We all take for granted that food nourishes the body and keeps us alive. But let me ask a simpleton’s question: why does physical food keeps the spiritual soul, our spark of life, in the body?

The soul is spiritual. Food is physical. How can something material affect something spiritual? Yet when the body can no longer digest food, the soul departs. What possible connection is there between a loaf of bread and a spiritual soul?

You might argue that food doesn’t sustain the soul at all. It merely nourishes the body, and when the body can no longer function, the soul has no place to remain.

But that only pushes the question back another step. If life ultimately comes from the soul, why should the soul’s connection to the body depend on physical food?

Not on Bread Alone This week we read in the Torah that G-d fed us the Manna “so that we would know that not on bread alone does the man live on bread, but by whatever issues from G-d’s mouth does the man live” (Deuteronomy 8:3).

The Torah does not simply say “man.” It says “the man”—ha’adam. The Baal Shem Tov explainsedthat “the man” refers to the essential person, the person inside the body: the soul. The body thrives on bread alone. The soul does not live on bread alone, but on that which issues from G-d’s mouth. We think we eat to keep the body alive. In truth, we also eat for the soul; the body eats bread, and the soul eats G-dliness.

When G-d created the world, He scattered fragments of Himself, also known as Divine sparks, throughout the world. When we grab a bite to eat, we notice........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)