From my archives....
Rashi teaches us that this meal was a very special one - "Eating a meal with Torah scholars is similar to enjoying the Divine Presence". כאילו נהנים מזיו השכינה. Lovely. But isn't that a WEE BIT exaggerated? Jews like to eat but to raise the act of eating to such an elevated plane seems to be overdoing it.
A myseh that Mori V'Rabbi the Tolna Rebbe Shlita heard from a Jew in Bayit Vegan years back.....
After the war Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg [the author of the Sredei Aish] went to the DP camps to give inspiration and encouragement to the survivors. He prepared profound lectures based on the deepest books to help restore the faith that so many of our people had lost. Nevertheless he saw that he wasn't really making much of an impression and quite often people would not even come to listen [I know the feeling:(... A.C.E.] This understandably caused him great anguish. He then heard that in one camp in Ferenvald there is a great spiritual revival. He traveled there to investigate and understand the secret of helping people return to their faith. He arrived towards evening and he saw that in one shack there was a group of people who had survived the gehenom of the war. They were eating some sardines that the "Joint" had provided and were singing with great emotion. At the head of the table sat a Jew who was leading the proceedings and sharing words of comfort and consolation. Rabbi Weinberg inquired as to his identity and he was told that his name was the Klausenberger Rebbe who had lost his entire family [a wife and ELEVEN children! When he would daven and say אדון הנשמות he would think of the neshama of each one of his family members who had perished]. Rabbi Weinberg approached him and asked what the secret is. He prepares deep lectures explaining the profundity of our faith and nobody is really interested while the Rebbe is inspiring hundreds. The Rebbe said [in Yiddish I'm sure but I'll do it in English] "Rav Weinberg you forgot an explicit gemara. In Chullin [ד] we learn that the righteous King Yehoshafat was lured into joining forces with the evil King Achav [against Aram] against his better judgement because Achav served him a meal. אין הסתה בדברים - if you really want to convince somebody the correct address is the stomach and not the mind. When I eat with them I have a lot more success that I would with speeches."
[Parenthetically - I heard that the Israeli contingent that signed the Oslo accords returned home much heavier than they had been when they left. The goyim kept feeding them until they signed... If I used parenthesis do I have to say "parenthetically"? Well, here I used brackets so it should be "bracketly". But I put in brackets so maybe it's not necessary. Oy the problems I have in life:-)]
THAT is the secret of Rashi. If one really wants to get close to Hashem, just sitting with a tzaddik and eating can accomplish that. That is why, as Jackie Mason comically noted ["Gentiles drink, Jews eat"] , Jews are such big eaters. Every seudas mitzva, every Shabbos, every Yom Tov etc. etc. is an opportunity to channel our eating pleasure to a more lofty plane. If a tzaddik and Torah scholar is sitting at the table it is indeed as if we are deriving pleasure from the Divine presence.
I add that a lesson that can be learned from this is that even though it is often the father or other males at the table sharing the divrei Torah, the woman from her honored place in the kitchen [unless the man cooks which happens in some homes but not in the one where this computer is located] has a greater influence on the spiritual growth of the children. Everyone knows that the rule is "Keep the divrei Torah short but the food plentiful". So נשות חיל women of valor, remember that you indispensable not only for the material needs of the home but the spiritual needs as well.
A DELICIOUS, ELEVATING, SHABBOS BELOVED FRIENDS
!!
[Based on the Rebbe Shlita's weekly chumash shiur תשס"ו]
