ALL IN ONE OVEN

“When I break for you the staff of bread, then women shall bake your bread in one oven and they shall return your bread by weight. And you shall eat, but you shall not be satisfied.” (Vayikrah 26:26)

Whenever I read this verse, which details one of the curses that will come upon the Jewish people for failure to heed God’s word and perform his mitzvoth, I am reminded of my first visit to Israel in December 1991. I was part of a group attending the Ohr Somayach Shoresh programme. We spent a memorable Shabbat in the old city of Safed. Before Shabbat began, we went on a walking tour of the neighborhood. Our guide brought us to the remains of a building which he told us had been a bakery. It had not been active for many decades. He pointed to the remnants of a large oven and explained that all the ladies of the town would prepare a cholent on Friday and bring it to the baker who would place all the pots into the oven. They would return on Shabbat morning and retrieve their pots, so that their families could enjoy a delectable traditional stew for lunch. In those days, very few people could afford an oven in their homes, even if they had space for it. Moreover, firewood could be pricey so it made sense for all the families to use a single oven and pay a token amount for using it. There is an interesting passage in the Talmud (Ta’anit 21b) that is reminiscent of this situation: “In Drokart [a town in Babylon] there was a fire, but in the neighborhood of Rav Huna there was no fire. The people therefore thought that this was due to Rav Huna’s great merit. It was revealed to them in a dream that this matter was too small for the merit of Rav Huna to have played a role. Rather, it was due to a certain woman who heats her oven and lends it, [i.e., the use of her oven], to her neighbors.” As I stood on those ancient cobbled streets, I could almost smell the aroma of the cholent as it was removed from the oven. It all sounded rather quaint and romantic to me.  However, upon reading this verse, I learned that the situation was nothing less than a curse!

Rashi explains that this verse is describing the depravations of famine. Bread is used as a symbol because it is the basic “staff of life.” The women have to use a single oven because there is insufficient firewood. Even the bread that they are able to bake, crumbles and breaks into small pieces because the grain had rotted.  Thus they “return your bread by weight.” And even when someone does consume the bread, he or she will never feel satiated. This is in contrast to verse 5 above, where God promises blessing if the Jewish people heed His word, “Your threshing [season] shall reach until the grape harvest and the grape harvest shall reach until sowing. You shall eat your food to repletion, and you shall live in our land in security.” In that case, even if you eat a small amount, there will be a blessing in your stomach and you will feel satisfied (Rashi).

Rabbi Steinsaltz (Weisfeld Edition of the Chumash) notes that as a result of this curse, “Since food will be so sparse, people will be unable to act in a broad-minded, generous manner, and swap potions freely; rather, they will weigh how much they put into the oven and how much they took out, to determine exactly what belongs to them and what belongs to their neighbour.” There will be no “give or take”.

Rabbi Naphtali Zvi Yehudah Berlin of Volozhin (in Ha’emek Davar) notes that in the Talmud (Beitzah 17a), the sages suggest that a woman should fill her oven with bread because this assists with the baking process and produces a better result than when the oven is empty. Thus ten women will attempt to fill up a single oven in the hope that the bread will bake adequately, but alas, they will have no success. They will remove their bread and it will “weigh” the same as when it was put into the oven, it will hardy have risen.

Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin (in Oznayaim L’Torah) notes that this curse refers primarily to a shortage of fuel, in this case, firewood for cooking. Shortage of food is already referred to in a previous verse (20), “Your strength shall be expended in vain and your land shall not yield its produce and the tree of the land shall not yield its fruit.” He cites a passage from the Talmud (Gittin 56a) that describes the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans prior to the destruction of the Second Temple. “They sent Vespasian Caesar against the Jews. He came and laid siege to Jerusalem for three years. There were in Jerusalem these three wealthy people: Nakdimon ben Guryon, ben Kalba Savua, and ben Tzitzit HaKesat…One of them said [to the leaders of the city]: “I will feed the residents with wheat and barley.” And one of them said to leaders of the city: “I will provide the residents with wine, salt, and oil”. And one of them said to the leaders of the city: “I will supply the residents with wood”. And the Sages gave special praise to he who gave the wood. As Rav Ḥisda would give all of the keys to his servant, except for the key to his shed for storing wood [which he deemed the most important of them all]. As Rav Ḥisda said: One storehouse of wheat requires sixty storehouses of wood for cooking and baking fuel. These three wealthy men had between them enough commodities to sustain the besieged for twenty-one years. There were certain zealots among the people of Jerusalem. The Sages said to them: Let us go out and make peace with the Romans. But the zealots did not allow them to do this. The zealots said to the Sages: Let us go out and engage in battle against the Romans. But the Sages said to them: You will not be successful. In order to force the residents of the city to engage in battle, the zealots arose and burned down these storehouses of wheat and barley, and there was a general famine.”

Without fuel to process food, especially flour which cannot be baked into bread without wood, the food is useless. The years of load-shedding in South Africa have brought this concept to the fore. South Africa may be blessed with abundant natural resources, including corn, wheat and other grains, but without a reliable electricity grid, much of these resources are rendered useless. Load-shedding has dissuaded many potential businesses from investing in South Africa because they do not want to take the risk of doing business with constant energy shortages. I am cautiously optimistic that load-shedding is now behind us but it always lurks in the [dark!] corners, waiting to strike without warning. Let’s hope those days are over!

Lee, Chani Merryl & Naomi join me in wishing you Shabbat Shalom.

Rabbi Liebenberg.

Rabbi’s YouTube message: https://youtu.be/p-NJ18BGpXE?si=j1mrLt0d0zv6rby3

Yom Yerushalayim 28 Iyar 5785 / Sunday night 25 & Monday 26 May

The 58^th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem following the Six Day War in 1967. Join us for shacharit at 06h45 when we will recite Hallel, giving praise to Hashem for the eternal capital of the Jewish People. Followed by filter coffee and cake.

*Tuesday night 27 & Wednesday 28 May – Rosh Chodesh Sivan

Sivan is the month in which we celebrate Shavuot. On the first of the month, the Israelites arrived at Mt Sinai. On the third day, the Israelites began to prepare for the giving on the Torah. They surrounded the mountain, camping in demarcated boundaries, as directed by Moshe. They heard the Ten Commandments from Hashem, Himself, on the 6^th of the month. Tachanun is not recited from Rosh Chodesh until the day after Shavuot (8th Sivan), inclusive. The Molad (appearance of the new moon) is on Tuesday 27 May at 09h14 and 3 chalakim (a chelek, literally a “portion”, is a Talmudic measure of time equal to one-eighteenth of a minute, or 3 and 1/3 seconds).