Class #036 VIDEO / Berachot 6.3 / food "cursed", the artificial and sacrificed to idols

Mishnah – Berachot 6:3 (transcript)

And on a food that does not grow from the earth, is recited:
“By whose word all came to be all the things”.

And on the vinegar, that is to say, the wine ferment and echo to lose; and on the novelot, the date that is spoiled; and on the lobsters, recites:
“By whose word all came to be all the things”.

Also, about the milk, on the cheese and the eggs, it is recited:
“By whose word all came to be all the things”.

Rabbi Yehuda says:
On any food that is a result of a curse, it does not recite any blessing on the.

None of the articles listed there in normal conditions, since they arise as a result of a curse.

VIDEO CLASS #036 SPANISH

1. Location and topic general

• Text: Mishnah Berachot 6:3.
• Block theme: berachot before eating (berachot hanenein), that is to say, blessings on the enjoyment of food.
• Central question:
  • That beraja corresponds to:
    • Food do not grow from the earth
    • Food damaged or “the result of a curse” (vinegar, date ruined, lobsters, etc)

The mishna introduces and organizes the use of the blessing general “Shehakol nihye bidvaro” (“By whose word all came to be all the things”).

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2. Structure of the Mishnah 6:3

According to the Hebrew text standard:

1. On something whose growth is not of the earth: reciting Shehakol.
2. On the vinegar, the novelot (date will be damaged) and lobsters: reciting Shehakol.
3. On milk, cheese and eggs: reciting Shehakol.
4. Opinion of Rabbi Yehuda:
   • “All that is min kelala (a resulting type of a curse), does not bless on him.”

The last sentence is the key concept of the mishna.

VIDEO CLASS #036 IN ENGLISH

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3. Development of Guemara (Berachot 40b)

The Guemara in Berachot 40b take this mishna and develops it in detail.

3.1. That is “something that does not grow from the earth”

The baraitha cited by Guemara defined:

• Examples:
  • Meat of animals, domestic and wild
  • Birds
  • Fish
  • Lobsters kosher
• Animal products: milk, eggs, cheese
• All of these are: Shehakol nihye bidvaro.

That is to say, everything that comes from animalsand it is not a direct product of the earth like a plant or fruit, enters in the category of this mishna.

3.2. Food deteriorated but even edible

The same source adds other cases:

• Bread that has become stale or moldy light
• A wine that has begun to cut / coagulate
• A stew whose original form has been damaged
• Salt, brine, truffles and mushrooms

All of this also: Shehakol.

The logic: the beraja specified (for example “bore peri haetz”) was established for the food in its normal state and worthy; when it deteriorates, it uses the formula generica.

3.3. Discussion of mushrooms and truffles

The Guemara discusses whether mushrooms and truffles are or are not “growth of the soil”. He concludes:

• Grow about the earth, but do not feed the earth in the same way that a plant.
• That is why the newsroom is set to: “about that it is not nourished of the earth shall recite Shehakol”.

This reinforces the criterion: not only where it grows, but where it feeds.

3.4. That are novelot

Two interpretations in the Guemara:

1. “Boshlei kamra”: date burned by the sun, that matured so anomala, ruined.
2. “Tamrei of-zika”: date that fell out of the tree by the wind.

The consequences:

• If you are date burnt/ruined, it is clear that they are of inferior quality, that's why Shehakol.
• If you are date just fallen from the tree, the Guemara questions:
  • That is not to say better “bore peri haetz”, if you are still fruit of the tree?

In the end, the text is read so that the masterful work of Rabbi Yehuda on “min kelala” can refer the rest of the cases (vinegar, etc), not necessarily to the novelot in all of its definitions.

3.5. Rabbi Yehuda and the “min kelala”

The Guemara quote literally:

• Rabbi Yehuda: “everything that is min kelala not blessed at all.”
• To understand, for example:
  • Wine transformed into vinegar, as a result of negative process
  • Possible fruits ruined by natural disasters

However, at the level of jewelry do not follow your opinion (see below).

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4. Encoding halajica (Rambam and Shulchan Aruch)

4.1. Rambam – Hilchot Berachot

In Hilchot Berachot, chapter 8, Rambam states that:

• On all the food that does not grow from the ground (meat, fish, poultry, milk, cheese, eggs, etc) it says Shehakol.
• About product partially damaged, if they are still edible and the crowd eats it Shehakol.
• Rambam does not make as Rabbi Yehuda; i.e., if you are blesses on food, “a result of the curse,” while still food.

4.2. Shulchan Aruch – Orach Chaim 204

The Shulchan Aruch systematizes so:

• 204:1 and ss.
  • Shehakol it is said about:
    • Meat, fish, poultry, lobster
    • Milk, cheese, eggs
    • Water, salt, honey
    • Mushrooms and truffles (even though they grow in the soil, they are not considered “peri haadama”)
• 204:7
  • The one who drinks water to quench your thirst say Shehakol.
• 204:10-11
  • About vinegar people even drink, it is said Shehakol.
  • If it is so strong that people normally refrains you drink it by danino, it is not said any berajait's not considered drinking normal.
• 204:13
  • Example of vegetables that cook deteriorates its original shape and fall of the category, passing Shehakol.

In summary:

Jewelry practice: we continue to Jajamim, not to Rabbi Yehuda. Recite Shehakol on any food “min kelala” always that is still edible, and what to eat for a certain benefit/enjoy.

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5. Criteria that arise from Berachot 6:3

5.1. That is “food that does not grow from the earth”

Includes:

• Products animals: meat, chicken, fish, lobsters, kosher, milk, cheese and eggs.
• Products which, although physically emerge from the ground, not considered to be a result of the earth for the purposes of beraja (mushrooms, truffles).
• Liquids such as water, brine, etc

On all of them: Shehakol.

5.2. How to treat food deteriorated

From the mishna + Guemara + codes:

1. If the food is spoiled, but it is still normal food:
   • Example: bread, something old but still edible, came with some deterioration, fruits beaten.
   • Recited Shehakolnot the beraja specified original.
2. If the food is so ruined that people avoid and can be harmful:
   • Example: vinegar excessively strong according to Shulchan Aruch.
   • Then is not recited any berajabecause halajicamente is no longer considered “food/drink”.
3. If the food was already as something bad by extreme conditions (min kelala):
   • Noveltos burned by the sun, etc
   • Halajicamente today it is understood that if people are eaten as food, corresponds Shehakol; the criterion of Rabbi Yehuda does not apply in practice.

5.3. General principle: that defines whether something deserves beraja

This mishna is extracted from two principles for technicians:

1. Should be considered “food” by the use of a normal human.
   • If you eat or drink by real benefit (nutrition, taste, satiety), has beraja.
   • If it is as a harmful substance, or only medicinal without enjoyment, you can get to not say beraja (cases discussed in other sources, but the base looks here).
2. The beraja follows the current state of the food, not its origin ideal.
   • Grapes: fresh “bore peri haetz”
   • Good wine: “bore peri hagafen”
   • Wine ruined converted into vinegar ordinary: Shehakol or even none at all, according to how much it has degraded.

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6. Dimension conceptual: to bless on the “curse”

The line of Rabbi Yehuda is clear:

When the food directly reflects a curse (deterioration, abnormal, punishment on the earth, etc), you lose the spiritual dignity and does not deserve to beraja.

The Jajamim, however, argue in practice:

• Although the origin of the phenomenon is a “curse” (for example, deterioration of fruits, natural processes, aggressive),
• While the human being to receive real benefit of this food, you should recognize to God by means of a berajaeven the formula is more general (Shehakol).

Teologicamente, this implies:

• The divine word holds it a reality broken and imperfect.
• The blessing is not limited to the “ideal” (fruit perfect, without flaws), but extends to what we eat in a world post–Genesis 3, marked by effort and deterioration.

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7. Applications contemporary

Are not psak end, but pictures guide that are derived from the logic of Berachot 6:3 and codes:

1. Products modern animals
   • Processed meat, sausages, burgers, chicken, fish, tuna canned, eggs, milk:
     • Beraja: Shehakol (except for mixtures with cereals and other ingredients to change the law).
2. Drinking acidic beverages or fermented
   • Drinks vinegar and consumed as a refreshment or condiment drinking:
     • In principle Shehakolwhile they are accepted as a regular drinking.
3. Fruit “ugly” but edible
   • Fruit hit, with spots, or overripe, but it eats:
     • It tends to keep the beraja (originalhaetz or haadama) if still the fruit recognizable;
     • But if this is so decomposed that is the other product (macerated, almost pure fermented), and many of the lower to Shehakolby applying the logic of the mishna.
4. Products are almost not edible
   • Liquids or food that is extremely bitter, strong or ruined that just swallowed by the obligation to rare or test, and not as “eat”:
     • You can enter in the category where it is not said berajafollowing the criterion of vinegar harmful.

In all of these specific cases, the operative rule is learned from Berachot 6:3 is:

If something because it is not considered food/drink normal, it is about the position of Rabbi Yehuda (not beraja). If it still is consumed as food, the jewelry continues to Jajamim: Shehakol.

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8. Synthesis

1. Shehakol is the beraja general to:
   • All that does not grow from the ground (meat, fish, poultry, animal products, yeast, etc).
2. Food deteriorated but edible lose your beraja specified and passed to Shehakol.
3. Rabbi Yehuda introduces the concept of “min kelala”: there is a food product of a curse on which, according to the, it should not be recited any beraja.
4. The jewelry does not follow Rabbi Yehuda: while a product is edible and is consumed by profit, is recited beraja (usually Shehakol), even if their origin or state reflects a “curse”.
5. Only when a product is so deteriorated that people usually don't eat it and it's harmful, it ceases to be the object of beraja.

Text base: what he said exactly Rabbi Yehuda?

1.1. The Mishnah

In Berachot 6:3 the Mishnah lists:

• Vinegar
• Novlot (fruit –on all dates– damaged or fallen)
• Govai (lobsters kosher)
• Milk, cheese, eggs

And concludes:

"Rabbi Yehuda says: **All that is min kelalá (a resulting type of a curse), is not blessed about it,"

In the original formulation does not explain what is considered exactly “kind incurred as a result of a curse” or if the statement of Rabbi Yehuda applies to all cases listed or only some (vinegar, novlot, govai).

1.2. The Gemara

The Gemara in Berachot 40b quotes this phrase literally:

"Rabbi Yehuda says: on all the food that is min kelalánot recite any blessing on him"

The discussion talmudic revolves around:

• What exactly are the novlot?
• Why is it considered to be “the product of a curse”?
• How the rule applies to all cases or only a part of them?

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2. What is “food product of a curse”?

2.1. Readings of the commentators of the Mishnah

Rambam (commentary to the Mishnah)

• Defines novlot as fruits that fell from the tree before they ripen.
• Explains “min kelalá” as: lobsters and fruit that fell before timeby damaging effect on the crops.
• Concludes explicitly: “and the halachah is not like Rebbi Yehudah”.

Rabbi Ovadia of Bartenura

• Novlot: fruits that fell from the tree before ripening.
• Govai: lobster kosher.
• Min kelalá: precisely novlot and govaibecause “they come with a curse” (pest, winds, disasters that damage the production).

Tosafot Yom Tov

Picks up two approaches with regard to the phrase of Rabbi Yehuda:

1. First opinion:
   • Rabbi Yehuda only refers to the vinegar and novlot, that "they were good at the beginning and spoiled".
   • The govai (lobster) would not be min kelalábecause your “taste is still good”; it yes it is blessed.
2. Second opinion (more strict):
   • Rabbi Yehuda refers to all cases: even govai,
   • because locusts are a the plague that destroys the fieldstherefore are “type of curse” although they are edible.

That is to say: for many commentators, “curse” is not a metaphor for morality, but something that harms the structure of the blessing agricultural: pests, premature fall of fruit, wine is ruined.

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3. How do you read this the Gemara and what is the halachah?

3.1. The Talmud to the encoding

The Gemara raises what goes in or not in min kelalá and analyzes especially the novlot:

• What are the dates “burnt by the sun”?
• What are the fruits uprooted by the wind?

Depending on how you define it, it changes the label of “curse”.

Rambam, Bartenura and the majority of the Rishonim conclude that, in any case:

Do not accept the opinion of Rabbi Yehuda; maintains the blessing Shehakol nihyé bidvaró on these foods provided they remain edible

3.2. Shulchan Aruch: online practice

In Orach Chaim 204 the Shulchan Aruch and, with great clarity, the Shulchan Aruch haRav (Alter Rebbe) systematized:

• On meat, fish, poultry, lobster kosher, milk, cheese, eggs, mushrooms, etc → Shehakol.
• On foods whose quality is deteriorated (bread something musty, meals that have changed for the worse, wine began to sour) → degrades the berajá specific and it says Shehakol.
• If the food or drink are completely damaged and are not fit for normal consumption (e.g., vinegar so strong that it hurts), do not say any blessing, because not considered food.

This latter category –not to say anything when the product is harmful– it is the closest thing, in the practical halachic, to the intuition of Rabbi Yehuda, but it is defined not to be “food,” not by origin “damn” in the abstract.

3.3. The concept of “min” in Rabbi Yehuda

A study of Har Etzion shows that in three controversial in Berachot 6 (on vegetables, “min "of curse” and “min" seven fruits”), Rabbi Yehuda always introduces the category “min” (“type, kind”) as the axis of your system: min of herbs, min of the seven, min kelalá.

• For Scholars, the center are the “berachot of the fruits” (according to the particular state of food).
• To Rabbi Yehuda, the centre are the “berachot types”; the decisive factor is which family metaphysics belongs to the food:
  • Kind blessed (min sheva)
  • Type neutral
  • Type a product of curse (min kelalá).

In that logic, something that belongs to the type “a curse” it is not suitable to enter the circuit of the liturgical blessing.

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4. Theological sense: why Rabbi Yehuda does not want to bless the curse

4.1. Fund bible

Behind the concept min kelalá are several “curses” bible:

• Genesis 3: the cursed earth because of Adam; thorns, thistles, sweating.
• Deuteronomy 28: curses agricultural – drought, pests (including lobsters), fruits destroyed.

To Rabbi Yehuda, eat something directly represents that break –plague that sweeps across fields, fallen fruits by wind-destructive, wine became a symbol of loss– implies a reality so steeped in “kelalá” that:

Say a blessing on that would be, in some way, legitimize liturgically the curse.

Your posture is radical:

• Not enough that it is physically edible.
• Matter what metaphysical history expresses that food.

That's why you prefer to exclude it altogether from the universe of the berachot.

4.2. The response of the Wise

The Wise do not deny that there are elements of “curse” in those processes, but they claim:

1. While the product to remain human food,
2. And eat with the benefit (and not as a poison),

then corresponds to blesseven if it is with the more general formula Shehakol.

Theologically:

• Does not bless the curse itselfbut the fact that even in the midst of the curse is no vitality of the divine that holds the world.
• The berajá does not justify the wrong, but recognizes the spark of good that still remains in that reality broken.

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5. Reading kabbalistic: food, curse, sparks and klipot

Here you have to be very rigorous:
does not exist (up to where they reach the sources accessible) a treaty kabbalistic classic that discuss explicitly the phrase “kol she-hu min ha-kelalá” of Rabbi Yehuda. What we can do, honestly, is cross your idea with the general principles of the kabbalah on food, klipot and blessings.

5.1. Food as container of sparks

The cabal (Arizal, the Baal Shem Tov and the tradition hasidic) teaches:

• In each food there is nitzotzot, “sparks of holiness”, a divine energy that gives life.
• To eat with berajá and kavaná, the person lift those sparks back to their source.
• If eaten without blessing or a gross, those sparks are caught and the person is closer to the side of the klipot (shells, wraps concealment).

5.2. Klipot, a curse, and a food problem

According to the kabbalah:

• The klipot are energy fields of concealment, and judgment (din), where the divine light is very compressed or practically inaccessible.
• In the food permitted (kosher, under normal conditions) sparks may rise.
• In the food forbidden (non-kosher) many times, the sparks are “chained” in such a way that the human being cannot release them.

By applying this framework to “food product of a curse”:

• A food that emerges from a destruction anomalous (plague mass, extreme corruption of the nature, processes that damage health) can be seen as more dominated by dinim strong and klipot.
• In kabbalistic terms, Rabbi Yehuda would be saying, there are realities where the “curse” and klipá is so dominant, that does not correspond to activate the lifting mechanism via berajá, but rather refrain.

That's why you have a certain conceptual affinity with later teachings, where it was stated that the berajá:

“Take out the tumá (impurity spiritual) of the food and leave nothing but the holiness”

If the food itself is almost pure tumá (by origin or state), a position such as that of Rabbi Yehuda would say: there is nothing to raise there.

5.3. The correction chassidic: transform the curse

The jasidismo, based on the Arizal, it emphasizes rather the opposite:

• The mission of the jew is transform even the scopes trial a blessing, provided that the halachah contact with that object (that is to say, that it is kasher).
• The berajá on the food it is precisely the act that converts the potential of curse (selfishness, materiality raw) into a blessingraising sparks.

In this line, the halachah majority –against Rabbi Yehuda– fits in better with the practical kabbalah:

While the food is kosher and suitable for consumption, the task is bless him well and elevarelonot to marginalize him as a pure curse.

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6. Synthesis

1. Strict definition of Rabbi Yehuda
   • Min kelalá = food whose very existence is the result of a anomalous rift of the blessing of the agricultural (plagues of locusts, fruits to fall prematurely, wine ruined...).
   • On that, he argues: not blessed at allalthough you can eat.
2. Reading of the Rishonim
   • Rambam and Bartenura specify: min kelalá = lobster + fallen fruits before they ripen.
   • Tosafot Yom Tov discusses whether or not to include the vinegar, and if it affects also the govai.
3. Halachic practice
   • Does not follow to Rabbi Yehuda.
   • Operative rule:
     • If the food is kosher edible → blesses, normally Shehakol if you have lost your way/original state.
     • Only if it is so damaged that already it is not considered food (for example, vinegar damages) → it is not said any berajá.
4. Idea of background
   • To Rabbi Yehuda, certain foods embody so directly divine curse on the ground that are not eligible to enter the circuit of the liturgical blessing.
   • For the Wise, even in products born of a “curse”, as long as there's a real good (nutrition, enjoyment is allowed), there must acknowledge God with a berajá.
5. In key kabbalistic
   • Each meal contains sparks of holiness; the berajá the lift and reduces the domain of the klipot.
   • A “food product of curse,” corresponds to areas where the klipot and the dinim they are very strong.
   • The line of Rabbi Yehuda would be: in those extreme cases, there is no place for the blessing.
   • The line halachic/kabbalistic dominant today: if the food is kosher and edible, precisely the berajá is the tool to transform and elevate.