Creation without this recognition is itself destruction - it is a sacrifice to the pagan god of our own talents, saying My strength and the might of my hand made me all this wealth . We do indeed slaughter sacrifices in the elaborately designed Temple, but when we want to elevate them before God we must start with an altar built with unhewn stones, left exactly the way G-d gave them to us. We use our knives throughout the meal, but when we want to elevate our eating, by affirming that the Source of our material blessing is in G-d, it is appropriate to cover them. This brings us back to the point we made above, that the idea of blessing is that of augmentation and not of creation. On Shabbat, our creative capacity goes on vacation entirely.
All creative labor is forbidden.
Then we are not concerned with the symbolic connection of metal to our ability to create and destroy, and we need not cover the knives. Rabbi Asher Meir is in the process of writing a monumental companion to Kitzur Shulchan Aruch which beautifully presents the meanings in our mitzvot and halacha. Rabbi Meir - who had given a series on Business Halacha at the Center, and has taught a series on the Meaning in Mitzvot. We hope to have him back at the Center some time in the future. This site maintained by Avi Kehat .