Menachot 72 - Caviar Is Easy, Toast Will Cost You Everything

Hey there, and welcome back to take one, the podcast that brings you just one delightful

page of Talmud each day.

And today's page, from the Khot 72, kicks off a new perk or chapter of our track date,

cleaning precisely how the different kinds of meal offerings were brought.

Among them are Rikikim, or unleavened wafers, it's not a fun word to say, Rikikim, or

if you will, those are basically toasted crackers.

Reading about those crackers reminded me of one of my all-time favorite quotes, and basically

all of literature, from Ian Fleming's Casino Royale.

Sitting into a luxury hotel, what other kind of hotel would he check into, James Bond

is sitting down for dinner with the beautiful but treacherous Vesper Lindt.

She orders caviar as an appetizer and he immediately flags down the waiter and orders extra toast.

And then comes one of the wisest lines in modern literature.

The trouble always is, he explained to Vesper, not how to get enough caviar, but how to

get enough toast with it.

It may seem like a throwaway observation, but 007 knows what he is talking about.

He understands that life's riches, the caviar, if you will, are actually surprisingly

easy to come by, and that once you've got them and you could grab your little mother

of pearl spoon and gobble them by the heapful, you're set.

Toast, that foundational and fundamental food stuff, toast is a much more difficult thing.

How so?

Well, today's page of Talmud sort of explains it all.

God, the commentators tell us, loved the Mincha offering most of all, because the Mincha

offering, those unleavened crackers and loaves were brought by the poor.

The rich could always sachet in with their oxen and their sheep or their goats or their

birds, offering them in abundance and in style, but the poor had nothing to offer, but a

little bit of flour, and not just flour, but the flour they so desperately needed for their

own sustenance literally to exist, for a person who has close to nothing, parting with

a fistful of flour isn't just meeting a religious obligation, it's making a real sacrifice.

Which is why the rabbis taught us that a poor person offering the Mincha offering, Ke'ilu

hekriv nafshul, it's as if he had offered his own soul on the altar, because that poor

person, giving up what he barely has and needs to survive, has shown true devotion to

and trust in Hashem.

I'll give you this mere toasted cracker, God, though I needed to live because I know and

I trust that you will send me cold solky, all that I ever require.

The same principle applies to all of us in every aspect of life.

It's why, for example, the rabbis ruled that we should be especially mindful of the Mincha

midday prayer.

Most of us can find some time to pray Shachwiz, the morning prayer, early in the day, and

most of us have ten minutes or so for Marev, the evening prayer lead in the evening.

As we finish doing everything we need to do that day.

But the Mincha prayer comes smack in the middle of everything.

When we are busy with work and with meetings and with emails and with calls and with texts,

so to put all of these worldly concern aside, when we're barely holding on as is, when

we're drowning in work and say, you know what, I'm going to take twenty minutes now and

pray and give thanks to God and let him know that I appreciate all the bounty that he has

given me, that is true sacrifice.

That's really giving of ourselves.

There's a story I heard once about a businessman who was doing better and better in business

and he was wondering what was the best way to give to charity?

Should I, he wondered, give some money to Tsidaka or charity right now or should I wait

until I'm really rich and then really give to Tsidaka helping build hospital buildings

or pay for costly and complicated cancer research and other big things like that.

So he went to consult with a friend, a very wealthy and religious man known worldwide

for his charitable donations.

There was no question, said the billionaire, give it right now as much as you can.

Don't worry about a thing because he added, someone who doesn't give to charity when he

has little or nothing to give will also not give to charity when he has a lot.

Because again, it's never the caviar, it's the toast or gathering up the willingness to

sacrifice the most basic common and essential things.

And that right there is the subtle and profound beauty of the Mincha offering.

This has been Take One.

If you enjoy the show and I hope that you do, you are really going to love the new-ish

book by me called How the Tom it could change your life, surprisingly modern advice from

a very old book.

You can order it now at your local bookstore or directly from the publisher just by clicking

the link in this here podcast description or, you know, through that big online store

whose logo is a smile.

Please go and rate and review Take One on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts

and subscribe to our weekly newsletter at tabletm.ag slash Take One newsletter.

Take One is a tablet studio's production.

The show is hosted by me, Leah Liebowitz, our executive producer is Josh Cross and

the show is produced and edited by Josh as well as by Quinn Wall.

For more information, go to tabletmag.com slash take one or email us at podcasts at

tabletmag.com.

I hope we have made your day a little bit more tombootic.