Halakhah do Rodzaju 28:20

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.

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.