This week’s Torah portion, Eikev, contains the only blessing that is commanded in the Torah, the Birkat Hamazon (Grace after Meals). The Torah says, “And you shall eat and be satisfied and bless the Lord your God, on the good land which God has given you.” The Torah is clear about saying a blessing after we eat, but what about before we eat? How do we know to do that? Why did the rabbis institute such a command?  

The Talmud has several reasons for blessings before food. One view is that a blessing is a necessary request for permission to take from the world for our use and is derived from a contradiction between two Biblical verses: “Rabbi Levi raised a contradiction: It is written: ‘The earth and all it contains is the Lord’s,’ and it is written elsewhere: ‘The heavens are the Lord’s and the earth He has given over to humankind’ (Psalms 115:16). He himself resolves the contradiction: This is not difficult. Here, the verse that says that the earth is the Lord’s refers to before a blessing is recited, and here, where it says that God gave the earth to people, refers to after a blessing is recited.”

The Talmud gives a second reason, which derives the blessing before food from the Biblical command to bless God after we eat: “We know that a blessing after a meal is required from a verse in the Torah, but how do we know to make one before eating? It is a kal v’chomer, and a fortiori, we can learn a weightier, more obvious thing, from a lighter one. That is, if one must bless Hashem in fullness, certainly one must bless Hashem when hungry.” A blessing before eating seems more logical and intuitive than one after. We are more inclined to bless God in hunger and need than when full, so we can learn the blessing before from the blessing after. Of course, the Torah itself specifies blessing God when satiated for precisely this reason; we must bless God when we are full and inclined to forget that it is not the strength of our own hand that brought the food but God and God’s miraculous world.  

Many other reasons are given in Jewish thought for blessings on food. The Ba’al Shem Tov taught (Keter Shem Tov, Parshat Eikev) that a blessing before food helps us to transform our eating into a spiritual practice of Tikkun Olam, of raising up the physical world to a more spiritual place: “When a person makes a blessing on a food with intent and uses God’s name, the person stirs up and draws out the Divine life force in the food which created it. Since he uses God’s name, the godliness in the fruit, its Divine force, is drawn to the Godliness the person invokes by blessing in God’s name, for, like is drawn to like. This Godly life force then gives spiritual sustenance to the person’s soul… Through this process we raise up the sparks of holiness.”

The great 19th-century Chasidic master Rav Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin (Et Ha’achilah 5) suggests that blessings on food assist in slowing down and eating with attention and mindfulness. He writes that rushing is bound up with physical desire, because: “The essence of the seizing power of desire is fervid rushing, for a person wishes to consume quickly and fill themselves up… [T]he Torah’s language for eating is ‘to enter,’ as in ‘entering to eat,’ with intent and preparation… not like a glutton who grabs and eats.”

I would like to suggest, and I speak first to myself, that we can make a greater effort to make blessings with attention and concentration. I think we are sometimes afraid to make blessings out loud in front of others at the risk of seeming “too religious.” Together, if we create a community expectation and norm that we will all make blessings out loud with intent, we will all benefit in the above ways, rendering our meals more holy, more mindful and more fulfilling.