Mitzvot and Mindfulness: Eat, Be Sated and Bless

By Rabbi Elyse Winick
KOACH Director

Earlier this year, I wrote about the power of reciting a blessing before you eat, how the most basic act can be transformed into a moment of holiness. Let it not go unnoticed, however, that as Jews we bless both before and after the meal.

A friend of mine replaces the full Birkat HaMazon (Grace After Meals) with the phrase Brikh Shmei Marei d’Hai Pita, Blessed is the Master of this bread. I imagine he is riffing on the phrase in Talmud Brakhot 40b, Brikh Rahmanah Marei d’Hai Pita (which means essentially the same thing). It’s attributed to a certain shepherd named Benjamin and on that page of Talmud, Rav says this blessing was acceptable. Further investigation shows that the concerns raised about the blessing were not concerns of content, but concerns of language. Can a blessing be recited in a language other than Hebrew fulfill an obligation? And in many cases, the Talmud tells us, the answer is yes.

It’s a speedier way to achieve the goal, for sure. But while a straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, that can reduce the journey to something efficient rather than scenic, to an item checked off the to-do list rather than a moment of meaning.

Even when Birkat HaMazon is not sung aloud (a missed opportunity for communal bonding), its walk through Jewish history and remembrance of our ancestors places us in the chain of tradition time and time again. The meditative quality of the full Grace After Meals would make the slow food movement proud – a measured celebration of the gifts we have enjoyed, an honoring of the earth’s bounty and its Creator.

And then I come to a full stop. I reach the words na’ar hayiti v’gam zakanti, v’lo ra’iti tzaddik ne’ezav, v’zaro m’vakesh lakhem – I’ve been old and I’ve been young and I have never seen a righteous person forsaken, nor their offspring begging for bread. (Psalms 37:25)

Come again? The implication that those who suffer have earned it stops me in my tracks. It’s simply not possible that the hungry, the impoverished, the lonely and the infirm are where they are because of a lack of righteousness.

For many years I have remained silent when these words were recited, a personal protest in the face of an affront. When my Birkat HaMazon is private rather than public, my eyes slide across those words and I shudder, simultaneously acknowledging them and excluding them.

Cue my friend and teacher, Rabbi Allan Lehmann, who after Birkat HaMazon at the Pesah seder one year turned to me and offered this pearl. He suggested changing the punctuation to say na’ar hayiti v’gam zakanti, v’lo ra’iti! Tzaddik ne’ezav v’zaro m’vakesh lakhem. I was young and I have become old and I didn’t see! (read: I didn’t pay attention!) Thus, the righteous have been abandoned and their offspring beg for bread.

That felt better. That inclusion of an exclamation shifts the theology and puts the blame where it belongs. On us. Because those who suffer around us do so because we fail to respond to society’s ills. We cannot fix everything, but we can soften the world for those who go without

Still, I struggle to get those words to pass my lips. My silent protest feels more potent than the chanting of those words in a communal setting where nearly everyone else either accepts that theology or has simply not given it much thought. But I would not remove them from Birkat HaMazon. Nor would I modify, as has been suggested, by inserting the words Lu y’hi (Let it be) before this verse. Not only because it has been chanted in this way for generations but because, in a sense, I like the way the words stick in my throat. What better moment to be confronted by the reality of the world around me but to struggle with the meaning of this phrase as I sit at the table, surrounded by friends and family, full stomach and heart overflowing. It’s so easy to be lulled into a sense of contentment and feeling that all is well with the world. And of course, I should take pleasure in and give thanks for the creature comforts with which I have been blessed. But I shouldn’t be deluded into believing that everyone is so blessed to have all they could want and need, or allow my own fulfillment to cloud the responsibility I have to do my share to ensure that others can chant their own Birkat HaMazon with the same sense of joy and completion.

Birkat HaMazon as a call to action? Let’s eat.

[Posted 1/25/12]