The Avodah of Eating

Rav Hirsch once in the “Gemara niggun”: “I have a kasha. We know that ‘shulchano shel odom mechaper.’ (One’s table atones for him.) If so, why don’t we eat before every tefillah? The answer is: ‘Maalin b’kodesh v’ein moridim.’ (We go up in holiness and not down, meaning that eating is a holier avodah than tefillah so it cannot be done before davening as this would be going down a level in kedusha.)”