This Ritual Life Archive

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Here you will find out about ways to enhance your holiday experience, to celebrate or mark a meaningful life cycle event, and to deepen your experience of the everyday.

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Eating

Our rabbis created different blessings for each kind of food. For delicacies, our rabbis said: "Blessed are You who created all kinds of delicacies for delight." For meats and eggs, they said: "Blessed are You who created life to give life." For bread: "Blessed are You, who brings out bread from the earth." While some rabbis taught that only the proper "formula" could be recited over specific foods, others took a more pragmatic view, saying, "If you were to see a loaf of bread and say, ‘What a fine loaf this is! Blessed is the Holy One who created it!’ you would have fulfilled your obligation to bless."

(Babylonian Talmud: Brakhot 40b)

 

Meditation

When I sit down at the table, the Divine Presence stands behind me. When I say a blessing, the Divine Presence pushes forward to receive my words.

(adapted from Zohar iv 186b)

 

Ritual

Before you are about to eat, pause just long enough to compose a blessing that recognizes the specific food that you are about to enjoy. As an example, our rabbis offer the blessing of a simple shepherd named Benjamin who made a sandwich and said, "Brich rachamana malka d’alma marai d’hai pita." "Blessed be the Master of this bread."

(Babylonian Talmud: Brakhot 40b)

 

Blessing

Barukh…she’hakol n’hi’yeh b’dvaro.

Blessed are You whose word calls all things into being.

(Offer the traditional blessing for specific foods, or add your own blessing which heightens your awareness of the source of your food.)

 

Teaching

Rabbi Jose the Elder would not have his meal cooked until he prayed to God for sustenance. Then he waited a moment. Then he would say, "Now that the Sovereign has sent sustenance, let us prepare it."

(Zohar ii, 62)


When you have eaten and you are satisfied, bless God for the good earth that has been entrusted to you.

(Deuteronomy 8:10)


Let us take time to bless that which gives us life–sweet as the fruit from Eden’s tree, filling as Sarah’s cakes, savory as Yaakov’s stew, plentiful as the manna in the wilderness, liberating as the crunchy matzah,fresh as the first harvest brought to the Temple, heavenly as the taste of the World to Come in the Shabbat challah.


Barukh…she’hakol n’hi’yeh b’dvaro.

Blessed are You whose word calls all things into being.

 

(CLAL Faculty)

    



CLAL's National Jewish Resource Center develops and publishes rituals that help to bridge the gap between our contemporary lives and the ancient wisdom of the Jewish tradition. We invite you to become a partner with us in thinking about the place of ritual in our lives and in developing new ritual resources for our time. If you are interested in being part of this exciting endeavor, visit with us in the Ritual Resource Area of the CLAL website by clicking here.

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