Eliezer Meir Saidel – The Showbread Institute

 This is personal:

Once upon a time I also enjoyed bread. In earlier years, when in Eretz Yisrael, I loved the Fresh Rye Bread made weekly smeared with Israeli butter (when it was made in Israel). It filled me for breakfast and inbetween when I needed it.

However, many days later and experiences later, I am now on a sans gluten diet. Do I miss bread?sometimes. Commercial bread doesn’t have the taste and nourishment it once did. Some people say that it causes them digestive issues. So many Israelis seek better options. 

Jerusalem has sprouted Specialty Bakeries and are now plentiful and creating tasty and interesting loaves for daily and/or Shabbat.

Enter Machon Lechem Hapanim 

You can purchase your Shabbat Challah here, but it is so much more and so very connected to our Torah and Beis HaMikdash; as the following introduces us:

The Showbread Institute

In the Book of the Zohar (Terumah, 155a) it is written that the secret of the Showbread (Lechem Hapanim in Hebrew) is the secret of the "Panim" פנים ("face" or "inner spirituality"). The hidden secrets of the Showbread Table made by Betzal'el in the Tabernacle and King Solomon in the Temple and the Showbread baked by the Garmu family during the 2nd Temple period, have remained a mystery for almost 2000 years.

The purpose of the Showbread Institute is to research the Table and the Showbread and try to decipher them - How was the Table constructed? What did the Showbread look like? How did they bake it? and more. Combining various disciplines, an in-depth study of the ancient sources, cereal chemistry, engineering, archeology and others, we attempt in the Showbread Institute to solve the puzzle by peeling away layer upon layer until we finally uncover the truth. 

With Divine help we have already made incredibly profound discoveries about the Showbread that have never been published before and the purpose of the Showbread Institute is to make them public, in print and via other media, lectures and workshops. These discoveries are not solely the realm of academia, but have practical application and are highly relevant to our lives today.

The Showbread Institute was established in 2018 by Eliezer Meir Saidel, a master baker by profession, after many years of research into the Meal Offerings of the Temple and particularly the Showbread. When he began to teach others about the Showbread via lectures and workshops, he decided to open an official institute to serve as an umbrella organization for the research, publication and educational activites, in Karnei Shomron, Israel. 

The Showbread Institute fosters peace and tolerance through our charity work, engages in outreach by circulating between communites, educational institutions, schools, yeshivas, ulpanas etc. in Israel and abroad, lecturing, teaching and reacquainting the People of Israel with the Temple Service in preparation for the rebuilding of the 3rd Temple, speedily in our days.

The Institute offers classes in baking the SHOWBREAD. One can register to attend at https://www.showbreadinstitute.org/Workshop-Baking-the-Showbread

In addition to teaching about and demonstrating via the worksops, Eliezer Meir Saidel writes an insightful and thought provoking look at the weekly Torah portion and how it is connected to the Showbread and its symbolism. It may be quite difficult to believe but bread, being such a fundamental concept in Judaism, is represented either categorically or by association in every portion of the Torah. 

To subscribe to receive this weekly Parshat Hashavua and updates from our institute to your email, please send an email with the subject “Subscribe" to machonlechemhapanim@gmail.com

Text Source:  https://www.showbreadinstitute.org