Chews Wisely

I was excited to learn last week that this year’s Israel Prize, the State’s highest award for scholarship, will go to Professor Vered Noam, an eminent Talmudist at Tel-Aviv University and the first woman to receive the award for in this field. This not only puts her in the company of the great pillars of the field like her doctoral advisor Yaakov Sussman, but also gives recognition to the prominent contributions of women in a field that was not always as welcoming to gender diversity.

Besides her many learned articles and books, one on the Hasmoneans that I reviewed here, Noam’s current venture is a Facebook group dedicated to the daily page of Talmud in which she posts prolifically, generating reams of scholarly discussion. One of her recent insightful and inspiring posts analyzes the opening of the sixth chapter of Berakhot concerning the blessings recited over food.

The Talmud inquires about the source for the requirement to recite a blessing of praise before eating any food. It responds with an expansion of the biblical law regarding new fruit trees. One who plants a tree may not partake of its fruit for three years, and the fruit of the fourth year is considered “sanctified for praises,” carried to the Sanctuary and eaten there with celebration and gratitude. Since “praises” is in plural, the sages expound:

This teaches that [the fruits] require a blessing both before and after partaking of them. Based on this, Rabbi Akiva said: A person is forbidden to taste anything before reciting a blessing.

Rabbi Akiva, known for his creative exegesis, generalizes from this single law regarding the fruit of fourth year tree to the requirement to recite a blessing over all food eaten at any time. Evidently, Rabbi Akiva views all of nature as suffused with holiness as part of God’s continuous creation, and therefore requires that we partake of it in a state of mind filled with sanctification and praise. The blessings recognize the divine source of the bounteous diversity of nature’s menu and their recitation thus grants permission for us to share in it. The Talmud continues with similar analogies between nature and holiness:

Our Rabbis have taught: It is forbidden to a man to enjoy anything of this world without a benediction, and if anyone enjoys anything of this world without a benediction, he commits sacrilege.



Rav Judah said in the name of Samuel: To enjoy anything of this world without a benediction is like making personal use of items consecrated to heaven, since it says: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof” (Psalms 24:1).

Noam concludes: “The existential awareness of Rabbi Akiva and the rest of the Talmudic section encodes deep humility, caution and holiness regarding the most terrestrial aspects of reality. Perhaps we can learn from it a necessary new approach for our generation regarding limitations on consumption and the role of humans in the world.”

In this same spirit, we can derive further wisdom from the detailed laws and categories of blessings for different foods. Nowadays we tend to categorize food groups based on their nutritional value: proteins, carbs, fats, fruits and vegetables. The Mishnah, however, offers a different taxonomy based on the sourcing of each food item.

How does one recite a blessing over fruits? Over fruits that grow on a tree one recites: “Who creates fruit of the tree,” with the exception of wine, as over wine one recites: “Who creates fruit of the vine.”



Over fruits that grow from the earth, one recites: “Who creates fruit of the ground” with the exception of bread, as over bread one recites: “Who brings forth bread from the earth.”



Over herbs and leafy vegetables, one recites: “Who creates fruit of the ground.” Rabbi Yehuda says: “Who creates various kinds of herbs.”



…Over food whose growth is not from the ground, one recites: “By whose word all things came to be.” Over spoiled wine, spoiled dates, and over locusts, one recites: “By whose word all things came to be.” Rabbi Yehuda says: Over any food that is a type of curse, one does not recite a blessing over it at all.

The primary categories are fruits and vegetables, with special recognition of wine and bread due to their cultural significance for formal dining. The more important the food item, the more specific our expression of gratitude must be. We establish a meal with others over bread and wine, which deserve their own particular blessings.

This taxonomy of blessings not only reflects cultural practices but also prescribes how we should view each category of foods. Our primary sources of subsistence ought to be whatever grows from trees and whatever grows from the ground including melons, grains, and herbs. This categorization and even the language of the blessings derives from God’s first dietary blessing to primordial man: “God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food” (Genesis 1:29). Vegetation is created to feed both humans and animals who are all vegetarian in this utopian world devoid of violence.

Nevertheless, in recognition of the postdiluvian dispensation that permits eating animals, the Mishnah provides a catchall blessing to include other items that people may happen to eat. Meat, fowl, fish, eggs and diary are all lumped into one category together with spoiled food and locusts. Yes, killing animals is permitted for eating – but these animals were not created just to become roast beef. The continuation of the Talmud cited above that derived the obligation to bless from new fruit trees concludes that this proof extends only to what grows from the ground, but not to meat, eggs, and fish. Non-vegetarian victuals lie at the bottom of the rabbinic nutrition hierarchy and so deserve only the most general expression of gratitude for creating “all things.” The only items lower on the menu are locusts and moldy bread for which one barely makes a blessing at all.

The Rabbis could only imagine carrying their fourth-year fruit to consume in Jerusalem. Even farther away from their reality was the dream of returning to an Edenic utopia as expressed by Isaiah: “The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.” Instead, the Rabbis developed a state of mindfulness though the legal structures of food blessings. Continual affirmations of gratitude for nature’s fruitful bounty instills within us a sense of reverence, modesty, and thoughtfulness about the ethics and sustainability of our dietary choices.