One Bite of Heaven and Earth

Imagine walking into a Jerusalem steakhouse with your five-year-old son. 

The waiter smiles and places a two-pound steak in front of him. His eyes grow wide. He looks at the steak, then at you, then back at the steak. You grin and say, “Go ahead. Eat.” 

He can’t. 

Not because he doesn’t want to. Not because he isn’t hungry. He simply isn’t built to swallow something that enormous. 

So what do we do? 

We cut it into pieces. Then his teeth cut those pieces into even smaller ones. Then his stomach quietly goes to work, breaking them down further until, little by little, what once seemed impossible becomes part of him. 

That is how Hashem designed the human body. We absorb life’s greatest gifts one bite at a time. 

Perhaps that is also how Hashem teaches His greatest truths.  

 

When the Infinite Becomes Personal 

The Torah opens with words so majestic that we almost stop noticing how astonishing they really are. 

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Bereishit 1:1) 

We have heard those words since childhood. Yet if someone stopped us in the middle of davening and asked, “What does it actually mean that Hashem created heaven and earth?” most of us would struggle to answer beyond the abstract. 

The heavens. The earth. Time. Matter. Space. Life itself. 

These are ideas so immense that they almost escape our imagination. We believe them completely, yet we often fail to feel them. Our minds accept the truth, but our hearts cannot quite swallow a reality so vast. 

By filling His world with millions upon millions of smaller miracles, Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu patiently teaches us what those words mean through every sunrise, every heartbeat, every raindrop, and every blessing we recite. 

Like a loving father cutting a steak into bite-sized pieces for his child, Hashem takes the infinite and makes it accessible to finite human beings. 

Every small miracle becomes another bite of Creation. 

Every blessing becomes another opportunity to digest heaven and earth. 

 

 

Before the Apple Was an Apple 

The Chovot HaLevavot teaches that a person should regularly take account of the kindnesses Hashem bestows upon him.¹ At first glance, that sounds almost impossible. Where would we even begin? 

Should we thank Him for our eyesight? For our lungs? For our family? For food? For the roof over our heads? 

The deeper we think, the more overwhelming the list becomes. Before long, we realize that every blessing rests upon thousands of other blessings we rarely notice. 

The apple in our hand is not the miracle. It is the final chapter of a story that began long before the apple grew on a tree. That story begins with a universe sustained by the will of Hashem every moment of every day. 

Perhaps that is why Jewish blessings over food never begin with the food. They begin with the Creator. 

 

The Universe Hidden Inside One Word 

Every morning, before the aroma of fresh coffee reaches our senses, before we enjoy the sweetness of a grape or the crunch of fresh bread, our lips first declare: 

Baruch Atah Hashem… Elokeinu… 

We say those words so often that they can become almost automatic. Yet hidden inside that single word—Elokeinu—lies an entire philosophy of Creation. Most people associate the Name Elokim with strict judgment. There is truth to that. 

But the first time the Torah introduces this Divine Name, no human being has sinned. Adam and Chavah have not yet eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. There is no courtroom. No punishment. No verdict. 

There is only Creation. 

“Bereishit bara Elokim et hashamayim v’et ha’aretz.” (Bereishit 1:1) 

The Torah introduces Elokim as the Creator who establishes a universe of breathtaking order, precision, and consistency. A universe where every law faithfully serves His will. 

That changes everything. 

Perhaps the “strictness” of Elokim is not something to fear first. It’s something to marvel at. 

If Hashem did not govern His universe with absolute consistency, none of us would survive until breakfast tomorrow morning. 

Gravity would become a suggestion. The sun might forget to rise. Our hearts might decide they needed a few minutes off. Water might stop flowing. Seeds might refuse to sprout. 

The very predictability we often take for granted is itself an act of Divine kindness. 

The world is stable because Hashem lovingly insists that it be so. 

And every time we say Elokeinu, we quietly acknowledge this truth. 

 

The Universe Behind Your Coffee 

We are not simply thanking Hashem for the coffee. We are thanking Him for the universe that made coffee possible. 

If the Torah had wanted only to tell us that Hashem created the universe, it could have stopped after its very first verse. 

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” 

Instead, the Torah spends the next chapter slowing us down. Light. Sky. Oceans. Plants. Sun, moon, and stars. Birds. Animals. Finally, mankind. 

Creation itself is revealed one bite at a time.  

Before Hashem asks us to thank Him for the gift in our hands, He gently teaches us to notice the countless gifts that made that moment possible. 

That is the hidden beauty of the word Elokeinu. 

 

Tomorrow Morning, Don’t Drink Your Coffee Yet 

Before taking your first sip of coffee, pause for just a few seconds. Ask yourself one simple question:  

What had to happen for this cup of coffee to exist? 

The answer is far greater than most of us realize. 

Water flowed from your faucet because gravity has faithfully governed our planet since the day Hashem created the world. Electricity raced through copper wires almost at the speed of light, following laws that have never once forgotten their assignment. 

The heating element transformed electrical energy into heat with astonishing precision. The water molecules responded exactly as Hashem designed them to respond. 

None of those things happened because nature decided to cooperate today. 

They happened because Elokeinu continues to sustain His creation every single moment. 

 

Thousands of Miracles Hidden in One Cup 

Now think about yourself. 

Your eyes judged the water level without conscious effort. Your fingers wrapped themselves around the kettle.  Electrical impulses traveled through billions of nerve cells to coordinate dozens of muscles at precisely the right moment. 

Your lungs quietly supplied oxygen. Your heart faithfully pumped blood. Your brain remembered where the coffee was stored. Your nose anticipated its aroma before you ever tasted it. 

All of that happened in just a few ordinary seconds. 

We call it “making coffee.” 

Hashem calls it sustaining His universe. 

The miracle is not simply that you have coffee. The miracle is that millions of tiny acts of Divine kindness came together at exactly the right moment so you could enjoy one warm drink. 

 

The Story Hidden Inside a Slice of Bread 

The same is true of the bread sitting beside your coffee. We look at a slice of bread and think about the bakery. Hashem invites us to think much further back. 

Long before the baker ever mixed flour with water, a tiny seed disappeared beneath the soil. Without intelligence, it somehow knew which direction was down and which direction was up. 

Roots searched for water. Shoots reached toward the sunlight. Leaves captured light that had travelled ninety-three million miles from the sun in just over eight minutes. 

Then something almost beyond imagination happened. Through the miracle of photosynthesis, sunlight became food. Light became life. Invisible gases became nourishment.  

Scientists have spent generations studying this process. They can describe it with remarkable detail. Yet every explanation eventually arrives at the same question: 

Why does it work so perfectly? The Torah answers with one word. 

Elokeinu. 

 

The Rain That Began in the Ocean 

Walk outside after a winter rain. 

Children run through puddles without thinking twice about where the water came from. Adults usually don’t think about it either. 

But that rain began its journey long before clouds appeared over your neighborhood. The sun gently warmed the oceans. Water evaporated into the sky. Invisible air currents carried moisture across countries and continents. 

Tiny particles floating in the atmosphere gathered droplets around themselves until clouds formed. Temperatures changed. The clouds opened. Rain fell. The fields drank. The wheat grew. Families ate. Children laughed. 

One rainfall. Thousands upon thousands of quiet acts of kindness. 

David HaMelech captured this perfectly when he declared, 

“Mah rabu ma’asecha Hashem.” 

“How numerous are Your works, Hashem.” (Psalms 104:24) 

Notice what he emphasizes. Not merely that Hashem’s works are great. 

That they are many. 

Everywhere we look, another miracle. Every moment, another kindness. Every blessing, another invitation to notice. 

 

The Miracle We Wake Up Inside 

Perhaps the greatest miracle is the one we rarely stop to admire. 

Ourselves. 

Your heart will beat roughly one hundred thousand times today. Not because you remembered to tell it to. Because Hashem remembered. 

Your lungs will quietly exchange oxygen through hundreds of millions of tiny air sacs. Your immune system will fight battles you will never know occurred. Billions of neurons will communicate through microscopic electrical signals faster than conscious thought. 

Your DNA will faithfully copy instructions written before you were born.  

Scientists can explain much of how these things happen. Torah reminds us why they continue happening. Because the Creator has never stepped away from His creation. 

He did not merely create the universe. He lovingly governs it. 

Every heartbeat. Every sunrise. Every breath. Every grain of wheat. Every cup of coffee. Every smile on the face of a child. 

These are the blessings from Elokeinu. 

And little by little… 

One blessing after another… 

One miracle after another… 

We begin to digest heaven and earth. 

 

Continued in The Blessings Before the Blessings.

 

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Editor’s Notes 

¹ Chovot HaLevavot, Sha’ar Cheshbon HaNefesh (Gate 8), Sha’ar HaBechina (Gate 2), Sha’ar Avodat HaElokim (Gate 3) 

 

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David Ben Horin lives in Afula with his family, 60,000 passionate Israelis, and Matilda, our local camel.