MRR 95-99

RESLICED SABBATH LOAVES

QUESTION:

Most bakers nowadays supply bread loaves presliced. Jewish bakers also have available presliced Sabbathtypes of loaves. Is there any traditional law which requires that the Sabbat loaves be uncut or unsliced?

ANSWER:

THE TALMUD (b. Berachot 46a) says: “The host breaks the bread.” It was a well-established custom that when people ate in company, one man recited the blessing over bread. This man who begins the meal ritually is described as “he who breaks the bread” (botsea et hapat) . The expression in itself assumes that the bread came to the table as a whole loaf and the one who recited the blessing broke the loaf.

Of course the expression “break the bread” does not necessarily mean that it was a requirement that the loaf be intact. It simply reveals the normal situation. Cut or sliced bread was not available until very recently as an article of commerce. Bread brought to the table was generally in intact loaves. There was no reason for it to be otherwise.

But what if there were broken pieces of bread available and were brought to the table for the beginning of the meal? Would it be permissible to give the opening blessing over them? It is clear from a discussion between R. Huna and R. Yochanan (b. Berachot 39b) that such a situation could very well come up. The question discussed was phrased substantially as follows: “If there were before him [the host or whoever was the ‘breaker of the bread’] broken pieces of bread and also an unbroken loaf, over which should he recite the blessings?” R. Huna said that he should recite the blessing over the broken pieces; but R. Yochanan said he should recite the blessings over the unbroken loaf because “a commandment should be fulfilled by use of the best objects (mitzvah min hamuvchar).” The Tosfot (ad loc.) accepts the opinion of R. Yochanan that a whole loaf is preferable. So, too, does Maimonides (Yad Hil. Berachot VII, 4). He repeats the reason given by Yochanan and says, “It is the best way to fulfill the commandments, to break a whole loaf.”

That Maimonides does not mean this to be an obligatory law is clear from the way in which he begins this chapter on the blessing of the meal. His opening words are: “There are many customs which our sages followed with regard to meals and they are all matters of pro priety” (derech erets) . In other words, these matters are not law, but good manners or the preferred procedure.

Joseph Caro, who in his commentary Kesef Mishnah discusses Maimonides’ preference for the opinion of Rabbi Yochanan, is himself not at all certain that any law requires the use of a whole loaf. When he refers to the matter in the Shulchan Aruch in Orach Chayim 274:1 and speaks of the two Sabbath loaves, he does not say that the loaves should be intact. He generally follows the decisions of Maimonides (and Rif and Rosh) and yet he omits the statement of Maimonides that the loaves should be whole. It is Isserles who supplies the word “whole.” In Orach Chayim 168:1, Caro has in mind the dispute mentioned in Berachot 39b between R. Huna and R. Yochanan and says (as is also discussed in that Talmudic passage) that if the whole loaf and the pieces are all of one kind of flour, you bless the complete loaf, but if the pieces are of wheat and the whole loaf is of barley (which is deemed inferior) then you put the pieces and the whole loaf together and make the blessing over them at the same time.

While it is, therefore, clear that to have an uncut loaf for the blessing can hardly be considered to be a definite law, nevertheless there is no doubt that it has become an established custom. Even Caro himself (Orach Chayim 167:1) who does not insist upon an uncut loaf, nevertheless says that you cut the loaf just part way so that it shall remain together, and then you break it when you complete the blessing.

That Maimonides is correct in calling all these matters “merely decent custom ” (derech erets) is seen in some of the other interesting variations involved in the observance. Meir Hakohen, the pupil of the great Meir of Rothenburg (in his Hagahot Maimoniyos to Chapter VII of Yad Hil. Berachot) discusses the question as to which is the proper way to cut and break the Sabbath-loaf. Should it be cut underneath and broken upward, or should it be cut on the top and broken downward? He says that in France it was the custom to cut it underneath first because that is the part which got baked first in the oven; but he adds, “In Germany, in our ovens, it is the top part of the loaf which gets baked first, so we cut the top of the loaf.” Then he adds, “My honored teacher, Meir of Rothenburg {who of course studied in France and lived in Germany} in order not to slight either the French or the German custom would score the loaf top and bottom.” This, in fact, has become a prevalent custom among the Ashkenazim—to mark or score the loaf top and bottom before cutting or breaking it.

Another discussion which reveals equally that these are matters of custom refers to the man who makes the blessing and breaks the bread and says he should pick up both loaves in his hand when he blesses them; and then there follows a disagreement in the custom as to whether he makes the blessing over the top loaf or the lower loaf (see Bach and Isserles, Darch Moshe to the Passage in the Tur, Orach Chayim 274).

It is perhaps of some minor interest, too, that our present custom at formal dinner parties to have at each place setting a separate complete little loaf, was also known in ancient times. There was, of course, at the head of the table the main loaf over which the blessing was made, but the Talmud Yerushalmi speaks of separate loaves for each person, which would be considered the lechem mishneh, since on the Sabbath, based upon the story of the manna in Exodus 16:22, when two portions of manna were given for the Sabbath, the verse calls it lechem mishneh, “double bread.” See the discussion in Tosfot Pesachim 106a (s.v., Zochrehu).

From all these variations of custom and from the fact that Caro questions the decision of Maimonides as to a whole loaf and in the Shulchan Aruch does not insist upon a whole loaf, it is clear that having a whole loaf is not a matter of definite law; but it certainly is the well-established custom and is the “Mitsvah min hamuvchar,” the more proper way of fulfilling the commandment.