Skip to main content

Thought for the Day: Why There Must Be No Interruption Bewteen the Bracha and the Action

You know it is true. There can be no interruption between the bracha and its target event, be that eating or the performance of a mitzvah. Why not? The Beis Yosef, R' Yosef Karo's commentary/analysis of the Tur, discusses this question in a surprising location; to be disclosed at the end, b'ezras HaShem.

Let's start with the text of the bracha. Before eating an apple, for example, we say: 
Blessed/praised are You, HaShem, King of the universe, who created the fruit of the tree.

Where do you see anything about eating an apple -- or any other fruit, for that matter -- in that statement? I mean, doesn't that sound like something you'd say when seeing a cool fruit, or even thinking about how much you like apples?

 The text of bracha before performing a mitzvah isn't any better. Take the waving of the lulav/myrtle/willow/esrog, for example:

Blessed/praised are You, HaShem, King of the universe, who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us regarding the taking of a lulav.

That's even more enigmatic, no? Nothing about waving, and three of the species didn't get as much as an honorable mention. All the more surprising when you realize that missing one of them or adding something additional completely negates the bracha!

We see from here that Chazal formulated the bracha to get us into the proper frame of mind to appreciate enjoying this world. Whether the enjoyment is physical -- such as eating an apple and so forth -- or spiritual -- such as waving a lulav bound with myrtle/willow/esrog. In each case Chazal gave us a script to get into the right head space. That means that the bracha and action must be bound together. What binds the bracha to the action? The absence of interruption.

I have been careful to say "absence of interruption" and not "absence of talking" nor "absence of actions." That is because sometimes you need to talk or do something between the bracha and the action. For example, if the knife or salt is missing when making the bracha of ha'motzi, then you can ask for them. That is not called an interruption, because the action -- in this case, eating the bread -- cannot be performed without the salt/knife. (In fact, you are much better off asking straight out rather than gurgling "um.. um.." and pantomiming, which could lead to an actual interruption.)

Where is this discussion of the Beis Yosef? Orach Chaim, Siman 47 on ברכת התורה. The Beis Yosef uses the above analysis to demonstrate that you don't actually need to learn immediately after ברכת התורה. Since one is always obligated in learning Torah, any time someone is not learning, must be because they need to do something that prevents them from learning. In other words any non-Torah leaning time is necessary -- at least in the mind of the non-learner -- and therefore is no different than needing the knife or salt before eating the bread. That being the case, there never is an interruption between ברכת התורה and learning.

More on that when we discuss, בעזרת השם, using אהבה רבה for ברכת התורה in this TftD.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Thought for the Day: Pizza, Uncrustables, and Stuff -- What Bracha?

Many years ago (in fact, more than two decades ago), I called R' Fuerst from my desk at work as I sat down to lunch.  I had a piece of (quite delicious) homemade pizza for lunch.  I nearly always eat at my desk as I am working (or writing TftD...), so my lunch at work cannot in any way be considered as sitting down to a formal meal; aka קביעת סעודה.  That being the case, I wasn't sure whether to wash, say ha'motzi, and bentch; or was the pizza downgraded to a m'zonos.  He told if it was a snack, then it's m'zonos; if a meal the ha'motzi.  Which what I have always done since then.  I recently found out how/why that works. The Shulchan Aruch, 168:17 discusses פשטיד''א, which is describes as a baked dough with meat or fish or cheese.  In other words: pizza.  Note: while the dough doesn't not need to be baked together with the meat/fish/cheese, it is  required that they dough was baked with the intention of making this concoction.  That is, even th

Thought for the Day: אוושא מילתא Debases Yours Shabbos

My granddaughter came home with a list the girls and phone numbers in her first grade class.  It was cute because they had made it an arts and crafts project by pasting the list to piece of construction paper cut out to look like an old desk phone and a receiver attached by a pipe cleaner.  I realized, though, that the cuteness was entirely lost on her.  She, of course, has never seen a desk phone with a receiver.  When they pretend to talk on the phone, it is on any relatively flat, rectangular object they find.  (In fact, her 18 month old brother turns every  relatively flat, rectangular object into a phone and walks around babbling into it.  Not much different than the rest of us, except his train of thought is not interrupted by someone else babbling into his ear.) I was reminded of that when my chavrusa (who has children my grandchildrens age) and I were learning about אוושא מילתא.  It came up because of a quote from the Shulchan Aruch HaRav that referred to the noise of תקתוק

Thought for the Day: What Category of Muktzeh are Our Candles?

As discussed in a recent TftD , a p'sak halacha quite surprising to many, that one may -- even לכתחילה -- decorate a birthday cake with (unlit, obviously) birthday candles on Shabbos. That p'sak is predicated on another p'sak halacha; namely, that our candles are muktzeh because they are a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not  מוקצה מחמת גופו/intrinsically set aside from any use on Shabbos. They point there was that using the candle as a decoration qualifies as a need that allows one to utilize a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור. Today we will discuss the issue of concluding that our candles are , in fact, a כלי שמלאכתו לאיסור and not מוקצה מחמת גופו. Along the way we'll also (again) how important it is to have personal relationship with your rav/posek, the importance of precision in vocabulary, and how to interpret the Mishna Brura.  Buckle up. After reviewing siman 308 and the Mishna Brura there, I concluded that it should be permissible to use birthday candles to decorate a cake on Shabbo