Rabbi Samuel Bar Nachman taught that it is the power of G-d to give man his daily bread. If we look at bread closely we will se that it is definitely a miraculous food. The recipe was given to Adam by H”S. Just to get to the flour you can appreciate the whole process to attaining this ingredient. First someone has to plow the soil, plant the seeds, water the land, pick the wheat stalks, process them to get the flour, etc…if we go to every ingredient in the recipe it is just very powerful to acknowledge the kindness of H”S towards us in the way He nourishes and sustains our lives.
The whole process of making Challah is very mystical and spiritual. Personally for me, making Challah is my weekly appointment with H”S. I listen to music, sing, pray a lot, say thank you a lot, to make it precise making Challah puts me in a place of having my priorities straight giving me much strength as a Jewish woman to live my life with Joy and gratitude.
To give you a tasting of the meditations one should practice when mixing the seven ingredients in the Challah, which are connected to our seven emotional faculties, it goes like this:
Water represents Torah, when putting this ingredient I pray for the will to want to be connected to H”S will Through His Torah.
Yeast is what allows the dough to rise, I give thanks for H”S taking care of me and my family, for our health, for our parnasah and for giving me faith and then I pray that he maintains this for us. Sugar should be put overflowing and we pray that we should be sweet people and that everything H”S sends us should come in a sweet way too. Eggs represent life, so I pray for a good, healthy and long life. Salt should be a little less than the spoon, so we don’t become arrogant and haughty, we should have a balanced self esteem and always be humble. Oil, is the substance that helps connect all the ingredients together, I pray that I should be a person that brings unity in this world and not the other way around.
Finally the flour represents the material abundance in our lives, so YES I also pray that we should always have Parnasah Tova, abundance, and we should always use it to serve H”S.
Shabbat Shalom
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