Relics for the Present II by Cooper Levi

Author:Cooper, Levi [Cooper, Levi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Toby Press LLC
Published: 2016-04-11T16:00:00+00:00

Tarrying at the table

O UR SAGES DECLARE that sitting for extended periods at the dinner table is one of the actions that can lengthen a person’s life (B. Berakhot 54b–55a). Why do long meals lead to long life?

There is a superficial linguistic link – stay longer at the dinner table so you will stay longer in this world – but this is hardly a profound connection. The Talmud goes on to offer a more substantive explanation. The longer the meal, the more chance there is that a needy person will knock at the door asking for food. If the meal is still in progress, the hungry visitor can easily be invited to the table. In the merit of feeding the needy, the host may be granted long life.

The Talmud cites a biblical verse to buttress the importance of the dinner table. The altar, three cubits high and two cubits wide, was of wood and it had corners and its length and its walls were of wood, and he said to me: “This is the table that is before God” (Ezekiel 41:22). This verse refers to the altar as the table that is before God . Our sages explain: as long as the Temple stood, the altar served as the place to atone for sins. Nowadays, with the Temple no longer standing, the dinner table is the locus of atonement.

One Hasidic master – Rabbi Yisrael Hopsztajn (1737–1814), the maggid (preacher) of Kozienice – suggests that the dinner table is better than the Temple altar, even though both are effective in achieving atonement. On the Temple altar, sacrifices were offered up and accepted by the Almighty; whereas food which is eaten at the dinner table imparts strength that lasts beyond the meal, enabling those who have eaten to continue studying Torah and serving God.

Returning to the talmudic passage and putting its various parts together, we arrive at the following conclusion: by extending our stay at the dinner table, we increase the likelihood of assisting the needy; by assisting the needy, we atone for our sins; by atoning for our sins, we merit long life. This would seem to be a roundabout way of saying that the reward for assisting the needy is long life. Why phrase this advice in terms of the dinner table? Perhaps this talmudic passage is not just talking about providing food for the hungry.

One contemporary commentator offers a rational explanation for how a lengthy stay at the dinner table is connected to long life. Rabbi Moshe Tzuriel suggests that sitting at the table and enjoying a meal with the needy, or even with other guests or family members, is a gratifying and satisfying experience. This emotional pleasure also translates into physical well-being, which may lead to long life. While Rabbi Tzuriel’s explanation may be true, it is difficult to read this explanation into the talmudic text which specifies the opportunity to provide food for the needy.

A different possible approach is to focus on the unique merit of providing assistance to the needy in the form of ready-made food.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.