[Avodah] soup

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' David Riceman wrote:

> Let me start by thanking RAM, both for nudging me to review
> hilchos berachos more carefully, and for inciting me to think
> about philosophy of psak.

And I too must thank RDR. I've never really understood the ideas behind these halachos, but through our carefully picking them apart, I'm finally starting to make some progress.

> There are two issues here.  The first is that the Hayyei Adam's
> specific examples are all things which dehydrate you when you
> consume them.  They are "appetizers" in the very specific sense
> that they make your body want more fluid in the mouth.  That's
> not true of fresh fruit.

I too noticed that he specifically mentioned *salty* olives, *salty* pickles, and the like. But if the commonality is dehydration, that makes a person want to *drink*, which heads us off in the wrong direction. What is accomplished by stimulating the thirst?

When the poskim talk about appetizers, they've said that they make a person want to *eat*. This highlights my difficulty in the whole concept of "stimulating the appetite".

> I don't know of any experimental evidence, and I certainly don't
> think that people can eat more when they start the meal with
> fruit; in fact, since one of the cues the body uses to indicate
> satiety is the volume of food contained in the stomach, I would
> expect that fresh fruit make you eat less.

Instead of fresh food, let's suppose that one started the meal with salty olives and salty pickles. Wouldn't this volume of food likewise make one eat less of the main course?

> The second problem is, as I said before, that fresh fruit is,
> indeed, a food that the halacha clearly indicates requires a
> separate bracha.  The Hayyei Adam lists variants on fresh fruit,
> but he doesn't ignore this basic rule.  You do, by classifying
> food by function rather than type.  ...
>
> But, im kein, nasata d'varecha l'shiurin.  Of two people at the
> same table eating the same fruit cup, one might say a beracha
> and the other might not.  This wouldn't bother me, since I'm an
> anarchist, but in hilchos berachos we often say batlah da'ato
> etzel kol adam, which shouldn't apply if the category is
> psychological.  So I find your analysis discordant.

Yes, "batlah da'ato etzel kol adam". However, this "kol adam" is NOT all people in all cultures in all times. Rather, it is the people in one's own community, at that time and place. One very simple example of this rule is foods which get a specific bracha only if they are raw or cooked, according to the way most people eat it.

> Of two people at the same table eating the same fruit cup, one
> might say a beracha and the other might not.

Yes indeed. And I'll tell you the names of those two great people: Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv.

I will quote from "Halachos of Brachos" by Rabbi Yisroel Pinchos Bodner, published by Feldheim. (There are a few editions, so I'll omit the page number. If you look it up, look under "Appetizer".)

<<< Bodner begins here >>>

[English text from the book:] Some poskim reason that since melon, fruit cocktail and the like, do not in actuality whet the appetite (or start the juices flowing), but rather are eaten as satiating first courses, a brocha would be required.

[My translation of the footnote:] So I heard from Rav SZ Auerbach shlit"a. He explained to me that calling these fruits a "forshpeis" does not indicate that they are eaten to awaken [the appetite]. [He asked:] Can you imagine if people would start serving ice cream as a "forshpeis"? Would it even occur to you that this would exempt it from a bracha?

[English text from the book:] Other poskim rule that fruit such as melon or fruit cocktail which is served as an appetizer are, like any other appetizer, exempted by the bircas hamotzi.

[My translation of the footnote:] So I heard from Rav YS Elyashiv shlit"a. I asked how we can say that such fruits are considered "foods which come to stimulate the desire to eat". Doesn't common sense tell us [Halo hachush me'id] - and I also heard it from scientists - that they *don't* stimulate the desire to eat? He answered that even though they do not stimulate the desire to eat, they *do* lead to preparation for eating [gormim l'hachanas ha'achila]. And therefore they are considered as "coming because of the meal" [ba machmas haseudah] and are exempted by the bracha on the bread.

<<< Bodner ends here >>>

Without analyzing every detail, it sounds like you are following RSZA, and I'm following RYSE. Baruch shekivantanu (or whatever the proper diqduq would be)

Finally, on my suggestion that "when people talk about 'the meal', what they often mean is 'the main course'", RDR responded:

> But then the category fits our style of eating quite well. Soup,
> fruit cups, the fish course, desert (not made of mezonos) all
> fit the category of "not part of the meal".
>
> So why don't we make a beracha on soup?

Excuse me? Did you just say that the fish course, since it is served prior to the main course, is not really part of the meal, and therefore it needs its own bracha?

If you really meant that, then I sincerely applaud your consistency. But I've never heard of anyone saying a Shehakol on the fish at a Hamotzi meal. From what I see, the whole world is following Rav Elyashiv's view (if I'm understanding him correctly) that all the courses prior to the main course, no matter what kind of food it is -- possibly even soups and other drinks --  lead to preparation for eating and are exempted by the bracha on the bread.

In RDR's previous post, he wrote:

> What bothers me is that you are proposing that we scrap an
> entire halachic category.

Yeah, I know. But so is RYSE. I'm not sure exactly how "Google Books" works, but I think it will let you see most of Rabbi Bodner's sefer if you follow these steps:
1) Go to http://books.google.com/books?id=J1eqIHzglmEC
2) Click on "Preview this book"
3) Use the scroll bar on the right to go to page 93
4) RSZA is footnote 25.1
5) RYSE is footnote 25.2, which is continued on page 94

Akiva Miller

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