by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

Rabbi Meir said: "A person is obliged to recite 100 blessings every day as it is said, 'What does the Lord your God ask of you?' (Deut. 10:12). Instead of "ma" (what?), read it as "mea" (100)." (Talmud - Menachot 43b)

Chidushei Harim comments that the 100 daily blessings are comparable to the 100 silver sockets which held up the walls of the desert Tabernacle (Exodus 38:27). Just as the abode of God's holiness on earth is supported by man-made silver sockets, so, too, the recognition of His Presence on earth requires man's daily recitation of blessings. When those blessings are said with full realization of what they represent, they have cosmic implications:

"It is written, 'The earth and its fullness are God's' (Psalms 24:1), and it is written 'He has given the earth to the children of man' (Psalms 115:16). This is no contradiction. The first verse is before man's blessing, and the second verse is after the blessing." (Talmud - Brachot 35a)

The blessing is man's recognition that the earth and its fullness are God's. Man was put on earth to acknowledge that fact. Once he has done so, the earth is ceded to him. Having utilized God's gifts to inculcate within himself the realization that the earth is God's alone, man is granted the right to make use of God's largesse.

Indeed, the earth becomes man's, the commentator Chidushei Harim concludes, in direct proportion to the extent of his recognition of God's dominion. If he fails to acknowledge God's proprietorship of the goods he intends to use, he is a thief when he dares to use it for his own ends.

HOW CAN WE BLESS?

Having been taught from earliest childhood to bless God in our prayers, before performing commandments, and before enjoying the pleasures of His universe, we do not even stop to think what we are saying. Bless God?

"I have already told you, my son, that all glory, majesty, good, wisdom, power, and blessing are God's. The words of man and all his deeds, good or bad, do not increase or diminish Him. Therefore, you must ascertain that our constant recitation of "Blessed are You, God" does not mean, as it would appear, that blessing is added to He Who requires no addition -- for He is the master of everything. Concerning blessings, it is He Who originates them and creates them from nothingness, and bestows them lavishly wherever it is His beneficent desire to do so. Therefore, we must seek to understand the intent of this matter [of blessing]." (Sefer HaChinuch - 13th century Book of Mitzvah Education #430)

The Chinuch goes on to explain that our pronouncement of blessing is not a prayer that some good accrue to God -- that is impossible. Rather it is nothing more than a statement of fact, our realization that God is perfect and complete. This must be the prelude to our every prayer because, having reiterated to ourselves that it is only He, all-powerful and all-good, we become doubly conscious that only from Him can we seek salvation, healing, good fortune -- whatever it is that we need.

And because He is perfection beyond our comprehension, whatever deeds He requires of us are not for His benefit but for our own; that we can somehow come closer to the goals He set for us and thus become deserving of the good He desires to shower upon us.

THE ETERNAL SPRING

There is another interpretation of "blessing." The word "bracha," blessing, is derived from "braicha," a spring. Just as a spring flows constantly, unendingly with fresh supplies of water, so God is the source of infinite blessing. In creating the universe with its inhabitants, it was His desire to establish the conditions that would enable Him to do good to others.

Given this divine desire, we begin to understand the intent of our blessings.

"Rabbi Yishmael ben Elisha [the Kohen Gadol] said, '[Once God] said to me 'Yishmael, My son, bless Me.' I said to Him, 'May it be Your will that Your mercy conquer Your anger, that Your mercy overshadow Your attributes, that You behave toward Your children with the a tribute of mercy, and that, for their benefit, You go beyond the boundaries of judgment.'" (Talmud - Brachot 7a)

Rabbi Yishmael was asked to bless God, but he did so not by praising Him, but by imploring Him to deal mercifully with Israel. Surely the High Priest, when he stood in the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur, knew the definition of blessing. He chose to seek God's mercy upon Israel precisely because that was greatest blessing he could give God! It is His will that His infinite and limitless spring of blessings be showered upon His people. By begging that all obstacles be swept aside, that nothing be permitted to stand between Israel and the divine goodness, Rabbi Yishmael was blessing God, for he was asking that God's will be carried out.

Our blessings, therefore, are first and foremost an acknowledgment that all blessings flow from Him. His commandments are but a means of making us worthy of His good. Our prayers for whatever we need are but an expression of the desire that we not be denied the nourishing invigorating 'waters' of His spring, and that we be fitting utensils into which He can pour His ceaseless store of blessing.

Therefore, we speak to Him directly: Blessed are You... King of the universe. "You" have somehow, for reasons beyond our comprehension, willed that we be enabled to drink from Your waters, to be nourished from Your hand. Without Your wish we would not have the audacity to address You... But You have wished it, God, and therefore, we appeal directly to You as the Source of all blessing.

Because we know full well, however, that You are infinite, boundless, endless -- we conclude our blessing in the third person: "Who nourishes... Who brings forth bread... Who has sanctified us..." -- for we know and acknowledge that any true knowledge of God, and contact with Him, is infinitely further from us than is the ability to run to the furthest solar system in a thousand lifetimes.

Therefore "Whoever eats but does not bless is considered as if he has stolen from the Holy One, blessed be He."

He has stolen, indeed. For by blessing God he could create the channels that would enable blessings to flow to His creatures; he could enable God's will to be carried out; he could enable creation's purpose to be fulfilled; he could provide the heavenly famalia with justification for its existence as handmaiden of the universe. But he did not bless, he did not acknowledge that food and land are manna and heaven, and has thus denied God and his famalia the power of blessing. Has he not stolen from God?