![]() ![]() Another requests that God grant the speaker an honorable livelihood, send the messiah, and bestow special blessings for others at the table. One beseeches God to eternally stay the ruler of the Jewish people. Each of these asks for a particular gift from God. The fourth and final blessing, birkat hatov v’hameitiv, stresses the various positive manifestations of the relationship between the Jewish people and God, This blessing ends by voicing the hope that “God will never deny us anything good.”Īfter the fourth blessing, a series of short liturgical statements, all beginning with the word harahaman, “may the compassionate One,” follows. Whereas the first two blessings praise God, this blessing changes tone, adding a plea to God to quickly rebuild Jerusalem. The third blessing, b irkat Yerushalayim, begs God to be merciful and continue to support the Jewish people. Today, some Jews add a paragraph for Yom Ha’atzmaut–Israel’s Independence Day–here, as well. In this second blessing, additional paragraphs are added during Purim and Hanukkah. The blessing also mentions that just as God sustained the Jewish people in the desert, so too God currently sustains them and will do so in the future. It recapitulates Jewish history from the Exodus to the conquering of the land of Canaan. The second blessing, birkat ha’aretz, thanks God for being compassionate and nourishing the Jewish people, both with food and with Torah. Often when a group has eaten together this blessing is sung out loud. The first blessing, also called birkat hazan, praises God for sustaining life and providing food for all creatures. Structurally, Birkat Hamazon is composed of four blessings. There is also a custom of saying Birkat Hamazon over a cup of wine when 10 people, or more, eat communally. When 10 or more have eaten together, God’s name is added to the zimmun. At a wedding meal, additional lines of praise are added. The leader invites everyone present at the meal to recite the blessing, and they respond with words of praise for God. When three or more people (for traditional Jews, three or more men) have eaten together, a short back-and-forth invitation, called a zimmun, precedes the prayer. On other days, Psalm 137, which mourns for the Jewish people during the Babylonian exile, is sometimes recited. On Shabbat and festivals, Psalm 126 is sung, recalling God’s promise to return the people of Israel to its homeland. Before saying Birkat Hamazon, many people recite a psalm recalling the destruction of the Temple. ![]()
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