Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
Amy Zalta Bat Mitzvah
Shabbat Bechukotai
May 28, 2005
God in a Loaf of Bread
Amy chanted from Leviticus Chapter 26, the next to the last chapter in this third book of Torah. Chapter 26 begins with 13 promises of blessings and then continues with 30 warnings of curses. Interestingly, in both of these lists, bread plays a major role.
In the list of blessings, we read: "You will eat your fill of bread and you will dwell securely in your land." To have plenty of bread to eat is the biblical picture of the good life.
Then in the list of curses, verse 26 says: "When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven. They shall dole out your bread by weight and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied." Now this curse can be understood in several ways. It may mean that you will only have a little bit of bread to eat and, therefore, after you have eaten you will still be hungry. Or it may mean that, even after you eat, you will still feel the gnawing hunger and the unease you felt back when you had no bread to eat.
My colleague, Rabbi Marcia Plumb, suggests that this verse has a whole new meaning in our time. Rabbi Plumb says it is a vivid image of what life was like for people during the Holocaust. In a concentration camp, there was constant, never-ending hunger. Leviticus 26 says there will be so little food available that ten women will be able to bake their bread in one oven. But Rabbi Plumb reminds us that in the Holocaust it was much, much worse than that. In the Holocaust, women themselves were put into the oven.
Yaffe Eliach, one of the historians of the Holocaust, understands this verse in a different way. Eliach understands it as referring not to the conditions during the Holocaust, but to the spiritual condition in which survivors lived after the Holocaust. She tells about sitting with a group of women, all of them survivors, at a Bar Mitzvah dinner celebration.
The waiter came to the table with a basket full of bread. Tula closed her eyes and inhaled the aroma of the freshly baked bread. Then she passed the basket around without taking any. And she said: "you know, in the concentration camp, I used to dream that after the war I would marry a baker, so that there would always be an abundance of bread in the house.
Another woman across the table said, "for this basket of bread you could buy all the jewelry that you see at this Bar Mitzvah. Once in Bergen Belson, I exchanged a diamond ring for one thin slice of white bread and I felt it was a bargain."
The bread on the table remained untouched. The waiter came over to the table and said: "Ladies, I see that you are not hungry today."
"Not today," said Tulla, " and not ever again."
The waiter started to remove the bread. "No, no. Leave it on the table," said one of the women. "There is nothing more reassuring in this world than having a basket of freshly baked bread on the table in front of you."
The waiter apologized for his mistake and backed off, leaving the untouched basket of bread on the table. And he wondered to himself why these women kept staring at the basket of bread on the table and didn't take any.
My friends, do you understand the scene that Yaffe Eliach is describing? Here are a group of women who have survived, who have made it to America, who are now sitting at a simcha, guests at a Bar Mitzvah dinner – and yet some part of them cannot fully enjoy the simcha. Some part of them cannot ever take a whole basket of bread for granted. Some part of their psyches is forever marred by the dreadful memories of the camps and, as a result, they can never look at a loaf of bread again the way they did before the concentration camps. They can never again take a piece of bread for granted. Maybe that is what Leviticus 26 means when it says "you will eat, but not be satisfied."
When many of the orphaned children who survived the Holocaust were brought to Israel, they were put on kibbutzim in order to rebuild their lives. Many of the kibbutzim reported that, when no one was looking, these children would steal some of the bread off the table and take it to their cabins and hide it under their pillows; they could not adjust to a new world in which bread was always available for the asking. For them, a roll was such a delicacy, such a treasure, that they had to make sure that they would have another piece to look forward to, so they stole it.
When I read Rabbi Plumb's and Yaffe Eliach's commentaries on this verse, I gained new respect for a piece of bread. Really, is there anything you and I take more for granted than bread? Yet look what a precious thing bread is according to this week's Torah portion and according to these two teachers. In this week's Torah portion, having enough bread is THE great blessing. It is the image that our Torah uses when it wants to describe a secure world. And not having enough bread, or remembering when you did not have enough bread, is THE great curse – the ultimate image for a world of misery. On the basis of these two commentaries, I now understand as I never did before, a line in the writings of Mahatma Gandhi that I want to share with you this morning. Gandhi said: "There are people in this world who are so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of a loaf of bread."
Let me say that again – "There are people in this world who are so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of a loaf of bread."
There are people in this world whose stomachs are so shriveled by hunger that their souls are shriveled too, for how can one dream of spiritual things on an empty stomach? How can one aspire to holiness when all of one's energies are focused on finding a crumb of bread?
Our Talmud has a wonderful expression – im eyn kemach, eyn Torah – if you have no food in your stomach, then it is impossible for you to absorb the words of Torah. If you don't have bread, which is essential for life, how can you experience spirituality?
A shtickel broidt – a piece of bread, how indispensable it is to human life. That is why we Jews take the motsi so seriously. If you have bread on the table to eat, you must not take that bread for granted. You must not assume that it just is, that you will always have it, that it is yours by right. We make motsi to demonstrate that we understand how precious bread is and that we are grateful to have it.
Some of us recall childhood experiences in a traditional synagogue. When this sedra – Bechukotai – with its terrifying chapter of frightening curses was read, no one wanted the honor of being called up for an aliyah, so the Torah chanter would read this passage in an undertone as quickly as he could and the congregation would listen with fear and dread.
Today we have focused just on one line of the blessings and one line of the curses and have done it more slowly, and I hope more carefully. From the blessings we have focused on "You will eat your bread in plenty and you will be safe in your land." From the curses, "you will eat and not be satisfied."
May the blessing that we have studied today come true. May each of us have enough bread to eat all the days of our lives, and may we realize what a precious blessing that is.
And may the curse that we have studied today never befall us. May we never not have enough bread to eat, and may we never reach the stage where we cannot enjoy our bread because we are so scarred by memories of how scarce it once was for us.
Dear friends, I pray that we may appreciate the gift of bread – may we savor it and enjoy it and be grateful for it at every single meal. Amen
I am grateful to Rabbi Jack Riemer for teaching me this lesson.
