Eikev: Man Does Not Live By Bread Alone

Hi, this is David with the para in five where in five minutes we try to give you insight into the para parasav. There was at one point the longest running television program in America was called bonanza. It was a western about the uh cartwright family on the ponderosa. Yeah. And uh uh the oldest brother, Adam, was played by, if I recall correctly, Prell Roberts. I believe that was his name. I'm sure if I got that wrong, it'll pop up in one of the comments. But uh he played Adam and he did something that was very problematic at that point in television. he decided he didn't want to be on the show anymore and he left and he was black ballalled from uh television for many years. Uh the same thing happened to the fellow who was playing Colonel Blake on MASH. He decided he wanted to leave and so they killed him off on the show so that he could never come back because it was a really looked down upon. you're going to leave a television show, you don't do that. Yeah. So, for many years, you didn't see him anywhere. And then I remember seeing him with a commercial for some sort of a wine and he's holding the glass of wine and he's talking about the wine and then he goes, "Because man does not live by bread alone." >> [laughter] >> I've heard this quoted any number of times. Man does not live by bread alone. And somehow the implication is he also needs meat. He also needs wine. He also needs not just bread. That's not enough. He needs all these other things. But that's the exact opposite of what the puzz is coming to teach us from this week's parish. It's in. And uh I oppressed you. I made you hungry and I fed you the which you did not know. and your forefathers did not know to let you know. Not by bread alone does man live, but by that which comes out of the mouth of God. The exact opposite. When it says you don't live by bread alone, it's telling us it's not food that sustains you. It's word that sustains you. And in fact, within all of the different foods, there is a spiritual power. Sometimes it's uh a very holy power like by man. It was all spirituality. It was called Why? Because they said 40 years we haven't gone to the bathroom. Why? Cuz you go to the bathroom to dispose of waste. But m had no waste. It was all pure. It was referred to asim. The gimar says it's the food of angels. The ramban says it's spirituality in physical form. whatever that means. So this wasn't regular food. This wasn't regular bread. This was something that was filled with a power pm. It's a words that keep us alive. It's not food. It's so interesting how people take something like this and twist it out of its meaning completely. Not by bread alone does man live. No, of course not. It's because of a who's word. It's the spiritual power that's inside of the food. And that's why by each food you can see is there more so or is there more? So a pomegranate which represents a not very good Jew because most of a pomegranate is husk. There are only little spots of sweetness just like the worst Jews have little sweet spots inside of them. But you take something like a fig, which according to one view was the atadas, the tree of knowledge except for the stem and the stem is not really part of the fruit. The entire fruit is edible. You can eat the whole thing. A date has a pit in it. An olive has a pit in it. Grapes have seeds in them. Today they have seedless grapes. But uh in case you're ever wondering, you know where they get seedless grapes from. C watermelon. They crossbreed different brands until they find ones that develop their seeds very late. So sometimes in a seedless watermelon you can see little tiny um hints of seeds. It's just not going to develop it until later. But otherwise, how do you grow a seedless watermelon? [laughter] Just means it develops them later. Yeah. But uh um everything has some kind of silus to it and so we remove that part but we understand it's not the food it's the energy the spirituality inside of item it's uh words that keep us alive in this world and hashem we will not live by bread alone but rather by the spirituality the food is just there to give us the strength to be able to access that. Maybe I'll tell you one story. Uh I heard from the person who used to bring Varon Feldman when he was in or his breakfast. He always had the same thing every day. He would have one of the things he'd have is a hard-boiled egg. So one day the fellow tells him, you know, they made a different type of egg today. He says, "I don't care." He says, "No, it's more like a scrambled egg." He says, "I don't care." He says, "No, it's like with tomato sauce and vegetables, more like a Spanish omelet." He says, "Look, it all ends up in the same place. I eat an egg because the gar says that should eat boser every morning. And there's another gimmar that says that eggs are considered like boser. That's why I eat an egg. I don't care what it looks like." Yeah. My son told me that uh he had learned by uh Kaim Zimmerman's uh grandson Rab Potach and that uh you know you heard from the Rebbitson that she'd make this whole fancy plate for Zimman you know for breakfast all kind of different things and he say and he'd mix it all together and eat it [laughter] because it all ends up in the same place. It's phashem that supports us. We should be za to be supported by p hashem chabas.