BY RIVKAH LAMBERT ADLER
Les Saidel, a veteran immigrant to Israel, originally from Johannesburg, South Africa, likely knows more about the Biblical showbread than anyone else on earth.
Called Lechem Hapanim in Hebrew (literally, bread of the faces), the ancient art of preparing the showbread for use in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem has not been practiced for close to 2000 years.
During the Second Temple period, the showbreads were baked by the Garmu family of Levi'im (Levites). Each Friday, the Garmu family baked a new set of 12 loaves. Each of the loaves represented one of the 12 Tribes. They were placed on the Temple's golden shulchan (table) in two stacks of six and they remained on the shulchan all week.
According to Saidel, these special breads had miracles associated with them during the time the Holy Temples stood in Jerusalem. Despite the fact that the breads sat out uncovered for seven days, they miraculously remained fresh and warm, even a week later.
The showbreads were replaced every Friday and the previous week's showbreads were distributed among the incoming and outgoing shifts of kohanim (priests assigned to work in the Temple). Saidel explained that this amounted to 400 or 500 people eating from these 12 loaves. Despite the fact that each kohen (priest) received only a small amount of bread, it miraculously was as filling as if they had eaten an entire meal.
The Saidels started out teaching about baking challah (the traditional braided Shabbat bread) and sourdough breads. In 2017, Les created a workshop called Breads of the Beit HaMikdash (Temple) which launched his passion for researching the history of bread in the Holy Temple.
Today, the Showbread Institute, established in 2018 and based in Israel's Shomron (Samaria), exists to "to serve as an umbrella organization for the research, publication and educational activities... and to reacquaint the People of Israel with the Temple Service in preparation for the rebuilding of the Third Temple, speedily in our days," the website explains.
Why is any of this relevant now? Saidel explained that, "We have to learn how they did things in the Temple to be ready for the Third Temple.
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