Teruma: War and Peace: A New Essay

Bread and Battle

One of the most striking oddities of the Hebrew language is the etymological connection between the word for bread, לחם and the word for war,  מלחמה. Both words boast an identical root.  Whereas in English “bread and butter” go together,, in Hebrew it seems “bread and battle” constitute an unlikely pair!

What can be the connection between bread and war?

Several explanations have been offered, including that ancient wars were often fought over “bread” i.e. economic/sustenance issues or that warring factions seek to “consume” the enemy in the same way as bread is consumed. (Similarly, the Hebrew root אכל , “eat”, also means “devour”, a word with confrontational connotations.)

However, R’ Shimshon Rafael Hirsch (1808-1888) gives us a deeper insight. His comment on the connection between lekhem and milkhama appears in his commentary to Genesis 3:!9 – By the sweat of your brow will you eat bread. This is G-D’s message to Adam after he loses Gan Eden due to his appropriation of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Whereas before, his bread, indeed all his food, was provided to him on a platter, now he will have to, in R’ Hirsch’s words, “struggle (make war) to wrest it from nature”.

Thus the connection between “bread” and “war” goes back to the dawn of civilisation.  Bread is achieved only as a result of the victory of man in his “war” over the vagaries of nature which include drought, flooding and blight. The struggle to produce bread was the first ever war man fought!

From Field to Table – A Multiplex Marvel

Bread starts as seed, carefully selected, sown and nurtured for months while growing into wheat plants.  When fully grown and dried out, the wheat sheaves are harvested. The kernels are separated from the chaff, collected, stored and eventually taken to a flour mill.  They are cleaned and soaked in water for easy removal of the bran. The wheat is ground and crushed into pieces, then sifted and eventually baked into bread under ideal atmospheric conditions.

At any stage, things can go wrong due to the unpredictable elements. The making of bread is a battle with nature. So has G-D ordained as a result of the first human couple breaching the only command they were given.

The bread on our table is a multiplex marvel. We who go to our local kosher bakery, or kosher-stocking supermarket, and hand over a piece of plastic in return for a delectable loaf of fresh bread, challa,  roll or bagel are blithely unaware of how complex a military-style operation it had been in the making!

Small wonder that our Sages prescribed a special, top-of-the-range berakha for bread – ha-motsi lekhem min ha-arets, “Who brings forth bread from the earth”, a single blessing that embraces every other food eaten with it. Did G-D then extract the bread from the soil? No – but He created the weather, the precipitation, the temperature, the level of humidity  the atmospheric conditions that enabled that bread to be produced, albeit with sweat and toil, by man. And alas, He assembles, sometimes, less than ideal weather conditions designed to add significantly to the struggle of man with the elements,  No other food is as complex a production! And no other food is so delicate a product. Given natural conditions and an absence of artificial preservatives, that prized loaf or challa, produced with such toil, won’t stay fresh and delectable more than a few days.

The Lekhem HaPanim – A Symbol of Brotherhood

While a return to total Edenesque existence will not happen this side of the Messianic Era, a symbolic re-emergence of a bread of brotherhood and peace, supernaturally blessed and preserved by Heaven occurred when the Mishkan (desert sanctuary), the details of which are recounted in this week’s Sidra, was constructed. Midrash Tanchuma (Pekudei 2) as well as other sources compare the workmanship of the Mishkan to the Creation, and the service of the Mishkan to living in Gan Eden!

The Talmud (Menakhot 96b) declares that a great miracle was performed with the lekhem panim (Exod 25:30) the showbread that was placed upon the table in the Mishkan and later in the Temple. When it was removed after a full week, the bread was still as hot and fresh as it had been on the day of its placement (learned out exegetically from I Samuel 21:7). Moreover, the changeover from old loaves to new took place on Shabbat, the day of rest from sweat and toil.

But that is not all! The old loaves were shared equally by the two mishmarot, “watches” or rosters of Kohanic families, both the outgoing roster and the incoming one, symbolising brotherhood.

Rav Hirsch further develops the brotherhood theme. Based upon Menakhot 94b, he explains that the shape and layout of the showbread “made each loaf serve the purpose of bearing the next loaf”. Each loaf was supporting its neighbour! Moreover, each loaf was made from two measures (esronim = tenths-of-an epha) of fine flour which equals double the daily requirement of food for a single person. The message is the same. One must use the wealth (symbolised by the shulkhan, the Table upon which the loaves rested) to assist a neighbour or friend in need of support.

Moreover, teaches Rav Hirsch, the showbreads were baked in pairs and arranged side by side in two equal stacks so that “in material, in shape, in preparation and in layout, the concept of brotherliness was impressed”.  There were twelve loaves in all, representing the Twelve Tribes of Israel operating together in mutual harmony.

And In Gematria!

It will be recalled that post-Eden, Adam is told be-zai’at apeikha tochal lekhem, “by the sweat of your brow, you shall eat bread!”

Rav Hirsch writes that the root of the word בזעת is  is זוע. This word has a gematria (numerical value) of 87.

In the rarified world-within-a-world that is the Mishkan, the zai’a, the sweat that oils the toil of man’s struggle with nature in the producing of bread is absent. Taking its place is an aromatic spice called levona, frankincense – from the Old French franc encense meaning “pure incense”.   Levona is so-called because it is white, the colour of purity. It is an essential enhancement a partner, to the lekhem ha-panim. (Lev. 24:7).  Rav Hirsch equates it with “satisfaction” or “peace of mind”.

The gematria of לבנה is also 87, reinforcing the idea that in the microcosm of the Mishkan, peace of mind borne out of mutual co-operation, has replaced in every detail the war with the macrocosm that is the natural world outside.

This is reinforced in another remarkable gematria. לחם, bread, in this context the showbread, the substance upon which the levona is placed has the same numerical value (78) as the word יניח, “he will give rest”. This word is used by Moshe (Deut 3:20) in connection with G-D’s promise to grant rest and peace in Erets Yisrael following the successful conquest of the land by all the Twelve Tribes in brotherly partnership with each other

Thus the equation of bread with war and battle will eventually give way, not only in the rarified Mishkan but throughout the the Land,  to the equation of bread with peace.

May the blessed day come soon when the eternal bayit shelishi, the Third Temple, will be built in all its glory. (Gematria buffs may be further excited to discover one extra gem – לחם פנים, “showbread” [258] equals בנין עולם,  “eternal structure”, the phrase we use for the bayit sheleshi in our tefilot.) From there, the lekhem panim with its fragrant levona will again radiate a message of peace and tranquillity in our Land and indeed throughout the world, this time for ever! In the immortal words of the prophet Amos (8:11, as interpreted by Alshikh), there will be a “universal hunger – not for bread [for it will be abundant and accessible without toil] but a hunger to hear and to understand and to internalise the true and authentic message of G-D”.

May we merit to witness this longed-for day very soon!