Berakhot 126

11:
Our mishnah indicates that the basic consideration that serves as a guide as to which berakhah is appropriate for the various kinds of foods is to classify them according to provenance. If the food grows on trees one blessing is appropriate; on the other hand, if it grows in the ground a different blessing is appropriate. We can add that if neither of these indications are true then there are other berakhot, not mentioned in this particular mishnah that will be appropriate. Our mishnah also points out that there are also certain foods that are exceptions to the very rules it is propounding. This is because, if I may misquote George Orwell, even though all foodstuffs are equal, some or more equal than others.

12:
The Gemara [Berakhot 35b] discusses at some length why wine and bread are not accorded the berakhah that would naturally be associated with them (fruit of the tree for wine and fruit of the ground for bread), but a special berakhah. One suggestion put forward and rejected is because of the concept of "value added": it is grapes and not wine, for instance, that grow on the tree (the vine), and the wine is considered to be an improvement on the grape. Olive oil, whose berakhah is quoted in the Gemara as being "…the fruit of the tree", disproves that theory. To cut a long discussion short – wine and bread are considered to be staple foods, and therefore they deserve a special berakhah. (In earlier ages wine was an absolutely necessary part of the food intake since during digestion it broke up the large amounts of fat that accompanied meat cooked the way it then was. The special status of wine was thus not only because of its mildly intoxicating properties – which the Gemara duly acknowledges with gratitude. "Wine gives joy to the human heart … and bread nourishes the human heart" [Psalm 104:15].

13:
A further staple berakhah that is not mentioned specifically by the mishnah, but is mentioned in the discussion in the Gemara [Berakhot 37a] is "…Creator of various kinds of foods". This berakhah is to be recited of foods prepared using any of the five species of grain (except bread, of course): wheat, barley, oats, rye and spelt.

To be continued.

Further in connection with our discussion [Berakhot 114] on a midrash concerning the creation story. I had written: Should we recite this berakhah in Hebrew as "…shehakol niheyEH bidevaro" ["…by Whose word all is created"] as is the Ashkenazi practice? Or should we recite this berakhah in Hebrew as "…shehakol niheyAH bidevaro" ["…by Whose word all was created"] as is the Sefardi practice?<< There is a theological choice here. If we elect to espouse the Ashkenazi pronunciation ["...by Whose word all is created"] we are proclaiming an on-going creation -every new development is the result of a new divine intervention. If we elect to espouse the Sefardi pronunciation ["...by Whose word all was created"] we are proclaiming a one-time-only creation - and everything that developed thereafter is only the coming-to-fruition of another part of the original divine programme..

David Sieradzki takes up the challenge for the Ashkenazi version::

I think the two ideas are harmonious. There's a very relevant line in the Shaharit service – "ha-m'hadesh b'tuvo b'chol yom tamid ma'aseh Bereishit" – God beneficently renews each day the work of creation. God created the world once, in the beginning, but God constantly renews that creative work, partly through the natural world's God-given regenerative power, and partly through human participation in the work of "tikkun olam," perfecting the
world. The proof text for the line from Shaharit, from the Psalms, is the (on the surface) contradictory but essentially harmonious line: "l'oseh orim g'dolim, ki l'olam hasdo" — [Give thanks] to the Creator of the great lights [i.e., the sun, moon, and stars, created at the beginning of the world], for God's love extends forever [now, and in the future]. Based on this, I think my preference is for the Ashkenazi version of the berakhah. I see God's miraculous creation as an ongoing, present tense phenomenon.

I respond:

The next shiur has some relevance to some of the points raised by David.