Dear Yitzhak,

I am going through your TBS thoroughly. Here are first impressions. It is an important work, and may have possibly far-reaching reverberations. I can see it becoming a pivotal part of an emerging liturgy of new consciousness. I hope you see rewards for all the work you’ve put into it. Of course, it remains up to the Creator to decide the future of Judaism, but you are mining a rich vein, and I wish you tremendous success. 

I haven’t finished studying it properly in its entirety, so my first remarks may be precipitous. Here’s what I think.

It lacks a relish of food tastes and smells. Almost as though the author was afraid of being thought a hedonist if he encouraged enjoyment of eating, or wanted to maintain a level of intellectual or academic distance from the mere process of eating. I don’t mean to be facetious or provocative. But this sort of head-space processing of belly space is a common failing in modern Jewish Literature. 

Let me give you an example from Kol M’Vaser (Vol.I published B’nei B’rak 1990), a collection of Torah attributed to the Rebbe, Reb Simcha Bunim of Pshischa culled from the works of his disciples. Parshat Va’etchanan, on the verse Deut. 4:28 “And there you will worship gods made at the hands of man, of wood and stone that can neither see nor hear, that neither eat nor smell.” Once the Rebbe Reb Bunim said jokingly, “There are people who praise their Rebbe that he does not eat! This is what is meant by the verse quoted above, about worshipping Gods that do not see, hear, eat or smell. It refers to these Rebbes, nominally termed Rebbes who are really wood and stone. They can’t see because they have no Ruach Hakodesh – Holy Spirit, like wood and stone, they are deaf to all communications from heaven, unlike real Tzadikim who hear every message coming to the world from heaven. Their sole virtue is that they don’t eat and so their disciples grab them as Rebbes, but they cannot smell because they are not gifted with the sense of smell as it is written of the Messiah, (Isaiah 11:3) ‘And he will smell with fear of heaven.’”

In Volume III of Kol M’Vaser (published B’nei B’rak 1994) pages 106-110 there are some further interesting thoughts along similar lines. There is one quote from the Toras Emess of Reb Leible Eiger of Lublin (Shavuos Day2 Year1873) who was a disciple of the Izbitzer who was a disciple of the Rebbe, Reb Bunim of Pshischa. I quote. “In the name of the Rebbe, Reb Bunim. The chief Kavannah of eating, is to chew the food properly. To concentrate intently before swallowing, and precisely at the moment of greatest food-geshmack, as it is being enjoyed, to find and identify the source of the taste. That it is produced by the Motzei Pi Hashem - Word of God, Giving It Existence. As it is written at the revelation on Sinai, (Exodus 24:11) “They had a vision of the Divine, and they ate and drank.” The Targum translates it as, “They rejoiced as though they had eaten and drunk.” Because the truth is that it is precisely from the pleasure of eating that there can come about a definitive revelation of God. That’s why it says, “They had a vision” because it was like the Aspaqlariya – Speculaire [which is traditionally translated as through a glass darkly] because it shows him an image of himself. Which is similar to the pleasure of eating, in that it can show him an example of the heavenly source of the taste.  As is well known from the Zohar (Vol.I:91a) on the verse (Job 19:26), “Out of my flesh (sic.) I see God.” That it refers to the ultimate purpose of pleasure in the world. And that from pleasure precisely a person can have a vision of God because it is an example of the heavenly source of holy pleasure. End quote.

Another quote from that collection, on the verse in Genesis (27:4), “Make me delicacies like I have loved and bring it to me that I may eat, in order that my soul bless you…” I heard in the name of Rebbe Reb Bunim that he once shouted out during Shalesh Shudos, “It says in Scripture (Psalms 34:9), “Taste and see that God is good, lucky is the man who trusts in Him.” The taste you taste when you eat bread is not the real taste of the bread. Only Tzadikim who are purified in all their 248 organs/limbs can taste the real taste of bread. That’s what it means when it says, “Taste and see that God is good” because only someone tasting the real taste of bread, the way God made it, can see that God is good…. End quote. There is a good deal more there in that vein.

I found a telling Torah on TB in the Toras Emess of Reb Leible Eiger, from the year 1881. “… The main fruit is the taste and the smell. The Gashmiyut - Physical body of the fruit is no more than its clothing. The more its Ruachniyut – Spirituality increases the better it tastes and smells. As we see in fact, for when the spirit leaves the fruit, what remains is nothing more than (brown mush) roughage. And when a person eats the fruit he absorbs vitality only from its taste and smell, and the rest becomes fertilizer and is excreted. …” End quote.

So to return to my point Reb Yitzhak. The closest you come to treating the issue is at the bottom of page 32. But I don’t think you got it, or even if you did, you didn’t convey it. I must admit that I haven’t read your book “Eating and the Holy Meal”. So I may be way out of line and merely displaying my ignorance about your position. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Do you see the point I’m trying to make? Just to return to the quote on page 32/33. Mid-paragraph, “Perceive the pleasure as being not “from the food” but from nearness of the divine presence “feeding” you.” End quote. I would deduce and assume from that quote alone that everything I have written and assumed so far is correct. But this is what I have learned from these P’shischa Torahs and from listening to Reb Shlomo. The taste of the apple and its smell as I bite into it is the Chiyut – Life in the apple. God is the Chiyut of the apple, or His word, the Motzei Pi Hashem - Word of God, Giving It Existence. So to taste the apple is to taste God in the apple. To smell the apple as I bite into it, is to smell God. The apple without those attributes giving it taste and smell is just a lump of brown mush. God in the apple is its taste, its smell, its Geshmack. This, I feel ought to be the main teaching of Tu B’Shvat. Precisely because there are no Mitzvahs regarding the actual eating on TB, is why it can be taught this way. Because, as you know there is otherwise an Halacha that Mitzvot Lav L’Henot Nitnu – Mitzvot Are Not Given For Pleasure. So on Sukkoth we do not make a Bracha over the smell of the Etrog or Haddasim or over the smell of the S’chach in the Sukkah. When I eat my K’Zayit Matzo or Marror, I don’t stop to enjoy or savor the taste because I am concentrating on fulfilling the mitzvah of Matzoh, which has its own set of Kavanot. But precisely because the thing about eating fruit on TB is not a commandment, we are given the opportunity to do something for pleasure in a ritualistic way that is unheard of anywhere else. It is a very exciting opportunity and I want to stress my opinion that it must not be bogged down in abstract conceptualizing God’s nearness, but must be about the taste and smells of eating.

Do you agree with me in any shape or form? 

Do you feel I have attacked your book or your ideas in a destructive way?

Do you feel you want to incorporate some of this material or do you feel it not germane or irrelevant or unimportant or too controversial?

Knowing answers to such questions are only important to me personally because I constantly wonder about sharing my ideas in the public domain and wonder whether I am being obnoxious or innovative or radical in sharing them this way with you?

Next, I want to bring up the issue of smell. It plays very little part in your Seder, while I think it is as vital as the tastes are. 

On Page 14 you open with a recitation regarding the altar in the ancient Holy Temple. I thought it very serendipitous that you chose that verse to open with, because there are some very interesting anomalies about that particular verse. “This is the Table before God.”

(Aside: I would go with the translation God for YHVH, you don’t have to follow Christian translators where the Jewish version is better suited. Translate Elohim as Lord. Elohainu as our Lord.)

When the angel was showing Ezekiel a vision it was of the future Temple, the Third Temple. It is beyond coincidental that the only vessel he showed him was the incense altar. It was not the big Bronze altar that stood out in the courtyard upon which animal sacrifices were offered, nor was it the Shulchan – Table of Shewbread inside the sanctuary even though it was inside the sanctuary he was showing him, and naming it a Shulchan. The thing is like this. Every type of Keli – Vessel of the Temple is mirrored by some practice or worship form we continue to this day. According to the Talmud (Chagiga 12b) The Archangel Michael offers sacrifices upon a heavenly altar every day. He offers up the souls of the Tzadikim. The Shulchan still exists because it is the source of Shefa – Abundance Flow to the world and all the world sits feasting at the heavenly table. The Menorah still exists because we the Jewish people are the Light unto the nations, and other prophets saw the heavenly Menorah, (See Zachariah 4:2).

The one Keli that has no counterpart in Exile is the incense altar, because it is purely about the sense of smell, and and that has been withheld from the world until Messiah comes. Which is why in the story I quoted from the Rebbe Reb Bunim he quoted the verse, (Isaiah 11:3) ‘And he will smell with fear of heaven.’ The sense of smell is associated with Yir’at Shomayim – Fear of Heaven. 

E.g. Because the patriarch Isaac is associated with Yir’ah – Fear, he had the most marvelous sense of smell, When Jacob walked into the room he said “Look the smell of my son is like the smell of the field blessed by God.” See Rashi there.

I would go so far as to say that part of your seder should include a section on the smells of the fruit and the Be’rachoth that can/should be made over them at the beginning of the Seder. As a sort of ritual entry back into the Garden of Eden, the sense of smell is the only key. It is axiomatic that the sense of smell is the only one of our senses we have not corrupted, there are no Aveiroth – transgression associated with it. It was the only sense not involved in the eating of the tree of knowledge. It is also, in physiological terms the most primitive of all the senses. The olfactory part of the brain being somewhere below the limbic/reptilian brain system.

There is so much that can be written about this subject, that I am loath to bring it up. You may ask me for more, and I am so ignorant.

To return to more practical matters. Generally speaking I found your translations and Hebrew quotes accurate. I would suggest only a few minor changes and even those are a matter of taste. I have a leaning towards classical language.

On Page 30, in the Hebrew text I would change it slightly. The word AHAVU-they loved, I would change to CHIVAVU-they cherished. The third word from the end LAGUR-is actually more correctly translated as sojourn. The way it is used in the Passover Haggadah, to prove that Jacob and his sons had no intention of staying in Egypt. They said to Pharaoh, “We have come LAGUR-to sojourn in the land because of the famine in Canaan, etc.” I would change it to LASHEVET-to dwell.

On Page 31, I would change the text from SHENOCHAL UNEVORAICH ALAIHEN ATA, to SHEMEVORACHIM OTCHA ALAIHEN.

On Page 33, What does “First attach yourself to God” actually mean?

I would change the text more radically. Dropping everything except the last four words, I would word the prayer thus, Y’HIY RATZON SHE’BIRCHOTAINU TA’ALEH L’ROSH MASHBIR, L’HORID AL YADAINU SHEFA CHIYUT L’CHOL HANIVRA’IM, AF L’DOMAIM TZOMAI’ACH etc.

On Page 37, I would change the text slightly. The words UM’CHONE’NIM LITAIN PAIROT MAICHADASH, I would change to UMITCHONE’NIM LITZMO’ACH MAICHADASH. And in the sentence Kol Adam, I would change its ending from LITAIN PAIROT etc. to L’HAFROT U’LHARBOT U’LE’HITCHADAISH BA’AVODAT HASHEM.

On Page 38, I would begin with the words GAL AINAINU, and then add KAD’SHAINU V’AMTZAINU BAH, L’HAFOCH BAH UL’HITYACHAID ITAH.

This is as far as I have got in my study of the text you sent me. 

I will look at it some more over the last days of Pesach and write more, B’li Neder.

Chag Same’ach 

Hershy