Bread with Salt

Rabbi Melanie Aron

May 26, 2001

When the rabbis decreed that Jews should read Pirke Avot, the teachings of the Fathers, during the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot, they faced one problem. Seven weeks, not including the first and last days, will always include six Sabbaths, but the original tractate Pirke Avot had only five chapters. Not to worry. These later rabbis went out and found Beraitot, teachings of the earlier rabbis of the time period of the Mishnah, that were collected elsewhere, but were on similar themes. In that way they created the sixth chapter of Pirke Avot which is our study text this Shabbat.

The collected teachings focus on the importance of the study of Torah. Studying Torah was not to be a merely theoretical exercise. If one studied Torah and did not improve one's personal qualities or better one's relations with other people, then the rabbis would say: you may have been through the whole Torah, but the whole Torah has not been through you." A person who is a true student of Torah should be modest, patient, forgiving of insults, full of many personal virtues.

In one teaching in this chapter, we are told that the way of Torah is to "Eat bread with salt and drink water by measure." What could these curious words mean? Are we being told that the true students of Torah must renounce all physical comforts and live a life of poverty? That does not seem consistent with general Jewish teaching which does not romanticize poverty, but rather recognizes it as a deadener of the spirit. Tevye was not so off the mark, when he noted "it's no crime to be poor, but it is no great honor either." Our tradition did not see poverty and physical suffering as exalting. In one story the rabbis tell, a man boasts to another that in order to be holy, he has himself given 40 lashes, sleeps outdoors on the ground, and eats only straw and thistles. The second man comments, "and that makes you pious? My horse is also beaten regularly, and he too eats straw and thistles".

This teaching: "eat bread with salt and drink water by measure" does not exalt poverty, but counterbalances the normal tendency to veer in the other direction. If we are willing to eat simply, and to drink simply, drinking water, rather than the alternative at that time, which was wine, then we will not be focused on food, or drink, or clothing or other non-essentials. We will be content if we have the necessities of life. We will be sameach bechelko, satisfied with our portion. Being content with our physical possessions, we will have more time for other things, like Torah study and doing mitzvoth. We will also avoid being lured into dishonesty by the necessity of providing things for our families.

The reference to bread with salt is a reference not only to simplicity but also to the custom of putting salt on our challah to simulate the way offerings were made on the altar. Perhaps this text is reminding us that eating and drinking in a worshipful way, is an important part of leading a life of Torah.

A blind person, the rabbis note, can navigate in a familiar place, with no obstacles, without guidance from others. But if a blind person is going someplace unknown, with many obstacles, they require a guide that will help them along the way. For the rabbis, each of us is blind in some way, and our world is ever new and ever filled with challenges. As Shavuot, the holiday of the giving of the Ten Commandments approaches, we are reminded that in the Torah we find a guide that we can lean on, so that we might travel the world without fear.