הגדה ברורה

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The origins of ברכות המצוות

In his article ברכת המצוות: הלכה ותולדותיה, David Henshke provides a complete account of what we know about blessings recited on the performance of mitzvot and, through a thorough study of all extant sources, traces their origins and development. It is impossible to do justice to this article here, but I will briefly summarise his most important claims.

  1. The earliest figure to whom we can definitely attribute the opinion that blessings must or should be recited on mitzvot is Rabi Yehuda, the student of Rabi Aqiva.
  2. The principle only seems to have become generally accepted at the very end of tannaitic period, including by Yehuda haNasi, the chief compiler of the Mishnah.1 (The fact that the principle is cited in the Talmud Bavli five times in the name of the first generation amora Shmuel, may indicate that it was only then that it became clearly established as halacha).
  3. The Mishnah itself, however, is conspicuous in never referring to blessings over mitzvot, of which not a hint is found in M B’rachot nor in any of the descriptions of different mitzvot that appear in other tractates.
  4. By contrast, the Tosefta emphasises the importance of blessings on mitzvot and interprets statements in the Mishnah, wherever possible, as alluding to them.
  5. The general rule stated by the Tosefta (B’rachot 6:9) is העושה כל המצות מברך עליהן. However, despite the plain meaning of the rule apparently referring to all mitzvot, all the examples given in the Tosefta itself and throughout Hazalic literature relate to ritual or ceremonial mitzvot.2
  6. There are two probable reasons why saying blessings over ritual mitzvot were invented and popularised in the last two generations of the tannaitic period, which are not exclusive. The first is that, during this period, Christians were arguing for a distinction between the ritual and moral elements of the Torah and that the former had been abrogated or were, at least, of lesser importance. The second is that outward signs of Jewish observance were subject to Roman persecution. Either or both of these reasons would provide a rationale for emphasizing the importance of ritual and ceremonial mitzvot by saying a blessing which emphasizes that it is through these mitzvot that the Jewish people are sanctified.

The purpose of this article is to make a suggestion as to the possible origin of the distinctive nusah used for all blessings on mitzvot, אשר קדשנו במצותיו וציונו ל/על. A great deal of discussion has been focussed on the last part of this formula, specifically as to why different b’rachot end with an infinitive, with על + gerund, or with על מצות + noun. In this essay, I want to focus on the first four words. It is, of course, possible that the formula was invented specifically for the purpose, by Rabi Yehuda himself or by one of his contemporaries, but I believe that it is possible to trace it back to an earlier liturgical formulation that was then adapted for use in the new concept of saying blessings on mitzvot.

Let us start by looking at what many still believe to be the sole example of the Mishnah describing ברכות המצוות.

בירך ברכת הפסח פטר את שלזבח. את שלזבח לא פטר את שלפסח דברי רבי ישמעאל. רבי עקיבה אומר לא זו פוטרת זו ולא זו פוטרת זו.

[If] he blessed the blessing of the Pesah he has exempted that of the zevah (i.e. the Hagigah), [the blessing of] the zevah, he has not exempted the Pesah; the words of Rabi Yishmael. Rabi Aqiva says, this one doesn’t exempt that one and that one doesn’t exempt this one.

Henshke shows that the general assumption according to which Rabi Yishmael and Rabi Aqiva are arguing about bircot hamitzvot cannot be correct. First, both tannaim lived a full generation before we find any other mention of blessings on mitzvot. Secondly, since the Mishnah nowhere else mentions the existence of any such blessings, it is unlikely that it would include a reference to them here with the apparent assumption that you know what it is talking about. Thirdly, the phrase ברכת ה… is never used in Hazalic literature to describe blessings on mitzvot, but is used to describe other types of blessings, such as ברכת המזון and ברכת השיר. Finally, the amoraim of the Yerushalmi discuss this Mishnah in a way that suggests they did not consider it to be referring to blessings on mitzvot. Based on all this, we can confidently conclude that the Mishnah is describing a special kind of blessing that was recited on eating the Pesah and Hagiga respectively and which was not part of a general category of blessings to be said on the performance of mitzvot.

The only problem with this explanation is the Tosefta (Pesahim 10:13), which reads as follows: 3

אי זה היא ברכת הפסח, ברוך אשר קדשנו במצותיו וציונו לוכל פסח. אי זה היא ברכת הזבח, ברוך אשר קדשנו במצותיו לוכל הזבח.

What is the blessing of the Pesah? ‘Blessed … who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to eat the Pesah.’ What is the blessing of the zevah? ‘Blessed … who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to eat the zevah.’

Henshke explains that the Tosefta ‘again comes to emphasize the subject of bircot hamitzvot and here fixes the form of the blessing, which in the Mishnah was not specified, in the format of standard bircot hamitzvot’.4 In other words, the Tosefta’s explanation of the Mishnah is wrong, and perhaps deliberately so. The Mishnah is talking about one thing and the Tosefta makes it talk about something else.

This is quite a disturbing claim, though that doesn’t make it any less (or more) true. However, I believe that there is another way of explaining the data that is at least equally convincing and, if correct, ties a up a couple of loose ends in the history of bircot hamitzvot.

Let us start by looking at another halacha from the Tosefta (B’rachot 5:23):

היה מקריב מנחות בירושלם אומר ברוך שהגיענו לזמן הזה כשהוא מקריבם אומר ברוך אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו להקריב מנחות. כשהוא אוכלן אומר המוציא לחם מן הארץ. היה מקריב זבחים בירושלם אומר ברוך שהגיענו לזמן הזה. כשהוא מקריבן אומר ברוך אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו להקריב זבחים. וכשהוא אוכלן אומר ברוך אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו לאכל זבחים.

He was offering grain offerings in Jerusalem, he says ‘Blessed … who made us reach this time’. When he offers them he says ‘Blessed … who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to offer grain offerings’. When he eats them he says ‘… who brings out bread from the land’. He was offering sacrifices (i.e. peace offerings or thanksgiving offerings) in Jerusalem, he says Blessed … who made us reach this time’. When he offers them he says ‘Blessed … who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to offer sacrifices.’ When he eats them he says ‘Blessed … who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to eat sacrifices.’

The Tosefta juxtaposes the case of a cohen offering a minha and a person offering a shelamim or todah. In both cases they are to say three blessings, the first two of which are exactly parallel. The first is the blessing sheheheyanu thanking God for having the opportunity to perform their respective offerings. The second is a standard blessing over the mitzvah of offering the minha or zevah respectively. However, at the end of list, the parallel between the two cases seems to break down entirely. In the first case, the Mishnah describes the person saying a standard bircat nehenin on eating food and in the second (apparently) describes him saying a bircat mitzvah.

The reason for undermining the symmetry between the two offerings is not obvious. One would have thought that in both cases, the offeror would need to say a blessing on eating the food and a blessing on the mitzvah of eating that food. Both lists, therefore, should stretch to four mitzvot, which would be exactly parallel. Lieberman explained the omission of bircat nehenin on the zevah as an indication that sacrifices were normally eaten on bread, and were exempted in the b’racha of hamotzi. The omission of a b’racha le’echol menahot, however, is harder to explain if we take the Tosefta to be referring to a b’racha said on the mitzvah of eating the zevah.

However, if we don’t make that assumption, both this Tosefta and the one explaining the Mishnah in Pesahim become easier to explain. It is possible that Henshke’s reading of the Mishnah and that of the Tosefta are both correct: the Mishnah is not talking about a bircat mitzvah, but rather a special bircat hashevah said on the occasion of eating a sacrifice, and the Tosefta is providing the nusah. No such nusah is provided for the minha, because no such b’racha was recited upon it.

Corroboration for such an interpretation can be found in early medieval haggadot of the Palestinian rite. Before eating matzah and maror, which in the Land of Israel and its satellite communities were eaten together according to the practice of Hillel, they would recite an extended blessing with the hatima zocher habrit. The most common version runs as follows:5

ברוך אתה יי א-להינו מלך הע[ו]לם אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו על אכילת מצה ומרור בלילה הזה להזכיר גבורתו שלהמלך מלכי המלכים ברוך הוא שעשה נסים לאבותינו בזמן הזה בעבור אברהם יצחק ויעקב ברוך אתה יי זוכר הברית

Blessed are You HASHEM our God, King of the world who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us on the eating of matzah and maror on this night to recall the might of the King, King of kings, blessed is He, who performed signs for our fathers at this time for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Blessed are You HASHEM, who remembers the covenant.

The first part of this blessing is identical to the standard formula of blessings said on mitzvot, but the rest of it is apparently a special bircat shevah specially composed for the matzah and maror. Henshke surmises that ‘in a later period, this blessing of … matzah and maror was thus made from a combination of a the bircat shevah and the bircat mitzvah together’.6 However, there seems to me no need to make such an assumption. Instead the simplest way of interpreting this blessing is as an expression of praise for God that opens with a formula describing his sanctification of Israel through the commandments. Another blessing found in Palestinian rite haggadot reads as follows: 7

ברוך אתה יי א-להינו מלך [ה]עולם אשר צוה את אבותינו לאכול מצות ומרורים בשר צלי אש להזכיר את גבורתו. ברוך אתה יי זוכר הברית.

Blessed are You HASHEM our God, King of the world who commanded our fathers to eat matzot, and merorim, meat roasted on fire to recall His might. Blessed are You HASHEM who remembers the covenant.

Clearly, this version is much shorter, but it has the same basic format as the longer version: praising God for commanding the eating of matzah and maror (and roasted meat in accordance with a widespread custom) in order to memorialise His might. There is certainly no question here that a b’racha was composed by combining a bircat mitzvah and a bircat shevah. Rather, we have a single b’racha that opens by praising God for commanding Israel to eat matzah and maror.

Nor do we, in fact, have to look so far afield for similar examples of blessings that are decidedly not part of the category bircot mitzvot, but open by praising God for giving His commandments to the people of Israel. The nusah of qidush on erev shabbat according to the Babylonian rite begins as follows:

ברוך אתה יי א-להינו מלך העולם אשר קדשנו במצותיו ורצה בנו…

Blessed are You HASHEM our God, King of the world who sanctified us with His commandments and favoured us…8

The Babylonian qiddush for festivals opens with a similar formula:

ברוך אתה יי א-להינו מלך העולם אשר בחר בנו מכל עם ורוממנו מכל לשון וקדשנו במצותיו…

HASHEM our God, King of the world who chose us from every people, and lifted us from among every language and sanctified us with His commandments…

I propose, therefore, that the bircat hapesah and the bircat hazevah referred to in Mishnah Pesahim 10:9 were special blessings said while the temple still stood before or during meals containing sacrificial meat whose closest parallel was the qiddush before the Shabbat or festive meal. It seems likely that bircat hapesah closed with the formula zocher habrit, though we can’t know for certain, and we have no way of knowing whether bircat hazevah had a hatimah and, if so, what. After the destruction of the temple, these blessings would have mostly fallen into disuse except that a version was preserved upon eating roast meat, matzah and maror at the Seder meal. While the precise formulation of these blessings likely differed, they all open by praising God either for commanding the sacrifices or for giving the commandments in general, and a common version started with the formula אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו. Subsequently, Rabi Yehuda, or someone of his generation, borrowed this opening formula and used it to create a new form of blessing to be said on the performance of ritual mitzvot. The Tosefta in Pesahim 10:13 preserves an original version of the opening of the bircat hapesah and bircat hazevah, though it is not clear whether the author was aware that this was just an opening or intended it to be understood as such.

This claim, of course, is no more than a hypothesis. However, there is one more source which corroborates it while suggesting a minor modification both to the way we understand bircat hapesah/zevah and to our understanding of the genesis of different categories of blessings in general. Mechilta D’Rabi Yishmael contains the following passage, which is quoted in a slightly modified form in B B’rachot 48b:

אין לי אלא ברכת המזון שהוא טעון ברכה לאחריו, לפניו מנין – היה ר’ ישמעאל אומר קל וחומר, מה כשאכל לשובע טעון ברכה, שהוא תאב לא כל שכן. ר’ נתן אומר, הרי הוא אומר בבואכם אל העיר כן תמצאון אותו בטרם יעלה הבמתה לאכול כי לא יאכל העם עד בואו כי הוא יברך הזבח…

I only know that (the blessing on) food requires a blessing afterwards, beforehand from where? Rabi Yishmael would say a fortori, just as one who eats to satiation requires a blessing, one who is craving, is it not more so? Rabi Natan says, behold it says ‘When you come to the city, there you shall find him before he comes up to the bama to eat, for the people will not eat until he blesses the zevah’ (1 Shmuel 9:13)

The topic of this section of Mechilta is the obligation to say a blessing before eating food. The three blessings after a meal are derived from Devarim 8:10 (and you shall eat, and you shall be satisfied and you shall bless HASHEM…), but the origin of the obligation to say bircot nehenin beforehand is not clear. Mechilta quotes a number of attempted derivations, none of which are convincing and it is not surprising that all later authorities interpreted these proofs as asmachtot and categorized bircot nehenin as being of Rabbinic origin.9 What is interesting for our purposes, however, is the second d’rasha, quoted in the name of Rabi Natan.

However, if we look again at our sources, we find the same ‘confusion’ between the two concepts is a recurring feature:

  1. Mishnah Pesahim 10:9 discusses whether saying the blessing on the Pesah ‘exempts’ [פ ט ר] the zevah, but one b’racha exempting the other is something that in tannaitic sources we find exclusively associated with blessings on food (Mishnah B’rachot 6:5, 6:7; Tosefta B’rachot 4:14, 5: 12)
  2. The Yerushalmi cites an opinion that explains Rabi Yishmael’s ruling as being an example of the principle of iqar and tefelah. Again, this is language normally associated with blessings on food. (Mishnah B’rachot 6:7)
  3. Tosefta B’rachot 5:23 appears to suggest a direct parallel between the blessing hamotzi said on eating a grain offering and the blessing le’echol zevah said on eating sacrificial meat.

When the earliest sources all seem to confuse two distinct concepts, the most likely explanation is that these two concepts were not initially considered wholly distinct. It seems to me likely that the bircat hapesah and bircat hazevah discussed by Rabi Aqiva and Rabi Yishmael were considered to be a special or more elevated type of the blessings said on eating any food, which required a more elaborate formula because of the greater importance of the food being consumed. This explains why the Tosefta provides no other blessing to be said upon eating sacrificial meat, though this was not necessarily clear to its compiler.

Conclusion

While it cannot be conclusively demonstrated, I believe that limited sources we have indicate that the formula אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו has its origins in special blessings said on eating sacrificial meat during the temple period, which took the place of ordinary blessings said on food. These blessings opened with a formula praising God for commanding Israel to eat sacrificial meat, and possibly also for sanctifying the Israel through the commandments in general. After the cessation of sacrifices, the only surviving form of these blessings was said on the eve of the 15th of Nissan. This is almost certainly related to the fact that in the first generations after the destruction of the temple, Jews continued to eat a sort of simulacrum of the Pesah (the גדי מקולס) and even after this practice fell into disuse many continued to make a point of eating roast meat.10 Forms of this blessing were preserved in the Palestinian haggadah rite, but did not survive in the Babylonian ritual according to which matzah and maror were eaten separately with separate blessings, only subsequently being eaten together without a blessing.

However, in the generation after the Bar Kokhba revolt, a version of the opening formula from bircot zevahim was adapted, perhaps by Rabi Yehuda himself, and turned into a new form of blessing to be said on the performance of ritual and ceremonial mitzvot. While no mention of these blessings was included by the compilers of the Mishnah, they were strongly emphasised by the Tosefta and became a clearly demarcated and universally accepted halachic concept by the first generation of amoraim at the latest. Early sources, however, still testify to a degree of ambiguity in classifying the blessing starting with the formula אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו לאכל הזבח, which seems to be simultaneously conceived of as a blessing recited on eating sacrificial meat and as a blessing on performing the mitzvah of eating it.

Bibliography

Henshke, D.
2012 ‘ברכת המצוות: הלכה ותודולתיה’, Sidra 27-28.

Kulp, J.
2009 The Schechter Haggadah: Art, History and Commentary (Jerusalem)

Rovner, J.
2000 ‘An Early Passover Haggadah According to the Eretz Yisraeli Rite, JQR 90

Safrai, S. & Safrai, Z.
1998 הגדת חז”ל (Jerusalem)

Footnotes

  1. See B Succah 46a.
  2. An apparent exception to this rule is found in Y B’rachot 6:1. In printed editions of the Yerushalmi, two amoraim go up to בית חנוותא and one of them says a b’racha, while the other one praises him for doing so. As explained by Haredim, this refers to the mitzvah to inspect the measuring vessels to see that they were honest (Shemot 19:36, Devarim 25:15, Mishneh Torah, hilchot geneiva 8:20). Mahara Pulda explains it as referring to the mitzvah of sitting to judge a legal case. According to either explanation this would be a source for also saying blessings on מצוות בין אדם לחבירו. However, the correct girsa is מי חטאתה and the passage refers to the two amoraim going up to purify someone or something from טומאת מת.
  3. All citations are from S. Lieberman’s edition.
  4. Henshke, p. 48.
  5. Safrai & Safrai, pp. 63, 288-9.
  6. Henshke, p. 52.
  7. Rovner, p. 426.
  8. The Siddur of Rav Sa’adya Gaon, however, omits the word במצותיו. His qiddush (assuming the nusah is correct, which is always hard to ascertain for this text) therefore opens with praising God for sanctifying Israel, but nor necessarily through the mitzvot. Interestingly his qiddush for festivals does include a clause specifying sanctification through mitzvot, but the optional extended version that he provides does not. See Safrai & Safrai, pp. 262-3.
  9. See B B’rachot 35a, where the gemara concludes that they are based on סברא rather than any explicit source or even an inference from one.
  10. See Kulp, pp. 238-40 for a discussion of this process.

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