Pirkei Avos 3: Transforming the Shabbos Table into a Mizbeach Through Torah and Gratitude

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. This week's perek. משנה: שלשה שאכלו על שולחן אחד, ולא אמרו עליו דברי תורה, כאילו אכלו מזבחי מתים, שנאמר: כי כל שולחנות מלאו קיא צואה בלי מקום. The Mishnah tells us, when you sit together, shlosha she'achlu al shulchan echad, v'daf redn divrei Torah. The diyukim in the Mishnah are very sharp. Choira, shlosha she'achlu, and if what happens if it's only two people eating together? Rishonim address this question. Why does it have to be shlosha she'achlu, three? And a tzvei zitzen in a lesung, dafkes lo zogn divrei Torah. Another diyuk in the Mishnah, she'achlu is a lashon avar. It's mashma after they ate. It should have said she'ochlim, that they're eating. What is the achlu, that they already ate? There's another diyuk in the Mishnah that the Rishonim talk about: shulchan echad, and if it's not by a shulchan, and if it's not one table, the Mishnah seems to give us a very strong criteria that it's not always and all the time. L'choira, every time, even zitzen tzuzamen in a nesin, chat min gedaft zogen divrei Torah. Why is it three? Why is it achlu, lashon avar? Why is it shulchan? Dafke shulchan is mashma something to do with the table. And also, what does it mean that they didn't say divrei Torah, v'lo amru alef, alef? V'lo amru divrei Torah, mitnitgezup Torah. What's the alef at this? Ilus hadin in the shulchan. Rav zogen of the shulchan, divrei Torah. What does it mean zivchei meisim? It's a nice shaila. It's all in the Rishonim, rabosai. These are all ha'aros that the Rishonim talk about. What is the zivchei meisim? And the biggest question of all, l'choira, the mashafrech chain, it seems to be stiradike halachos. Does, says the Mishnah, that you need, in order it should be zeh ha-shulchan lifnei Hashem, which is what the Mishnah ends off when they say divrei Torah becomes zeh ha-shulchan lifnei Hashem. And in the Gemara Brachos, daf nun hei, the Gemara says from this pasuk that you have to feed dalim, and then it becomes zeh ha-shulchan lifnei Hashem. The Gemara says that you have to be marbeh al shulchanoi, because like this, if in case somebody comes, you can give him mipitoi. And that's how it becomes zeh ha-shulchan lifnei Hashem. Frekt the Maharsha, is it this Mishnah, divrei Torah makes it zeh ha-shulchan lifnei Hashem, or is it the dalim, the feeding of the aniyim? It's interesting, the Mishnah Berurah already brings that this is a halachah of zeh ha-shulchan, Shulchan Kemezbeiach, we'll soon see where it's learned from. The Meiri speaks about it in this Mishnah. Sagt the Mishnah Berurah that it's important that the table should be a table of zeh ha-shulchan, like a mizbeach mechaper. V'kasav b'shlah, the yilmedu Mishnah, oy halachah, aggados, sifrei mussar. You have to learn, so he brings the halachah of learning. Then the Mishnah Berurah says that through, and in brackets he brings the inyan of oizeh dalim, if you help the dalim, says the Mishnah Berurah, then it becomes mizbeach, shulchan mechaper. And on the bottom, the Shaar HaTziyun in se'if katan lamed says that l'choirah the Mishnah obviously seems to say it has to do with divrei Torah, says the se'ifei daas. That's how the Shaar HaTziyun, the Mishnah Berurah says. It's not a stirah, heinach nami. In order for the table to be zeh ha-shulchan lifnei Hashem, and we'll soon see many Rishonim learn it means that the table becomes like a mizbeach, zeh ha-shulchan, even though it uses the lashon shulchan, the Rishonim already talk about that as well, but l'choirah we all know, and let's leave it at that, shulchan k'mizbeach. And how does the shulchan become k'mizbeach? Yes, this Mishnah, divrei Torah. The Gemara, daf nun hei in Brachos, says daled amos, ... and ... makes it that the shulchan...

is al shulchan lifnei Hashem. The diukim. What do we do with the diukim? So the emes is, there's halachos shailos in the diukim. Rashbam says shleisha is not lav davka. It's lav davka, because l'maaseh, zitzen is a midra'aisa. That's the way it is. Trei zitzin, nach eina zitzin, stama. Rashbam says it's lav davka, but it means any time Yidden sit together, muz men vedn lernen. Ein nacheina is nacheina, lav davka. Azoi lernt der Rashbam shleisha. Rabbeinu Yonah zogt, nein, it's davka. The Mishnah says shleisha, it's three. Why davka three? Zogt der Rabbeinu Yonah, three is a chavrah. It's a chaburah. And when the chaburah zitzt tzusammen, is do a chiyuv redn lernen. So it's a halachahdike shailos: shleisha, efsher mit shtayim. There's other shailos of she'achlu, like we said, the diukim, she'achlu in the past, that they already ate. Peirush Yisrael speaks about it, and he says, l'choirah, v'hametaltelin redn mitn. When asked, you're not allowed to talk, ein משיחין בסעודה, which is interesting, which means is you got to finish the seudah and then talk, maybe between courses it's called bein, it's not called while you're eating. Many halachos shailos about when and where are you allowed to talk, and that's negea to when and where you're allowed to say divrei Torah al shulchanechad. So already a raya in the Acharonim. Maybe it's only when they're sitting at the same table, there was big discussions, and you're together in a dining hall of a yeshiva. It's not Shulchan Echad; we're sitting at different tables. Maybe it's only Shulchan, maybe it's only Shulchan Echad. Like I said, these are interesting ha'aros lahalacha based on the diyukim of the lashon of the Mishnah. Shailah is, what's the iyun, the musar of the Mishnah? The halacha shailah is chaveis, I don't want to go into the halachos, then vu vasi dam Mishteh purim and teshuvahs, it's altereid. We want to learn the Mishnah. Let's talk a little bit: vas is der musar and the hashkafah in the Mishnah. So first of all, dafin visin, vas is the divrei Torah? What counts as divrei Torah? Which is also halacha shailah, but from the halacha shailah that we answer what the divrei Torah is, we see an interesting hashkafah in this Mishnah. What is considered divrei Torah? What's suffice? What is considered—yes, ich hob gezogt divrei Torah. So there's an interesting Rav on the Mishnah, and the Rav says, even if they say Birchas Hamazon, sigenug. Ate dos heist divrei Torah, Birchas Hamazon. Gebencht, good enough. Interestingly, the Rav on the side of the Mishnah, which the Bartenura talks about all this, is altereid, rabbeisei. L'maaseh, he says, Shamati. That's how he brings it. He heard this pshat. It's interesting, it's a Rashi. That's the Rashi on that Mishnah. Shailas in the girsa'os of the Rashi. Some have a girsa in the Rashi, she'regilim bnei adam lifa'ter min ha'seudah b'Birchas Hamazon, that they used to do it that way. And the Mishnah is saying it's wrong. That's one way to learn the Mishnah. She'regilim means that they used to do it, and the Mishnah is asking not to do that. To say divrei Torah, to say more than just to be yotzei with Birchas Hamazon. Others have a girsa in the Rashi, she'potrim. That's the minhag. The minhag is that if you're in a rush, azoi zogt der Tiferes Yisrael, in case you're in a rush, no, no, no Birchas Hamazon. You're benched. Tell me, Birchas Hamazon is divrei Torah? A chagutaher, rabosai. Yotzei, miz yotzei mit dem? Dos heist yotzei geven? Divrei Torah? Birchas Hamazon is a tefillah. Makoshe. Maybe we'll mention a pasuk or two in there, but how did that become this Mishnah? The Mishnah is saying that you could be yotzei according to the—

According to the Rav, it comes out that you could be yotzei with Birchas Hamazon. Vos iz der pshat? Chakutera Rabosai. The Sfas Emes says, interesting, he says you didn't read the Mishnah and the Rav properly. Where did the Rav say that you could patter yourself with Birchas Hamazon? Shloisha she'achlu al shulchan echad v'lo amru alav divrei Torah, then it becomes zivchei meisim. Dorten, there you could patter yourself with Birchas haTorah. But then you have the second part of the Mishnah established: shloisha she'achlu, and they did say divrei Torah, it becomes al shulchan lifnei Hashem. For that you can't just patter yourself with Birchas Hamazon; for them davka zogen Torah, she'eino din. There's two parts to the Mishnah the meforshim talk about. L'choira, the Mishnah repeats itself. The Mishnah starts off that in case you go and you don't say divrei Torah, it's zivchei meisim, and then it says, ah, the whole new Mishnah. Aval shloisha she'achlu, you don't need both sides of the coin; just say, lo amru divrei Torah, zivchei... v'im lav, it's al shulchan lifnei Hashem. Why do you have to make it into a whole new Mishnah, a whole new halacha? Zogt the Sfas Emes, she'eino... she'eino... the Rav, when he says that you could patter yourself with Birchas Hamazon, he was talking about that it shouldn't be zivchei meisim. It shouldn't be a zivchei meisim. Ober even zeh al shulchan lifnei Hashem. Can't be stam as al Birchas Hamazon. For then, for this you need emes, good shtark in divrei teirah, herta maiseh. So we have a Mishnah. That the Mishnah is telling us that zivchei meisim, the difference between that and shulchan is with the divrei teirah. Az me zogt divrei teirah, iz shelo zivchei meisim. But you still—I'm sorry, if you say birchas hamazon is ois zivchei meisim, but if you don't say birchas hamazon, then it's zivchei meisim. But if you say divrei teirah, then it becomes, Zeh ha-shulchan asher lifnei Hashem. Okay, rabosai, lomer redn, vos ligt do, vos meint es. Soon we're going to speak about—you see the gadlus of teirah. I'll show you why. Tell me, how much divrei teirah counts as divrei teirah? No? Does anybody know? It doesn't say divrei teirah. You know, there's a maiseh from the Brisker Rav. It just came into my head; that means I have to tell it to you. The Brisker Rav, like this in Shalosh Seudos, hot men em gefregt in Lita, hot men nisht gegessen Shalosh Seudos. They were yotzei with divrei teirah. Rabosai, there's a mekor for this: erev Pesach shechal lihyos b'Shabbos, you can't eat. You have a very hard time—what do you eat, peiros? That's the only thing you can eat, matzah kemach nisht esen, un chametz kemach nisht esen, so vos tut men? So some say eat fruits. The Beis HaLevi says divrei teirah. So the Beis HaLevi in Shulchan Aruch, erev Pesach shechal lihyos b'Shabbos, divrei teirah. There's a mekor. Does heisk ge'esn. We'll soon get back to this. It's interesting how it popped into my head. It's grad that part of the shiur. Wait a second. A lot of Litvish today, baruch Hashem, are makpid — everybody's makpid on shalosh seudos, and the Brisker Rav was makpid on shalosh seudos as well. Hat men em gefregt, Mister Chalitvak, why aren't you yotzei with divrei Torah, zeivin da lit? Hot er geantwort: Az ich vil lernen a shtikel Teisvis mit a Rambam, un zogn a shtikel Torah, un ich will vet mir opshlogen? Iz arop di gantze shalosh seudos. Vos tu ich? Aber az ich es a shtikel broyt, ich hob di shalosh seudos. No one can take that away from me. Zog a shtikel Torah — ich can come and say it's not right. I lost my shalosh seudos. It's a verdl. But what do we see from over here, here? That what's called divrei Torah? What counts as divrei Torah? So I want to tell you big chiddushim, interesting, the goyim, it's famous in many places, Divrei Eliyahu it's brought. Dos halein vos men zogt az ...

About man tisheshen gezogt divrei Torah, okay? I have that maiseh. Az eyn pat, az eyn pat from der Mishnah. If somebody—it's a divrei Eliyahu, famous, the Gra brought down in many places—that if somebody would come and say, Kayemu, az ta dvar Torah... v'patarnu meloimar ma nishtanah. Says every shtetl, the mareh b'psachim. It's enough. The Ben Ish Chai brings that when there was a rush, when it was quick, you had to move the meal, they did it a different way. They would say, Mayim acharonim chovah. Halachah. Remember, my zeide used to tell us that when a person would leave his friend, he would say over the Gemara that says that when you leave your friend, you're supposed to leave with a dvar Torah. Zei shteit: Haniftar me-chaveiro, al yiftar ela mitoch dvar halachah, shemitoch kach yizkarenu. So they, you know, the guy's rushing to the bus, so you start telling him a whole shtikel Torah from the Brisker Rav, he's gonna miss his bus. So they used to say, Haniftar me-chaveiro... dvar halachah. You got it. That's it. Dvar halachah, that's it. Yeah, so dos iz shיין genug. Chayiml, dos host a dvar Torah from your rebbe on the parshah, you have to say a dvar... that's it. You don't have to say any more divrei Torah. What's the pshat? You're talking about... dafzogen shtikel Torah, so what's the halachah? What is this halachah about? If it's about divrei Torah, that you really need to say divrei Torah, so why is this good enough? It's mashma k'ilu epes darf men zogn. Dvar teivah, thou says, Dvar toivah and you're yotzei. What's the pshat? Why is that good enough? So, rabosai, let's go into the reason why we need to say ad vateirah by a tish. It's stated in the Mishnah. What's the reason behind it? So, kepshutei, and as zeh is mashma in the Mishnah Berurah, and if you look at the Miri, that's how he learns the Mishnah: Zeh ha-shulchan lifnei Hashem, even though it says shulchan, but we mean mizbeach. Mizbeach shel adam, shulchan shel adam is a mizbeach, because the beginning of the pasuk starts with mizbeach and it ends with zeh ha-shulchan. So really, the diyuk is not from the words zeh ha-shulchan lifnei Hashem, says the Miri, but it's from the beginning of the pasuk that speaks about the mizbeach, and it puts it together with zeh ha-shulchan to teach me that the shulchan is like a mizbeach. And in order for it to be like a mizbeach, muzman, zahgin divrei Torah. We all know there's many halachos because of shulchan k'mizbeach. Mishnah Berurah in Sha'ar HaTziyun, kuf samach-zayin, se'if katan chav-vav, says you're not allowed to kill a bee on a shulchan. It's flying around. The wasp is flying around. You have to be careful. There's halachos about it, rabosai. I don't want to go into the details right now. I'm not here to pasken shailos, but asur l'harog kinah. It's a mefurashah halachah, and not allowed to kill a kinah on a tish, al shulchan k'mizbeach. There's other halachos of shulchan aruch, Orach Chaim kuf pei se'if hei: you not put a knife on a table, ki charbecha heinafta aleha vatechalleha, just like on a mizbeach. Just like on a mizbeach, you're not allowed to put a knife, you're not allowed to put anything that's made from metal. Ki charbecha henafta aleha vatechalleleha. So you're not allowed to put a knife on the shulchan. I'll tell you the answer. I don't go into the details of the halacha. You want to talk to me halacha, I'll talk to you for a very long time about these shailas. These are big shailas, aveirahs. I'm just telling you these are outer yesodos, that mizbeach and the shulchan... Shulchano shel adam mechaper mimeila. The davar zogen divrei Torah. What's the kesher that the Torah makes it like a mizbeach? How did that work? We made a very big jump, rabosai, here. Shulchan k'mizbeach because of the divrei Torah. Tell me, can I walk over to a mizbeach when Nishbrein ha'korban, zogen divrei Torah, binichyotza? That's it, finished. I mean, how did it become, if I take the shulchan and I say on a divrei Torah, v'altes v'hamizbeach? So, rabosai, there's a Reb Chaim Volozhin, a hafla v'fela, hafla mamash, narichus gadol. I don't even know if I can go through the whole Reb Chaim Volozhin, but Reb Chaim Volozhin says this.

Mishnah gives us an understanding: what's food. Food. Says Zogt. Do you understand what is eating? Eating is a big part of a person's life. How should we look at food, zogt Reb Chaim Volozhin? So he says a hafla v'feledige zach. He says it's interesting. He begins with the fact that Baal Peor, there used to be oved avodah zarah with Peor. Everybody in the stam here already knows what it is; I don't have to spell it out. Baal Peor. Tell me, fragt Reb Chaim Volozhin, are they completely meshugeh? Azei meshugeh? ... azei meshugeh, meshugeh gut. ... azei toyt meshugeh, vi kan men ... Of course you're not going to find this language by Reb Chaim Volozhin, but that's more or less the way he addresses the kashya. What does it mean, bichlal? Zogt der hafla v'fele: in every food — Reb Chaim, the talmid of the Gaon, Reb Chaim Volozhin — in every food there's ruchniyus and gashmiyus. Der Ribono Shel Olam's mamarei, 'Toitzei ha'aretz desheh,' gives chiyus. But what chiyus? Ruchni. Ki lo al halechem levado yichyeh ha'adam, ki al kol motza פי Hashem. It's not only the lechem, zogt Reb Chaim Volozhin, it's the motza פי Hashem. Hafla v'fele. So whenever you eat, there's ruchniyus and gashmiyus. The body gets from the gashmiyus, the neshama gets from the ruchniyus. Tell me, what comes out in Peor? Just the chelek hagashmi, they're oived that, says Reb Chaim Volozhin. That's what they're oived. To them, the lebben, the essen, life, eating food, is all about the chelek hagashmi, the taivos sheboi. U'meileh, men a yid, says Reb Chaim Volozhin, a daf toch male zayn az der essen zol zayn ruchni un nisht gashmi. And he says, again, it's a long Reb Chaim Volozhin, before the eitz hadaas and after the eitz hadaas. Before the eitz hadaas, he brings from the Rambam, it was good and bad separate. Many sefarim, they all talk about the yetzer hara was mibachutz, but then afterwards it became together, mixed together. Pnim, it went inside into the ruchni and to the mench. He says food is the same thing, that it became in the food the chelek hara, the yetzer hara sheboi. And when a person eats, his avodah is to be maleh, says Reb Chaim Volozhin, to take out the ruchni and to eliminate the gashmi chelek. And he says, and that's a mizbeach. Mizbeach is the zelbe zach. Minemt a beheimeh, and you ma'aleh it, macht fun dem kedush. Zeh ha-shulchan lifnei Hashem. That becomes shulchan lifnei Hashem. And dos iz mizbeach durch teireh, yeah, durch teireh. It depends on how you sit down by a table. Az me zitzt ban tish, ken zayn zivchei meisim, korbanos, teit zivchei meisim. Nish ken zayn, zar shulchan lifnei Hashem karban. Zei lernen Chaim HaLashon. It's a lot more in there also. The laila is good enough. So this is one pshat, rabosai, in what peirah does. As they used to tell me in Slabodka, ... ein dvar Torah ken ufton. This: it could take something which is zivchei meisim, and machen fun dem zeh a shulchan lifnei Hashem. Ein vort Torah. ... afilu a kleinshke dvar Torah. Ein vort. One word. What are you saying? Mayim acharonim chovah. Dos macht shein fun dem tish, dem gashmius, heypt op un es vert shulchan lifnei Hashem. Rabosai, there's another ... which the Rishonim talk about, and it's also meduyak in the Reb Chaim Volozhin, and as well as in the Rambam. It's about the geshmak. It's about the approach.

It's not the dvar Torah alone. It's the fact that when we sit by a table, we understand what we're doing when we sit by a table. Az mezitz ba'tish, sit by a table, and it's you're thinking about how. But if you're thinking, ma'aseh, zeh shulchan lifnei Hashem, the Chayei, davka vatoira, that itself, the way you approach the tish, your sensitivity of how you eat, and your understanding of what it means to eat, that itself is ma'aleh. So we have two pshatim on Beisai. Either the dvar Torah alone macht kedushah fun chol, other, it's the person. You know, the Shivas Tzion Reb Aharon, many places, in Chelek Beis of his Mishnas Reb Aharon, in Chelek Gimmel, he has an interesting mahalach in this Mishnah. He noticed that Rabbeinu Yonah spoke about a chevrah, a chevrah. Why chevrah? Why does it have to be a chavurah? What's wrong if shnayim sheyeshvim and they say divrei Torah? Why does it have to be that they're sitting b'chavurah? Zogt the Shivas Tzion, you know, you sit by a table and there's three people sitting there. You know what it could lead to? It could go either way. That's how he learns, I think, I believe, the Mishnah. The Mishnah is trying to teach us that a table could turn into a moishiv leitzim, or a table could turn into זה השולחן לפני ה'. It's a פרקי שירה, מתדבק תורה. You swing the tone of the Tisch. Chameir a tikavod. The סדר ישיבה, the Mishnah, zevi mizogin. It's not about the actual דברי תורה, that the way you sit at the table and you say a דברי תורה, ממילא the tish ווערט הייליג. But it's more about the person. The way the person sits at the table, at the tisch, is דא מהלך פונעם טיש. I see everybody's looking at me like I'll tell you the old joke. I've said it many times. It's a good vertel. If you heard it, I apologize. There was a kid that sat in a classroom, and the rebbe tells him, Tell me, what's more important than תורה? What's more chashuv than תורה? So everybody said nothing. One kid pipes up and says, The cholent for Shabbos is more than תורה. You got to frost for it. I guess not in today's time, so the joke must have been said years ago. Today he was reprimanded and he got a note sent home. Okay, I fixed it up. Okay, so zayn azoy. Okay? ... I put the frost... Okay. The kid'sa. What happens? Takes the kid to the menahel, and the menahel starts to ask him, What are you, a chatzuf? What are you playing games? So he says, No, no, I'm telling you. Don't challenge for Shabbos. It's more chashuv than Torah. He says, Why are you saying that? He says, I'll tell you very simple. Every Shabbos I come home, come with my sheets, I want to say my dvar Torah, and my father tells me, No, not—first the chol, frier daf men es. Nach dem. Afterwards, here you could say your dvar Torah. A beisai. So this can be laughed at. It's a meidike yissod. You know what this Mishnah is telling us? You set the tone of the table. The way the father sits by the table, eken zogn a dvar Torah, un del tish is a zeh shulchan lifnei Hashem. But if it doesn't begin with that, so then it's not zeh shulchan lifnei Hashem. And that's how the Rosh Yeshivas Hatzalah understood it with chaburah, with chevra, when people come together, and he's talking about the Bnei Yeshiva, the way they should learn Torah by a tish, because it swings the atmosphere.

Other azoi un other azoi. So now we have two pshatim, rabosai, and soon you'll see a third pshat, which is very interesting. So the two pshatim we have is that, Dvar Torah afilu ein valt macht a shulchan k'mizbeach. That's the koach haTorah. You hear? Koach haTorah. I say, it's like mezagen slabotka, I heard this from my zeide. The goyim, all you're saying is one word and it's good enough. Dos is the koach haTorah, malutze zayn. Then we have a second pshat, rabosai. What does it mean? It's more about the way you view the tish. The way you look at the table, that becomes the tish. Zeh hashulchan lifnei Hashem. Rabosai, I want to tell you over a Yaavetz, which is half luftel, half luftel. Yaavetz says, what does the Ribono Shel Olam have hana'ah from? A Yaavetz, rabosai, it's peledik, mamash a pele. It's a kasha. There's a Gemara. The Gemara says the Ribono Shel Olam is sas al divrei Torah. It makes the Eibishter happy. You hear? Zogt er, when you come to a seudas chasan, the Gemara says, mesamchei. You have to make him happy. Why? Because you're eating from his food. Zogt der Yaavetz, az mezitzt by a tish un der Ribono Shel Olam di gegebene essen? Yech, rabosai. How much I said the whole shiur only because of this Yaavetz. That's why I said the shiur. Tzrichim ... d'ribono shel olam ... Tiyad ... because the lashon, it's a hakdamah. V'oid, what's the reason that you have to sit by a ... and ... shulchano shel Makom? ... which he means by Chasan Kallah, he doesn't bring, but that's what he means, the Gemara. Tzarich l'samchei, kal d'chomer, ... dafka l'sameach sein d'ribono shel olam. A person has to sit by a tish and to be makir tov, to be makir tov, yeah, to the Ribono Shel Olam who gave it to you. With this, I think we could say the pshat in a Mishnah Berurah. Mishnah Berurah says, you know how you're yotzei mitzvas d'var Torah? Says the Mishnah Berurah that right after, you should say, Mizmor l'David, Hashem ro'i lo echsar. Says the Mishnah B'rurah, sheyesh bo, it has in it divrei Torah u'tefillah al mizonoisav. The divrei Torah the Mishnah Berurah is farshteinen. It's not only the divrei Torah; it goes deeper. It's understanding as the Ribono Shel Olam ... When you sit by a table, you have to keep in mind who gave you the food, ... the divrei Torah is a geder of Torah. And also that the person understands who gave it. Who gave it. On every bite that you take, the Ribono Shel Olam. I saw that the Mechadash, a sefer about his life, when he would bench, he would cry by Nodeh Lecha. Nodeh Lecha. That's where he would cry. A menschel, the bedenken keseider, az der Ribono Shel Olam, He gave it to us. It comes from Him. Vi gedenk mir dos? If not, what is it? It's called zivchei meisim. Menemt aroys der Ribono Shel Olam fun do. But if you remember, zeh ha-shulchan lifnei Hashem. Where do we find the lashon of lifnei Hashem? Shivisi Hashem lenegdi tamid, that when you sit by a table, you're supposed to remember always lifnei Hashem. It's brought down that Birchas Hamazon is a tremendous eis ratzon, a tremendous eis ratzon. What's the eis ratzon? It's already in Rishis Chochmah and other places, that the Ribono Shel Olam, azoy vi bay dem mizbeach, the Ribono Shel Olam is there. The Ribono Shel Olam is there.

How is he different? And the teretz is by through the nesinah, the fact that the Eibishter is giving you. V'loi lidei matnas basar v'dam, ki im liyadcha hameleiah, hapsuchah, harachavah. What does that mean? The Ribbono Shel Olam is giving. And when you eat, you're taking in the fact that the Ribbono Shel Olam is giving you. You're directly connected to the Eibishter. We all know about the nachash and with this ... Rabosai, there's a lot more to talk about in this Mishnah. The nachash, he was punished. What was he punished? Al gechonecha telech, v'afar tochal, aleph regen. That's the greatest thing for him. He has food wherever he goes. It's almost like in America. Wherever you go, you can stop off at every two feet, you have another store. Someone once told me, a ... tzaddik, that he could tell me every store that sells nash from where he lives to where he works, an hour and fifteen minutes away. He knows every place. He had to make a zach. Today, it's mamash like the nachash, America. So what's so bad about that? So Chazal tell us, the Baalei Mussar speak about it, the Eibishter told the nachash, I don't want to have anything to do with you. Take the food and go. Food is a way on how to connect to the Eibishter. When you have to come on to the Ribono Shel Olam for food, that means you're mukusher to the Ribono Shel Olam. Food takes on a whole different meaning. It's kiyum, liyadcha hamelei'ah, hapesuchah, v'hachavah, with every bite. So either you could be like the nachash, that you eat the food and you forgot who's giving it to you. Or the pshat is that in every bite, you could remember, Zeh ha'shulchan lifnei Hashem, that the Ribono Shel Olam is here, He's feeding me, He's giving me. That this is the Mishnah. This is what the Mishnah wants. The dvar Torah, yes, avad it's ma'aleh the shulchan, it's ma'aleh the shulchan, it's emes. But also the dvar Torah brings that the person realizes, ... where did it come from? And ממילא it's a zman of tefillah al mazonos. There's a dam feel. Understanding, like the nachash, he was disconnected from the Ribono Shel Olam. And if you want to know in Tefillas Rabbeinu, I remember what Reb Chaim Volozhin speaks about the eitz hadaas. It has something to do with the nachash. It's a lot to do with it, the eitz. Notice that the first chet was in an achilah, Rabbeisei. I'm not going to go further. I'll let you work on it on your own. Achilah, that the Ribono Shel Olam ... the chavivus ... nitnas. The first chet. The nachash was involved with that. Maletz a zach. Hiyim liyadcha, amleya, hapsucha, nachash. I don't want you to connect with me for food. Stay away. Because I told you how to eat. I told you what to do. I told you not to eat from eitz hadaas. And you went and you ate from eitz hadaas. And I'll get ... like this, with one nice chassidishe dehev, with a chabanoshe dehev. By sukkah is not halacha. If someone is roishe v'rubo b'soch hasukkah, v'shulchano b'soch habayis lo yatza. See them like an animal zogn a veltel, and the roishe v'rubo is in the sukkah, aber der shulchan is not there. Tish is nisht kein tish from sukkah; it's a tish from shtub. Lo yatza. ... The tish tells a lot about the person. ... Lifnei Hashem. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.