kosher bookworm: alan jay gerber

Birkat HaMazon: Thanking G-d

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The sacred ritual of Birkat HaMazon, benching, the Grace After Meals, is the subject of a new volume entitled, “Birkon Mesorat Harav” (OU Press, Koren Publishers). It centers the teachings of the Rav — Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, zt’’l — and is based on commentary compiled by Rabbi Daniel Besser and edited by Rabbi David Hellman.

This is a comprehensive work dealing with a wide array of topics and home-based rituals from candle lighting, kiddush, zemirot, havdalah, sheva berachot, brit milah and more. 

Within this work will be found many of the Rav’s thoughts on these and other related topics which, when brought together, form a running commentary containing sections of reshimot and hanhagot recording in one volume the detailed and in-depth explanations and interpretations of the Rav’s personal practices, compiled in consultation with those who knew him firsthand so as to ensure their complete accuracy. Also included are three essays — “Birkat HaMazon: To Bless the Great and Holy Name,” “The Zimmun: Eating Together, Blessing G-d as a Community” and “The Mitzva of Kiddush: To Sanctify, to Praise, to Redeem.”

Within the commentary to Birkat HaMazon, a mitzvah to be found in the week’s Parashat Ekev, is this teaching by the Rav based on the pasuk, “For having granted as a heritage to our ancestors”:

“It is interesting to note that this is the only place in the regular liturgy where a Jew thanks G-d for giving us Eretz Yisrael. We recite Birkat HaTorah every morning for the gift of G-d’s law, but there is no blessing for His Land. In the Amida, the core text of our prayers, we do not mention it. It is only here in Birkat HaMazon that we express our gratitude to G-d for bequeathing to our ancestors the Land of Israel.”

Further on in this work we learn more of the Rav’s teachings about the Holy Land in our prayers, in this case, Jerusalem, based on the pasuk, “And may Jerusalem the holy city be rebuilt”:

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