Berakhot 123

I have received not a few short questions that are quite to the point. I hope the responses will be deemed to have the same characteristics!

Ze'ev Orzech asks:

Not to split hairs, but how does one differentiate between bread and other mezonot that may have the same list of ingredients in them as bread?

I respond:

Actually, the ingredients of mezonot are the same as the ingredients of bread: a product in which the principal ingredient is (flour made from) any one of the five species of grain: wheat, barley, oats, rye or spelt. As we have already learned, bread was selected for a special berakhah because it is a staple food – or as the sages put it "people eat it as a meal". Therefore, if one eats any product whose principle ingredient is any one of the five species of grain with the serious intention of "making it a meal" then the berakhah before eating will be Ha-Motzi (and not mezonot) and full Birkat ha-Mazon [Grace after Food] is required afterwards. The bulk of a food (let's say cake or cookies) which requires the above formula (and not mezonot) whether or not one ate with the serious intention of "making it a meal" is considered to be about one quarter of a kilogram.

Derek Fields asks:

With regard to berakhot for foods, does one say She-ha-kol over water? I am under the impression that no berakhah is required for water, which I find somewhat odd, since water is the most essential element for our physical survival. Or is the intention that only things that grow or are made from things that grow require a berakhah?

I respond:

Yes, the correct berakhah when drinking water is She-ha-kol (and your impression that no berakhah is required is erroneous). I have not found a specific reason given anywhere why this is the case, so what I write here is my own speculation. What Derek writes is very logical: bread was selected as a staple food that has its own "special" berakhah; it would surely be logical for the same to be accorded to water. You will note that I slightly qualified the status of bread in my response to Ze'ev Orzech: I wrote that what distinguishes bread is the fact that "people eat it as a meal" [kove'a alav et se'udato]. The liquid that was accorded this same status by the sages was not water but wine. Wine was an integral part of all meals in the world of the sages. I guess that this was so for two reasons. Firstly, drinking untreated water might be dangerous; secondly, wine had a beneficial effect on the digestive system, breaking up the rather large amounts of fat that the form of cooking produced in those days. Be that as it may, wine was considered to be the staple food, not water. The correct berakhah for water, therefore, is She-ha-kol since it does not grow from the ground or on trees. As far as Derek's last guess is concerned, "that only things that grow or are made from things that grow require a berakhah: anything that gives our bodies nourishment and benefits us requires a berakhah.

In the wake of the seifa of our mishnah (Rabbi Yehudah says that over anything that is a kind of "curse" we do not recite a berakhah) Jacob Lewis asks:

What about medicines taken orally or the like? Does this statement (or the fact that it was rejected) have any application to this situation. It seems to me that, as anyone would prefer to be healthy rather than sick, needing to take medicine is something of a "curse," and no berakhah need be said. This doesn't seem to me to contradict Tanna Kamma. What's the Halakhah in this situation?

I respond:

Medicines only require a berakhah if one enjoys taking them! (Is this what we can refer to as "enjoying ill health"?) The taking of the medicine might require a berakhah is it is accompanied by some other food that one really enjoys for its own sake – for instance if you are really thirsty when taking a pill with water then the water requires a berakhah. However, when the food is subjectively viewed as merely "taking away the bad taste" or feeling of the medicine neither the medicine nor the food require a berakhah. (See Shulĥan Arukh, Oraĥ Ĥayyim 204:8.)