GEN414 Where there is no flour [bread] there is no Torah Book & Portion; where there is no Torah, there is no flour [bread] Pirkei Avot III:21  … we could interpret it to mean that “if there is no Torah,” all your eating has accomplished nothing more than “no flour”; you have made a certain amount of food disappear.  You have obtained and used a certain amount of calories.  That is all.  If there is no Torah in your life, if your existence is not informed by some higher purpose, if there is no transcendent value and goal to which all hour physical activities are dedicated, then your entire life is only a consumption of energy.  Before, you had food, time, energy.  Now they are gone; there is simply “no flour.” Indeed, flour for bread is itself a symbol of a higher level of civilization. When Adam sinned he was told in punishment, “Thorns and thistles shall it [the earth] bring forth to you, and you shall eat the grass of the field.” Genesis 3:18 At this, says Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, tears ran from his eyes. “O Master of the world,“ he cried, “shall I and my donkey eat our food from the same trough?” Once the Almighty continued, “By the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread,” [this verse], Adam was calmed.  Talmud Pesachim 118a.  Man does not accept what he is given in the form that it is given him; he builds it up, improves on it, develops it, and transforms it.  In the hands of man, wheat becomes flour, and flour becomes bread.  Thus, flour signifies man’s superiority over the beast, his rise to a civilized state. Hence, “if there is no Torah,” if one neglects his obligation to reach a higher level of spirituality, of humanity, through Torah, and is content to live by the values of the animal, then in truth he is entitled to no more than grass and oats; for him “there is no flour.” SINAI1 342