Blessed Be - Berakhot

I think it's a moment to stop, think over.

Think and say thank you.

Consciousness, gratitude.

Mindfulness

almost.

Mindfulness, right? It's a very kind of contemporary read on it, but it makes sense because it is about paying attention arguably to what's around us.

What else seems like it might be at play when we say blessings? What are we doing? Is there some magic to it? You know this idea people think, we talked about before, that rabbis bless food to make it kosher.

They don't.

That's not what kashrut is, as you learned.

But what does it imply when we think that about blessing? What is the blessing doing?

Altering.

Right.

Altering the whatever, the object of the blessing.

I think it's not unusual for Jews to think that the brachot they say are actually magical.

That by saying the blessing, something happens in the world around you.

What I want to suggest to you, which will not be a surprise to anyone, especially those who join us for our Rambam study, is that's complete nonsense.

That the bracha does not change anything.

It's actually very much about paying attention and noticing what we're doing and taking that moment to stop and recognize it.

It sounds like a woo-woo, postmodern, gratitude practice, self-compassion, blah, blah, blah.

But actually, it's probably more in line with what we're actually meant to be doing.

Yeah?

I'm thinking of illegal fiction.

Where bracha are meant to fulfill an obligation, we add this as almost like a contractual element.

So we add a bracha to say, okay, I'm doing the mitzvah here, I've done it, it's sealed with the bracha.

Like when you do a legal thing, you might have to say, read some words, say, I'm here by serving you this paperwork, or I'm whatever.