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Meaning in Mitzvot -
Lesson 34

The Berakha Made Before Consuming Various Foods

21.09.2014
Text file

 

Rav Ganzfried explains that there are three different levels of blessings before eating:

 

1.  The LOWEST is "shehakol."  This blessing applies specifically to food which doesn't grow from the ground, but as the most general blessing it can exempt any kind of food (including bread, though Rav Ganzfried does not say so explicitly).  This berakha acknowledges that everything was created through God's word.

 

2.  The second is "borei pri ha-adama" - Creator of the fruit of the ground.  This applies specifically to vegetables, but can exempt fruit, as well.

 

3.  The third level is "borei pri ha-etz" - Creator of the fruit of the tree.  This applies to all fruits.

 

From the previous few chapters we know that there is a FOURTH level - three blessings, each of which applies to only one kind of food:

 

4.  On bread we say "hamotzi lechem min ha-aretz" (see chapter 39); on wine we say "borei pri hagefen" - Creator of the fruit of the vine; and on other baked goods (besides bread) we say "borei minei mezonot" - Creator of varieties of aliments.

 

In chapter 41 we explained the severe prohibition of making a vain blessing.  Praising God without focusing on any particular object of praise creates a seeming division between God and the world.  That is why we try to recite the blessing as close to eating as possible, and why we make the text of the berakha correspond closely to the kind of food we are eating.

 

Still, we don't go to the extreme of having a separate blessing on each food.  Why particularly do we have these four categories?  And why is there a hierarchy among them?  Is it really so obvious that meat is less important than fruit?

 

Surprisingly, these four categories, and the hierarchy among them, are hinted at in the story of Creation!  In the various commands and blessings given to the first creatures, a clear division and hierarchy of foods is implied.

 

After creating man and woman on the sixth day and affording them dominion over the animals, God describes man's diet and contrasts it with that of animals:  "I have given you all seed-bearing herbage on the face of all the earth, and all trees giving tree-fruit bearing seed, I have given it to you to eat.  But to all the beasts of the earth and birds of the sky, and to all that crawls on the ground, all that has a living soul in it, [I have given] all the green herbage to eat" (Bereshit 1:29-30).

 

While both man and beast may eat vegetables, fruit is set aside specially for mankind.  Meanwhile, meat is forbidden to both man AND beast (see Rashi).  The high moral level of all things with a "living soul" makes it inappropriate for them to eat each other.

 

We soon learn that there is a fourth level.  In Bereshit 2:17, Adam is warned against eating the fruit of the "tree of knowing good and evil."  If eating meat is beneath his level, eating the tree of knowledge is beyond his level at this stage of creation.  Man is not yet ready to have his eyes opened to good and evil without being tempted towards evil.

 

The Talmud makes various suggestions as to the identity of the "tree of knowledge"; among these are wheat (in chapter 35 we pointed out that bread uniquely demonstrates man's advanced practical intellect) and grapes (in chapter 45 we pointed out that wine has the potential to expose our true, inner selves).  Thus, these are appropriate foods to identify with this fourth, higher level.

 

We all know that Adam and Chava did not withstand the moral challenge presented by God, and they ate of the forbidden tree.  The result was that both man and the earth suffered a curse.  Part of the man's curse was God's admonition, "and you shall eat of the herbs of the field" (Bereshit 3:18).  This admonition symbolizes the loss of part of man's special status, and his having lowered himself towards the level of the beasts.

 

Later on, the spiritual level of mankind declined so far that these distinctions stopped being relevant for him at all.  This resulted in the flood, and afterwards even animal meat was permitted to mankind (Bereshit 9:3).  The only moral symbol left in the human diet is the prohibition against eating meat from an animal while it is still alive (Bereshit 9:4).  (Note that when meat is permitted to man, it is likened to vegetables.  Fruit has still not been explicitly permitted.)

 

However, the giving of the Torah was a major turning point in mankind's climb back towards the moral perfection intended for him in the Garden of Eden, and many foods were forbidden to the Jewish people (as discussed in chapter 46).  In particular, the four-level partition of kinds of foods was restored, and this finds an expression in our opening blessings.

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