Shabbat Forshpeis
A Taste of Torah in Honor of Shabbat
PARSHAT EKEV
THE EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY OF BIRKAT HAMAZON
AUGUST 15-16, 2003 / 17 AV 5763
This week's portion
includes the verse upon which is based the obligation to recite the Grace After Meals.
The text reads "and you shall eat and be satisfied and bless the Lord your God upon the land which is good." (Deuteronomy 8:10) The Talmud understands the first words "and you shall eat and be satisfied and bless the Lord your God" as the obligation to offer a prayer of thanksgiving to God after eating. The phrase "upon the land" instructs us to add a blessing of thanksgiving to God for giving us the land of Israel. And the words, "which is good" are taken to mean that an additional blessing thanking God for Jerusalem, the goodly spiritual center of the Land, is included as a third blessing. Here is the Biblical basis for the first three blessings of the Grace: Hazan - the blessing for food. Al Ha-Aretz - the blessing for the land, U'vnei Yerushalayim - the blessing for Jerusalem. (Berachot 48b)
The question arises: Thanking God for food is completely understandable, but why include blessings for Israel and Jerusalem when finishing a meal?
It can be suggested that not only are we thanking God for the food that we've eaten, but we are also expressing confidence that food will be provided in the future. The place where this confidence is highest is in Israel where we are governed by Jews, not in the Diaspora where we are dependant on others. In the Diaspora, we can never be sure of the way we will be treated in the future, hence, outside of Israel, we can never be certain where the next morsel will come from.
Lest we think that the focus of Israel is only land, a place where we feel physical protection of Jews, we add the blessing of Jerusalem, symbolic of the spirituality of Israel so critical for its survival. A land without a spiritual mission is the equivalent of a body without a soul.
The Talmud adds that the rabbis introduced a fourth blessing (Ha-Tov U'Mativ) in which we recall that even after the destruction of the second Temple, a period of devastation. Jews expressed thanks to God for allowing the bodies of those who fell in the rebellion against Rome to be returned. Miraculously the remains were intact. To this we add a sentence that deals with the hope that the messiah soon come.
Extraordinary: In expressing gratitude to God for food we go much further than the meal itself and the here and now. Every time we sit and eat we have the opportunity to reflect on the basic themes that have carved out Jewish destiny and our dreams for the future - Israel, Jerusalem, exile and the hopes of ultimate redemption.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Avi Weiss
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