Birkat Hamazon: Blueprint of Jewish Destiny (Part 8)
“Anyone who recites Birkat HaMazon is blessed through it.”
(Zohar HaKadosh to ParshatTerumah)
Our blessing continues with a phrase taken from a a verse in Sefer Devarim (8:10), “And you shall eat and you shall be satisfied and you shall bless Hashem, your
The Midrash, Torat Kohanim (Vayikra 26:5), questions what the phrase, “And you shall eat and you shall be satisfied” actually means. Rather than suggest the obvious explanation that there will be such an abundance of food that everyone will be able to eat to their heart’s content, the Midrash offers an intriguing alternative. We will be satisfied with a small amount of food because the food itself will be blessed. It is the quality of the food we eat that will satisfy us, not the quantity.
Why is being satisfied with a small amount of food considered a blessing? Because it frees up time to be able to serve Hashem. The Chidushei HaRim was renowned, among many other things, for hardly sleeping and hardly eating. His entire day revolved around learning Torah and helping others. His righteous wife once asked her husband why he didn’t look after himself more carefully. She said to him, “You barely eat or sleep. How can you survive like that?” The Chidushei HaRim replied, “Your father chose me to marry you because I’m quicker than most people. I can learn in two hours what others spend an entire day learning. But it isn’t only in Torah that I’m so quick. My eating and sleeping are also quick. I can sleep for a short time and I’m as rested as someone who slept a full night! And I can eat a drop and be as satisfied as someone who ate a three-course meal!”
Perhaps the Midrash can help clarify a passage in the Talmud (Berachot 20b). Rabbi Avira taught that the angels came in front of Hashem and asked Him why He shows favoritism to the Jewish nation. Hashem answered, “How can I not show them favoritism? I commanded them to recite Birkat HaMazon only if they have eaten to satiation, but they have chosen to bless Me even if they ate only a piece of bread as small as the volume of an egg (k’beitzah) or even as small as an olive (k’zayit)!”
As Rabbi Shlomo (1738-1792), the Chassidic leader of the Karlin dynasty in the Ukraine, was wont to say, “A person who learns to thank Hashem for everything, can be satisfied with whatever he has to eat. Someone who does not thank Hashem, will never feel satiated – even when their stomach is full!”
I read a beautifully inspiring quote from someone who grew up in the transit camps in Israel at the beginning of the 1950s. He was talking about how little they had, and he said, “Just because we were satisfied with less, does not mean that we were less satisfied.”
In effect, our blessing is teaching us that we should gain more satiety from praising Hashem than from eating. Because we are so incredibly blessed.
There is a poignant story told about a mother who was walking along the beach with her young child when a giant wave swept the child away. The mother didn’t know what to do and in desperation she began screaming to Hashem, “Please send me my baby back! Send me my baby back!” Moments later, her baby was washed up unharmed on to the beach by another wave. The mother looked at her child, and, then scooping the child up into her arms, began to cry tears of pure joy and whisper again and again, “Thank You Hashem. Thank You Hashem. Thank You! I can never repay Your kindness! I am eternally in Your debt!” Suddenly she looked at her child again, and in a demanding tone called out, “But Hashem, where is his hat?!”
For many, one of the saddest aspects of their lives is that they are the beneficiaries of such profound goodness, and they may even express some degree of thanks, yet they still remain dissatisfied because things are not exactly the way that they want them to be.
To be continued…
