tree of Life. In other words, unlike the way Adam and Eve chose, there is another way one can and should eat to gain eternal life. And thus our rabbis z”l said in tractate Gittin of the Talmud, “A meal for your own enjoyment – pull your hand away from it,”³⁷B.Gittin 70a. and similarly said, “‘You shall be holy,’ that is, ‘you shall be abstemious (perushim),'”³⁸Sifra on Lev. 19:2. and “Make yourself holy through what is appropriate for you.”³⁹B. Yebamot 20a: “Make yourself holy through what is permitted to you.” And the author of Ecclesiastes said, “I said to myself, ‘Come, I will treat you to merriment. Taste mirth!’ That too, I found was futile.”⁴⁰Eccl. 2:1. And after that, he said, “I ventured to tempt [limshokh] my flesh with wine.”⁴¹Ibid. 2:3. Limshokh here is from the root of the same verb R. Bahya used above to refer to being drawn to wine, i.e., “being drawn [he-hamshekh] to wine and other pleasures…is one drawn [nemshakh] to the drug of death.” Thus, R. Bahya is using Eccl. 2:3 as a sort of prooftext for his point about wine. And in tractate Sanhedrin of the Talmud:⁴²B.Sanhedrin 70a. “Thirteen woes are said about wine, and they are specified in Parshat Noah. It is written, ‘Noah, the tiller of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard,’⁴³Gen 9:20. which means from the moment he began to plant, he made his holiness profane. That is the point of the expression va-yahel – “he began”- which includes both the connotations of “beginning” (tehilah) and “profanation” (hillul). And because of wine, one third of the world was cursed.⁴⁴That is, the descendents of Ham were condemned to serve the descendents of his brothers Shem and Japhet, because when Noah, after drinking his wine, fell asleep in a drunken stupor, Ham “saw his nakedness.” Normally this is a Biblical euphemism for having sexual relations, hence the severity of the curse. The curse was actually directed at Ham’s son Canaan, most likely to justify morally the Israelites’ subsequent subjugation of the Canaanites and their land. However, the whole account is ambiguous and full of apparent non-sequiturs, prompting a quite a fruitful growth of midrashic attempts to explain the story. One unfortunate stream of interpretation, that Ham’s curse not only involved eternal servitude but also the blackening of his skin color, was later adopted in Christian and Muslim traditions, and used to justify the enslavement of Black Africans well into the 19th century – the so-called “Curse of Ham.” And they also taught in a midrash, “Don’t eye the wine, as it reddens…,”⁴⁵Prov. 23:31. that is, it yearns for blood.⁴⁶B. Sanhedrin 70a. And likewise Bathsheba warned King Solomon not to tempt his flesh with wine,⁴⁷B. Sanhedrin 70b.when she said to him, “Wine is not for kings, O Lemuel; not for kings to drink, nor any beer for princes.”⁴⁸Prov. 31:4. The midrash above identifies “Lemuel’s mother” (Prov. 31:1) with Bathsheba, the mother of King Solomon. And so he said, “I ventured to tempt my flesh with wine,”⁴⁹Eccl. 2:3. and “for who eats, and who feels the pleasures of the senses but me?”⁵⁰Ibid., 2:25. and then remarks after that, “That too is futile.”⁵¹Ibid., 2:26. For it is well known that someone in whose heart reverence for HaShem and fear of Him is strong, will reject and separate himself from the pleasures of the world, and will scorn them to the utmost, for he knows and is familiar with their consequences, while others who are lesser or worthless will fill their bellies with what delights them, and their vessels will return empty; they’re empty because they lack sense “They neither know nor understand; they walk about in darkness.”⁵²Ps. 82:5. About this, Solomon said, “When you sit down to dine with a ruler, consider well who is before you.”⁵³Prov. 23:1. He said, “If the wrath of the ruler rises up against you”⁵⁴Eccl. 10:4. and you go out to eat “the king’s food or the wine he drank”⁵⁵Dan. 1:8. in the house of the king who rules the land, understand well and look at those who were before you who chose this way- “what they saw in that matter and what had befallen them.”⁵⁶Esth. 9:26. Doesn’t the high status and greatness of most of them end up in humiliation and submission, “wholly swept away by terrors”?⁵⁷Ps. 73:19. Just what is written right afterwards in Proverbs, “Thrust a knife in your gullet!”⁵⁸Prov. 23:2.And our rabbis z”l said, “Do not yearn for the tables of kings, for your table is greater than their table, your crown greater than their crown.”⁵⁹M. Avot 6:5. Therefore, a person should not seek excessive gains and pursue them, for if he does, his days will be painful and he will never be satisfied, because there is no end to these gains, and whoever pursues things that have no end – is he not sick, blinded by his stupidity? For “every fool is embroiled.”⁶⁰Prov. 20:3. It goes without saying that he has no share in the Torah, because if he were rich and used to eating and drinking with silver dishes, he would be liable to think little of them and become unsatisfied until he had utensils of “turquoise, sapphire, and diamond,”⁶¹Ex 28:18. and as soon as he obtained one of them, he’d want two or three, and this would go on without out end. And therefore a person with good qualities must not in his heart crave for excessive gains, and should be satisfied with a little.

See how the Torah attests that Jacob our father (Peace be upon him) had the quality of contentment, and did not seek excessive gains, but rather only what was necessary, who, when it was said, “If God gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear,”⁶²Gen 28:20. asked for what was necessary, what the Holy One Blessed be He provides for all His creatures, as it is said, “You give it openhandedly, etc.”⁶³Ps. 148:16. And our rabbis z”l taught in a midrash: “‘Bread to eat and clothing to wear:’ in all his days, this righteous man [Jacob] never grieved over his eating, but rather over ‘the inward and the outward.'”⁶⁴Penimi ve-hitzon is an expression that refers to one’s personal integrity. The person who is inward is genuine; “their outside is like their inside.” What you see is what you get. One who is “outward” is a hypocrite; their outward behavior does not match their true inner feelings. The contrast between penimi and hitzon (“inward” vs. “outward”) has become a distinctive concept in modern Hasidic ethics. In any case, the point of the midrash is that Jacob worried much more about his personal integrity than what he was going to eat. And know that the righteous person ought to direct his mind when he is eating only to the fact that the bodily meal by which he will sustain his body for the moment is so that his soul with it may show its powers and realize them in action, and by this prepare the eternal meal by which it will sustained forever. And look at the holy status prevalent among the elite of the people of Israel, who used to eat and look with the heart itself. This is what the Scripture means when it says, “They envisioned God and they ate and drank,”⁶⁵Ex 24:11.that the organs of the body which are the vessel of the soul would receive power and strength in the banquet, and the soul would be roused with its powers in them and strengthen them in this thought, and make it possible for holy spirit to descend upon it [the body] at the time of eating, when he is lifted up in this thought, and his body is clothed in the thought of his soul, and the two of them as one good enough for the Divine Presence [Shekhinah] to descend among them. This was the intent of Moses and the elders of Israel during Jethro’s banquet, and this is what the Scripture means when it says, “Aaron came and all the elders of Israel [to partake of the meal before God with Moses’ father-in-law],”⁶⁶Ex 18:12. and likewise Isaac our father in the tasty foods for which he asked,⁶⁷Gen 27:4.and in all the rest of the places that we find banquets for righteous people – that was the end to which they were intended.

And thus it is necessary that when one eats, he turn his thought [mahshevato] and that it ramble about [meshotetet] the Holy One Blessed Be He over each and every bite – according to the matter of “They envisioned God and they ate and drank.”⁷²Ex 24:11. This is like the way our sages interpreted “Let all that breathe [kol ha–neshamah] praise the Lord,” over each and every breath [kol neshimah ve-neshimah] give praise to Him. You could learn this from the generation in the desert, for when they ate the manna, their intention would ramble about the Shekhinah, and they would meditate about her in humility, why wisdom required that the quantity of their meal be an omer, which is one tenth of an ephah, that is to say, one tithe of an ephah, the reason for the commandment to tithe – for see, when a person would measure out nine measures and separate the tenth, it would get wise people to meditate about the meaning of “the tenth,” which is the attribute⁷³Heb., midah, which means both “measure” and “attribute,” as in an attribute of God. which gives food to Her house and supplies meals for every creature above and below. And for this reason, [our sages] said, “nine [adults] and a minor can be combined with them,”⁷⁴B. Ber 47b. that is, combined to make a minyan of ten for birkat ha-mazon (grace after meals) in which one can include the words, “Let us bless our God,” the lord in charge of satisfying the every creature with meals, whose face every Israelite would come to see and to whom they would give thanks for the support with which He supports His world.

You should know that that which they said (Makkot 23b), "613 commandments were stated to Moshe at Sinai," indicates that this is the number of the commandments that are practiced for [all] generations. For commandments that are not practiced for [all] generations do not have a connection to Sinai - whether they were stated at Sinai or elsewhere. However their intention in saying, "at Sinai," was that the main giving of the Torah was at Sinai. And that was His, may He be elevated, saying, "Come up to Me on the mountain and be there, and I will give [it] to you" (Exodus 24:12). And in explanation, they said, "What is the verse [that alludes to this]? 'Moshe commanded us the Torah, an inheritance of the congregation of Yaakov' (Deuteronomy 33:4)" - meaning to say - "the numerical value of [the word,] Torah is 611. In addition, 'I am the Lord your God' and 'You shall have no other gods' (Exodus 20:2, 3), that we heard from the mouth of the Almighty." And with them, the total of the commandments is 613. They wanted to say with this indication that the thing that Moshe commanded us - and that we did not hear from anyone but him - was the number of 611 commandments. And he called it, "an inheritance of the congregation of Yaakov." And a commandment that is not practiced for [all] the generations is not an inheritance for us. For it is indeed only that which will be continuous for the generations - as it is stated (Deuteronomy 11:21), "like the days of the heavens upon the earth" - that will be called an inheritance for us. And likewise, their statement (Tanchuma, Ki Tetzeh), that it is as if each and every limb commands a person to do a commandment; and it is as if each and every day is warning a person from sin. This is a proof that the number will never be lacking. But if commandments that are not practiced for [all] generations were included in the count of the commandments, behold that the number would be lacking once the obligation of such a commandment ceased. And then this statement would only be correct for a limited time. However someone besides us already erred in this principle as well and counted - because he was forced by a need - "But let them not go inside and witness the dismantling of the sanctuary" (Numbers 4:20); and "he shall serve no more" (Numbers 8:25), concerning the Levites. Yet these were also only practiced in the wilderness. And even though they said (Sanhedrin 81b:18), "From where is there a hint about one who steals a jar for the Temple service (that he is killed)? 'But let them not go inside and witness the dismantling of the sanctuary'" - there is enough [clarification here] in their saying, "a hint." But the simple understanding of the verse is not like this; and it is not even included in those liable for the death penalty at the hands of the Heavens - as is explained in the Tosefta (Tosefta Keritot 1) and in Sanhedrin (Sanhedrin 83a). And I am wondering about this, why they mentioned these negative commandments. Why did they not [also] count about the manna, "Let no one leave any of it over until morning" (Exodus 16:19); or that which He, may He blessed said, "Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war" (Deuteronomy 2:9), and likewise the prohibition that came about the the Children of Ammon, "do not harass them or start a fight with them" (Deuteronomy 2:19). And likewise should he count among the positive commandments, "Make a seraph figure and mount it on a standard" (Numbers 21:8); and its saying, "Take a jar and put one omer of manna in it" (Exodus 16:33) - like he counted the tithe of the [booty] (Numbers 31) and the dedication of the altar (Numbers 7). And he should have also counted, "Be ready for the third day" (Exodus 19:15); "neither shall the flocks and the herds graze" (Exodus 34:3); "they shall not destroy, to come up" (Exodus 19:24); and many like these. And no intelligent person will doubt that all of these commandments were given to Moshe at Sinai as commands and [prohibitions; however they were all temporary and not practiced for [all] generations. And therefore they were not counted. And because of this principle, it is inappropriate to count the blessings and the curses that they were commanded at Gerizim and Eval; nor to count the building of the altar that we were commanded to build when we entered the Land of Canaan - for all of these were temporary commandments. And likewise, not the command that we were commanded to sacrifice any animal, from which we want to eat, as peace-offerings - as this was only a temporary command. And that was its saying, "and you shall bring them to the Lord" (Leviticus 7:8)." And they said in Sifrei, Achrei Mot, "'And you shall bring them' is a positive commandment" - but it was only so in the wilderness. For the dispensation to eat meat for pleasure is explained in [Deuteronomy]; and that is its saying, "you may eat meat whenever you wish" (Deuteronomy 12:20). And had it been appropriate to count everything of this type - meaning all that Moshe was commanded from the day he was appointed to be a prophet until the day he died - there would be more than three hundred commandments, besides the commandments that are practiced for [all] generations. This is when we count all the commands that came in Egypt, everything about the preparations [for the tabernacle service], and the other ones besides them - some are positive commandments and some are negative commandments, but they are all written in the Torah. And since he did not count all of them, he is perforce also obligated not to count any of them; and not like this other man, who took [only] some of these things to help him, when he toiled to find the [right] tally. And this is the critique we wanted to make about him regarding this principle.

So this book is now finished, built upon precious sayings. With these words the enlightened¹⁸²Lit., ha-maskil be-hakhmah, one “enlightened with wisdom, i.e., the wisdom of Kabbalah (Chavel). will discern when they’re eating, may they make themselves holy and their minds burnished fully. With these words engaged, may they be at their table; raise their table’s renown so that “all shall say ‘Glory!'”¹⁸³An allusion to Ps 29:9: kulo ‘omer kavod. Let their hearts be made pure, to withstand any test. “By these raise up the table,”¹⁸⁴Ex 28:28 so that “before the Lord”¹⁸⁵Ez 41:22 is its label. This table is greater than the table of kings, “he shall be permitted to join those attending,”¹⁸⁶An allusion to the reward of the faithful promised in Zech 3:7: “Thus said the Lord of Hosts: If you walk in My paths and keep My charge, you will in turn rule in My house and guard My courts, and I will permit you to move about among these attendants.”and to be lifted in honor to gaze on¹⁸⁷Or “envision,” because the Hebrew is ye-hazeh, as in hazon “vision,” like the verb in Ex 24:11, with connotation of prophetic vision. the face of “David among the lilies grazing,” to earn “the three-legged table” ¹⁸⁸An allusion to what is referred to in B. Ta’anit 25a: “The righteous will in time to come eat at a golden table with three legs.” See R. Bahya’s Preface, where he explains this idea in his discussion of the fourth reason he gives for calling his book Shulhan Shel Arba. There’s an untranslatable wordplay here with the Hebrew word ro‘e’ (“grazing” or “shepherd”) and the Aramaic word ker’a’ (“leg”): “David among the lilies grazing (ro‘e’)” to earn the table of three legs (ker’a’).” of gold ablazing. They will earn the physical and intellectual meals, and be counted among the benei aliyah. Blessed is the Lord who has refined His servants to perfect us, whose love for us even preceded us; may He bring us to see wonders from His Torah, the foundation of His Temple, the place of the ark and the tablets, the menorah and table and the altars. May our betrayals and sins be atoned for and forgiven, may prosperity be ours – from God’s hand gladly given.¹⁸⁹An allusion to Is 54:10. Among the saints may He raise and lift us, “west and south”¹⁹⁰An allusion to Dt 33:23. may He gift us. From the abundance of His love may He redeem our soul¹⁹¹An allusion to Ps 22:21. from Sheol when He takes it, by His counsel may He guide us¹⁹²An allusion to Ps 73:24. to the “delights ever in His right hand.”¹⁹³An allusion to Ps 16:11. May he encompass us with favor, ¹⁹⁴An allusion to Ps 5:13. in the “bundle of life” may He hide us,¹⁹⁵As opposed to She’ol – “hell” – as in Job 14:13: “O that You would hide me in Sheol.” in the path of life may He guide us, and grant us what is written, “For God is our God forever; He will guide us even beyond death.”¹⁹⁶Ps. 48:15.

(Zayin) There is still more. This [required] study must be from love, such that he not use this trait for anything else at all, ‘but rather his desire is for the Torah of the Lord.’ And these are the words of the Midrash Tanchuma, Noach 3:4-7:
The Israelites did not accept the Torah until the Holy One, blessed be He, arched the mountain over them like a vessel, etc. If you should say it was because of the Written Law, isn’t it true that as soon as He said to them, “Will you accept the Torah,” they all responded (Exod. 24:7), “We will do and hear?” … But rather He said this to them because of the Oral Law, etc. And its jealousy is as harsh as Sheol.²⁸The pit, usually a reference to the nether-world. One does not study the Oral Law unless he loves the Holy One, blessed be He, with all his heart, etc., as it is stated (Deut. 6:5), “And you shall love, etc.” Whence do you learn that this word, “love,” refers only to studying the [Oral Law]? Observe what is written after this (Deut. 6:6): “And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart.” And what study is upon the heart? Scripture (Deut. 6:7) states [immediately thereafter], “And you shall review it to your children.” [Hence] this is the study that requires review (i.e. the Oral Law). We learn from these verses that the first part of the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9) does not mention a reward given in this world, while the second part does: “And if you shall hearken diligently, etc., I will give the rain of your land in its season” (Deut. 11:13). This reward is given to those who perform the commandments even though they neglect study [of the Oral Law], etc. As anyone who loves material riches and earthly pleasures is incapable of studying the Oral Law. [This is because] there is considerable anguish and sleeplessness in (store for him who studies) it; one wastes and neglects himself on its account. Therefore its reward is in the hereafter, as it is said (Isaiah 9:1), “The people that walk in darkness have seen a great light,” etc. Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, established two academies (at Sura and Pumbeditha) for the Israelites where they studied the Torah day and night and where they assembled from all parts of the world twice each year – in the months of Adar and Elul. They came together to “battle” the problems encountered in the Torah until they had resolved them and reached a definitive decision concerning the law. [See there, as it is lengthy.]
And [the Rabbis] said in the Midrash that the Holy One, blessed be He, forced us [to accept the Oral Law] by arching the mountain, such that the Torah would not be severed from us forever. As with a [woman] forced [to have sexual relations], it is written (Deut. 22:19), “he may not send her away all of his days.”²⁹See the next paragraph and note 34. Also the manna that they ate in the wilderness was [given] with this intention. As it is written in Maggid Mesharim of Beit Yosef (R. Yosef Karo), that the manna that the Israelites ate was necessary in order [for them] to receive the Torah without any choice. And these are the words in Yalkut Reuveni, Beshelach: [The angel named] Yafefiyah who is the one who rained down the manna upon Israel, is numerically equivalent (with the letters adding up to 197) to Katseh, who is the angelic minister of Torah; whereas they said (Num. 21:5), “and our souls are sick (katseh)” – to make known that they were sick and disgusted of the manna and of the Torah. See there. And this was forcing them to receive the Torah, as the manna was coming from the minister of the Torah, and it was the bread of mighty ones from which the ministering angels are sustained. [Hence] they no longer had any physical desire or inclination. Rather it was [therewith only] the love of the Torah and of the commandments that was implanted in their hearts. And this [love] remained for [future] generations among the enlightened ones about whom it is stated (Num. 19:14), “when a man dies in a tent.”³⁰ See Berakhot 63b.

(Chet) [Yet] I saw ‘difficult visions’: Behold, it is written in Parashat Behaalotecha (Num. 11:35-12:1), “Then the people set out from Kivrot-Hataavah to Hatserot and were in Hatserot. Miriam and Aharon spoke against Moshe because of the Cushite woman he had married.” And Tosafot on Yevamot 62a (s. v. dekhtiv emor lehem) asked why it is that they waited a long time after the giving of the Torah to speak about Moshe (since their problem was that he had separated from his wife earlier, from when the Torah was given). And they answered that – according to that which is found in the Talmud Yerushalmi³¹The common text of Tosafot has the citation as Sifrei and presumably refers to the account in Sifrei Zuta 12:1. – the seventy elders were chosen at Kivrot-Hataavah. And [at that time] Miriam said to Tsipporah, “Happy are the wives of these [men] that were chosen for greatness.” Tsipporah [however answered], “Woe to them, as behold my husband Moshe separated from me from the day that the Holy One, blessed be He, started speaking to him.” And then the matter became known to them. See there. And it appears [that this is connected to] that which we find there (Num. 11:4-7) that “they desired a desire […] and they said, ‘Who will feed us meat? We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, etc. Now our souls are dry; there is nothing at all but this manna in our eyes.’ And the manna was like coriander seed, and in color it was like bdellium.” And Rashi (Rashi on Numbers 11:7) explained, “He who said that (i.e. the previous verse) did not say this […]; but rather [it is] the Holy One, blessed be He, who had, ‘And the manna was like coriander seed,’ written in the Torah (even though no one said it).” And it is [further] written (Num. 11:10), “And Moshe heard the people weeping, each family apart, each person at the entrance of his tent.” And Rashi (on this verse) explained [that] “each family apart”³²Le’mishpechoteichem, which can also be read as, for their families. [means], “because of family affairs – because of the sexual prohibitions [of blood-relatives] that had been forbidden to them.” See there. And that is astonishing; as what does the quarrel of the manna have to do with matters of sexual prohibitions? And it appears that it can be explained according to what the Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said about that which is found in the Gemara (Shabbat 88a), “‘And they stood at the lowermost part of the mountain’³³Be’tachtit haHar, which can also be read as, in the lowermost part of the mountain. (Exod. 19:17) – […] teaches that the Holy One, Blessed be He, overturned the mountain above [the Jews] like a tub, [and said to them], ‘If you accept the Torah, excellent; but if not, there will be your burial.’” And it was asked [that] behold, they already assented and said (Exod. 24:7), “We will do and hear!”³⁴While this is essentially the same question that he cites from the Midrash Tanchuma in Paragraph Zayin, he will now proceed to give a different answer. And it is written in Gur Aryeh³⁵Gur Aryeh on Exodus 19:17. that it is not possible for the Torah to be received by choice – that they would accept it if they wanted to, and not accept it if they did not want to – but rather the Holy One, blessed be He, is showing them that the Torah is imperative for them (that it had to be accepted by them). And something imperative exists permanently; as it is found in the Midrash, that concerning a [woman] forced [to have sexual relations], it is written (Deut. 22:19), “he may not send her away all of his days.”³⁶This midrash is unknown. See Yehoshua Hartman’s edition of Gur Aryeh ad loc., Note 273; and M. Kasher’s Torah Shelemah ad loc., Note 224. See there. And behold we have found that they desired a desire; meaning that they did not have any physical desire and – as is written by (Rabbi Moshe) Alshekh (on Num. 11:4) – they desired that they would have desire. See there. And according to what I have written, the reason is that on account of the manna – that was from the minister of the Torah, and was the bread of mighty ones – all of their wish and yearning was only for Torah. And ‘their souls were dry’ and empty from all physical desire. And [so] they desired desire, such that the receiving of the Torah could be of their wish and wanting, like [when] they said, “We will do and hear” – as no one wishes forced love. Therefore they quarreled about the manna and its forcing the love of Torah [upon them]. And [when] they said, “We remember the fish that we used to eat free (chinam) in Egypt,” its explanation is [that it was] without force, but rather that [it was that] which we chose and which appealed to us. As this is the understanding of the word chinam, as is elucidated in Radak’s³⁷R. David Kimchi (Provence, 1160-1235) was a Biblical commentator and grammarian. Book of Roots under the root, chanan (graced). [And the meaning of] “Now our souls are dry; there is nothing at all but this manna,” is that we were forced, and we want that the choice be in our hands. However we would also eat the manna by choice. As if the manna were not ‘good to eat and appealing to the sight,’ we would have needed force; but in fact, “the manna was like coriander seed and in color it was like bdellium,” and we would certainly eat of it.³⁸In this way, one no longer has to resort to Rashi’s answer that this phrase was added by God to the quote of the people which accordingly ended abruptly. However all of the desires would [then] not be removed from us and the receiving of the Torah would be with wanting and choice – as [when] they said, “We shall hear and do.”

And even though they, may their memory be blessed, said (Chullin 115b) that that which the prohibition of cooking is written three times in the Torah is to teach the prohibition of eating, the prohibition of cooking and the prohibition of benefiting - it is only fit for us to count two [of them] in the tally of negative commandments; as the prohibition of eating and benefiting is one thing. [It is] like they, may their memory be blessed, said (Chullin 115b), "Every place that it is stated, 'You (singular) shall not eat,' 'You (plural) shall not eat,' both the prohibition of eating and the prohibition of benefiting are implied." As the Torah expresses all of the enjoyments more generally with an expression of eating, since it is a constant enjoyment for a person, and he needs it; and like the matter that is written (Exodus 24:11), "they beheld God, and they ate and drank" - that it calls enjoyment 'eating.'

The root of the commandment is revealed in the verse: It is in order that we always remember all of the commandments of God. And there is no better reminder in the world than carrying the seal of the Master on the clothes that one wears at all times, as a person is [always attentive] to his clothes. And this is what is stated in the verse (Numbers 15:39), "and you will recall all the commandments of the Lord." And they, may their memory be blessed, said (Midrash Tanchuma, Korach 12) that the word 'tsitsit' alludes to the six hundred and thirteen commandments (in the numerical equivalent of the letters) when combined with the eight strings of the fringes and their five knots. And my heart also tells me that there is a reminder and allusion here that the soul and body of man all belong to God, Blessed be He. As the white portion corresponds to the body which is from the land, which was made from the snow, which is white, as we find in Pirkei D'Rabbi Eliezer 3, "From where is the land from? From the snow that is under the Holy Throne.” And the threads [also] allude to the body, as the matter that they said, that the initial formation of a body is like threads. [It is] as they, may their memory be blessed, said (Niddah 25b), "Rabbi Amram said, 'The two thighs are like two strands of crimson, the two forearms are like two strands of crimson.'" The blue (tekhelet), the appearance of which, is like the appearance of the sky hints to the soul which is from the upper beings. And they hinted to this in their saying (Menachot 47b), "What [makes] tekhelet different than all other colors? Because tekhelet is like the sea, and the sea is like the sky, and the sky is like the Throne of Glory, as it is stated (Exodus 24:10), 'And they saw the God of Israel, etc.' and it states (Ezekiel 1:26), 'The Throne appeared as sapphire stone'" - and the souls of the righteous are stored underneath the Throne. And because of this, they said (Menachot 39a) that we wrap the string of tekhelet around the white, as the soul is above and the body below. They said that we make seven or thirteen windings [around the white strings] to allude to the heavens and the divisions between them. And it is as they said (Menachot 39a), "It is taught, 'One who wishes to do fewer should not do fewer than seven, nor should he add more than thirteen, corresponding to the seven heavens and the six air-spaces between them.'"