Thought for the Day: Bracha on Hydroponically Grown Vegatables

My grandfather (my mother's father) was a major influence on the way I think, the way I view the world, and the goals to which I aspire. (He passed away when I was 19... and I regret the time in my late teens when I did not make more of an effort to see him.) He was, for example, the smartest person I knew growing up; not just smarter than most, but a different kind of smart. He also inspired me to be appropriately lazy -- christmas lights were strategically strung among the ivy to be nearly invisible unless plugged in, so they were strung once and done. He was also known to speak his mind; there was a famous story of him taking a tray of baked goods around a holiday party, offering them as "inedible cookies"... including to the woman who baked them.

My grandfather also had an amazing vegetable garden; several kinds of tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, squash, bell peppers, zucchini, and whatever else looked interesting in the Burpee seed catalog that year. I've tried a few times over the years to have a vegetable garden; always a miserable failure. They take a lot of time and patience; I always seem to be short of both. That's why I was so excited this year when I saw advertised a kitchen counter hydroponic garden! I currently have six kinds of herbs growing in my kitchen. Exciting, right?

But you haven't heard the best part: there is a wonderful machlokes about what bracha to make on vegetables grown hydroponically! Even better: there is no clear resolution/agreement! Don't worry, they herbs won't be ready for harvest for another few weeks, so we have time understand the issues and to formulate a plan for eating them in the halachically best manner.

Just to set the stage, there are two candidates for the bracha: בורא פרי האדמה and (naturally) שהכל. The source of the machlokes is how to understand the wording of the (usual) bracha on vegetables: Who creates fruit of the ground. Did Chazal mean stuff that naturally grows that way, no matter how I get this particular fruit/vegetable; or did them mean "this particular fruit/vegetable which was grown in the ground"? We usually think the former is true, but the fact that they bracha is in present tense "creates" (and not "created") indicates that the current processing may be important also.

We do have one example of a vegetable for which the appropriate bracha is שהכל: the mushroom. A mushroom has no root system, but simply absorbs nutrients (they like decaying vegetable matter; don't yuch their yum) from wherever you place them. In a sense, then, mushrooms are always hydroponically grown. That fact, though, is the problem with using them as a proof for our hydroponic vegetables. Perhaps mushroom take שהכל specifically because that is the only way they grow; that is their "natural" state of growing, if you will. Other vegetables, though, which do have a root system. Even when grown hydroponically they need a growing medium to hold the roots which is submerged in the nutrient bath. Perhaps they also get a bracha in accordance with there "natural growing environment"; namely, בורא פרי האדמה.

So what next? While Chazal did not directly address the issue of hydroponically grown, they did address a step between: grown in soil that is in a vessel that has no connection -- not even a perforation -- to the environment. The Yerushalimi (K'liyim, chapter 7, halacha 6) records that R' Yose wondered what if one would still make the bracha of המוציא לחם מן הארץ on bread made from wheat grown in such a vessel. The Chayei Adam concludes that the bracha on vegetables grown in such an environment is therefore שהכל. Why? Here is the reasoning:

1. The Bavli doesn't argue, so this Yerushalmi is l'halacha.
2. R' Yose's question applies equally well to vegetables/fruit as to bread.
3. The question is left unresolved, so we have to apply the rule of ספק ברכות להקל

He's the Chayei Adam, so he has a right. Nonetheless, many contemporary and later authorities disagree on all three points:

1. It is not clear that the Bavli does not argue.
2. The bracha on bread specifically mentions the process of bringing forth food from the earth (NB: the earth, not generically ground), whereas the bracha on fruits/vegetables focused more on the fruit/vegetable itself.
3. The P'nei Moshe learns that the Yerushalmi actually does resolve the question (that we do make a המוציא on such bread). (It is a question of whether to learn the next few words in the gemara as an answer to R' Yose's question or as a new question.)

Based on all that, the sense of the poskim is to make a בורא פרי האדמה on vegetables/fruits grown in soil, even if that soil is in a vessel with no perforations. However... once you take soil out of the equation, then there is much stronger support for a ספק ברכות להקל scenario. After all, the fact that we might already have a machlokes about the growth in soil enclosed in a vessel, we almost certainly have a machlokes when there is no soil at all.

Bottom line (sense of the poskim, see details in וזאת הברכה הלכות ברכות, ביאור הלכה כ''ד):

• The appropriate bracha on hydroponically grown produce is שהכל.
• One need not research the source of his produce; in the absence of certain knowledge, one should assume it was grown in soil and the bracha is בורא פרי האדמה/העץ
• Since hydroponically grown produce might be covered by בורא פרי האדמה/העץ, when eating both hydroponically and regular produce together, one should eat the hydroponically grown produce first in order to certainly be obligated in making a שהכל.

Setting up the hydroponic garden took less then 15 minutes from opening the box to up an running with six seed pods. Preparing to know what bracha to make before the first harvest.... hours.