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Rectification of Eating

  • Writer: naftali bilig
    naftali bilig
  • Dec 6, 2023
  • 2 min read

Updated: Mar 12, 2025




Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 10:

"(16) Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!"


From here, the sages learned the following law in the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 157:

Laws regarding the time to set meals. And it contains one section:

When the fourth hour arrives, one should set his meal, and if he is a Torah scholar and engaged in his study, he should wait until the sixth hour and not delay more, for it is like throwing a stone at his mother's womb if he does not taste anything in the morning:

And in more depth...


The sages learned from the verse the following Baraita that appears in Tractate Shabbat page 10.

"The Rabbis taught: In the first hour [of the day], gluttons eat. In the second, robbers [eat]. In the third, heirs [eat]. In the fourth, workers [eat]. In the fifth, everyone [eats]."


These are the hours of the day, or in the people's language, temporary hours,

So that every happy mother that her husband who comes home at sunset will not immediately run to the refrigerator but will pause for a moment and consider who he is coming home to and what good it is for him to have somewhere to return to...


And every happy father that his child does not immediately run in the morning to a cup of chocolate milk and a packet of chocolate-coated waffles, but sits and learns a bit, contemplates, prays, and works, so that in the end, we may be worthy to drink that chocolate-coated chocolate for appetite and to continue to raise our eyes to the coming things.


And it will be considered disgraceful to eat in the first three hours of the day since he does not give his heart to the miracle that led him throughout the day and night, the miracle that sustains us all the time, that everything that happens in the world only happens for this moment.



 
 
 

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