Significance of Cycles

Everything as we know it, has a cycle; a beginning and an ending.  All living creatures and plants experience the cycle of birth and death. Cycles are the most natural part of our life. The cycle of four seasons that we pass through each year, the cycle of the moon waxing and waning and even on a molecular level; the death and regeneration of each one of the cells in our body.  All of these cycles are natural and therefore considered positive aspects of our lives but there are certainly negative cycles that occur and that humans often fall into. Cycles often referred to as bad habits, such as chewing all the skin off our figures or worse, addiction to substances that give our bodies a craving that make it almost impossible for one to break the unhealthy cycle of ingesting it.

There is one very important, massive cycle, which none of us can truly comprehend, but which Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher and many others believe to be the most negative cycle in existence and one that we will eventually be able to break. When god first created humans, there was no such thing as death. Adam and Eve were meant to live in the Garden of Eden for eternity. The simple act they committed, eating the forbidden fruit, demolished this eternity from which arose the concept of beginnings and endings. Now humans must work for their food and just as they are born, they will eventually die.

Because of this story, Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher views the act of eating as the key destroyer of the connection between humans and god. In “Shulhan Shel Arba”, Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher lays down very meticulous procedures for the precise manner that humans should consume their food on earth. Each of these procedures is based around the same idea; remaining conscious of our connection to god by giving thanks through numerous prayers and specific behaviors, and remembering to follow the Torah and the commandments it teaches.  He believes that the act of eating itself leads us directly towards sinful behavior and so he says “a person ought to eat only for the sustenance of his body alone, and it is forbidden for him to pursue any sort of pleasure …  In order for his body to be healthy and strong, he should pursue what pleases [his intellect] and his Creator, for his organs are combined and possess the capacity exactly in the measure that enables him to bear the yoke of the Torah and its commandments…” (The Second Gate) However, it is really our taste  that causes our desire to eat food for pleasure, not just the act of eating. Different flavors can have different connotations and memories, someone can be seductive, others can be painful. Some tastes will make us feel happy and so if we are unhappy we are more likely to indulge in eating to experience this pleasure and wonderful flavor, committing the sinful behavior. It is really our taste that brings about the sinful behavior, more than the physical eating that brings about this behavior. 
            The above passage clearly shows that Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher knows that as eating caused our disconnection with god, it can easily increase this disconnection. But by formulating procedures around eating, it can help us prevent a further disconnection and will eventually manifest a reconnection with god.

In the Fourth Gate, Rabbenu Bahya ben Asher describes in great detail, the reward that will befall those who remained faithful to god on earth “The Righteous”. The reward itself entails a massive feast and will bring out the “The Righteous” reconnecting with god. He describes the feast with several courses and during which the “The Righteous” will lose the dimensions of their body and become infinite. An infinite body will allow the infinite consumption of food and even better, the sustenance will be far sweeter than food, it will be the radiance of god himself.

And so the eating itself of the massive feast will have reestablished our connection with god. And the eating will have broken the cycle of life and death on earth, a life that is disconnected from god and often from the Torah.  If all of this truly comes to pass, I believe that the breaking of the largest and most negative cycle in existence will mean that all other negative cycles will be broken. In fact the concept of cycles themselves will be demolished for us with humans no longer on the earth.