Mitzvah Eating Draws Holiness

בפסוק עשר תעשר כו' ואכלת לפני ה"א כו' למען תלמד ליראה כו'

On the verse, "You shall surely tithe... and you shall eat before Hashem your God... so that you may learn to fear (Hashem)" (Devarim 14:22-23).

The Sfas Emes opens with the Torah's verse linking the tithe, eating before Hashem, and learning to fear Him.

אמר אמו"ז ז"ל להוכיח מזה כי אכילת מצוה מביא יראת שמים

My grandfather, of blessed memory, said that one may derive from this that the eating of a mitzvah brings about yiras Shamayim.

His grandfather drew from this the principle that eating connected to a mitzvah produces yiras Shamayim.

וכ"כ באכילת שבת שהיא אכילת מצוה

And he said likewise regarding the eating of Shabbos, which is itself an eating of a mitzvah.

The same principle applies to the meals of Shabbos, since eating on Shabbos is itself a mitzvah.

והענין כי יש תערובות טו"ר במאכל

The matter is thus: there is a mixture of good and evil within food.

Ordinary food contains a blend of good and evil intermingled within it.

וצריך בירור

And it requires a process of clarification and refinement.

That mixture must be sorted out, the good separated from the bad.

אבל אכילת המעשר א"צ בירור

But the eating of maaser (the tithe) requires no such clarification.

Maaser food, however, needs no such sorting, because it is already in a refined state.

וכמו כן אכילת שבת לכן מביא יראה כו'

And so too the eating of Shabbos, and that is why it brings about yiras Shamayim.

Shabbos eating is likewise already pure, which is precisely why it generates yiras Shamayim.

וביאור הדברים כי המזון צריך להיות מזון בנפש כמו בגוף

The explanation of the matter is that nourishment must serve as sustenance for the neshamah just as it does for the body.

Food is meant to nourish the soul, not only the body, just as physical food sustains the body.

ורק התערובות מעכב

It is only the admixture (of good and evil) that holds this back.

What blocks food from nourishing the neshamah is the good-and-evil admixture within it.

לכן כשנתברר הטוב מהפסולת

Therefore, once the good has been separated out from the waste,

Once the good has been extracted from the waste, the obstacle is removed.

אז עוד המאכל מוסיף קדושה

then the food itself adds further kedushah.

At that point eating actually increases a person's kedushah rather than dragging him down.

וכמו כן בש"ק כמ"ש בפרשה הקודמת לא לרעתך נתתי לך השבת כו'

And so it is on the holy Shabbos, as it is written in the previous parsha, "I did not give you the Shabbos for your detriment" (cf. Shemos, Mechilta).

The same is true of Shabbos, as the Midrash teaches that Hashem gave Shabbos for our benefit, not our harm.

כי בשבת הוא כולו טוב

For on Shabbos everything is wholly good.

On Shabbos there is no admixture of evil; everything is entirely good.

לכן אתה אוכל כו' ואני נותן לך שכר כו'

Therefore "you eat... and I give you reward," as it were.

Therefore a person eats on Shabbos and is rewarded for it, since the eating is wholly a mitzvah.

וכמו שהמעשר הי' מניח קדושה לכל התבואות כמ"ש מו"ז ז"ל כי התרומה והמעשר מניחין הקדושה בכל השיריים

And just as the maaser would deposit kedushah into all the produce, as my grandfather, of blessed memory, said, that the terumah and the maaser deposit kedushah into all the remainder,

Just as separating terumah and maaser deposits kedushah into the produce that remains, sanctifying the rest.

ונ"ל רמז לזה עשר תעשר שיהי' המעשר דבוק בהשיריים שכל תבואות זרעך יהי' מעושרין

And it appears to me that there is an allusion to this in "aser te'aser" ("you shall surely tithe"), namely that the maaser remains bound up with the remainder, such that all the produce of your seed becomes tithed (and sanctified).

He finds a hint in the doubled language "aser te'aser": the maaser stays attached to the remaining produce so that all one's crops become tithed and sanctified.

וכמו כן השבת נותן ברכה על כל ימי השבוע

And so too the Shabbos bestows blessing upon all the days of the week.

In parallel, Shabbos pours blessing into the entire week that follows.

והנה גם בזה"ז יכולין לקבל הארה מדורות הראשונים

And behold, even in these times we are able to receive an illumination from the early generations,

Even nowadays we can draw spiritual light from the earlier, holier generations.

שהיו דורות הראשונים המעשר והחלק גבוה שניטל מכל דורות בנ"י

for the early generations were the maaser and the portion of the Most High that was taken from all the generations of Bnei Yisrael.

Those early generations functioned like the maaser, the sanctified portion lifted from out of all of Bnei Yisrael.

וכ"כ בספרי תלמד ליראה כו' ה"א כל הימים אף בח"ל

And so it is written in the Sifrei, "so that you may learn to fear (Hashem) your God all the days" - even outside the Land of Israel.

The Sifrei reads the verse to teach that one fears Hashem all the days, even outside Eretz Yisrael.

ע"ש שנדחקו בפי'

See there, for they were hard-pressed in explaining it.

He notes that the commentators struggled to explain the Sifrei's reading.

אבל הפשוט כמ"ש שנשאר מדורות הראשונים הארות גם לכל הדורות

But the plain meaning is as we have said, that illuminations have remained from the early generations even for all the later generations.

His own simpler approach is that illuminations from the early generations remain available to all later ones.

ובפרט ע"י המצות שתיקנו חז"ל

And in particular through the mitzvos that Chazal instituted,

This is especially so through the mitzvos that Chazal enacted for our generations.

תפלות במקום תמידין

such as the tefillos established in place of the daily korbanos.

An example is the tefillos, which were established to stand in place of the daily korbanos.

וע"י שמשתוקקין לקיים מצות המקדש וכל העוסק בתורת עולה כאלו הקריב

And through our yearning to fulfill the mitzvos of the Beis HaMikdash - and "whoever occupies himself with the Torah of the olah-offering, it is as though he had brought it" (Menachos 110a).

And through yearning to fulfill the Mikdash mitzvos, since learning the laws of a korban is reckoned as if one offered it.

ובמ"א פרשנו כי ירחק ממך המקום כו' על דורות אלו

And elsewhere we explained "when the place is far from you" (Devarim 14:24) as referring to these (later) generations.

Elsewhere he explained the verse about the place being "far from you" as a reference to our distant generations.

ונתת בכסף היינו הרצון והתשוקה

"And you shall give it for money" (Devarim 14:25) refers to the will and the yearning (to serve Hashem).

"And you shall give it for money" he reads as the will and yearning to serve Hashem, which substitute for the actual avodah.

כנ"ל:

As explained above.

He closes by referring back to the points developed above.

Summary: The Sfas Emes, building on a teaching of his grandfather, explains that eating tied to a mitzvah - whether the tithe eaten before Hashem or the meals of Shabbos - generates yiras Shamayim. Ordinary food contains a mixture of good and evil that must first be clarified before it can nourish the neshamah, but maaser and Shabbos eating are already pure and therefore add kedushah rather than detract from it. Just as terumah and maaser deposit holiness into all the remaining produce, and as the doubled "aser te'aser" hints that the tithe stays bound to the rest, so too Shabbos infuses blessing into the whole week. He then teaches that even in our times we draw illumination from the early generations, who were like the maaser lifted out of all Bnei Yisrael, particularly through the mitzvos Chazal instituted - such as tefillah in place of the korbanos. Finally, he reads the verses about the distant "place" and giving "for money" as alluding to our generation's yearning and will to serve Hashem, which themselves draw down that holiness.