וְאָכַלְתָּ֖ וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ וּבֵֽרַכְתָּ֙
You shall eat and be satisfied and give thanks (Deuteronomy 8:10)
This phrase is the basis for our saying birkat hamazon, grace after meals. Here I will interpret it spiritually as a process of moving from emotional hunger to satiety to gratitude and generosity.
Part I: וְאָכַלְתָּ֖ : Opening to Receive
וְאָכַלְתָּ֖ – “you shall eat.” We have, at our core, a basic longing for something more, a sense of lack or depletion, a perpetual hunger and yearning, a deep hole of wanting.
How do we react to this ache of wanting? Sometimes we try to find something to fill it in a restless desperate way, a never ending cycle that does not resolve the core hunger. Or at other times we deny or minimize the ache, shaming it and exiling it for being “too much.”
Maybe we could consider a different attitude towards the hunger. Maybe we could consider the possibility that this hunger is sacred, that this hunger is actually a way of opening us up to becoming a channel for something larger.
We say in Ashrei, poteah et yadekha umasbia lekhol chai ratzon (Psalm 145:16)— You, God, open your hand and satisfy every living thing’s ratzon, desire. There is a parallel between God’s opening and our opening through our ratzon, our desire. It is as if God opens God’s hand in a mirror effect to our opening our hearts in wanting.
It is like a baby bird who sits in the nest with her mouth wide open waiting for the mama bird to fill it. The mama bird can’t fill the baby bird until the baby bird opens to it. As another Psalm verse says, harkhev pikha ve’amalehu – “open your mouth wide and I [God] will fill it” (Ps 81:10). Our hunger is a way to help us open our mouths wider to being filled. What happens when you turn towards your hunger in this honoring way, allowing it to open you, to make you more spacious inside, becoming a kli, a vessel, for the divine that wants to pour into you?
Part II: וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ : Filling Up With Divine Love
וְשָׂבָ֑עְתָּ – “And you will be full or satisfied.” What is it that can fill us in a way that satisfies us and makes us feel content and complete? Perhaps we have tried many things to fill us – food, ambition, work, other people, exercise, our physical environment, meditation, therapy – all kinds of things to try to fill this hole. What is it that will finally make us feel whole and save’a, full?
As we say in our shabbat prayers, sabenu mituvekha — fill us up from Your Goodness, God. From Your goodness. Or as it says in another Psalms verse, sabenu baboker hasdekha (Ps 90:14), fill us up in the morning with your hesed, with your steadfast love. We are searching for what will fill this hole, and perhaps it is only this, only this divine essence, this eternal goodness, this steadfast love. The hole is from another world and can only be filled by this otherworldly substance, which is le’olam, eternal, neverending, unconditional. Only this can fill our hole.
We can imagine ourselves wide open, spacious inside, like a little bird with our mouth open to receive, expectant and trusting and knowing it will come. And then we can allow ourselves to feel the corresponding divine opening – poteach et yadekha – You open your hand, we say of God, God, too, opens to us, God mirrors our opening, from above, from below, from all around and even from that divinely planted place inside us, all of the divine consciousness and presence and love that underlies all things in this world, all of it opens to pour into us. We can feel it all as a stream of flowing light that wants to fill the open space inside us, a flow of goodness and love that is always there, if only we can open to it. Harhev pikha ve’amalehu – open your mouth and I will fill you. Let yourself be filled with this flow of love and light and goodness. Feel it fill your body from top to bottom like a warm glow that gradually permeates you. You are suffused with this warm light of divine love. You are loved beyond measure, and this sensation of true belovedness fills all the holes inside you that have ever wanted anything. There can be no doubt and no need that compares to this knowing that you are loved, to this filling, to this completeness. There is no scarcity here, no limit to the love, no contingencies or what ifs or conditions. It is absolute and without end. Let it in and let it spread into all your hungry places and parts, all the nooks and crannies of wanting and dashed hope and aching need, all the pores and cells of your physical body, all suffused with this warm flow of steady unconditional loving light.
Part III: וּבֵֽרַכְתָּ֙ : Overflowing
וּבֵֽרַכְתָּ֙ literally means “and you will bless God,” you will come to thank God for this satiety, for this flow. Gratitude is a kind of overflow back outward to God and to others. The word brachah in uverachta also has the connotation of such an overflow of blessing. It implies fruitfulness and multiplicity and plenty, a cornucopia, a spilling over of goodness.
So in this third part of the process, the movement becomes one of overflow, of giving out, of sharing. Kosi revayah (Psalm 23:5), we say. My cup overflows with divine blessing. I am so filled with never ending blessing that there is no sense of scarcity in me and instead a feeling of great generosity; I have so much, that I am not just full, save’a, but also overflowing with this gift that wants to flow through me and out to nourish others. It is limitless, this flow, so when it goes out of me, I lose none for myself. I become not just a vessel to hold the love, but a channel through which it can flow out to everything and everyone around me.
Kosi revayah. My cup overflows. It is your own cup that overflows. It is you, the divine essence of you, that overflows. In this process something changes in you. You go from being identified with the hunger, the pit, the open mouth, to being identified with the overflowing stream. What you discover in this process is that you are part of the larger stream of love in the universe. Our parsha describes the destined land as eretz nahalei mayim ayanot utehomot, “a land with streams and springs and fountains” (Deut 8:7). That is who you grow to become. You become a land of flowing streams and water. You become eretz zavat halav udevash, you become “a land flowing with milk and honey.” You have plenty for yourself and others because you are tapped in to the wider neverending flow of the divine in the universe. You become this flow. Perhaps you always were this flow but didn’t know it. There is so much that wants to pour out of you.
Putting It All Together:
Putting the three parts together: Veakhalta vesavata uverakhta. We open, we are filled and we overflow. Ve’akhalta, feeling first the need, the hunger, the hole, letting yourself open like a little bird, then vesavata, receiving, filling with the warmth of divine love all through your body, and then uverachta, letting it pour outward, passing it on without losing any. Opening, filling and overflowing. Becoming a channel for the divine flow of love in the universe.
Photo by cottonbro studio at Pexels
