BIRKAT HAMAZON / GRACE AFTER MEALS Grace after Meals is specifically mandated by the Torah itself: “You shall eat and be satisfied and bless the LORD your God” (Deut. 8:10). Thanksgiving, Moses taught the Israelites, is central to Jewish life, “lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the LORD your God…and you say to yourselves, ‘My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me’” (ibid, vv. 14–17). Bereft of a sense of gratitude and of a power higher than humans, nations, like individuals, eventually decay. The original form of Grace consisted of three blessings, which move sequentially from the universal to the particular. In the first, we thank God for sustaining the world and all that lives. The second is national: we thank God for the land of Israel as well as for the other blessings of Jewish life: the covenant and its sign, circumcision, and the Torah. The third turns to Jerusalem. The fourth paragraph is a later addition: according to the Talmud (Berakhot 48b), it was added after the Bar Kokhba rebellion, c. 135 CE. Over the course of time, it has expanded considerably.

ZIMMUN A meal at which there are three adult males requires a formal invitation, zimmun, to say Grace. The Talmud derives this from the verse, “Magnify the LORD with me; let us exalt His name together” (Psalm 34:4). A slightly longer version is used when at least ten are present. The act of inviting those present to join in the act of praise is similar to the recitation of Barekhu, “Bless the LORD,” with which morning and evening services begin. It emphasizes the essentially communal nature of prayer in Judaism. In addition to the regular zimmun here, there are special forms of zimmun for (1) a wedding meal, (2) a meal after a circumcision, and (3) a meal in a house of mourning.

נוֹדֶה We thank: After thanking God for the land, the paragraph goes on to add thanks for God’s other kindnesses to Israel: the exodus from Egypt, the covenant and its sign, circumcision, the giving of the Torah and the commandments. On Ḥanukka and Purim, Al HaNissim (“[We thank You also] for the miracles”) is said here, as it is in the Amida in the parallel paragraph of “Thanks” (Modim).

וּבְנֵה יְרוּשָׁלַֽיִם And may Jerusalem. The third blessing speaks of Jerusalem, home of God’s glory, as well as the Davidic monarchy and the Temple, for the restoration of which we pray. As is often the case in the siddur, Jerusalem is associated with the divine attribute of compassion, reflecting the words of Zechariah: “Therefore, this is what the LORD says: I will return to Jerusalem with compassion, and there My House will be rebuilt” (1:16). According to tradition, the Divine Presence never left Jerusalem, even when the city lay in ruins. בּוֹנֶה בְרַחֲמָיו יְרוּשָׁלָֽיִם, אָמֵן Who in His compassion will rebuild Jerusalem. Amen: the unusual appearance of the word Amen in this passage (normally we do not say it after our own blessings) signals that this was originally the end of Grace.

בָּרוּךְ Blessed: A later addition, dated by the Talmud (Berakhot 48b) to the period following the Bar Kokhba rebellion when, after a long delay, the Romans gave permission to the Jews to bury their dead. The failure of the Bar Kokhba rebellion was one of the low points of Jewish history. According to the Roman historian Dio, 580,000 Jews died in the fighting and many others by starvation. Nine hundred and eighty-five towns, villages and settlements were destroyed. Jerusalem was leveled to the ground and rebuilt as a Roman city, Aelia Capitolina. The fact that the sages were able to salvage a fragment of consolation from the fact that the dead were not denied the dignity of burial is testimony to an extraordinary ability to survive catastrophe and preserve the lineaments of hope. The passage is built around threefold references to God’s kingship, goodness and bestowal of kindness.

הָרַחֲמָן May the Compassionate One: A series of additional prayers, dating from the Geonic period. The oldest is the one in which a guest invokes blessings on the hosts and their family. This is immediately preceded by a prayer that Elijah may come and announce the coming of the Messiah. The juxtaposition is striking: we bring redemption by acts of hospitality. This, according to the sages, is how Abraham and Sarah brought monotheism to the world. They would provide hospitality to strangers. When the meal was over, and the guests would begin to thank them, Abraham would reply, “Thank the One from whom all we have enjoyed has come.”

נַֽעַר הָיִֽיתִי Once I was young: The standard translation of this verse (Psalm 37:25) is “I was young and now am old and I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children searching for bread.” I have translated it here according to a fine insight, author unknown, suggesting that the verb ra’iti should be understood in the sense in which it appears in the book of Esther, when Esther, pleading on behalf of Jewry, says: “For how can I watch the evil that shall come unto my people? Or how can I watch the destruction of my kindred?” (8:6). The verb there means “stand as a passive witness to.” Taken in this sense, Psalm 37:25 should be understood as, “When the righteous was forsaken or his children forced to search for bread, I never merely stood and watched.” Understood thus, it is a warning against being a mere bystander while other people suffer. It thus brings the Grace to a symmetrical close: It began by speaking of God’s goodness in feeding the hungry and ends with an injunction for us to do likewise. This too is part of “walking in God’s ways.”

עַל הַמִּחְיָה A blessing after other food or drink: Known as the “three-in-one” blessing, this prayer summarizes the first three paragraphs of the Grace after Meals. It is said after consuming any of the “seven kinds” of produce for which Israel is praised in the Torah (Deut. 8:8) other than bread or matza, namely: (1) food made from wheat, barley, rye, oats or spelt; (2) grape wine or juice; or (3) grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives or dates.