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Gleanings: our daily bread
The Editors

From the Bible
When the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat..."
Ex 16:14-15.

(The Lord your God)... fed you with manna... that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.
Deut 8:3

"I tun the bread of life;...
I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever..."
Jn 6:35,51

From Jewish Tradition
Where there is no meal (flour) there is no Torah; where there is no Torah there is no meal.
Aboth, Mishnah III, 17

Rabbi Eliezer the Great declares: Whoever has a piece of bread in his basket and says, 'What shall I eat tomorrow?' belongs only to them who are little in faith.
Sotah 48b

The Taste of Bread
Rabbi Bunam once said at the third sabbath meal: "It is written: 'Taste and see that the Lord is good.' What you taste in bread is not its true taste. Only the zaddikim who have purified all their limbs taste the true taste of the bread, as God created it. They taste and see that the Lord is good."
Martin Buber, Tales al the Hasidim, Later Masters, Schocken, New York 1948, p. 249.

A Day's Portion
Rabbi Kalman of Cracow asked Rabbi Hirsh the Servant, Rabbi Mendel's successor: "What is your way in the service of prayer?"
He replied: "My way was shown to me by my holy teacher, may he merit life in the world to come. Concerning manna, it is written: 'And the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day.' Every day has its own portion of prayer, and one must concentrate on the particular meaning of each portion every day."

Belief and Trust
Rabbi Mendel of Rymanov was asked how to interpret the words God added when he told Moses that the people were to gather a day's portion of manna every day: "... that I may prove them whether they will walk in my law or not?
He explained: °If you ask even a very simple man whether he believes that God is the only God in the world, he will give the emphatic answer: 'How can you ask! Do not all creatures know that He is the only one in the world!' But should you ask him if he trusts that the Creator will see to it that he has all that he needs, he will be taken aback and after a while he will say: Well, I guess I haven't reached that rung yet."
But in reality belief and trust are linked, and one cannot exist without the other. He who firmly believes, trusts completely. But if anyone-God forbid-has not perfect confidence in God, his belief will be faint as well. That is why God says: "I will cause to rain bread from heaven for you'; that means can cause bread to rain from heaven for you.' But he who goes in the path of my teachings, and that means he who has belief in me, and that means, he who has trust in me, gathers a day's portion every day and does not worry about the morrow.'
P. 131

About Eating
The rabbi of Ger once asked a hasid what he had learned from the lips of the rabbi of Kotzk. "I heard him say," said the hasid, "that he was surprised that merely saying grace is not enough to make man God-fearing and good”
"I think differently," said the rabbi of Ger. "I am surprised that merely eating is not enough to make man God-fearing and good. For it is written: 'The ox knoweth his owner and the ass his master's crib.'"

When the rabbi of Ger was asked the difference between ordinary fathers of families and hasidim, he laughed and replied: "Ordinary fathers of families pray and then study, but the hasidim pray and then eat. For when the hasid discovers that neither in his solitary reflection before prayer nor in prayer itself has he experienced the greatness of God, he goes to his meal and thinks: 'Though I am not yet like the ox who knows his owner, I can at least emulate the ass and stand at my master's crib.'"
P. 305

Eucharist and Sharing
You would honor the Body of the Lord?
Do not disdain it when it is naked.
Do not honor it in church with silk vestments then leave it outside benumbed with cold and naked... Honor it then by sharing your possessions with the poor. What God needs is not golden chalices but golden souls.
John Chrysostom on Matt, Hom. 50,3

No-one can receive the pardon and peace of God in the Eucharist without becoming a man or woman of pardon and peace. No-one can share in the Eucharistic banquet without becoming a sharer.
Oliver Clement, Sources p. 108.

The breaking of bread makes the Eucharist a happening of the utmost importance. One cannot remain a passive participant in a sacrament given by God... To break and share bread constitutes the sign of what everyone wants to come to pass: a just world where what belongs to everyone is actually shared with everyone.
Herman Wegman, Concilium 182, p.
(The Eucharist and Sharing is translated from the French)