The weekly Torah portion of Emor has a long review of all the Biblical holidays (Leviticus chapter 23). This is immediately followed by mentioning the lighting of the Menorah in the Tent of Meeting (24:1-4) and the commandment to place 12 loaves on the special Table in the Sanctuary each Shabbat (24:5-9).
These 12 loaves were baked late Friday afternoon and placed onto the special Table of the Sanctuary on Shabbat. They were left there the entire week until the following Shabbat. The Talmud (Menachos 29a) teaches that, miraculously, these loaves didn’t go stale and remained fresh and warm the entire week.
Rabbi Efrem Goldberg cites a commentary by Rav S.R. Hirsch to this Talmudic teaching saying that the Talmud is not referring to the loaves – but to the people who replaced them! “The sanctuary was immune to the process of boredom and habit that afflict many religious institutions. Rituals did not grow stale or obsolete.”
Clearly, there is a danger when we perform rituals or say prayers day after day – they can be done on automatic pilot. God chastised us for this, “Because the people have approached Me with its mouth, and honored Me with its lips, but has kept its heart far from Me, and its worship of Me has been like a commandment of men learned by rote” (Isaiah 29:13).
One commandment that could be emblematic of this is the Korban Tamid – the perpetual daily sacrifice brought each morning and afternoon every day of the year. “This is a constant daily burnt-offering as offered on Mt. Sinai, for a satisfying aroma, a fire-offering to Hashem” (Numbers 28:6). This is certainly a commandment the could slip into a pattern of being done mechanically and routinely, without much feeling or inspiration.
When we are doing something for the first time, there is always a tremendous sense of newness and excitement. The first time someone begins to pray in a Tallit (prayer shawl) or light Shabbat candles – it feels special. They go about it deliberately, slowly, mindfully and with passion.
Rabbi Yissocher Frand points out that this is why the Torah tells us to bring the daily sacrifice like the one that was offered on Mt. Sinai – the very first time it was brought. This is meant as encouragement for us to always seek to keep our spiritual practice fresh and exciting and to never let it become routine or stale.
