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Chapter 3 of Hilchos Brachos: Hamotzi Lechem Min Ha’aretz — The Hierarchy of Brachos According to the Importance of Foods

Introduction to the Shiur

Speaker 1:

We’re learning a chapter of Rambam. We’re going to learn the third chapter of Hilchos Brachos. We’re going to learn here about the bracha of Hamotzi Lechem Min Ha’aretz. Before we continue with the shiur, I want to say a few words.

So, we’re recording this shiur. Our shiurim are, I know, about an hour, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer. But it takes more time than that. I come here to Reb Yitzchak every day, we put in a few hours, we look over how much we can, we’re both busy people with many other activities, Torah and personal. But we put in effort to be able to benefit, to be able to learn. I understand first of all that we should learn, because that’s how you learn with geshmak. And it should also be lilmod, to give the learning more meaning, it makes us enjoy more, and we take it more seriously.

And baruch Hashem that people have great pleasure. I don’t know of another shiur that’s in the format of a chavrusa that learns together, and whoever wants can come and join in, participate in how we cook in learning, and sometimes how we argue in learning, and we strengthen each other, so that we can continue.

This is only part of Reb Yitzchak’s activities. Reb Yitzchak has tremendous shiurim, shiurei Torah, where he literally explains to Jews ladaas es Hashem in a tremendous way. His shiurim are worth listening to, taam yiru ki tov.

In any case, regarding the matter, now there’s going to be a campaign in the coming week, an annual campaign that supports that Reb Yitzchak should be able to spend a whole year being engaged in recording shiurim, teaching Jews, traveling to various places to give shiurim, and that we should be able to continue with this shiur.

So, I myself have to raise money for the beis medrash, and Reb Yitzchak has to raise… and I invite you all, just as we are chavrusos to our chavrusa, we’re a third to the chavrusa-ship, or a hundredth, baruch Hashem that people support and we hear back feedback. So we should also become partners, just as I help Reb Yitzchak, and just as Reb Yitzchak helps all of you and he helps himself by making his day dedicated to Torah, we need to support him so it can continue, become partners. I ask each and every one, you can reach out to the campaign, you can reach out to me, this is Reb Yitzchak, and get involved. We’ve now baruch Hashem already raised a large sum of money, we’re still down between a quarter million, more or less, but approximately there. It’s very important that the beis medrash should be able to continue, and we ask everyone to join.

A great partner of the campaign and of this shiur in general is the sponsor of the shiur, the rabbinical chassid, lover of Torah, Reb Yoel Wertzberger, Reb Yoel Alibi, who is truly the pillar of support, mimenu yilmedu vechen yaasu.

Speaker 2:

The holy Rambam says… thank you, thank you. We agree. We’re talking about things here, we agree one hundred percent. We’ve always sent the link with the name, and each and every one, just as we listen, should listen to this, and that’s it. Yes, let’s learn, we need to learn something. We’ll talk more tomorrow.

Introduction: The Structure of Brachos According to Importance

Speaker 1:

Let’s give a little introduction. So, the Rambam is going to give us here halachos… we’ve already learned Hilchos Brachos, Birchas Hamazon. The Rambam already told us at the beginning of Hilchos Birchas Hamazon that the Torah only said that one should make Birchas Hamazon on bread, achar achilas mazon, he already said that. This is very clear. The word “mazon”, mazon means a major meal, a meal. And afterward, miderabanan they added that one should make a bracha on every food, lefanav ule’acharav. Okay.

Now we’re going to learn that there are other brachos on other types of foods. But what we’re learning many halachos is going to learn how do you understand this? This is going to learn the d’oraisa from the derabanan. Yes, so I mean like this, the d’oraisa is that when a person has his major seudah, then afterward he should bentch. Because that’s what the pasuk says, “ve’achalta” – when you eat food, “vesavata” – you will become satisfied, that means the major seudah. A person has once a day a major seudah. Perhaps more than once a day one eats, but the great seudah we’re talking about is usually the afternoon. And let me say I don’t remember my bracha, and I want to eat a day. In any case, whichever achilah is a major achilah always comes with bread. With the bread come things lilpos bo es hapas. That’s how the manner of the seudah used to be. When a person had meat – not everyone could always afford meat, one had to check meat – one ate the meat with bread. That’s how we see how we do Pesach, korech, because that was the seder ha’olam.

So in any case, Chazal understood the assumption that when it says “ve’achalta vesavata”, it means the major seudah, because that includes bread, and one should make the bracha on the bread. The bread is the main thing on which people live. Besides that, there are other foods that people eat, but Chazal also established according to their importance. Something that’s almost like bread, but doesn’t have the format that it’s the main kevi’us, it’s not exactly bread, but it’s also from the same family, there’s “borei minei mezonos”. And afterward there’s “adamah” and “ha’eitz” for fruit and vegetables, for things that grow.

The Hierarchy of Brachos

And it’s interesting that “Hamotzi Lechem Min Ha’aretz” basically says: “thank the Creator who brings forth the bread”, which is the most important thing on which people live. What does it have to do with my individual bracha? “Borei minei mezonos” is already on the society, that besides bread there are other ways to eat on the side. A person doesn’t want to eat the full bread now, but he wants to eat a piece of mezonos, a pretzel, I don’t know, he wants to eat there something a piece of mezonos that also fills, but it’s not the same level. What is “borei minei mezonos”? “Shehakol nihyeh bidvaro” one thanks already on the abundance, there are things that aren’t lacking.

And also the after-bracha is like that. The whole long text how one thanks the Almighty for the food, and one asks for the land and Yerushalayim, all these things, one asks and thanks for the most important things, is on the great seudah when a person eats to satisfaction, that’s the main thing that keeps a person alive. And it comes out that “borei minei mezonos” is almost on the level, the Chachamim said, it’s true not in the… they said that one must make a bracha.

But on this there’s a bracha that’s different, which isn’t “al hamichyah”. On bread there’s Birchas Hamazon, which is a long bracha. On the five species there’s “al hamichyah”, which is a short bracha. And on the other things there’s “borei nefashos”, which is an even shorter bracha.

Explanation of “Borei Nefashos”

The bracha of “borei nefashos” is a bracha that one says on things that aren’t so important for life. For example, an apple. No one died because he didn’t have an apple. But the Almighty created apples because He wanted to give us additional pleasure.

The bracha “borei nefashos rabos vechesronan” means that the Almighty created many things that aren’t important for life, but He created them because He wanted to give us additional pleasure. This shows that the Almighty isn’t a strict Creator, rather He’s a good Creator who gives us much abundance.

Discussion: Why Specifically Bread — Is It a Gezeiras Hakasuv?

Speaker 1:

Many of the halachos are going to figure out what “bread” means. Because it needs to be a certain bread. So let’s first go back. Okay, so in order to… the chapter “hayu tzolin” in Brachos they said, it could be that one doesn’t even need to write the other things. So as if, but I think we’re a bit stuck, because here there are also the halachos of Birchas Hamazon in a certain sense. In other words, earlier we learned that in the Torah it says that one must bentch Birchas Hamazon. We didn’t learn on what one bentches Birchas Hamazon. We learned that the Chachamim added that on every thing one must make a bracha, they also said in a general way. Now one needs to go in and say which bracha. And part of the brachos can be d’oraisa, which apparently has nothing to do with, one needs to know if it’s relevant from the eating. That is, we’re now going to learn on which things, on which foods one makes which brachos. Part of them are d’oraisa, that is, on bread the bracha is d’oraisa. By the way, it could be that for example someone eats mezonos and he’s nourished from it and he’s satisfied from it, it’s also d’oraisa. But he won’t make any d’oraisa text, it’s true.

Speaker 2:

It could be that… no, you’re saying a very interesting thing, that when someone… when one throws down a species, let’s say there’s a sixth species that’s not from the five species, and one throws it down from the category, doesn’t yet mean to say that the obligation is less, it’s just that the bracha is a different bracha. And he makes an extra bracha on kevi’us seudah. Not just an extra bracha, even if he made on this a borei nefashos or an al hamichyah, it could also be that he needs to make an al hamichyah, because it’s a safek d’oraisa.

Speaker 1:

One needs to think, when we learn that “ve’achalta” means bread, because that’s how it says many times in Torah “achol lechem” or “be’achlchem lechem”, the Chachamim say “ve’achalta vesavata” – on which eating are we talking about here? An eating of satisfaction is specifically bread. It’s only bread, and something else stands in the eating, but already the ruling, one sees already that you’ve become satisfied.

Speaker 2:

There’s certainly an interesting thing to say that it’s a gezeiras hakasuv that it must be bread.

Speaker 1:

No, because it’s a gezeiras hakasuv, therefore that a person is satisfied, that it could be that since most eating of people is bread, or was bread, the Chachamim established it.

Speaker 2:

I don’t believe it’s a gezeiras hakasuv, because there are certainly two dinim. Even if we’ll still come perhaps soon to think what it is today that most people, I for example, one doesn’t eat any bread a whole week, only on Shabbos one makes a bracha on the challah. But even for this problem, even in the time of Chazal, it happened that a person doesn’t eat any bread, eats only fish, I know what today. But it doesn’t have any certain importance.

Speaker 1:

There’s the idea of importance, bread is…

Speaker 2:

He eats truly a bracha by itself, he doesn’t have a seudah, he’s satisfied from snacking. Okay, he didn’t eat any seudah, what do you want to do? He’s not satisfied, he’s satisfied but not “ve’achalta”, he doesn’t have importance.

Speaker 1:

It’s an interesting thing. No, because you can tell me like this, that when a person, let’s say a person who truly doesn’t eat, he has a way of eating that he eats ten times a day and keeps eating little things, such a snacker. You can say that he never has kevi’us seudah, he also doesn’t enjoy the eating so strongly, he always makes sure the whole time not to be hungry. But if someone has yes a full kevi’us seudah from a bunch of types of meat, why shouldn’t you say that’s his main seudah?

Speaker 2:

The main thing is, one needs to understand the reason in the verse. What the Torah wants, so simply gratitude for your health, for your well-being, that you should eat kevi’us seudah.

Speaker 1:

That’s a difficult thing to say, why shouldn’t one say that the thing should generally be in kevi’us seudah, whatever is kevi’us seudah?

Speaker 2:

So everyone has however explained that the text means not just kevi’us seudah, it means specifically the five species. Also kevi’us seudah, also kevi’us seudah, you see even today, yes?

Birchas Chameshes Minei Dagan: Kevi’us Seudah, Three Stages, and the Distinction Between Pas and Lechem

Discussion: Kevi’us Seudah and the Importance of Chameshes Haminim

Speaker 1:

There’s a certain idea of importance. Why? Because he eats truly because he makes a bracha by itself. He doesn’t have a seudah. He’s satisfied from snacking. Okay, he didn’t eat any seudah. What should I do? He’s not satisfied, he’s satisfied but not from eating. It’s not an important eating.

Speaker 2:

No, because you can tell me like this, that when a person, let’s say a person who truly doesn’t eat, he has a way of eating that he eats ten times a day and keeps eating little things, such a snacker. You can say that he doesn’t establish any seudah, he also doesn’t enjoy the eating so strongly, he always makes sure the whole time not to be hungry. But if someone has yes a full kevi’us seudah from a bunch of types of meat, why shouldn’t you say that’s his main seudah?

The main thing is, one needs to understand the reason in the verse, what the Torah wants that this should be close to gratitude for your health, for your well-being, that you should eat a kevi’us seudah. That’s a difficult thing. Why shouldn’t one say that the thing should generally be in kevi’us seudah, whatever is kevi’us seudah?

Speaker 1:

The halacha lemaaseh has however explained that eating means not just kevi’us seudah, it means specifically the five species. Because also in kevi’us seudah, you see even today, yes? Also in kevi’us seudah there are certain like social norms, like cultural halachos. A seudah comes with a tablecloth, let’s say. In a restaurant, every time it comes with a tablecloth, with something like a napkin. Without that it’s not called a seudah.

But I can devour a whole bag of potato chips and be satisfied. You didn’t eat any seudah. But it has yes with a measure, and it doesn’t have with a measure. It’s certain that it has to do with the testimony that you sat and ate. I’m not saying that the sitting makes the seudah, but I’m saying, I should bring out the sefarim that it’s not simple to say that perhaps today the custom is that no one eats any seudah. It’s truly exempt from d’oraisa. What should one do? You’ll eat a seudah, you’ll be obligated. One can argue differently, but I say, okay, let’s learn further.

Halacha 3: Chameshes Minei Dagan – Three Names, Three Stages

Speaker 1:

I saw, let’s say after the first two halachos, I saw that the Rambam makes a very nice thing, a very nice division of the beginning of the topic of chameshes minei dagan, yes?

Speaker 2:

No, I mean that the introduction, let’s learn it further.

Speaker 1:

First, chameshes minim, chameshes minim heinam, there are five species of grain. Five species… how do you say grain in Yiddish?

Speaker 2:

No, the Rambam says chameshes minim, and afterward he’s going to say, they’re called tevuah dagan pas. And dagan isn’t one of them. Okay. He’s going to say it already.

Speaker 1:

Oats, species…

Speaker 2:

No, no, chameshes haminim. There are five species growing. Five species, he doesn’t say anything. Five species things that grow. Chitim which is wheat, se’orim is barley, and kusmin, shiboles shual, veshifon. There are many types of opinions what they are in today’s, compared to today’s species. What people accept is more or less that kusmin is spelt, shiboles shual is oats, and shifon is spelt, I mean it’s the other thing, rye. These are later matters. There are many disputes, but that’s how one conducts oneself lemaaseh. It makes sense, because they produce things that are very similar to bread.

That’s the rule. And it says in Rambam, yes, that hakusmin hein mimin hachitim, veshiboles shual vehashifon hein mimin hase’orim. The Rambam means for the question that we just said, how does one know if oats is that? You should know, if it looks similar and it’s from the species, it’s that. Okay.

The Three Stages: Tevuah, Dagan, Pas

Speaker 1:

Now, the five species have three things. It’s like this, because lemaaseh one can also say that there are two species, chitim and se’orim, because kusmin and they are their children, it’s like avos vetoledos already. The Rambam says, the five species have three names, three steps, three stages.

I want the Rambam tells us here, because the Rambam is going to come back very many times to these two important things. We’re going to encounter in Hilchos Terumos Umaasros, and in Hilchos Chametz Umatzah. In this chapter itself one is going to learn a lot about tevuah, about dagan, and about pas.

Chameshes minim eilu, you know how he does this in Hilchos Ishus, he says all kinds of names, trees, this, that, the other, later he’s going to say the halachos of them. Yes, there it’s truly a whole chapter, but this is an introduction to the chapter, and perhaps also to other things.

The Five Species: From Grain to Bread

These five species, when they are stalks, are called tevuah (grain) everywhere, when it’s still in the stalks. And after they thresh them and winnow them, they beat it out from the stalks, they are called dagan. That’s why the chapter was titled chameshes minei dagan, or bechameshes minei dagan, yes. But the Rambam is precise not to say that, because dagan means specifically at a certain stage it’s called dagan, yes. And when they grind them and make from them kemach (flour), when you grind them, and bake it, you make a dough from the flour, and you bake it, then it’s called pas (bread).

Discussion: The Difference Between Pas and Lechem in Biblical and Rabbinic Language

Speaker 2:

Yes, good. Because pas and lechem… tevuah and dagan are things that appear in the Chumash, yes? Tevuah and dagan. What do you need to go here? But why is there lechem? Why do we call it pas, not lechem?

Speaker 1:

Yes, apparently lechem in the Torah… also lechem in the Torah can mean more than that. Lechem, sometimes Rashi tells us that lechem means a meal in general, yes?

Speaker 2:

No, it’s lechem, lechem, yes.

Speaker 1:

Ah, it doesn’t necessarily mean lechem pas. Perhaps because of that. Pas is a word from Chazal that specifically means pas. The word lechem in the Torah can mean eating. It could be that he went to eat pas, and it will mean that he had a fixed meal. Pas is… lechem probably means bread, but it became a kind of example…

Speaker 2:

Could be, but in practice, in practice, in the Gemara he brings lechem, and it says hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz. The Gemara says that it can mean a wife.

Speaker 1:

No, that’s literally a derasha, “vekimu lechem asher ochel.” But I don’t have a derasha, it could be that it’s simply peshat, but perhaps it’s more like what it says there further. But lechem isn’t the same thing as pas? That lechem means bread?

Speaker 2:

No, I don’t know, perhaps originally, but in practice in the verse… but you can’t say that hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz… you can’t say lechem that it’s not pas. But if we say the word lechem, it perhaps means more things than pas, and we say pas, pas means specifically bread.

Investigation: Pas in Biblical Language – A Piece or a Whole Loaf?

Speaker 1:

But the biblical language is pas two, because it’s tet pas. The tet pas…

Speaker 2:

No, pas also appears in the Torah, in Daniel, pas bag hamelech, yes?

Speaker 1:

Ah, pas bag hamelech. Pit’om, yes, pit’om, pas appears in the… “pit’om yavo.” Daniel is actually Aramaic, it’s an Aramaic word. But later, in the books it says “pit’om yavo ha’adon el heichalo,” doesn’t it say?

Speaker 2:

Ah, pit’om yavo ha’adon el heichalo, yes, yes. I think… pas does appear in the Torah, not in the Chumash, but in… pas does appear, “ve’ekcha pas lechem.” Do you see here, pas lechem? What is this pas lechem? Is it a quantum of bread?

Speaker 1:

What is this that you’re saying pit’om means? Make a hole in the bread, like what?

Speaker 2:

No, that’s not what it means. Not clear. We need to know what pas means. Pas lechem… it appears once in the Torah pas lechem, by Avraham Avinu. He says, it also says right after the word “se’adu,” like satiation. That pas lechem is what brings satiation. But why does it say pas lechem?

Pas lechem is actually funny. I just discovered a word in the Chumash that I didn’t know appears, pas lechem. I thought that both words appear, either pas or lechem, not the same thing. Looks like not. Ah, could be that in the Chumash pas means a piece, like “pote’ach es yadecha”?

Speaker 1:

No, we say pas lechem, a piece of bread. Like… there is peras kedei achilas peras. Peras also means a piece, and it also means a slice of bread. It became that a slice is a piece.

Speaker 2:

Very good, perhaps peras is the language of challah, which was most sliced, and they called it that. Very good. I looked, in the Chumash it says pas lechem, “posu osah pesim,” pas lechem somewhere else, and in Sefer Shmuel, pas lechem, pas lechem. But in Sefer Shmuel it starts to say pas alone, “mah pisaso.” Also could be with his crumb. Almost everywhere is pas with bread, pas charevah. What about the verse “mashlich karcho chafasim”?

Speaker 1:

No, when it says “posu osah pesim” it’s always different. Pesim means crumbs, slices, pieces. Here it says pas charevah, pischu ve’achlu, pas lechem. Usually it does say pas lechem. And here it says “pit’om pasa.” Ah, wait, perhaps also here in the verse, “pit’om pasa” didn’t mean lechem. You’re holding in the middle of a lechem. You’re eating the bread, you take a piece of bread, that was a law here in the Chumash. So pas means a piece.

Speaker 2:

The pas is the cut-off piece. The piece that was torn off now becomes a pas. Very interesting. From this became the reality of a pas, you cut a piece.

Speaker 1:

But in rabbinic language certainly pas means the whole bread.

Speaker 2:

So perhaps that’s actually the difference. In the Chumash pas always means a piece. A piece, usually a piece of bread. There is, yes, “mashlich karcho chafasim,” that’s a metaphor. Hashem makes the snow like a piece, as if a piece of bread. Or by the minchah, perhaps it’s not really bread. But generally it means a piece. But in Chazal, pas means lechem. Actually interesting.

Halacha 3 (Continued): The Blessing of Hamotzi on Pas

Speaker 1:

So he goes back to his halacha. It’s actually a new thing, nobody knew. Okay, so the Rambam goes back to his halacha, and the pas that is made from one of the five species – the pas that was made from one of the five species with which the halacha began – is what is called pas everywhere, and not those that come. Wherever it says in rabbinic language “pas.” It doesn’t say anywhere “pas se’orim” or “pas haba bekisnin” or “pas dochan.” It means pas from one of the five species of grain.

Yes, now what is the halacha of the Rambam? What is the halacha? Says the Rambam, one who eats pas must bless before it “Baruch atah Hashem Elokeinu melech ha’olam,” you need to have Shem and Malchus in the blessings, “hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz.” This is a very beautiful blessing. Hashem who brings out, who made a power in the earth that it should bring forth, that it should produce lechem.

Innovation: Hamotzi Lechem Min Ha’aretz – A Combination of Nature and Intellect

Speaker 2:

Yes, but the idea is very interesting, because lechem is exactly the thing that doesn’t come min ha’aretz. Min ha’aretz grows dagan, tevuah, and people take that, they thresh, they grind, they make lechem. On this we say that Hashem gave people the intellect, to put in the whole process. That means that lechem is a combination of the earth, but also of the divine wisdom, of the intellect that a person can have to make bread, to progress.

And both are Hashem’s powers, and both we attribute to Hashem.

Speaker 1:

I saw the Rambam and another one take revenge on the “ha.” It doesn’t say “habore” or “hashehakol.” They say that in any case this is important, because “olam motzi” would have been a problem. The Rambam spoke in Krias Shema, that when there are two letters one after the other, “Elokeinu melech ha’olam motzi” would have been a swallow, it wouldn’t have come out well, so they made “hamotzi.” The Gemara says that essentially “motzi” means, you can say both. Yes, the Gemara has some discussion about this, that “hamotzi” is certainly good, and “motzi” is a question.

Halacha 3 (Continued): Cooked Grain – Daysa and Shlika

Speaker 1:

Now says the Rambam, what happens if you ate the same from the five species of grain, but what you didn’t bake? The Rambam said “be’ofen hana’aseh venikra pas.” What happens when you make the flour, but you do something else with it, you cook it? Like they make from dough and call it daysa. You cooked the grain, you took the grain crumbs, the kernels, yes, you made such a cereal, you cooked the tevuah, shlika kemo shehi, cooked without any other spices. Mevushal usually means with something. Shaluk means cooked with water, plain. So it’s actually min hadagan, but since you didn’t make any pas it’s not called lechem, so the blessing is borei pri ha’adamah, like other vegetables, like other things that we’ll learn later, that a thing that grows, you make a borei pri ha’adamah. The same exact species, the species is only when you made the pas.

Blessings on Grain: From Tevuah to Ma’aseh Kedeirah

Halacha 3 (Continued) – Blessing on Cooked Tevuah (Shlika as Is)

Speaker 1:

Yes, you made such a cereal, you cooked the tevuah shlika as is, cooked without any other spices, that means, you usually cook with something. Shaluk means cooked with water, plain. So it’s actually min dagan, but since you didn’t make any pas, it’s not called lechem, so the blessing is borei pri ha’adamah, like other vegetables, like other things that we’ll learn later, that a thing that grows, even the same exact species, the species is the same, you made a lechem. No, the lechem is the species to which you added all the human wisdom of making lechem. If you took it as is from the earth and cooked it, very good, then it’s not lechem, then it’s plain dagan, so it’s adamah.

It happens, people don’t always know this, there are cereals actually like this, there are other things made from oats or from things that aren’t baked, granola and such types of things. Then it’s baked, but there are things made that aren’t, such snacks, then you need to make adamah. Very good.

Blessing on Flour

One who ate flour, so he also goes according to the order, what happens not grain, it’s already been flour, it was ground but not yet baked. And then, this is not at all the way of people to eat, one blesses on it shehakol, for the reason that it’s not called, it’s nothing, it’s not yet bread and it’s no longer a vegetable. We’re talking in a way that you can eat it somehow, because if a person eats plain powder, apparently there’s no blessing on it at all, it’s not called eating. But you add sugar, with sugar and milk, I can make from this something to nosh. If you make something from it, okay, shehakol, one blesses on it shehakol.

Speaker 2:

No, I understood that the fact that it’s not the way to eat is the reason why we don’t make a more important blessing anymore. That would surprise me.

Speaker 1:

I don’t know, is that what it says here? It’s not grain, any thing, any vegetable that you take, any fruit that you take, it’s not lechem, any fruit that is ground and loses the tzuras hapri, and you make from it shehakol. Not only by grain, even grain. Grain that isn’t lechem is basically like any other thing that grows from the earth. That’s basically the halacha here. This is interesting, it’s obvious that tevuah is adamah, but you lose even the adamah so it becomes a shehakol, and then it becomes a hamotzi. It’s a yeridah letzoreich aliyah that it goes through. Torah for seudah shelishis. Says the Rambam further, one who eats pas… ah, did we learn this. Yes. Says the Rambam further.

Here he wants to say that it depends, that there’s a type of flour that does make adamah, if it has pesisim hare’uyim la’achilah. The Rambam speaks briefly. Ah, if it doesn’t have the form… ah, adamah… something not. Okay, let’s see further.

Halacha 4 – Kemach Shekalu Ve’eirvu (Roasted Flour Mixed with Liquid)

What happens? You didn’t cook plain grain, but you took flour and cooked it in other ways. You didn’t make pas, you made like this: flour of one of the five species that was roasted, you roasted it. Where does this mean? “Lechem vekali vecharmel,” yes, kali is that, roasted flour. And then, ve’eirvu bemayim o bish’ar mashkin. It’s some kind of cereal, or such a farina, such a type of thing. If it is thick enough to be fit for eating and not thick to the point of being coarse, if it was made like a dough, made from a thick mixture, and you didn’t swallow it, but the difference is whether you eat it with a spoon or with a cup. So very good. One blesses on it at the beginning borei minei mezonos. A thing like you say farina that you eat with a spoon, you make on it borei minei mezonos. And if it is thin enough to be fit for drinking, if it’s so wet that you drink it like it would be a drink, one blesses on it at the beginning shehakol and at the end borei nefashos.

Discussion: Shakes and the Difference Between Eating and Drinking

It’s very interesting. A shake, if someone has… no, think of a farina. If someone has a thick farina that you eat with a spoon, it’s a borei minei mezonos. If it’s very watery with a lot of milk and you can drink it from a cup, it will become a shehakol and a borei nefashos. That’s what I would say, in any case. We still need to see what the poskim say.

If you make a shake, people make shakes today, you grind something, it could be from some mezonos thing, you make a shehakol, because it’s a drink.

Halacha 4 (Continued) – Ma’aseh Kedeirah

Flour of one of the five species that was cooked in a pot. What happens in another way that was done with the flour, you cooked it in a pot. Whether alone or mixed with other things. Like, either alone, the flour alone was cooked, different from before when it was shaluk, it was also plain cooked, but meanwhile it was with the grain. Here you do it with the flour. Ah, before also with the flour? No, before he said the… ah, if it’s grain shaluk, shaluk ad sheyismach. And this is shaluk, also shaluk, but it’s flour.

And likewise with other things, like levivos, like I mean our latkes, kremzlach, which is flour with, let’s say, with dairy a bit. And likewise the grain that was divided or crushed and cooked in a pot, you took a piece of onion, you took the grain, then you ground it, and you chopped it, or in other ways, you made from it a cereal and cooked it in a pot. He says, like, he calls it like types, I mean, he calls it, it looks to me like a farina, a grits, a barley groats, I don’t know exactly what he’s talking about from one of the things.

In any case, all these are called ma’aseh kedeirah, this is called ma’aseh kedeirah, meaning grain that instead of making from it a pas, you made from it a ma’aseh kedeirah. What is the halacha with this? And likewise any cooked dish that has in it one of the five species, another thing, a thing that is a proper tavshil, let’s say a soup, into which you put a bit of the five species. And on this there’s no longer any difference what you put in, even if you put in pas, but it’s only a part in a tavshil, it’s only mixed into a tavshil, on all these one blesses borei minei mezonos.

That means, flour is no longer… you don’t make adamah on it anymore. And it seems that it’s more important than a shehakol, because the eating made from it a normal thing. The fact that you only make a shehakol on flour is only when it’s plain, you eat flour alone, it has no substance, it has nothing, I don’t know what it is. But here you made from it a soup, a ma’aseh kedeirah.

And in general, all these things that can give full, it’s full nourishment, like a full meal for a person, because it’s not a shehakol that you would make on a nosh, a snack. But it’s no longer pas, you can’t make hamotzi anymore, you make borei minei mezonos.

Halacha 5 – Ikar and Tafel by the Five Species

Says the Rambam further, bameh devarim amurim, on this thing that we just spoke about regarding this that was mixed in. This is the rule, as if the Rambam has what do you call that? Ah, ah, ah, ah. Yes, do you understand? Right? Yes, if you make a mezonos soup or such a thing, it’s mezonos. That’s the halacha that it says here, yes? Right? Yes. Stop a moment.

The Rambam said here, this is the halacha as if that says, the world calls this the halacha that grain, that grain of the five species doesn’t become tafel. As if even if you make another thing and you put flour into it, it becomes borei minei mezonos. Very good. But the Rambam is going to say now the condition for it. The Rambam says such a tavshil that has a bit of the five species, then now comes a borei minei mezonos. Even though the tavshil itself you would apparently want to say make a shehakol, for example a soup that is made from, I don’t know, usually with water and with meat and things that are shehakol, a cholent. But because you start putting in it kneidlach with things, a noodle it becomes a grain, and the cholent becomes a mezonos.

And this is what they said: if the important species was made on it, it doesn’t go out as tafel, that the species of the five species, that is the barley that he puts into the cholent is very important, it’s an ikar of the cholent. But if the species of the five species that was mixed was tafel, it’s only a tafel, it was only put in as a tafel, as a side, not a main ingredient. That’s what tafel means, one only blesses on the ikar, you make on the ikar, on what the ikar would have been, and that is for example shehakol, if the ikar is water and meat, and it exempts the tafel.

Lecture on Laws of Blessings: Primary and Secondary Foods (Ikar and Tafel)

The Rema says, “and this is a general rule regarding blessings” – this is a rule not only regarding the specific case of borei minei mezonot that one puts into a cooked dish, but it’s a general rule, “that whenever there is a primary food and with it a secondary food”, when one eats something that is the primary food, and with the primary food comes a secondary food, “one makes a blessing on the primary”, one makes the blessing on the primary thing that one is eating, “and exempts the secondary”. He goes on to explain. “Whether one eats the secondary mixed with the primary”, whether he eats both at once, the secondary and the primary are mixed like a sandwich. It has become, even more than a sandwich, it was all previously dough, it’s mixed together, it became one baked item. “Or whether it is not mixed”, even if he eats it as a separate thing. Completely not. Even not a sandwich, even if one eats it completely separately, people don’t understand. I don’t know, that’s the distinction. I don’t even know a single thing that explains why. Various answers that people have, but that’s how it is, yes? Even if it’s completely not mixed.

Law 6 — Mixed Secondary Food: What Does “Tafel” Mean?

So the Rambam says, “a secondary food that is mixed”. What does a secondary food that is mixed mean? The Rambam says, “turnips or cabbage that one cooked, and a little flour from the five species one put into them in order to bind them”. A person cooked turnips or cabbage, he put in flour from the five species, but the reason why he put it in is “in order to bind”, it’s to make it thick, it should stick, it should be… he only put it for the texture. “One does not make borei minei mezonot on it, because the turnip is the primary, and the flour is secondary to it”. He doesn’t make borei minei mezonot, because the turnip is the primary, the thing that he cooked, the turnip, whatever it is, is the primary, and the flour is secondary. As we say, one often puts it in for texture, so it should be a bit firm. He doesn’t want to eat flour here, he wants to eat turnip, and the flour serves him here for his…

Very good. That’s because the poskim are very confused about this. But the answer is very simple. You ask a person, do you want to eat a bit of mezonot now? No, you want to eat vegetables. A good vegetable comes with a bit of flour. But by cholent, for example, you ask him, what do you want to eat? He wants to eat cholent. What is cholent made from? A bit of flour, a bit of this, a bit of that. It’s different, right?

Right. Let’s say for example, a person eats a salad, and there are a few croutons there. He wants to eat a salad actually, because usually a person eats a salad because he doesn’t want to eat any carbs, because it’s healthy and so on. And people hold that a salad that has a bit… a small piece of bread, he added taste. Okay, let’s say it adds taste. But let’s say it’s secondary. What does secondary mean? Let’s see. Okay, we’ll see.

The Rambam’s Definition of Tafel

Ah, “that everything that one mixes in”, the Rambam says this, yes, clearly. “That everything that one mixes in in order to bind, or in order to give smell, or in order to color the dish, it is secondary. But if one mixed it in order to give taste to the mixture, it is primary”. That means truly secondary. But if one mixed it in to give taste, then that is indeed the primary. I think that after all… Therefore, the Rambam explains, what does it mean put in to give taste? Cooked honey that one makes, wheat milk. One puts in there some kind of… almond milk, such a thing.

What else? Wheat milk. One puts in there some kind of… almond milk, such a thing.

Speaker 2:

No, from the wheat.

Speaker 1:

Wheat milk.

Speaker 2:

One puts in fats from the wheat perhaps. But there is such a part of the wheat.

Speaker 1:

No, is it a food or is it a drink type?

Speaker 2:

It’s not a drink, it’s a drink type.

Discussion of Laws of Primary and Secondary – Salted Fish, Salad with Croutons, and the Parameters of “Giving Taste”

Continuation of Law of Mixtures – Example of Honey with Wheat Milk

Speaker 1: But I think that after all, let’s see. Therefore, says the Rambam, what does it mean put in to give taste? Types of honey that one cooks, and puts in them wheat milk – honey that one cooks, one puts in such… almond milk, such a thing? No, from the wheat, one puts in fats from the wheat, I don’t know which part of the wheat.

Speaker 2: No, is it a food, or is it a drink?

Speaker 1: Ah, a type of food one puts in, but one puts it in to bind. I think it’s perhaps a wet thing, I don’t know what it means.

Speaker 2: No, on the contrary, apparently honey is enough… one wants to make the honey harder, one wants to make from it for example cookies. One puts in a type of… in short, instead of eating honey, honey is too soft, it’s hard to eat honey. One makes it such a… there is a honey cookie, such a thing. One puts in a little, it should be a cookie.

Speaker 1: You mean to say one makes from this a candy.

Speaker 2: A candy that one makes this way to bind. One does not make borei minei mezonot on it, but rather shehakol, because the honey is the primary – the honey is the primary.

Innovation in Understanding “Giving Taste”

Speaker 2: So when it says “but if one mixed it in order to give taste and it is the majority, it is primary”, he doesn’t mean that if it just gives taste it becomes the primary. It means, when I come back to the salad, because the Rambam said “in order to bind or in order to give color or smell”, and the other is “to give taste”. But the example of “to give taste” is when that is the primary taste that he wants. But I come back to my salad, the primary taste in the salad is not the few pieces of bread croutons that one puts in. It gives a certain… it gives a crisp, it gives a certain taste.

But no, no, he says that the Rambam says “tafel”, he says absolutely nothing for taste. He only says bind, smell and color, which are truly secondary. One puts in a bit of a certain color to give a color, which is certainly a… but he doesn’t say here when it has two tastes. And afterwards the honey thing, one doesn’t feel wheat at all, one feels honey, only honey.

Well, so what does “it is primary” mean? “Mixed in order to give taste to the mixture, it is primary” – I think it’s not mixed. Is that specifically because you put it in to give taste. I think that’s only for example something that has a… it could be according to the Rambam, anything that has a lemon flavor, one needs to make… I mean with real ounces, usually juice means no real. But the honey cookie that one makes, certainly the taste of it is the honey. It’s no difference, but what… but one makes mezonot is not a problem, the primary is anyway the mezonot, not by honey cookie.

Speaker 1: Also say, one doesn’t make borei minei mezonot.

Speaker 2: Certainly one makes borei minei mezonot.

Speaker 1: No, not once. What is the binding?

Speaker 2: Yes, very good. Again, let’s say this is no question, because here one feels only the honey. But when the Rambam says “mixed in order to give taste to the mixture”… is a thing that has several tastes so… it’s not a question…

The Foundation of Primary and Secondary – Not Two Blessings

Speaker 2: Let’s understand what question are we talking about here? We’re not talking about a question whether one should make two blessings. It’s not a question. You know what the question is here? It’s something else. When it’s mixed, one cannot make two blessings on a mixed item. One can only make one blessing on it. The idea of making two blessings on one thing is… no way. Not what the Rambam is talking about. He makes one blessing.

Now what blessing does one make on the primary and not on the secondary. Now flour or grain is always the primary. Why is it always the primary? Because it’s a cookie! What is it a cookie? It’s not honey! One became to eat a thing! One is sustained! That’s what mezonot is for! He makes a kugel, all these things, the mezonot is the primary, and he puts the other things are secondary… that’s the law that it says then! So it’s also accepted by the poskim always! The salad becomes on such funny things that are not truly mixed! Like the salad that you say, you want to know that the crouton that one puts in the salad doesn’t become the primary! I hear!

Digression: Chocolate with Dough – Cake versus Candy

Speaker 1: Or… no, it’s a bit complicated for example, because chocolate with dough is something that one eats every day! Sometimes it’s called chocolate chip cookies, and sometimes it’s called chocolate that inside comes such a piece of pretzel! Yes? They’re both chocolate! And that’s called a shehakol because it’s chocolate, which has a filling. What’s the problem? Because a person who has a very cocoa cake almost only likes the chocolate, happens to be that that’s the way you know I say.

Speaker 2: No, no, no. Says the Chayei Adam, one talks about the person, not about what the person likes. A cocoa cake is a cake that’s a question, a cake is not a candy. There’s a thing like, a person wants to eat something that’s a bit sweeter. In the afternoon instead of eating bread spread with butter, he wants a bit sweeter and he wants to eat it with tea. But there are so many things that one gives you a snack, one likes chocolate, but it’s a chocolate that is perhaps too sweet, one puts in it a bit… it has more moisture, it’s a certain balance.

Again, I don’t see what the person wants, he doesn’t want the question. What he eats is a cookie or a cake. A cake is a mezonot. He wants to eat mezonot, so the primary is a mezonot. Perhaps you’re right that the chocolate that one puts in it, a small cookie, a bit of a crunch, I don’t know what, the same question as the salad. I don’t know if it becomes secondary, if it becomes mezonot. I hear, I can think, it’s not a cookie. Can you say? I don’t know.

Return to the Rambam – The Parameters of Tafel and Ikar

Speaker 2: What I’m just saying is, that the Rambam gave us two options. Either… no, the Rambam says that it’s truly secondary, or what is a mixture, which is truly primary, like the honey. He doesn’t say what is with the three tastes. He did say, he did say “turnips or cabbage that one cooked and mixed in flour”, no, on the contrary. But the other side of this, “a dish that one put in it… a dish that one mixed in it one of the five species”, that the same turnip that one puts in not to bind it but to taste it, one makes a mezonot. He did say that. He did say the law. But it seems that only the five species the law is so, when it’s an example with shehakol it’s different. Is that the matter because it’s mezonot, because mezonot is an important thing? So it’s accepted. The Rambam doesn’t say it. That’s clear. In the Rambam it doesn’t say that, clearly. It seems that not to make borei minei mezonot is only when it’s the form of the what, when he only put the flour to give something… it doesn’t say in the Rambam clearly the law.

Law 7: Secondary Food That Is Not Mixed – Salted Fish with Bread

Speaker 2: Okay, let’s go further. Let’s take about secondary. Yes? “How can the secondary not be mixed” – how can there be primary and secondary when it’s not cooked together? In food there is a question of eating and secondary. He says tafel, tefelah, I don’t know if it’s the same thing, or… tefelah is a whole secondary and primary. The word tafel he doesn’t say, he says tefelah. I’m just saying, I don’t know.

Okay, “how is a secondary that is not mixed”? He holds that by food comes a feminine form, I don’t know.

Speaker 1: No, tefelah is the language of the Mishnah.

Speaker 2: “Anything that is primary”, we’re accustomed to say tafel. One needs to look in the dictionaries what the difference is, perhaps it’s something else. “How is a secondary that is not mixed”? Perhaps tefelah is the language of immersion, like a thing that one dips in?

Speaker 1: No, no. Tafel, tafel. Tafel in feminine form.

The Rambam’s Example

Speaker 2: “One who needs to eat salted fish” – a person needs. It turns in the language, one who needs, one who eats. Needs.

Speaker 1: No, no, he puts it down this way because it’s good.

Speaker 2: No, the “needs” explains the tefelah.

Speaker 1: No, no. He primarily wants to eat the salted fish, but it’s very hard for him to eat the salted fish alone, he eats it with a cracker, with bread, “so that the salt should not harm his throat”. What does “should not harm” mean? It doesn’t mean not tasty. It means that it’s too sharp, hard for his throat. It’s not actually not tasty.

Speaker 2: I think he means not tasty. When a person eats any sharp thing, he simply likes the sharp taste. It’s certainly, because it’s sharp it will certainly overpower the taste of the bread. He doesn’t want to eat bread now, he wants to eat the salted fish, a herring. I say, but it’s always so, when a person eats a thing that has a strong taste and he eats with it something, it’s obviously because he wants to eat the thing. Like the charoset from the maror, he takes the bread to take away the sharpness, he should be able to eat. Yes, it should slide down easier.

“One makes a blessing on the salted” – do we make a blessing on the salted, on the piece of fish that I want to eat, because that is the primary. “And exempts the bread” – and with this bread he has exempted, and he doesn’t need to make a blessing on the bread separately. “And so all similar cases”.

Application to Salad with Croutons

Speaker 2: I think that your case of the salad can be the same thing, because he wants to eat lettuce, but lettuce alone is not tasty to him, it has no crunch, he puts in a bit of crunch. I don’t see why one can’t say that too.

Speaker 1: It’s not to bind, it’s not to bind. That’s even not mixed, even not mixed.

Speaker 2: That’s a thing that he doesn’t want to eat cookies now, he’s not eating croutons now, he’s eating a salad. It’s not tasty to eat salad if it’s too soft, one puts in something that gives a crunch. Like the salted, I don’t see what it does salty, one puts in something that’s not salty. What’s the whole difference?

Discussion: The Nature of “Exempts” – Question of Permission or Thanks?

Speaker 1: I want to focus on the word “exempts”. There is also earlier, “exempts”. Like with the blessing you exempt, why does the word “exempts” work? Simply, you make a blessing on the primary.

Speaker 2: You don’t make a blessing. You may not eat without a blessing.

Speaker 1: Ah, you eat also on the other piece. The other piece catches on so. It now becomes considered like some piece of mezonot, because one eats it with the mezonot.

Speaker 2: It’s one thing, the word “exempts” do you mean to say according to this law that every thing that one eats one needs to have a blessing. But if one would say that the primary is to thank the Almighty for the meal, there’s only some condition in this that one should make a blessing, on each thing one should have the specific blessing.

Speaker 1: No, I say that the word “exempts” simply lies as you say, that it’s simple that on each thing one needs like a request for permission, to ask permission from the Almighty to eat. You don’t have a right. The bundles you have a right, but what about the opposite? It catches on. But simply one would say that one makes a blessing to the Almighty for the food, there’s only that it’s a beauty of the blessing, like one should say each type of request that one needs, one should also say a specific blessing on the type of food.

Speaker 2: Wait, wait, you’re asking a different question. No, but let’s think for a minute. You’re talking about two different things. First of all, we learned that the after-blessing is more about thanking the Almighty. The first blessing is yes like a request for permission, as we learned in chapter one. But secondly, you’re talking about two questions. You’re talking about why shouldn’t one fulfill with the other blessing. But the answer is only when he makes a general blessing, yes? If it’s true that’s indeed the law, we’ll go see. If he says “shehakol nehiyeh bidvaro”, you can say that the shehakol goes on everything. But when he only makes mezonot, he hasn’t made any adamah. Adamah is not mezonot.

Speaker 1: No, I say that the primary matter is that I take permission to eat from the Almighty’s food. The way how one does it is that one should say it on a specific food. But if he made it too specific, he didn’t talk about this at all.

Speaker 2: No, but even when he said specifically, you didn’t mean I made with the Almighty a borei pri ha’adamah. I spoke to the Almighty about tomatoes, so I can’t eat potatoes? No, I thanked the Almighty for food.

Speaker 1: No, there is an enactment that we should mention the certain types of food.

Specific and General Blessings, The Form of Bread, and Pas Haba’ah B’kisnin

Discussion: Can a Specific Blessing Exempt Other Types?

Speaker 1: Okay, but you take permission for one. The Sages said, the way how one should do it is one should say it on specific food.

Bread Blessings: Specificity, Form, and Intent

Speaker 2: No, but by making it so specific, you didn’t speak about the food in general.

Speaker 1: No, but even when you said specifically, you didn’t mean… I made with the Almighty “borei pri ha’adamah”. I spoke with the Almighty about tomatoes, and therefore I can’t eat potatoes?

Speaker 2: No, I thanked the Almighty for food.

Speaker 1: No, you don’t understand the point. There’s an enactment that one should mention the specific types of food.

Speaker 2: Not correct, not correct. This is what I say. This is what I say. That yes, the main food that I want to eat now is the tomato, but the other is also good. But “poter” is the situation that it exempts. The blessing goes on that one.

Speaker 1: Explain it. If you had made the more general blessing, you would be right. If you make the more specific blessing, there’s no way to learn your interpretation.

Speaker 2: Let’s say it’s not me’akev (invalidating). It wouldn’t have been me’akev to make the more general one.

Speaker 1: True. But now that you did do it, you have no way for the bakashat reshut (request for permission), whatever you want to call it, to apply to the…

Speaker 2: You mean to say that shehakol is actually not the blessing, it’s simply…

Speaker 1: No, I’m saying that you thanked the Almighty for the food.

Speaker 2: No, you didn’t thank. You spoke about… you mentioned the type of food. You said “vegetable”, and you said “candy”. What does candy have to do with vegetables?

Parable of Candy and Apple

Speaker 2: I go to your father’s house, and he doesn’t let anyone take from the cupboard without permission. I say to him, “Can I take a candy?” and I take an apple. It has no connection. If I had said, “Can I take something to eat?”, you would be right. But I said, “I’m taking a candy”. Should I be able to say, “Dad, certainly I meant to take a herring, and with herring comes crackers. You certainly meant that.”

Speaker 1: Okay, no problem.

The Distinction Between General and Specific in Blessings

Speaker 1: It’s actually a bit interesting, I mean, because if the Rambam had made blessings, he would replace all the laws of blessings with one blessing. We don’t need to speculate now.

Speaker 2: No, I’m saying there’s something beautiful about making a blessing on each type extra. But what it brings in that there shouldn’t be some way of… that’s actually essentially shehakol. Shehakol is actually the general blessing. But now we’re talking about the specific blessing. The novelty is that the specific can exempt another specific, not that the general can exempt the specific. That’s simple, true.

Speaker 1: It seems to me that it’s somewhat similar to the thing that one must pray for each type of request. The Almighty loves specifically those who are specific. Most people love, as we learned earlier about people. People say, make me a nice campaign. One person, make me exactly a green… People don’t understand. People are, who knows where it goes.

General and Specific in Learning

Speaker 1: General and specific. The entire learning of Rambam, one could just learn the general principles of the mitzvot, and the life of the mitzvot. To be a person, I’ll also be a tzaddik because of inheritance. Or the next halacha. As you know I say, the Almighty made the whole world, but not the piece of bread. Because everything exists by His word. Perhaps, people don’t grasp living this way. We want to do. So the a detailed connection to the ground. Here, here. One for this. A piece.

Halacha 8: Pat Shenitprera — The Form of Bread and a Kezayit

Speaker 1: Now we’ve learned what exempts bread. And they studied the word “pat”. Pat means bread, but pat also means something to crumble, or to break into pieces. Such. Someone who has sliced my pieces. He made from the pat, so, if there is, somewhere just from a kezayit, if each piece is the size of a kezayit, it’s still called one pat and one stands to make, it has retained the form of pat, he blesses on it the beginning of Hamotzi, one must know one made a… a… what’s it called a… French toast?

Speaker 2: Yes?

Question on Challah Kugel

Speaker 1: It’s actually, it has eggs with other things put in, but each piece is a large piece of bread… the Rambam has two sides? We turn what we’ve crumbled bread, and we don’t see it anymore, it’s lying in the eggs, the eggs that have bread in them… that’s the two… the Rav says that… in order not to make a Hamotzi, both conditions must be gone. It’s very not be kezayitot, and very not look like pat. I mean it’s simple, that once there’s a piece of a kezayit, you see the form of pat. Because you see here a piece, you’re dealing with a piece of pat. It could be. But it’s beginning to speak, what does the form of pat mean for a good year? There is a pat. One makes a challah kugel. But what blessing does one make on challah kugel?

Speaker 2: One makes on challah kugel?

Speaker 1: I know… that’s called the form of pat.

Speaker 2: I know, I know, but it’s not a kezayit.

Speaker 1: I’m just asking if the challah kugel pieces are a kezayit.

Speaker 2: No, but the pieces aren’t a kezayit. I mean the pieces, from the beginning it had a slice, now it’s become one slice from a thousand to two thousand.

Speaker 1: I mean that it doesn’t have the form of bread. What is the form of bread? It doesn’t look like pat, it looks like challah kugel.

Speaker 2: I don’t know what you mean by pat.

Question on Matzah

Speaker 1: I can ask, the next piece will tell us which halacha. The Rambam says. Pat something must… I can ask another question: Why do we make Hamotzi on matzah? Matzah certainly doesn’t have the form of bread.

Speaker 2: Matzah doesn’t have the form of bread? Why not? We make Hamotzi on matzah.

Halacha 9: Isah She’ne’efet Bakarka — Bread Baked in the Ground

Speaker 1: Further, the Rambam says another halacha about the form of bread. There’s another type of thing that doesn’t have the form of bread. The Rambam says, ah, the first halacha is if it was already pat, and now we make from it something new. And here there’s a thing that fundamentally from the outset doesn’t have the form of bread. This is very interesting to me. Because, let’s see the halacha inside.

The Words of the Rambam

Speaker 1: “Isah she’ne’efet bakarka, kemo she’ha’aravim shochni hamidbariyot ofin”. Like the Arabs who live in the deserts, I mean they’re called today the Bedouins, they bake bread. Do you know how they bake their bread? They make a kind of pit in the ground, yes, and they put coals in the pit in the ground, and they put in there a piece of dough, I mean more a very soft piece of dough, such an almost liquid piece of dough, and it becomes such a large round… I mean today it’s called tandoori bread. It’s similar to the bread that the Georgians, Bukharans have. Such a pita.

Speaker 2: Such a… not exactly. I mean that a pita would perhaps yes be called the form of bread, no?

Speaker 1: I don’t know, I’m saying what the Rambam says. “V’ein lah tzurat pat, mevarech aleha batechilah…”

Speaker 2: No, our pita we don’t make in the ground. Our pita is in the oven.

Speaker 1: But originally it’s made in the ground like this. The lack of form of bread isn’t because it was made in the ground, that’s just… that’s how it comes out. “V’ein lah tzurat pat, hayotzei mimenah ein lo tzurat pat, v’zeh davar gadol…”

Speaker 2: R’ Yitzchak says a pita.

Speaker 1: I’m not sure how the dough looks, because it looks like a pat. Not the pita that you buy with the hole, it’s such a straight thing like that.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: “Mevarech alav batechilah borei minei mezonot”. Make right away borei minei mezonot. Batechilah means to say the first blessing, right?

Discussion: The Jews in the Desert and the Manna

Speaker 1: But it’s very interesting, because the Jews were in the desert, and the Almighty tells them at all what food is. When their pat looked.

Speaker 2: Ah, they had…

Speaker 1: You can take a better question on the manna. But the manna is an extra question, that they made Hamotzi lechem min hashamayim. But the Gemara says that it was… Moshe tikein l’Yisrael birkat hazan bish’ah sheyarad lahem haman, so they bring.

Speaker 2: Right.

Speaker 1: But you see that they bentched. But it doesn’t mean that he said Hamotzi lechem min hashamayim then. But one must think, it was “v’ta’amo k’zera gad v’ta’amo k’tzapichit bidvash”. So tzapichit bidvash, perhaps one must make a shehakol, like on the honey cookies that the Rambam mentioned here. Perhaps tzapichit means a cookie, a mezonot cookie more. But bidvash, with not a main ingredient, it’s an adhesive. And the manna, behold, manna is just an adhesive, it can’t be. The holy manna.

Speaker 2: No, the manna perhaps was a very honey-like thing. Again, you see that it must fill, it must be like a…

Speaker 1: I mean that tzapichit means a cookie, so translate the commentators also on the spot, in the explanations.

Speaker 2: Okay, back.

Speaker 1: No, but I mean to say that it was very… Let’s say that they’re told, the bread that’s baked in Eretz Yisrael, that’s… the Jews when they came to Eretz Yisrael they sat right next to the Bedouins, and that was the bread that they saw every day. And that’s automatically that’s the form of bread. The Almighty spoke of this. That also wasn’t that the Bedouins brought with more clarity.

Kevi’ut Se’udah Makes It Pat

Speaker 1: “V’im kava aleha se’udah, harei zeh na’aseh pat, umevarech Hamotzi lechem”. Very good. So if he eats… other things didn’t have the action so that it would help not kevi’ut se’udah. So if he eats it from the seven species in the ground, very good. That’s one thing, if one eats it as a snack, it’s not bread, it’s just a snack. If he eats it as the form of bread, which isn’t… v’chen Yisrael… another thing.

Speaker 2: Yes, let’s, let’s, let’s hear, let’s hear.

Speaker 1: V’chen Yisrael… the same thing pat haba’ah bikisnin, yes, Yisrael. The Rema explains, what does it mean? V’chen isah shelusheh bidvash, v’chen isah shelusheh bidvash.

Speaker 2: No, I’m still a bit preoccupied with the isah shelusheh bidvash bakarka.

Novel Point: The Bedouin Doesn’t Always Make Hamotzi

Speaker 1: I saw interesting, because basically it comes out that the previous halacha says like this, if you traveled today on a trip in the desert, and when some Bedouin gave you a piece of his bread, it’s not your price borei minei mezonot. But to him one can say that here near the city, that the person bakes this way, the person has become like a Rav freed from the mitzvot, and so he bakes his bread, he makes such a Hamotzi. But even the Bedouin, when he doesn’t eat with kevi’ut, he doesn’t make a blessing on it, he doesn’t make a Hamotzi.

Speaker 2: That’s what the Rabbis ask about those freed from mitzvot baking, why shouldn’t they always make a Hamotzi?

Speaker 1: If it’s not always kevi’ut se’udah, so that’s the halacha. It doesn’t say in “ish kovei’a se’udah”. What’s different about this type of bread? Is that it’s something that sometimes it’s bread and sometimes it’s a snack. And the person makes his bread also in a way that sometimes it’s bread and sometimes it’s a snack. He makes little rolls which are snack size. Soon we’ll speak, perhaps actually, perhaps actually, a bread has a form of bread, an original form of bread.

Speaker 2: Why should a person eat this Arab bread without kevi’ut se’udah?

Speaker 1: Because it’s not bread, it’s a weaker bread, also a bread.

Discussion: Pita — Bread or Snack?

Speaker 2: Let’s say that this is pita. A person doesn’t just go snacking on pita, but the same thing why he doesn’t go snacking on a piece of challah, because it’s a serious meal, it makes you full, therefore…

Speaker 1: Not true, pita is a thing that one does snack on yes, and bread is a thing that one doesn’t snack on. That’s how it turns out.

Speaker 2: Let me see, let’s say, ostensibly people don’t eat… let’s say, let me see, let’s say bread is the thing that looks like a challah, yes, the regular bread that you have. I don’t know anyone who snacks on it, okay? One makes a sandwich, but a sandwich is perhaps a new thing. But I’ve seen someone who goes to the cupboard and takes a piece of bread and eats it? Bread is a thing, one sits down and eats. That’s how it goes.

Speaker 1: Let me see, the same statement about a pita.

Speaker 2: No, not true. Pita comes in such small pitas, and one puts on it, one dips it in the… how do you eat it? You eat it. It’s not the same thing. I don’t know the problem. It’s not so complicated.

Speaker 1: Things are different. Things are… the challahs are more similar to pat, but they’re only mezonot. Okay, let’s go further.

Halacha 9 (Continued): Pat Haba’ah Bikisnin

Speaker 1: V’chen isah shenilosheh bidvash o shemen o chalav, one made from it one of these things, milk, honey, o she’eirev bah minei tavlin v’afah,

Pat Haba’ah Bikisnin, Rice, and Mezonot Bread

Pat Haba’ah Bikisnin – Continuation

Isah Shenilosheh Bidvash O Shemen O Chalav, O She’eirev Bah Minei Tavlin V’afah

Speaker 1: No, not true. Pita comes in many such small pitas that are used, one puts in the… one dips in the… what’s it called? The hummus and the things. It’s not the same thing. I don’t know the problem. It’s not so complicated.

Let’s go further. The things are indeed more similar to pat, but they are mezonot. Okay, let’s see further.

V’chen isah shenilosheh bidvash o shemen o chalav, that one made from one of these things, milk, honey, o she’eirev bah minei tavlin v’afah, one put in spices and baked it. That doesn’t mean honey earlier, I mean what is the baking? That’s ostensibly correct. Minei tavlin v’afah he baked it. The meaning is, one already put in chocolate, cinnamon, whatever, and one made a baking. No, honey means like the other version that says types of baking, it means that one added things that are baked.

I just want to say, the good thing is that the first case he speaks of replacing water with honey. The second case he speaks not of replacing the water, but of replacing the flour, one put in also chocolate chip cookies, I don’t know what. No, chocolate chips, yes, a type of baking.

Speaker 2: No, you mean to say different from the previous honey thing?

Speaker 1: No, earlier we spoke of honey to sesame. I’m saying that here honey means that the honey is a mixture, one put honey into the dough. The difference from earlier, earlier one put into the honey a bit of flour. But the difference from earlier, I’m just saying that here the two cases, I need to translate, I need to understand what baking means, I say there. Or that instead of water he put milk, or that to the flour he added chocolate chips and cinnamon.

V’chen hanikra pat haba’ah bikisnin. Why is it called that? Because it’s such sweet bread. Even if it’s pat, even if it looks like a pat, mevarech alav borei minei mezonot. V’im kava se’udato alav, mevarech Hamotzi.

The Main Distinction Between Pat Haba’ah Bikisnin and Regular Pat

There’s one thing, if the main word is what has changed, because the Rema will say like this, all types of pat, if one eats them with kevi’ut se’udah it’s Hamotzi, and if one eats them like a snack it’s mezonot.

And here there’s a question, you ask me what happens if a person eats yes pat in a casual manner? One doesn’t eat, he’s not a normal person. He’s not a normal person, he should go to a doctor.

I once saw a Jew ask, I ask you, what’s the difference between pat haba’ah bikisnin and regular pat? That there’s something of such a nature in pat haba’ah bikisnin that one sometimes eats it like a snack, and not this. But it’s a different type. I don’t know, but certainly it’s a different type. There are people, they go to Africa, I don’t know, people have different customs. We’re talking about normal people who learn Rema.

Someone’s Going to Come Out Tomorrow with a Toasted Slice of Bread

Someone’s going to come out tomorrow with a toasted slice of bread that you just add a little salt with honey, and it’ll come out a way that it’s a good snack because it’s a good crisp. Again, today there is also, I don’t have any problem with pat haba’ah b’kisnin. But you see, but it’s a different custom, there are different people. But even though the world is twisted, there are things that you sit and eat, and there are things that are snacks. There are things that sometimes the company comes out, you know what? This we’re going to make as a snack. For example, bread, there’s a certain type of bread that you buy in the store, and when you put it in such a bag, then it becomes pat haba’ah b’kisnin. But when you buy a long bag, go into the store and you see, there’s a loaf of bread, there’s a long bread, that’s the type of thing that you eat. It’s tzurat pat.

Marketing and Halacha

And if there are pretzels, you make a mezonot. Exactly, the same pat, the same one, you cut it up small and you put it in the pretzel bag, it becomes mezonot. What’s the problem? It’s not metaphysics here, it’s marketing. It’s marketing, how you market it. Let it be marketing. The Torah reckons with marketing. A thing that’s marketed as bread, you have to make hamotzi and bentch. A thing that’s marketed as pretzels, is a mezonot.

Digression: Critique of “Mezonot Bread”

I’ll tell you a chiddush, my brother. The Torah has a great politics about this, because people really hate to wash and bentch. Why do they hate to wash and bentch? Because Birkat Hamazon is too long, because they’ve pressed into the siddur a text that’s much too long. The Rambam’s text is much shorter, there’s no mitzvah whatsoever. Therefore people are afraid of it, so they’ve invented a patent that instead of bread you can make what’s called mezonot bread. The reality is two things. First of all, you don’t have to wash. Washing is still a takana. Let’s say you can be lenient on the takana on such a doubtful bread. But what’s stopping you from making a hamotzi? It’s bread after all. Hamotzi you make on the importance of bread, not mezonot. First a hamotzi. Apparently, the mezonot bread is certainly bread. It’s very hard to say it’s mezonot. It’s bread. Make a hamotzi on it. Let’s say you don’t have to wash, but can’t you say such a thing? You don’t wash for it, but you make a hamotzi. What’s stopping you?

And Birkat Hamazon, the same thing. The difference between me’ein shalosh and Birkat Hamazon is only one difference, that here you need three, four blessings, and there you make all four blessings in one. Me’ein shalosh yes, but it’s not that much longer. You can say the same text of me’ein shalosh, just add “Baruch Atah Hashem” after each piece where it comes, and you’re yotzei according to all opinions Birkat Hamazon. The whole problem wasn’t worthwhile.

I think it has to do with the topic that we want to be perfect, but we forget about kol hamosif gorei’a. I had the same comment, for example, according to the essential law, washing in a shower is a type of immersion, it’s called washing with tesha kabin. But since a mikveh is more important, we don’t talk about it at all. But people do need to know that almost everyone, whoever is careful about showering and really goes in the shower every time when they must do immersion, has cleaned themselves, has related to takkanat Ezra, perhaps not in the best way. But they don’t tell us the weak Rav Shalom, they don’t tell us the short prayer, they don’t tell us that there’s a way of bentching. You won’t say all the Rachmanas, you’ll bentch a quicker bentching, but don’t for the sake of that nullify the entire mitzvah of Birkat Hamazon.

What comes out? They then make such a trick that they give it a name mezonot bread. Ah, and the mezonot bread is called mezonot bread until you say clearly here that you’re establishing a meal on it. So the whole question isn’t such a big question. Make a hamotzi. The netilat yadayim isn’t so hard, by the way, and also according to the essential law, someone who keeps his hands clean, he knows, a normal person today who doesn’t work and so on, and his hands are presumed clean, he doesn’t have to do netilat yadayim according to the essential law. Whoever will learn the laws of netilat yadayim will see. And therefore, you don’t have to wash, you make a hamotzi, and you make Birkat Hamazon. And by the way, with this you’ll be exempt from any… Then let him be kovei’a seudah. The Jew who really doesn’t want to make hamotzi because he doesn’t have time, really isn’t kovei’a seudah, he’s exempt. He’s an ones, he works hard. True, true, you can’t tear him down either. A Jew who isn’t kovei’a seudah, he isn’t kovei’a seudah. True, true, true. You can also say the opposite, you can also say that broken Jews their whole life they were drawn to minutiae. But that would be the wrong reasoning. I think you can still make a hamotzi, because that would be the wrong reasoning. That is to say, to say that we’ve learned wild distinctions of pat, of this, of that, let’s just eat.

R’ Yitzchak Abadi’s Short Birkat Hamazon

But today, I think that today it would perhaps be a sandwich. A hillel, I don’t know about hillel, but it wasn’t a sandwich, he sat down with a meal. But today a sandwich is an “invention,” even the English lord “invented” it. But last thing, even according to you, a sandwich means that you use bread. First of all, the bread is almost there only for adhesion, you don’t want to eat bread. You want to eat a piece of meat or a piece, what do you call it? You want to eat the tuna sandwich, but you can’t eat a piece of tuna, so you put it in bread for the taste. But this is a new type of eating where you do eat pat. But apparently a sandwich, I already know if a sandwich you make a hamotzi, that means achilat pat. That is, you make a hamotzi, you want to eat pat, but you add to it a proper filling. But it’s very tasty, you add tuna. Ah, the person prefers when he even starts scooping out the extra bread. No, such a good sandwich isn’t keviyut seudah. A sandwich that you eat on the go isn’t keviyut seudah. It’s more like achilat arai. That’s what I think. The fact is, usually, you’re talking about the person who eats mezonot bread, he takes a sandwich with him to work, he doesn’t eat kovei’a seudah, he eats it as achilat arai.

And on the contrary, you can make an important meal, a brit, and give sandwiches, I’m not saying. But it depends on the “social situation.” This is still not a gezeirat hakatuv, it’s all what you’re saying, in the “marketing.” It can be so, and on the contrary.

Now, this week R’ Chaim Abadi from our minyan passed away, his father R’ Yitzchak Abadi also passed away a few months ago. He was a great rav, they already spoke about him in Lakewood, a student of R’ Aharon Kotler, was the first rav in Lakewood. And he wrote a responsum in his sefer, it’s called, what’s his sefer called? Something Yitzchak? “Imrei Yitzchak”? “Divrei Yitzchak”? Something with Yitzchak, I don’t remember. And there he printed a text of Birkat Hamazon, and he says that he saw that people don’t bentch because Birkat Hamazon is too long. So he went and he wrote according to all the poskim, maintained a text of Birkat Hamazon to fit on a credit card almost, and you can look it up if someone needs, and it’s a good text. It’s very nicely written.

Speaker 2: Yes, is it covered according to the Rambam?

Speaker 1: It’s covered according to everything, there’s no doubt that you’re yotzei with it. Very good. Okay. And it’s about as long as our Al Hamichya, understand?

Speaker 2: In short, spiritual minimalism I see here.

Speaker 1: Continue. Today it’s in style, nu? Okay.

Rice

Halacha Regarding Rice

Rice. Okay, we continue with the… Rice. Where are we holding? Rice. New halacha. Yes. Rice that was cooked. Yes, what happens besides the five species of grain? Are we being introduced here to new species? What, it’s already there in the Gemara. It seems that in the verse you see rice? I don’t know. In short, in the Gemara appears rice, rice, that was cooked or made into a pat. He says, that even though it’s very similar to the family of the five species of grain, you also bless on it borei minei mezonot, like the five species of grain, but it can’t become pat. Even if you made a pat, it still remains mezonot, and at the end you say borei nefashot rabot.

Speaker 2: So the Rambam will say…

Speaker 1: Usually mezonot comes with al hamichya.

Speaker 2: Only on the five species of grain.

Speaker 1: A mezonot, but it comes a mezonot without any… So rice is a category by itself, that it can’t become pat, but it still has a borei minei mezonot. All other mezonot can become pat. And the second thing is that at the end you don’t say al hamichya, we haven’t yet talked about what al hamichya is, but you say borei nefashot rabot v’chesronan al kol mah shebarata.

The “Scale” from Grain to Vegetables

So that’s rice. And we’ll see further when we talk about… We need to establish that this is really pure rice. If it’s another species, if it’s another species, then there’s a dispute among the poskim whether rice is dochan, which is another type of rice. Or perhaps other types of legumes.

It’s like this, there is… The earth grows grain, that’s the five species of grain, grain. After that there’s something called legumes, which is another thing, it’s called from the family of beans, they grow perhaps a bit similarly, but it’s another thing. After that there’s the family that’s in between. Rice is in between. Rice is perhaps such a family with the legumes, but it’s similar to mezonot. But dochan is very similar to rice, but it’s already in the vegetable families. It’s like… It’s such a scale, yes? There is a… Yes.

Speaker 2: Very good. There are things in between. This is the matzah, everyone must have matzah, the aspects of matzah. And dochan you make on it always shehakol, or the other legumes.

Speaker 1: Very good. That’s the halacha.

Blessings on Rice and the Blessing Me’ein Shalosh

Blessings on Rice (Rice) — Continuation of Discussion

Speaker 1:

It’s not… That both aren’t… Both aren’t called flour. We don’t eat it because it’s kitniyot, but it’s not. Only regarding… The only thing is, rice you make a borei minei mezonot. That’s the halacha, which we learn all the poskim accept that rice is our rice. Yes. There are those who conduct themselves to make on rice other blessings, but the essential law is like the Shulchan Aruch, that perhaps there’s a doubt about it.

Speaker 2:

The essential law is that it’s not rice, but it’s ha’adamah.

Speaker 1:

No, no. There’s a doubt in the Gemara about rice. It’s not a dispute of Amoraim. Why shouldn’t you be able to make she’adamah like other vegetables? Why at the beginning do you bless shehakol? Because you make from it pat. You make from it pat.

Speaker 2:

And completely not understood, it’s not… You make shehakol and at the end borei nefashot. That’s the halacha. It’s a developed dispute of the poskim about rice. You’re saying that it’s not clear that it’s rice.

Speaker 1:

No, no, because there’s a dispute about this. But it’s not a…

Speaker 2:

Dispute about what? That the Rishonim say that rice isn’t mezonot?

Cooking Rice versus Pat from Rice

Speaker 1:

The Rambam says that you make rice either cooked or you make from it pat. If you make pat from rice, it’s agreed that if you make bread from rice it’s according to all opinions you make mezonot. There are poskim who argue that when you bake rice, you cook rice, like you eat rice at supper, not bread, then there’s a dispute. The Rambam holds that even cooking you make mezonot. Others say that only if you made from it something flour, a cookie, you made from it something. Then it’s similar to the five species of grain that you make borei minei mezonot. If it’s only cooking according to the Rambam it’s mezonot. The Rambam says that you make mezonot, and so says the Shulchan Aruch.

Whole Kernels of Rice

The Rambam is in doubt about this, that perhaps you shouldn’t say at all, not on whole rice. If it’s whole rice, then you make shehakol, apparently adamah, no? But apparently adamah. Therefore there are those who say you make shehakol. I don’t know why. But the essential halacha, I think that’s also the custom of most of the world, the essential halacha is that you make mezonot even so. That’s what it says in Shulchan Aruch, that’s what it says in the Rambam.

Other Species from the Rice Family

And we’re talking here about the question on other species, like from the rice family, no? Quinoa, and that, questions are asked about various of them, which is apparently not rice.

Speaker 2:

What does rice mean?

Speaker 1:

I don’t know. It’s a type of grain usually.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Halacha 11: The Rule of the Final Blessing

Speaker 1:

Now, until now we’ve learned what you make. Now we’re going to learn which final blessing. It taught us, we’re just going to say the rule. Says the Rambam:

“Everything on which you blessed at the beginning hamotzi lechem, you bless on it at the end Birkat Hamazon in order, four blessings, as was explained in chapter 2. And everything on which you blessed at the beginning borei minei mezonot, you bless on it at the end one blessing me’ein shalosh haberachot”

Which it has, it’s covered also the three blessings. It doesn’t have the last blessing, Hatov v’Hameitiv it doesn’t have, but it covers zan, eretz, and Yerushalayim, the essential three.

Innovation: Rice Doesn’t Get Me’ein Shalosh

Going back, when we talk about rice, on rice you don’t make… Even if you make borei minei mezonot, you don’t say the blessing me’ein shalosh.

Why Does Me’ein Shalosh Exist?

What’s the reason for the blessing me’ein shalosh? Because Chazal wanted, it’s a doubt from the Torah, they wanted to cover the essential Birkat Hamazon. I don’t know how you understand this, but it makes sense, because these are things that are from the family of, they’re similar to bread, but it’s not exactly. It’s like they were afraid that perhaps this is what the Torah wanted.

Speaker 2:

It’s not that they were afraid, there’s a level.

Speaker 1:

What’s the whole difference? Here you make two blessings. We already saw by the way, a worker makes only two blessings, me’ein arba, yes? Me’ein shalosh. Here you make one blessing me’ein shalosh. It’s not such a big difference, it’s a level. Like we say, everything has levels, it’s a scale, everything is a spectrum. Here you see the principle that everything is a spectrum.

Halacha 12: The Measure of a Kezayit for the Final Blessing

Speaker 1:

Good, “When are these words said? When he ate a kezayit or more, when he ate a kezayit or more, but one who eats less than a kezayit”, someone eats less than a kezayit, “in the beginning blessing he blesses before it”, or the same thing a drinker, “in the beginning blessing he blesses before it”. He blessed at the beginning the blessing before it, a preliminary blessing you should make even on less than a kezayit, but the final blessing has to do with a kezayit, “and at the end he doesn’t bless at all”, after eating you don’t make a final blessing because it’s less than a kezayit.

Halacha 13: Text of the Blessing Me’ein Shalosh

Speaker 1:

The Rabbis say, what is this blessing me’ein shalosh that we just mentioned? “And this is one blessing that is me’ein shalosh”, which contains me’ein all three topics.

First Part: Al Hamichya V’al Hakalkalah

“At first we thank Hakadosh Baruch Hu for sustenance”, we thank the Almighty for sustenance, “and for nourishment”, you say, we don’t use here the word “zan.” Says the Pri Chadash, we use the same thing as mazon but in other words, “al hamichya v’al hakalkalah”. You say all nourishment also. It could be that they held that bread is the essential nourishment, and here you use similar words. And this is “al hamichya v’al hakalkalah”, we thank the Almighty who provides for the world sustenance and nourishment. This is the first blessing.

Second Part: Eretz Chemdah Tovah U’rechavah — Without Brit and Torah

After that you say, “and for the desirable, good and spacious land”. We saw earlier that eretz chemdah tovah u’rechavah is the essential word of eretz. If you said the words eretz chemdah tovah u’rechavah you’re yotzei, so far as it even says in Shulchan Aruch. But what’s not here is brit and Torah. Yes, here is a great proof for what I said last night, that the opinion of the Ritva and others that it’s not me’akev. If it were me’akev you would have to write it here. Only that it’s a hiddur.

Third Part: Rachem Na — Boneh Yerushalayim

Continuation of Birkat HaMazon Discussion

Afterwards, one continues, “Rachem na Hashem Elokeinu al Yisrael amecha v’al Yerushalayim irecha v’al Tzion mishkan kevodecha, v’ha’aleinu l’tocha”, meaning one requests the building of Jerusalem, “v’nismach b’vinyana u’nevarechecha aleha bikdusha u’vtahara”. These are words that are not found in the regular text. I think now, it’s a different nusach. Each time the chacham was beautiful, each time he made a nusach and he made it a bit different. One cannot say everything should be boring.

“Bikdusha U’vtahara” — What Does This Mean?

And here it’s explained, I think this is the simple meaning, “u’nevarechecha aleha bikdusha u’vtahara”, meaning we will eat ma’asrot and we will make the blessing in Jerusalem. Yes? Maybe, I don’t know. But there’s a question, why does everyone, the mashgichim say that for Baal HaMichya one says “bikdusha u’vtahara”? You understand? You don’t eat so many cookies, a little kedusha and tahara. Let it help us.

Order of the Conclusion: Why Do We Return to “Al HaAretz V’al HaMichya”?

But I think the simple explanation is, because usually by Rachem Na one concludes “Baruch Ata Hashem boneh Yerushalayim”. In the conclusion, but here one must make, the halacha is one must mention before the conclusion and in the conclusion. One is going to conclude al ha’aretz v’al hamazon, and one is not going to conclude on boneh Yerushalayim. Therefore it comes out that when the little blessing returns to the… one is going to say, which does one say? One says first aretz and afterwards michya, michya v’chilkaleinu, yes? Why shouldn’t one say first, just as one goes hazan, hazan u’voneh Yerushalayim, yes? No, it goes first al ha’aretz on what one just mentioned, and afterwards one returns to al hamichya which one mentioned earlier. Yes.

Discussion: What Is the Primary Nusach of Birkat HaMazon?

Speaker 2:

Also, I mean I would have thought, I thought that you said a chiddush, I would have thought that the primary nusach of Birkat HaMazon is the second blessing, al ha’aretz v’al hamazon, because this is written in the Torah, “u’verachta et Hashem Elokecha al ha’aretz hatova”, and afterwards it says “v’al hamazon”, because that’s the word. Perhaps that’s the primary nusach? One divides it more, one makes an extra mazon, as if more refined, extra… one must think, you can think, ah, you’re catching now…

Speaker 1:

It could be that when one is in Eretz Yisrael you perhaps have a bit of a point, because when a person is in exile it’s very difficult. It’s an old question that I’m asking you, but the primary blessing goes like this, and we divide it. Therefore by Birkat HaMazon one divides mazon first, as if there’s importance of mazon before Eretz Yisrael, and afterwards Eretz Yisrael one divides into two, because one needs mercy on Eretz Yisrael, one needs to request boneh Yerushalayim, one needs to request HaTov v’HaMeitiv, it’s perhaps on another level, one must judge. But in truth this is the primary blessing, aretz u’mazon, and that’s the blessing. We look at it as two different kinds of things, because we don’t have the land. The land is something like an upper land that one believes in, which is an ether, one can go there, but we are not there, and we eat the bread which is not our bread.

Digression: Can “Al HaAretz” Mean America?

Speaker 2:

I thought, perhaps it’s crazy, I thought that you spoke about the question, I thought that perhaps if a person is in chutz la’aretz, could it be that simply al ha’aretz one can intend America? Must al ha’aretz be Eretz Yisrael?

Speaker 1:

I mean, where does our bread come from? Bread comes from the earth. HaMotzi lechem min ha’aretz, from which land does it come? It’s upper lands, I know, it’s also lower rivers. But absolutely, the kugel that one eats, I know already where, somewhere from the earth. I know that the wheat that we cut here is the wheat that draws its life from Eretz Yisrael, like the famous Tzemach Hashem l’tzvi.

And what you say about reading, you bring no proof. But the rebellion of the Sha’arim is very beautiful, that I request that the redemption should come, and then I should never just eat, but I should eat ma’asei shamayim, with tahara, with taharat haguf, with taharat hanefesh. As you say, one should be even in physical things, one should be in the faith of redemption with tahara. You’re right.

Speaker 2:

No, because one runs, he’s not going to read, he’ll go bring there. I saw that one says ma’asei shamayim, but I saw that the last meal of Yom Tov, because it’s a kedusha, yes, I can be.

Digression: Settling Eretz Yisrael in Chutz La’aretz?

Speaker 1:

It’s actually interesting, I also think that a person has… We make a blessing “al ha’aretz”, and a person has a house here in Howell, doesn’t he need to thank the Almighty for the land, for the piece of property that he also has something? And the Gaon of Tchebiner one can say, the Tomech Shamaya is no joke. It’s only a question of kibush yachid. It’s not at all clear to me that the Jews who live in Lakewood are not fulfilling the mitzvah of yishuv Eretz Yisrael. Because what does not Eretz Yisrael mean? That the main thing is that a Jew should not live among idol worshipers. He should have a fixed place where he sits. But if one buys a place and one settles, it’s only a question that one may not conquer chutz la’aretz before one finishes conquering Eretz Yisrael. It’s kibush yachid. But essentially, why is it not Eretz Yisrael? One makes a Jewish place.

Speaker 2:

You’re making sure the yeshiva stays in Jerusalem?

Speaker 1:

Let’s say that Yitro wants to take all of Howell… a place where one lives bikdusha u’vtahara, it’s interesting.

Speaker 2:

Okay, anyway.

“L’tocha” — Into Which “Interior”?

Speaker 1:

Now one more halacha, and we’ll finish the chapter. On Shabbat and Yom Tov one inserts the blessing “Mekadesh HaShabbat” or “Mekadesh Yisrael v’hazmanim”. That is, by the third section one inserts. But the word “l’tocha” is very interesting. “L’tocha” doesn’t mean to Jerusalem, but into the Mishkan.

Speaker 2:

What does this have to do with Jerusalem?

Speaker 1:

“Aleha”, “l’tocha” in a city is to be a building, no? It’s machaneh Binyamin. In the building of Jerusalem, in the Mishkan of Jerusalem, one will eat the shelamim there. In the Beit HaMikdash, one will eat there in the Beit HaMikdash.

Speaker 2:

What does Tzion mean?

Speaker 1:

Tzion means Jerusalem. Mishkan. Tzion I don’t know what that means. Mishkan one can say means the Beit HaMikdash.

Speaker 2:

No, Tzion is the city of Tzion where in it is the Mishkan.

Speaker 1:

“L’tocha” is interesting. That is, it’s a sanctified city, where one can bring sacrifices. And he went down to Eretz Yisrael not alone, “l’tocho” — l’tocho means to go inside. He went inside into Eretz Yisrael.

Shabbat and Yom Tov in Me’ein Shalosh

Speaker 1:

U’v’Shabbatot v’yamim tovim omer b’vracha zo, generally one says kedushat hayom, that is, me’ein kedushat hayom, and also he mentions it in Birkat HaMazon. That is, he mentions, as it says in our siddur, one says before the middle of Rachem one says “Retzeh v’hachalitzeinu b’yom HaShabbat hazeh”, before the blessing of “al hakol Hashem Elokeinu”.

Birkat Me’ein Shalosh Exempts Birkat HaMazon

If someone said the blessing on pat, he fulfilled Birkat HaMazon, he doesn’t need to bentch again.

Birkat HaMazon on Yom Tov, Short Version, and Ascent to Eretz Yisrael

Clarification: “Ascent to Eretz Yisrael” Is Not “L’tocha”

No, when one says “going up to Eretz Yisrael” is not alone l’tocha. Alone l’tocha means to go inside. No, he must go into Eretz Yisrael.

Mention of Yom Tov in Birkat HaMazon

“U’v’Yom Tov omer b’vracha zo v’cholela im kedushat hayom, v’chen mazkir b’Birkat HaMazon.”

That is, he mentions, as it says in our siddur, in the middle of Rachem one says “u’zachreinu l’tova b’yom HaShabbat hazeh” or “b’yom Rosh Chodesh hazeh”.

Question: If One Said the Blessing on Pat, Has One Fulfilled Birkat HaMazon?

If someone said the blessing on pat, has he fulfilled Birkat HaMazon? Does he need to bentch again? No, because he said the short version.

Here he has a takana, and likewise, here he has a takana, he must say the blessing. He said a short version, like that.

Question: Must One Add “HaTov v’HaMeitiv” or Start from the Beginning?

It’s a good question. But he didn’t say “HaTov v’HaMeitiv”. Must he only add “HaTov v’HaMeitiv” or must he start from the beginning? It doesn’t matter.

The Entire Difference Between Birkat HaMazon and Me’ein Shalosh

Let’s be clear, the entire difference between this and Me’ein Shalosh is the “Baruch Ata Hashem”. You want to say four blessings? You say “al hamichya v’al hakalkalah, Baruch Ata Hashem hazan et hakol”. Afterwards you say “nodeh lecha al eretz chemda… Baruch Ata Hashem al ha’aretz v’al hamazon”. The entire difference is four words.

We have a very long nusach, and it’s very beautiful to say a long nusach when one has strength and time, but it’s not me’akev. Yes, I don’t know. Okay, until here the halachot.

By the Way: The Same Thing with “Ya’aleh V’yavo”

The same thing, by the way, if one doesn’t have time to say all of “Ya’aleh v’yavo”, one can also say as one says by “al hamichya”, “u’zachreinu l’tova b’yom Rosh Chodesh hazeh”, one can also say this by Shemoneh Esrei, yes? It’s not me’akev to say “Ya’aleh v’yavo v’yagi’a v’yera’eh v’yeratze v’yishama v’yipaked v’yizacher”. Wait, I already forgot where I’m holding. What am I saying?

Okay, a gutn.