The Kabbalah of Bread II
Is your nature like water? Can making dough be a spiritual and holy act? What is the secret to unity? How to really get along with others?
The first step in mystical bread making is the crushing and grinding of the kernels into to fine flour. Taking our self centeredness and the “me” syndrome and grinding that down until it is selfless is the first step in this cosmic G-dly plan for humanity.
Now that you have crushed the ego now you need to put it back together again. How do you do that?
The thing you need is water. The nature of water is that it finds the lowest spot that it can. Instead of looking for the highest place or the most prominent place it searches and is happiest when it finds that lowest possible spot. The personality of water is a person who is always looking to find someone lower then themselves, i.e. someone that they can help in some way. A water nature means you want to be of service to others. Not for self aggrandizement but simply to help another.
Why do you need to put it back together? Without an ego we would have no drive. With an ego we only think about ourselves. But when you crush the ego and turn it into flour and then you introduce this water personality now you have a selfless person with a drive to help others.
Now you can move to step 3, kneading. Kneading is creating unity with tiny pieces of flour. When people come together for a cause whatever that cause may be the unity is dependant on the cause when the cause goes away so does the unity. But when the unity is created by a genuine desire to help others that is not ego or circumstance driven but rather deep and eternal, then the unity is eternal.
So the third step is not just helping others but actually uniting with others in the same cause, the cause of helping others. When each person goes through this process, then we are able to unite all of humanity into this giant Challah.
And that is why G-d put us here on earth to create this kind of unity ourselves. Man made unity, not a G-d imposed unity like in all other areas of creation, is the kind of unity that only we humans can create. And that is the kabblah of bread. Nature represents the goodness and unity that G-d creates, bread and Challah represent the goodness and unity that we humans create. Easy? not a chance. Worth the effort? Absolutely. Will it ever happen? G-d thinks so.
Now that you know the Kabbalah of bread; making and eating bread takes on a whole new dimension. Challah, bagels or delicious rugaleh’s won’t ever be the same. It will be beckoning us to turn ourselves and the people around us into bread and produce the purpose of our creation.
Shabbat Shalom and a Happy 4th
Rabbi Zalman Marcus
P.s. The world cup has captured the headlines and many world viewers; here is a fun video that will give the game a whole new spin and a new respect for Chabad Rabbi’s. Click here. No rabbis or players were injured in the making of this video.