Before the Lord Always

Here’s a question. How many of you use social media? Okay, how many of you use the video site TikTok? Or know about TikTok? If you don’t know it, that’s pretty much what it is: people make and share short videos, usually funny, sometimes pointed, often entertaining.

One trend going around the health influencers on TikTok is where they take bread they’ve bought, just regular bread in plastic bags, and keep it for weeks or even months, long past the sell-by date. After all that time, they open it up and…it turns out the bread didn’t get moldy, it didn’t get stale, It’s still “edible” for a certain definition of edible. It isn’t good, it isn’t bad, but it is edible. They do this to ask, “How is this even bread? It’s all chemicals and preservatives.” It’s like how the bread at Subway is not considered bread legally because of its high sugar content and preservatives. True story.

I suppose you could say this some kind of modern miracle…or modern nightmare, depending on your point of view and your taste buds.

Here’s another question. Did you know we Jews actually had our own miracle bread?

We read about it in this week’s portion, Terumah. It was called the Lechem Panim or “Showbread.” Technically it translates as “Bread of the Face” or “Bread of the Presence.”

Inside the Temples as well as the Mishkan, the portable Sanctuary where the Israelites worshiped before building the First Temple, there was a golden table. On this table were two stacks of six unleavened loaves made of the finest flour. Incense was burned on them from Shabbat to Shabbat. Twelves loaves total, one for each tribe. The bread would be removed and fresh loaves would be replaced each Shabbat. At that time the priests would then eat the old bread. 

But do not worry about the priests eating week old bread! 

The miracle of these loaves was not only that they stayed fresh and flavorful but they remained piping hot throughout the week. How was this possible? 

Rebbe Yaakov Leiner of Izhbitz, a 19th century Hasidic rabbi, brings down that this lechem panim was commanded to be לִפְנֵ֥י יְהֹוָ֖ה תָּמִ֑יד continually before the Lord. So what does this mean? 

Here the word tamid is used to connote continuity. This special bread was to be on the table before the Lord at every single moment — day in and day out, rain or shine. Every second of every day, this bread was to be connected and linked to the Holy One of Blessing. 

This hot, fresh bread was such a miracle that, out of all the holy objects in Temple—the menorah, the ark, the copper laver, etc—it alone was lifted up and shown to pilgrims who came to Jerusalem on Sukkot, Pesach, and Shavuot.  

The Gemara tells us that the priest would lift the bread to the crowd and say, “Look and see how Adonai loves you.” This humble bread, the staple of the Israelite diet, was the preeminent sign of God’s attention and His affection, now elevated to a sign, a bond even, between us and the Source of all Life. Lifnei Adonai tamid. 

Whoever and whatever is “before the Lord” stays fresh and alive. Without Him, without that bond and connection, we grow stale, and we will literally rot. 

Hashem is the Creator of all life. He created the world. You might think that happened just the once 5785 years ago. Wrong. Our tradition teaches us that every second Hashem is saying, “Yehi rakia,” “Let there be a firmament.” Every moment He is saying again, “Let there be a sky.” And therefore the sky continues to exist. Not spoken once thousands of years ago but tamid — continually. Commands that there be a sky, an ocean, light and dark, sun and moon, you and me, are being uttered right now, this very second, by the Holy One to sustain the universe. Lifnei Adonai tamid. 

We learn in the Gemara (Yoma 21b) that in Solomon’s Temple, there was an orchard of golden fruit. They were always ripe, they too never spoiled. Our sages write that they would clink against one another in the breeze, chiming together, creating a beautiful melody. 

When the Babylonians came to destroy the First Temple, they were eager to see and grab this legendary golden fruit. They rushed to the orchard greedy for its riches only to find silence in the wind. The golden fruit had rotted and withered to nothing. The Shechinah, the indwelling energy and source of blessing, had fled the Temple at the moment of their incursion. The energy, the shefa, the flow, that kept the fruit golden and vital, singing in the breeze, had also gone.

So it is with us. 

Look around you. Have you noticed that some age with grace and vitality? In their 80s and 90s, yet they seem much younger than their years. They are shine with a liveliness, an inner light. Conversely, some in their 20s or 30s seem old and tired, dim and dark despite their youth. Why is this? 

Judaism teaches that our life force, our vitality, derives from being “lifnei Adonai tamid.” Connected to God always. Like the bread, like the golden fruit. When we live in connection to something greater than ourselves, when we realize that nothing we have truly belongs to us, when we perceive reality instead of distorting it to fit our preconceptions of events or people, only then do we make room to draw down infinite blessing and flow. It’s always there. We just need to lock into it. How? When we transcend our egos and assumptions, there’s room for Shechinah to come in and make us fruitful in body and soul, for our spirits to sing in its breeze. Lifnei Adonai tamid. 

Released hostage Eliya Cohen was initially held hostage in captivity with murdered hostage Ori Danino (z”l). Before his death Ori made Eliya promise that if he survived he would ensure a Torah scroll was written in his memory. This past Thursday, Eliya fulfilled that promise. 

In a ceremony with his parents, a Torah scroll was dedicated to Ori with his words on the cover, “I want to be good enough for the world to be the person I would want to spend time with.” 

Ori fought back during his kidnapping. He punched a terrorist so hard, his attacker lost an eye. He physically fought with the terrorists so that they would treat the hand of Hersh Goldberg-Polin (z”l) whose wound kept bleeding. Ori was a hero, a lion. He had a chance to escape Nova but went back to save hostages Maya and Itai Regev and Omer Shem Tov. 

He was executed in September. 

He wanted his life to be remembered through the sacred letters of Torah. In this way, his selflessness and sacrifice lives on and suffuses the people of Israel with hope and life. He was and always will be connected to the Source. 

Lifnei Adonai Tamid. 

In Psalm 1, we read about the person who places their trust in God. They are likened to a tree planted beside a stream of water that is always producing fresh fruit. In Psalm 92, we learn of the righteous who stay fresh and green like palm trees—their foliage never fades. These are not merely poetic metaphors but a real phenomenon. Our texts teach us plainly that we cannot draw strength without connecting to God’s essence. 

The midrash teaches that the prophet Isaiah foretold a day when the golden fruit of the temple would bloom again, פָּרֹ֨חַ תִּפְרַ֜ח. In verse 35:2 he sees the spirit of life return with the coming of the Mashiach — “It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice; yea, with joy and singing, the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it.”

Listen to the breeze.

May each of us connect, blossom and sing once more. May these difficult days, which some have called the birthpangs of Mashiach, serve to bring us ultimately into freshness and into life. 

And may we ever be lifnei Adonai Tamid.