Why is Bread Dipped Into Salt 3 Times

Welcome to our weekly program, The Inside Story of Chabad in America, through the Mindel Archives.

We are now in the middle of counting the Omer, Sefirat HaOmer. In connection with the seven attributes of this Sefirah, the counting, we say the seven middos: chesed, gevurah, tiferes, netzach, hod, yesod, malchus. This is a preparation for Shavuos, to refine our middos.

So I want to share with you a special letter that I found from Tashkaz, written in Yiddish and Hebrew. This morning I translated it into English. I hope I'm going to do a good job here translating. This morning I did it.

Somebody wrote to Rabbi Mindel. Many times people wrote to Rabbi Mindel questions, because he wrote the Talks and Tales, he wrote The Wonder of Nature, so they asked him questions. I know there were many questions — Harav Zalmanov, olov hasholom, asked him many questions. Harav Meishke Feigelstock [?] asked him many questions. Harav Label Kaplan, olov hasholom, asked him many, many questions. Many people, Litvishe people, asked him — I have letters from Litvishe people that asked questions to Rabbi Mindel.

So the questions that he himself didn't know, he asked the Rebbe. So this is a question that he asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe wrote comments on the page that somebody had written to him. Here is the page that somebody wrote to him, and the Rebbe wrote on that. So I thought, because now we're in Sefirat HaOmer — chesed, gevurah, tiferes — I would share this letter with you today.

Rabbi Mindel typed the letter — what the Rebbe wrote and what he answered also. This is [Hebrew date heading, partially unclear] from Tashkaz.

And he writes: "HaVosik V'HaChossid, Ish Yerei Elokim, Oseik B'Tzorchei Tzibbur" — as the Rebbe writes — because this is basically, I would say, eighty percent the Rebbe's answer.

Now, by the way, before I go further — and maybe I've mentioned it — why does the Rebbe always, many times, start a letter with "HaVosik V'HaChossid"? What does "vosik vechossid" mean? Somebody asked the Rebbe this. So the Rebbe answered: vosik means early — vosikin. You know, people daven sometimes shacharis very, very early; that's called vosikin. A person should go to shul like a vosik, and he should go out like a chossid. Meaning that the person should know that davening is important. Sometimes people talk in davening, people go from one place to another, they can't find their place, they can't even stand still in their spot, as the Frierdiker Rebbe once told somebody. So a person should know, b'chlal, vosik vechossid — a shul, which is a second home, a shtibel — that's called a shtibel, shtibelach. I used to have shtibelach. So this means you have to daven, and go out like a chossid.

Okay, so here I'm going to read the question. This is the question that this person asked, that Rabbi Mindel typed, and the answer that the Rebbe gave.

Okay, I'm going to do this in English — I hope to do the best I can.

"With this I acknowledge the receipt of your letter from Sunday, Parshas Tzav, where you write about the following maamar." This person had learned a maamar and saw something in it. What did he see?

So the person writes to Rabbi Mindel: it says in the writings of the holy Arizal, why do we dip the bread in salt three times? Many people have a minhag to dip three times — why? So it says in the maamar, he writes to Rabbi Mindel, because the gematria — the numerical value — of the word lechem, bread, is 78 (lamed, ches, mem equals 78), which is the same numerical value as three times the name Shem Havaya, Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, which is 26. Three times Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei is also 78 — the Shem Havaya of chesed, and we'll explain soon what that means. And the gematria of the word melach, salt, is also 78, corresponding to three times Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei of gevurah. Gevurah means severity. So there is a Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, the Eibershter, of chesed, and there's a Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei of gevurah. And through dipping the bread in salt three times, we sweeten the three Havayas of gevurah with the three Havayas of chesed.

This is what the person writes to Rabbi Mindel — that's what he saw. Now, in connection with this, you ask the following question — [Hebrew phrase, unclear: "bal rishon rishon bal, k'deyuches mayim v'shamayim ad mor"].

Question number one: where in the writings of the Arizal is this found — that you have to dip the bread in salt three times?

Question number two: what does the three Havayas of chesed mean, and what does the three Havayas of gevurah mean — Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei chesed and Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei gevurah — what does that mean?

So Rabbi Mindel writes: "I will answer in the order that the questions were asked." The Rebbe, shlita, wrote the following. This comes from the Rebbe — I showed you the Rebbe's — this is the original page, the Rebbe's ksav yad all over here, explaining why.

"In the writings of the Arizal, we find that in Sefer Ohel HaTzaddikim, chapter twelve, it mentions to dip the bread in salt three times — that's where it's mentioned. However," the Rebbe says, "in other places — in Kitzur Arizal, Shaar HaMitzvos, Parshas Eikev" — again, I'm translating this into English — "and in the chapters about the intentions one should have when eating, Kavanos HaAchilah, in Eitz Chaim, and in the Siddur HaAriZal, it only says to dip the bread in salt, without mentioning three times."

That's number one.

Number two: he asked, what does it mean, Havaya of chesed? What does it mean, Havaya of gevurah?

"The three Havayas of chesed and gevurah is mentioned many times in Kabbalah and requires a lengthy explanation, but here is not the place for it," the Rebbe writes. And there are other places — maybe we'll spend another couple of programs on that, but we only have ten, fifteen minutes, we can't go into that.

"In general," the Rebbe writes, "the entire creation, with all its details, is through Hashem using His name Havaya" — that's how the Eibershter created the world, with Shem Havaya, Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, which can also come from the word "mahaveh" — to bring into existence. Havaya comes from mahaveh, to create, as it says, "bidvar Hashem shamayim [na'asu]," in the Shaar HaYichud VehaEmunah in Tanya.

More specifically, in every creation there is an aspect of giving, of revealing. You can't create something unless you are, he says here, in a mode of hispashtus, spreading out. When you give, when you create, you give — you want to give. For example — the Rebbe doesn't say it, but I'm thinking of an example — a Rebbe teaching a child: the Rebbe wants to give the child everything he has. Can he give it to him? I mean, the child is a child, the Rebbe's mind is much, much greater than the child's. So he cannot give him what he has — so the Rebbe has to be metzamtzeim, and to know how to explain to the child. But teaching the child is called giving — he wants to give. So the Eibershter, when He created the world, created with chesed — giving.

But at the same time, the Rebbe writes here, Hashem wanted the creation to be something like Himself, meaning that the creation should be limited, not like the Creator, Who is unlimited. Hashem is infinite. So when Hashem wanted to do chesed, He also needed a world, so there had to be an aspect of restricting — gevurah — of holding back some of His giving and revealing, tzimtzum. Because if He revealed all His light, then the creation would be unlimited, just like Him, and there wouldn't be a world. So there's chesed, the Rebbe writes, and there's gevurah — chesed is giving, and gevurah is tzimtzum, and you have to have both.

Both of these aspects are necessary in order that the Shem Havaya, Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei, should exist — the Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei of chesed and the Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei of gevurah — you had to have a third Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei. Both of these aspects are necessary for creation, meaning that they are both from the loshon "mahaveh." Just the first one is Havaya of chesed, as we just said, because chesed shows on giving and revealing, and the second one is Havaya of gevurah, because gevurah shows on restricting and holding back.

So since both of these aspects, the Rebbe writes, are necessary, there needs to be a combination of both — chesed and gevurah — even though they are seemingly opposites. This is through the third Havaya, Havaya of Tiferes. That's a balance. Tiferes means beauty — you have to balance chesed and gevurah, which combines both — you have to blend them. So there are three Havayas: Havaya of chesed — now we understand what Havaya of chesed means, the Rebbe says — and Havaya of gevurah, and Havaya of Tiferes.

"In all the above" — this is word for word, I tried, what the Rebbe says — meaning the way Hashem creates and sustains the world through the two names of Havaya, there are two ways: when Hashem is acting with kindness, and when He's acting with strictness. In the creation there are two ways. In other words, when Hashem is acting with kindness, the hashpa'ah to the world will be with Havaya of chesed and Havaya of gevurah in a kind way, and when He's acting with strictness, the hashpa'ah will be with Havaya of chesed and Havaya of gevurah in a different way.

For example, the Havaya of chesed also has a little gevurah — the chesed has gevurah, besides the Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei of gevurah, it has a little gevurah — and the Havaya of gevurah has a little chesed. I'll give you an example — the Rebbe doesn't say this here, but I think the example is, l'mashal, the Holocaust. The Holocaust was — what was it? Gevurah, Havaya of gevurah — He made the Holocaust. The Eibershter creates the world every single minute, so He made — the Holocaust, the Eibershter, that's gevurah. But at the same time there was also chesed — not everybody died, there was also kindness. A person has a car accident, two people are sitting in the front seat, and one dies and one doesn't — so there's gevurah, and there's also a little chesed.

When a father gives a child a pat — does he want to pat him? He pats the child, but he wants — that's gevurah, but the gevurah has chesed, because he wants the child to be better. So in the chesed there's a little gevurah, and in the gevurah there's a little chesed. There are three ways that Hashem will act with kindness, and three ways that Hashem will act with strictness.

Now, Hashem will act with kindness, the Rebbe says here, if He's judging and sustaining the world with kindness; He will act with strictness if He's judging and sustaining the world with strictness. Hashem will act with kindness if it is an auspicious time, an eis ratzon, and He will act with strictness if it's the opposite. For example — Shabbos. Shabbos is an eis ratzon, so the Eibershter acts with kindness. Yom Tov, the month of Adar — we know the Alter Rebbe knew exactly the time — if throughout the day there are times... let's say, for example, chatzos is a special time, a time of chesed, so a tiny bit above that is Havaya of gevurah. So, in other words, He acts differently at different times.

Then the Rebbe writes: Hashem will act with kindness if the Jewish people are learning Torah and doing mitzvos, and the opposite will happen if they are not. In other words, if a Yid learns Torah and does mitzvos, the Eibershter will act with kindness — the Havaya with him will be with kindness, the chesed will be revealed more, because he's learning Torah, because he does mitzvos. Like it says — I guess the Rebbe didn't say this here — "zachu, ashirenu, lo zachu, b'ito" — when we are zocheh, when we do the Torah and mitzvos, Mashiach will come right away, because that's Havaya — the Eibershter is in a mood of chesed. But lo zachu — if we don't — then "b'ito." So in everything there is a time; when people do mitzvos, Hashem is working with him in that time — or the time is an eis ratzon with chesed, or with gevurah.

These three ways — continuing what the Rebbe writes here — of Hashem acting with kindness or strictness, are in the three Havayas of chesed and three Havayas of gevurah. So it's three chesed, three gevurah.

So it seems — and I wrote this down — it seems from this that the Rebbe is explaining two meanings of Havaya of chesed and gevurah. First of all, it has a general meaning, that Havaya of chesed shows the aspect of revealing in creation, and Havaya of gevurah shows the aspect of withholding in creation. And the second thing — then the Rebbe says, b'chol hanal, b'ofanim, he writes here, that within these two Havayas themselves there are two ways — how? The two Havayas in a kind way, and the two Havayas in a strict way; in other words, Havaya of chesed within chesed and Havaya of chesed within gevurah, and so on. And the third thing — then the Rebbe explains three ways that this could come about. So it comes out that there are three Havayas of chesed, and three Havayas of gevurah.

Now, sweetening the gevurah — meaning that through our dipping the bread in salt, we cause that also the Heavenly Court, the Beis Din Shel Ma'alah, should agree with Hashem's decision to make a sweet judgment. Lechem is Havaya of chesed — that's 78. Salt is Havaya of gevurah. And the three dippings are the three Havayas. To make the lechem — salt is, so to speak, bitter — so when you dip three times, through the dipping you cause the Beis Din Shel Ma'alah to agree with Hashem's decision to judge in a good way.

And this is what I wanted to tell you this week, because we're talking about the Sefirah, we're talking about chesed, gevurah — all this is a preparation for Shavuos, to be mevarer (to refine) the middos. So the Rebbe says, and we hope that we should come to Shavuos soon, and we should be mekabel the Torah b'simcha u'vipnimiyus. Thank you.