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ShareSection One
The first example of eating in the Torah appears in the Garden of Eden. Read through these texts and think about the following questions.
What do the commentators say that the sin committed?
What does it mean to eat for physical pleasure, do you think this is a bad thing?
The Tree of Life represents holy eating, while the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil represents eating for physical pleasure
Humanity's first sin was not Adam and Eve’s eating of forbidden fruit, but rather the way they ate it. The Tree of Knowledge… was not a tree or a food or a thing at all. Rather it was a way of eating. Whenever a person is focused on getting pure pleasure from the world, they are destined to fall. Whenever we eat without the proper kavanna (intention) we repeat this original sin. human civilization needs to learn to eat in holiness.
Section Two
These texts look at the story of Easu and Jacob. Jacob is described as someone who sits in a tent whilst Easu goes out to the field. One day Easu comes home and demands Jacob to give him food.
Why is Easu compared to eating like a cammel?
What does it mean to eat in a holy way? What does this practically look like?
(29) Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the open, famished. (30) And Esau said to Jacob, “Give me some of that red stuff to gulp down, for I am famished”—which is why he was named Edom.
(ג) אֵין אוֹבְסִין אֶת הַגָּמָל, וְלֹא דוֹרְסִין, אֲבָל מַלְעִיטִין. וְאֵין מַמְרִים אֶת הָעֲגָלִים, אֲבָל מַלְעִיטִין. וּמְהַלְקְטִין לַתַּרְנְגוֹלִין. וְנוֹתְנִין מַיִם לַמֻּרְסָן, אֲבָל לֹא גוֹבְלִים. וְאֵין נוֹתְנִין מַיִם לִפְנֵי דְבוֹרִים וְלִפְנֵי יוֹנִים שֶׁבַּשֹּׁבָךְ, אֲבָל נוֹתְנִין לִפְנֵי אֲוָזִים וְתַרְנְגוֹלִים וְלִפְנֵי יוֹנֵי הָרְדְּסִיּוֹת:
(3) One may not stuff a camel or force feed it, but one may put food into its mouth. One may not stuff calves, but one may put food into their mouths. One may put food into the mouths of chickens, and one may pour water into their bran, but may not knead it. And one may not put water before bees or before pigeons in a dovecote, but one may put [food] before geese and chickens and before Herodian doves.
אפתח פי ושפוך הרבה לתוכה, כמו ששנינו אין אובסין את הגמל אבל מלעיטין אותו:
Rashi
Pour into [me]: I will open my mouth, and [you] pour very much into it, as we learned (Shab. 155b):“We may not stuff a camel, etc. [on the Sabbath] but we may put food into its mouth (מַלְעִטִין) .” - [From Gen. Rabbah 63:12]
Esau is greedily gulping food down in the same way that some camel eats. Esau’s animalistic eating without thought therefore serves as an example of an inappropriate and unholy way to eat