Halakhah sobre Exodo 16:12

Birkat ha-mazon is from the Torah, as it is said, “When you have eaten your fill, you shall bless the Lord your God.”²¹⁹Deut 8:10. The complete verse is “When you have eaten your fill, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you.” And they taught in a baraita:²²⁰B. Berakhot 48b. “you shall bless” – this is the blessing “ha-zan;” “the Lord your God” – this is birkat ha-zimmun (“the blessing of invitation”); “for the land” – this is the blessing “ha-aretz” (“for the land”); “good” [ha-tovah]– this is the blessing “boneh Yerushalayim.” And therefore it says “the good hill country [ha-har ha-tov] and the Lebanon.”²²¹Deut 3:25. I have only a blessing after the meal; from where do I get before it? Scripture says “”which He has given you” – from the moment He has given it to you, you are obligated to bless Him. Our rabbis z”l taught in a midrash: Moses instituted the blessing “ha-zan” for Israel when the manna fell down for them; Joshua instituted the blessing “ha-aretz” when he led them into to the land, and David and Solomon instituted “boneh Yerushalayim.”²²²B. Berakhot 48b. And you will also find in the story of the manna a hint at the blessing “ha-zan” in the manna itself, as it is said, “In the morning you shall have your fill of bread,²²³Ex 16:12. and you shall know that I the Lord am you God” – this knowing will occur when remind yourselves of it when you say a blessing over eating the manna. The fourth blessing, “ha-tov ve-ha-metiv,” was instituted at Yavneh. Our rabbis z”l needed to make reference in the blessing “ha-aretz” the Torah, and also refer in it to the covenant (brit), and for them to mention brit before Torah,²²⁴In B. Berakhot 48b-49a it says that Torah was given through three covenants, while the covenant of circumcision was given through thirteen covenants. R. Bahya explains the point of this allusion in what follows. so it would be said like this: “brit and Torah, life and food, for your brit which you sealed [upon us] and your Torah which you taught us.”²²⁵A quotation from a version of birkat ha-mazon used by R. Bahya and his contemporaries, but slightly different from the version we use now. And the reason that they needed to mention both in the blessing “ha-aretz” was to instruct us that it was because of the Torah that we merited the inheritance of the Land.²²⁶And so the Tur, and Rashi’s commentary on b. Berakhot 48b. And this is the reason for the setting up of the stones upon which “the whole Torah” is written, and this is what is meant by “to [le-ma’an] enter the land.”²²⁷Dt 27:3. Le-ma’an means literally “for the sake of” R. Bahya alludes to stones Moses instructed the Israelites to set up in Dt 27:2-3: “As soon as you have crossed the Jordan into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones. Coat them with plaster and inscribe upon them all the words of this Torah when you cross over in order, to enter the land that the Lord you God is giving you.” Le-ma’an – “for the sake of” this Torah “you will enter the Land.” And in my opinion, in “to [le-ma’an] enter the land,” “le-ma’an” means “so that you are able to enter,” that is to say, “Insofar as I am commanding you to write on them the whole Torah, so you will have the power to enter the land, because the power of the Torah will cut out [yakhritu] ²²⁸R. Bahya’s word choice here is rich in relevant connotations. “Cut out” – yakhrit – is from the root of the same verb “karat” used in the Biblical expression “to cut a covenant”- likrot brit – that is, to make a covenant, and also used for the punishment of someone who violates the covenant, e.g., as in Ex 12:15: “Whoever eats leavened bread from the first day to the seventh day [of Passover], that person shall be cut off [nikhreta] from Israel.”the enemies of the land, so that you will inherit it.

However, we are distinguished by our regimen of pleasures [dat sha’ashu’im] from the nations who err, rebel, and sin. For we found our Rock in the desert in the land of souls, and there He set for us a table against the nations, and thus David, said, ‘Set before me a table against my enemies’ [Ps 23:5). There the Lord gave us an abundance of charity and good things. There He gave us a marvelous portion of the bread in our law, bread from heaven through no toil. There He showed us through great love something like the world to come—where the divisions of His marvelously formed angels are fed without toil, hewn from flames and awesome fires; and the planting of the Lord of Hosts. Our holy race is lovely because our heart was tested in the desert. We rose up like sweet-smelling incense to thank the Lord and said a blessing over the table. As it is written regarding the manna: “In the morning you shall have your fill of bread and you shall know that I the Lord am your God.”¹⁹Ex. 16:12. Even while we were in the land of our enemies bearing our punishment,the manna soothed our dry and shriveled gullets,²⁰Nu. 11:6. while the flowering vines of our enemies spread heavy on the ground. Even without temple or altar, no medicine-making; the Torah of the Lord with us will save us from breaking. Marked as we are by our circumcision, fringes, and shaving–– the food on our table will help us recognize and remind ourselves to respect His greatness. Let us bless over the table of Him whose food we have eaten.²¹An allusion to the wording of the grace after meals. It is not so with the wicked, whose sins have earned them aninextinguishable fire;²²Ps. 14:4. their table lies before them like mire. Rising early in the morning they devour food and they do not call to the Lord; their hearts and eyes they raise to what delights them, but toward the One above not even the slightest look. Such is the sentence of the nations, that they are a vile and foolish nation filled with folk devoid of sense. Unlike those other nations is Jacob, for he will bless the sacrifice and then eat it.²³Jer 10:16; I Sam 9:13. All his fruit shall also be set aside for jubilation before the Lord;²⁴Lev 19:24. he will withdraw his right hand until the blessing is drawn back into the ‘palace that is before Me.’²⁵I Kg 6:17 [heykhal lifnay], usually translated as ‘the front part of the House’ (i.e., the Temple). Bahya reads lifnay as “before Me,” in order to allude to the mystical idea that saying a blessing returns the vital energy in what is eaten back to its source in the heavenly realm. This is among the ways of wisdom to keep the heart of man straight upon the path of the Lord’sbright lights, to prevent one straying from the service of his God; so that the temptationsof pleasure would not draw our purpose away from being drawn to Him, nor our sinfulinstincts seduce us from serving our Creator,²⁶An untranslatable wordplay here on yetzer and yotzer. from waiting for Him at the doors of His gates.²⁷Prov. 8:34.