What Are Blessings?
B’rachot are our primary vehicle for ritualizing and concretizing our encounter with God. And so we say “Baruch ata, Blessed are You…who creates the fruit of the tree” before eating the apple. But having said that, what have we said? Or rather, what have we done? Blessings are moments of praise, aren’t they? While this represents perhaps the most common understanding, the idea that we might be commanded to praise God raises questions itself. On the one hand, why should God need our praise? And on the other, could any praise we give God be enough? A classic rabbinic view is that the praise functions as a kind of “payment” for the pleasure we get out of the world. But just what kind of payment is a bracha? Let us ask the question from the other direction. What kind of theft is it to do no more than other creatures do? We do not take the apple or the wheat out of God’s world, but we put it to use so that it sustains life, supporting that very world. And what sort of theft is it to enjoy
