BIRKAT HAMAZONE: MAJOR POINTS
1. The Biblical source for the obligation to recite BirkatHamazone, is the verse in Deuteronomy 8: : “…and you shall eat and feel sated, andyou shall bless the Lord you God for the good land which He has given to you.”
The blessing thus addresses God’s gift of the Land ofIsrael; it does not focus upon the meal that the person had just consumed.The Halacha views the meal, during which we have partaken of the Land’sproduce, as a pretext – i.e., as the most appropriate opportunity to thank Godfor the Land that has yielded for us that produce. More precisely: the feelingof satiation which one receives from having consumed the Land’syield catalyzes the obligation to express praise and gratitude for the Land.
To articulate the foregoing in halachic terms:
a. The me’chayevof Birkat Hamazon is the s’viyah from havingconsumed the Land’s produce.
b. The chalosof the beracha is on the Land.
c. The natureof the beracha is shevach veho’da’ah
2. An analogy to thisphenomenon - i.e., where the me’chayev and the chalosare not one and the same - appears in the Asher Yatzar blessing,which we are obligated to recite after the elimination of bodily waste. Theelimination of waste is the me’chayev. i.e., it precipitates theobligation to recite this prayer. The prayer, however, is chalupon(addresses) all bodily systems that God in His wisdom hascreated tin order to keep us alive.
3. The Halacha may find these strategies necessarybecause of the realistic impossibility of giving God proper acknowledgement forongoing gifts, such as the Land of Israel (when we are actually dwelling on it)and our various bodily systems. Logically - or theologically and ethically- weshould follow the modeling of certain angelic images, devoting ourselvesconstantly to thanking and praising God for these gifts which are of constantbenefit.
4. This concept appears explicitly in the Midrash to thefinal verse in Psalms. The verse reads, “Kol ha’ne’shama ht’hallel Y-ah,Hallelu’Y-ah [meaning either, “May the entire soul” or, “May everysoul”] praise Y-ah, Halleluy-a.” The Midrash homiletically varies the pointingof ne’shamah [soul] to read ne’sheemah [breath] andproceeds to paraphrase the verse as follows: “For each and everybreath[you take], praise Y-ah, Halleluy-a.”
5. The theologically appropriate act is thus at times realisticallyimpossible. An aspect of Jewish spirituality, however, is to be aware of theconstant appropriateness of expressing gratitude for Divine gifts from which wederive ongoing benefit, despite our inability to do justice to this.
6. In a sense, birkot hanehenin may fallunder this same category of the constant-yet-impossible need to communicate toGod - this time praise for creating specific types of produce. The me’chayevof this praise is the eating of (for example) the fruit, but its chalosis upon the amazing reality of God’s having created all fruit-bearing trees. Ina sense, we should be constantly praising the Creator for the apparently infinite,wondrous aspects of the entire cosmic drama.
7. Together with thanking God for the Land, BirkatHamazon also acknowledges
a. Israel’s covenant (Brit) with God, and
b. The Torah.
The integration of Eretz, Britand Torah in Birkat Hamazonreflects the Bible’s approach to Israel’s rights to the Land of Israel(especially in Deuteronomy, the Books of Kings and the literary Prophets). Thisapproach asserts that Israel’s possession of the Land (=Eretz)is contingent [conditional] upon the Israel maintaining its covenantalcommitment (=Brit) to the service of God byobserving the mitzvot of the Torah.
8. This concept requires more elaboration. God’s covenantwith the Avot, affirming that their progeny will be His special nation, alwaysmakes mention of Israel’s possession of the Land. In other words, BritHa’aretz constitutes an intrinsic aspect of Brit Avot. Thus,the covenant with the Avot focuses primarily upon Israel’s identity as a nationwith its own land, and not as an exclusively religious group whichexists independently of its identity as a national, political entity.
9. Brit Sinai, on the other hand, implicitly relates to Israel as areligiousentity – i.e., a group that exists in a unique relationship with God -rather than a nationality with its own land. It constitutes the persistence ofa mutual covenantal commitment between God and Israel even when Israel isbereft of its homeland and its sovereignty.
10.The opening paragraph of Birkat Hamazoneis not part of the fulfillment of the Torah obligation to bless God forenabling us to inherit the Land. Rather, it praises God as the Sustainer of allorganic being. Thus through my specific experience of a satisfyingmeal, the liturgy in this first blessing points me towards a renewedappreciation of the universal phenomenon, i.e., just as He has provided mewith sustenance in this meal, He likewise sustains the entire organic world. Thepersonal/provincial “I-experience” thus leads me to a heightened awareness ofGod as the Universal Sustainer - and to a celebratory praise of Him forpersisting in these infinite acts of loving-kindness.
11.The opening blessing of Birkat Hamazone, therefore, indicatesthat the significance of my immediate nutritional and hedonic experience is notlimited to the discreet experience of that specific meal. The pleasure-filledgastronomic moment, rather, transforms into an illustration of the universalphenomenon of the Creator sustaining the entire organic world. Analogous to theAsher Yatzar blessing, to which we referred earlier, the provincial“I-experience” radically transforms into a cosmic, universal reality.
12.My act of self-feeding - an act of quintessential self-involvement- naturally results in my hedonic focus upon the experience of my ownsatiation. This very experience, in turn, precipitates a Halachic obligation torecite, as dialogue with God, Birkat Hamazone. The experience ofhedonic self-involvement thus transforms into an illustration of God’s infiniteand universal loving-kindness. This loving-kindness is forever ongoing: it haspreceded my existence since creation and will continue after I exist until theend of the world as we know it. My eating experience is thus no longerexclusively about me, but about God and the organic world.
13.Ignoring, for the purpose of the present discussion, theblessing prior to eating, we may summarize by stating that although the Jewish experienceof eating begins with an “I-focus”, it concludes with a universal,“God-and-the-world” focus.
14.The forgoing is not to imply that the hedonicexperience is neutralized. Rather, it is contextualized by the blessing thatplaces it in the framework of the universal.
15.In addition, the blessing serves to endow the hedonicexperience in eating with utilitarian significance. The blessing asserts that thefeeling of satiation serves as an indicator of nutritionand sustenance. The blessing makes no reference to the pleasureexperience, although, as we have already noted, it is precisely that experience(“and you shall be sated”) that precipitates the obligation to recite BirkatHamazone.
16.When the Jewish People is exiled from the Land ofIsrael, Birkat Hamazone should become irrelevant! We are notconsuming the produce of the Land. God has allowed His gift of the Land to beremoved from our possession; this gift is now (until 1948!) an experience ofthe past. The Rabbinic addition of the fourth blessing (Hatov Hehamaytiv)as well as the custom of reciting either Psalm or may enable us to understand why the halacha insists that the obligation to recite Birkat Hamazone persists even in exile.
17.The two Psalms indicate that the exilic experience issomewhat removed from reality; once we return, together with God, to the Landof Israel, the entire exilic experience wil be retrospectively appear as but adream. Our greatest joys in exile will forever be dampened by the loss ofJerusalem.
18.Hatov Hehamaytiv indicates that even after and destruction of our people, in thedeath-experience of exile God has not abandoned us. CF Nes Chanukah.