Lechem Mishneh: Back To The Beginning II

A Study of Manna II: “God said to Moses, Behold! I shall rain down for you food from heaven; let the people go out and pick each day’s portion on its day, so that I can test them, whether they will follow My Teaching or not. And it shall be that on the sixth day when they prepare what they will bring, it will be double what they pick every day.” (Exodus 16:4-5)

“I shall rain down for you,” takes us back to the formation of man: “Now all the trees of the field were not yet on the earth and all the herb of the field had not yet sprouted, for God, the Lord had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to work the soil.” (Genesis 2:3) The Manna “rain” is connected to the first rain that was being withheld and was waiting.

He had not sent rain because there was no man to work the soil, and no one to recognize the utility of rain. But when Adam was created, he recognized its importance for the world – as an expression of the need for God’s continued and constant involvment in Creation – He prayed, and rain fell, causing the trees and vegetation to spring forth. (Rashi)

“A mist ascended from the earth and watered the whole surface of the soil. And God, the Lord, formed the man of dust from the ground, and He blew into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:6-7)

No rain fell from the sky, but a mist ascended from the earth. There was nothing yet from the Upper Waters, only from the Lower Waters. (Day Two of Creation – Separation of the Water)

Interestingly, the Manna was sandwiched between both the Upper and Lower Waters.

The Manna was taking the people back to the early stages of creation, when God separated between the Upper and Lower waters, symbolized by the two Challot of Lechem Mishneh.

Something was going on for the Children of Israel, and something is happening for us when we recreate the Manna with the Lechem Mishneh sandwiched between the Challah tray and the Challah cover.