#129: Machshavah

For many people, the Shabbat meals are one of the highlights of Shabbat. The good food, conversation, and spending time with family create a truly special weekly experience. Rav Mordechai Eliyahu (Divrei Mordechai, Shemot p. 252) reminds us, however, that we must remember that we are not only eating for our own pleasure, but also because it is a mitzva.

“When a person eats for the sake of Heaven and says words of Torah at the table, his table atones for him. This is true especially on Shabbat, during which eating is a mitzva (and eating a k’zayit or k’beitza of bread is obligatory), and a person has an additional soul. If a person eats for the right reasons, namely for enjoying Shabbat [rather than just for his own personal pleasure], and he says words of Torah at his table, then the holiness of Shabbat and of the table will atone, like the kohanim who atoned for the owner [who brought an offering in the Beit HaMikdash] through their eating it.”

Let us remember to enjoy our Shabbat meals for the right reasons and to share words of Torah together with the delicious food. If so, the Shabbat table will atone for our sins in the same manner as the altar did in the Beit HaMikdash.

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Dedicated by Fran Broder as a zechus for the hostages to be released safely to their families and may everlasting peace come to Eretz Yisrael in the merit of learning Hilchos Shabbos.