Blessings on Wine and Before Eating

 

WINE AND OTHER DRINKS

 

Just as the blessing on BREAD exempts other FOODS (see chapter 43), so the blessing on WINE exempts other DRINKS.  One who makes a blessing on wine and wants to drink a soft drink as well, does not need to bless "shehakol" on the soft drink.  However, there is a subtle difference between these rules.

 

Bread exempts other foods because it is the foundation of the meal and it is what gives other foods importance.  Cheese eaten alone is a snack; eaten together with bread, it is a meal. 

After the complex process which goes into making bread, its ultimate importance is its ability to give up the limelight and bestow importance on other foods.

 

Wine, on the other hand, is not the "foundation" of our drinking.  We seldom drink soft drinks by mixing them with wine.  Bread's importance stems from its complexity and its modesty (see chapter 35), but wine has neither of these.  Wine is simple to make, and it is the highlight, not foundation, of our drinking.  Wine does not augment the importance of other drinks; on the contrary, it upstages them and thereby DIMINISHES their importance.

 

This can help us understand the special limitations on wine's ability to exempt other drinks.  Wine's importance lies in its COMPARISON with other drinks, not in its ASSOCIATION with them.  When the comparison is absent because the other drinks were not before us when we made the berakha, and when its importance is diminished because it is being drunk only casually, then it no longer has the ability to exempt other drinks (seifim 4 and 5).

 

Neither exception applies to bread.  Bread exempts other foods even if we did not know about them, and a bread meal is ALWAYS considered fixed and not casual.

 

HATOV VEHAMETIV

 

From seif 8 onward Rav Ganzfried discusses the special blessing made on enjoying a variety of wine.  When a group of people are drinking one kind of wine and an additional, superior kind is brought, each person blesses "hatov vameitiv," thanking Hashem and acknowledging that He IS good and DOES good. 

 

In chapter 59, we learn that this same blessing is made on hearing fortunate news.  When good fortune accrues to one person, he or she says "shehechyanu," but when it happens to a group of Jews each one blesses "hatov vehametiv."

 

In chapter 59, Rav Ganzfried (based on the Tosafot) explains the wording of this blessing as follows: God IS good to the one blessing, and DOES good to others.  This seems strange.  If we are all enjoying the same benefit, then God IS good to all of us or He DOES good to all of us.  Why the distinction? Furthermore, if the enjoyment of others is an occasion for blessing, why can't I bless on others' fortune even if I don't take part in it? And what is the relationship between good fortune and new wine?

 

We find an important clue to unraveling the riddle of "hatov vehametiv" in sief 13.  There, the Kitzur rules that "hatov vehametiv" is made only when a GROUP enjoy a new wine.  If indeed variety of wine is like good fortune, then we would expect that an INDIVIDUAL who drinks a second kind of wine should bless "shehechyanu" - like an individual experiencing special good fortune.  While there are early authorities who DO obligate the individual to bless in this case, the accepted ruling is like the Kitzur who rules that a person alone makes NO blessing on variety of wine.  It seems that the joy of wine is absent when we drink alone.

 

BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS

 

We saw a similar idea in chapter 45.  There we saw that while some authorities recommend that we should say the grace after meals over a cup of wine even when alone, the custom is to bless over wine only when there is a group of three or more.  In that chapter, we explained that wine has the special ability to break down barriers between people and liberate their innerness.  Breaking down barriers between human beings is not very liberating when we are alone!

 

This also explains why there is a special blessing on shared good fortune.  Joy also has the ability to break down barriers between people.  In our day to day life everyone is stuck in his or her own little partition, but joyous occasions create a special sense of fellowship.  The blessing "hatov vehametiv" thanks Hashem for this unique ability we have to experience true togetherness.  I don't bless separately on my good fortune and on the good fortune of our comrades; on the contrary, I am specially acknowledging our ability to experience Hashem's goodness TOGETHER.

 

In other words, "hatov vehametiv" is the blessing of transcending ourselves, of breaking down artificial boundaries between human beings.  Ultimately, by transcending ourselves and becoming part of the group we have begun to break down the barriers between ourselves and God.

 

Now we can understand Rav Ganzfried's explanation of the wording of this blessing.  Hashem IS good - to the individual.  He DOES good - He takes this private good of the individual and actualizes it by extending it to the group.  The good that God does to others is not separate from the good that He is to me; on the contrary, it is an extension of that very good.  I start with a private enjoyment which gives me an inkling of God's grace; when I then share this enjoyment with others, I realize that I do not merely PERCEIVE God's goodness in a PASSIVE way ("IS good"), I actually PARTICIPATE in God's goodness and EXPERIENCE it in an ACTIVE way ("DOES good").

 

The wording "hatov vehametiv" appears in the berakha in our chapter, in the fourth blessing of the grace after meals, and in a verse in Tehillim.  Our Sages gave the concept various illustrations of this concept, all of which relate to the idea of transcending limitations:

 

"Good to him, doing good to others" - through joy God enables us to transcend our isolation and alienation and experience His goodness jointly with others. 

 

"Good in this world, doing good in the world to come" (Midrash Tehillim on Tehillim 119:68) - in the World of Truth the spirit is free of all the limitations of the body. 

 

"Good to the Patriarchs, doing good to the sons" (also from Midrash Tehillim) - the Torah's account of Hashem's relationship with the Avot can seem like a mere story.  It is His ongoing providence over the Jewish people which turns this "story" into a living covenant transcending time and place.

 

"Good - the martyrs of Beitar (at the time of the destruction of the second Temple) did not decompose; doing good - ultimately they (the Romans) allowed them to be buried" (Berakhot 48b).  The fact of not decomposing is something static, but burial is a step forward - a stage on the way to the body's final rest and ultimately to its resurrection in the World to Come.

 

CHAPTER 50 - BLESSING BEFORE EATING

 

Rav Ganzfried explains that a Jew is forbidden to eat food or otherwise enjoy bodily pleasures without first reciting a benediction.  This is one of the most frequent and conspicuous mitzvot we perform.

 

The Talmud brings various possible rationales for the obligation to say a blessing before eating.  The Kitzur (seif 1) cites the view of Shmuel who learns that enjoying food without a berakha is akin to getting forbidden benefit from the Sanctuary and sanctified property.  Shmuels's source: One psalm says "The earth and all that is in it belong to Hashem" (Tehillim 24:1).  before we say a berakha, everything belongs to Hashem alone.  But another psalm says "The heavens are the heavens of Hashem, but the earth He has given to mankind" (Tehillim 115:16).  After we say a blessing, Hashem gives the earth to us.  (Berakhot 35a.)

 

And Rav Yehuda suggests that just as we need to say a blessing before learning Torah, so we should make a blessing before eating food.  (Berakhot 21a.)

 

Both of these passages seem to indicate that our food and other enjoyments are indeed holy.  The approach of Shmuel likens them to the sanctified property of the Holy Temple; that of Rav Yehuda likens them to the holy Torah! Our material world, far from being something despicable and beneath us, is in fact so charged with holiness that we are forbidden to benefit from it! Worldly enjoyments become permissible only when we say a blessing on them.

 

How does saying a berakha make the consecrated permissible? We can learn this from Shmuel's example of "hekdesh" - sanctified property.  Hekdesh can become permissible in two ways.  One way is by redeeming it and removing its holiness.  The other way is to use it in a way which expresses its holiness.  A contribution of property to the sanctuary is sanctified but it can be sold, thus becoming ordinary property.  An animal designated for a sacrifice can never lose its sanctity, but it can be offered up on the altar and then eaten in holiness and purity.  In short - we are able to enjoy sanctified property either by LOWERING it or by ELEVATING ourselves. 

 

Making a berakha works in the second way.  Judaism does not view holiness as something foreign to our experience; on the contrary, holiness is actualized by giving it an expression WITHIN experience.  The hidden holiness of an apple is exactly our ability to recognize God's providence through the enjoyment and sustenance we are able to obtain from eating it.  The apple is an instrument for elevating us, for reminding us of God - IF we remind ourselves of His providence every time we eat.  The way we do this is by making a berakha.  Our benediction makes every food we eat into a kind of sacrifice, a way of elevating mundane matter into an aspect of God's service.

 

Hashem provides us with bodily pleasures in order that we should have a way of recognizing and appreciating His providence.  The material pleasure of eating can stir us up to spiritual aspiration - it can REMIND us of God.  Conversely, an excess of bodily indulgence can make spiritual joys seem superfluous, and make us think that this world is all that matters.  Then we are "stealing" the food - removing it from the domain of Godliness, where it belongs.  If every time we eat we remind ourselves that this enjoyment comes from Hashem, then our eating will elevate us.  If we eat without such a reminder, our eating will only debase us.

 

CONNECTING THE FOOD AND THE BLESSING

 

Rav Ganzfried explains (seif 5) that the food should be eaten immediately after the blessing.  This concept was explained in chapter 41.  We started by explaining the severe prohibition on saying a vain blessing, one without an object  - for instance, saying the blessing "Creator of the fruit of the tree" without intending to eat a fruit.  Such a blessing creates a barrier between our praise of Hashem and this world; it suggests that we can praise Hashem independently of our earthly experience.  But the object of the Torah is to CONNECT the world to holiness, to reveal Godliness within our experience.  This is done by being careful to ground our thanks to God on specific encounters with His providence - such as making a blessing on our worldly enjoyments.

 

Once we recognize the need to anchor our praise of God in our worldly experience, we can understand the need to make the connection between the blessing we say and the bounty we experience as close as possible.  Making a blessing on a distant enjoyment is only slightly better than making one on no enjoyment at all.

 

The importance of this connection explains many rules in our siman: why the wording of the berakha should match the food eaten as closely as possible (seif 2);  why we should hold the food in our hand (seif 3); and why it should be eaten as soon as possible after the blessing (seif 5).  It also explains the requirement for eating in a single place and time; if we move about too much, the connection between food and blessing is attenuated (seifim 13-16).

 

In principle, making the blessing immediately AFTER eating also creates a connection between the blessing and the food.  This explains the Kitzur's ruling (seif 10) that when it is impossible to make a blessing BEFORE eating, it is possible in cases of great duress to say the blessing immediately afterward.  However, it is important to know that this ruling of Rabbi Ganzfried is not the accepted custom, and the usual ruling is that once the food has been eaten, no berakha may be said.

 

Other aspects of the "berakhot hanehenin" - blessings on enjoyments - are discussed at the beginning of chapter 6.