There is a famous pasuk in Yeshaya. Yeshaya was the prophet in the times of the Churban/destruction of the Bet Hamikdash, who warned and gave the people mussar.
We read this during the three weeks, but it also happens to be in the Sefer Madregat HaAdam, from the Elder of Novardok, so we will discuss it now.
The pasuk says,
יָדַ֥ע שׁוֹר֙ קֹנֵ֔הוּ וַחֲמ֖וֹר אֵב֣וּס בְּעָלָ֑יו יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ לֹ֣א יָדַ֔ע עַמִּ֖י לֹ֥א הִתְבּוֹנָֽן
The ox knows its owner, and the donkey knows the trough of his master (knows where his food comes from) the Jewish people don’t know, My people don’t think
So, the cow knows its owner; he is a little smarter. The donkey, which is not as smart, at least understands who feeds him, but the Jewish people don’t understand or think or delve.
The Elder of Novardok explains as follows:
If you ask the average fellow sitting down to eat a piece of bread, where his bread came from, he would say it came from the bakery. If you delve further and ask him where the bakery got the flour from, he would say it came from the mill. If you ask where the mill got the flour from, he would say it came from the farmer who planted the wheat. That is where it would end.
Similarly, if you ask somebody where he got his cup of coffee, he would say he got it from Starbucks. Where did Starbucks get it from? They shipped the beans from Africa. Where did those beans come from? Some guy in Africa planted the beans. This is usually where everything ends.
But the Elder of Novardok says that is only the tip of the iceberg, as to where it came from.
I was recently giving a class in Hovot HaLevavot’s Shaar Bechina, which talks about seeds. Seeds are one of the wonders of the world.
I wasn’t very familiar with this topic until I started looking into it. I vaguely remember learning about terms like pollination and fertilization in elementary school, when learning about flowers.
We don’t realize the complexity of this system. It is literally fertilization. There are male and female parts of flowers, and there is a fertilization process involving the ovule of the flower (a term that sounds like ovaries of a woman), the plant has an embryo, and just like in the human body, the cells start to break apart and become more complex. This very complex process happens in the world of plants and seeds. There are stages of growth and development in plants that strongly resemble that of humans. There is a growth stage, in both plants and humans, in which the embryo is not yet fully alive. The first stage of a human embryo is very much like that of a plant.
So every time you eat a fruit, it is, so to say, like a baby of sorts. A child is called a “ פרי הבטן fruit of the womb”
Fruit is the same wonder, the same fertilization, the same process… Wonder of wonders! It is something coming from nothing.
The Gemara tells us that there is an angel above every flower, saying “grow.”
There is a lot going on under the ground, that we don’t even see. We don’t realize what’s happening, and how powerful that little seed is. If you walk down the sidewalk, you’re able to notice that the some sidewalks are no longer straight. What popped the sidewalk up? A tree!
That’s the power of growth! It’s a very powerful force. And all of this happens under the ground. There is a laboratory under the ground. Like Rabbi Miller used to say, “Where did that apple that come from? Sunshine, water and air.”
There are minerals in the ground that somehow undergo chemical reactions... Who thinks about that? Even if you’re a scientist and you do think about it, do you really trace it back to G-d? G-d is שלחנו ערוך לכל
His table is set for all.
This is a timely topic. Avraham Avinu taught us this. We think it’s cute, we learned in kindergarten that Avraham Avinu has guests, and he says, “Don’t think me, thank Hashem.” But do we really feel that way when we sit down to a cup of coffee, or bowl of spaghetti or a salad, or anything we eat?
Sometimes when we look at the ingredients of a product, we find out that they come from many different countries. The pomegranates are from here, the mangoes are from somewhere else, and the bananas are from another place- and if you even notice that much, that’s pretty good. But that is nothing. Do we start really thinking about the miracles that are involved in everything that we eat?
This was the complaint against the Jewish people. They did not think about all the wonderful things that we received from Hashem.
We tend to focus on the cause and effect, and what we see with our own eyes. But we don’t really focus on what is going on behind the scenes. It’s a wonder of wonders. It’s the wonder of seeds, the wonder of fruits, and the wonder of growth. It is our job to think about this.
The cow thinks more sometimes, and even the donkey thinks a little bit. But we don’t trace things back to our Owner.
Have a wonderful day, and start tracing it back to where it came from.