Weekly Story: From Hashem’s Hands
by Rabbi Sholom DovBer Avtzon
As we are preparing for Rosh Hashanah, and klal yisroel should be blessed with a kesiva vchasima tova Lshana tova umesuka from aleph through tuhf with all their meanings, I decided to share a thought of the Rebbe’s father Harav Levi Yitzchok which I heard from Rabbi Dovid Dubov in the days following chof av.
As always, I look forward to your feedback and thank those who share their stories with me. This week by the siyum haRambam, one of the speakers related the story that we posted last week, and added the two details, the name of the boy who spoke to King George was Dovid Schapiro. Furthermore when his parents came to Buckingham Palace to thank the king for saving them, they were not allowed to enter.
Now this week’s story, an insight from Reb Levik.
The Lechem haponim were the twelve loaves of unleavened bread that were in the Beis Hamikdash. Reb Levik explains that bread represents the sustenance of the nation. Being that there were twelve tribes that need sustenance, therefore there were twelve loaves.
The question then becomes, why were they set up on two columns of six apiece, when on the breastplate the twelve tribes were on four rows of three?
But since the bread represents the sustenance we receive from Hashem, and Hashem wants us to see that He is giving it to us in a complete measure, and that is when you give something with both of your hands, so therefor they are on the two columns, representing Hashem’s hands.
With this we can explain another interesting detail of the Lechem haponim.
In each column the bottom challah was placed directly onto the golden table. Then separating the bottom one from the second and the second one from third etc., were three golden rods. However, separating the top challah (the sixth one) from the one directly under it, there were only two rods.
The commentators give various reasons for this; however, Reb Levik explains it as follows: being that the columns represent Hashem’s hands, look at the five fingers on your hand. Four of them have three bones in each finger, while the thumb finger has only two bones. Therefore being that the thumb is on top of the other fingers so under the top row there are only two rods, while the other four have three rods.
Interesting to note (I am saying this on my own), the Hebrew word for hand is yad, which has the numerical value of fourteen, the same amount of bones in the fingers of one hand. And two times fourteen is twenty-eight, which is equivalent to the Hebrew word of Koach strength.
(NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: When I noted 14 bones, I was referring to the finger parts, however, our chazal inform us that there are 30 bones until the wrist.)
May Hashem bless each and every one of klal Yisroel with an abundance of blessings and kindness with the strength of both of His hands and may we all merit to see the coming of Moshiach tzidkeinu speedily in our days, in this year of tuf shin peh which is an acronym of tehei shnas pidooseinu – may it be the year of our redemption.
Rabbi Avtzon is a veteran mechanech and is the author of numerous books on the Rebbeim and their chassidim. He is available to farbreng in your community and can be contacted at avtzonbooks@gmail.com
This week’s story is in honor of the engagement of Mendel Zirkind and Mussia Kaplan. May it be a binyan adei ad blessed with dor yeshurim yivoirach.
