[Avodah] Berachot in the Course of a Meal

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Gershon Dubin wrote:

> Clearly the Mechaber in 177:2 says that it does in fact depend
> on the eating style prevalent at that time and place. Since
> "we" never stop eating pas (the style you refer to) it's always
> lelafes. ame would work in the other direction; in the USA in
> 2012 nobody (who doesn't have a berachos cheshbon) would ever
> eat bread with their dessert. So the dessert is NOT lelafes and
> requires a beracha.

I agree, but you're not going far enough. It's not just dessert. No one today would ever eat bread with their string beans, or with their spaghetti, or with corn on the cob.

I'll often put cole slaw on some bread, and lettuce and tomato are often sandwich enhancers, but would someone have bread (other than croutons) with their salad? Clearly, the salad is the ikar, and the croutons are the enhancers, to a modern American.

I'll often dip some bread in my meat ball sauce, or in chicken gravy, and they are certainly enhancing the bread. But make no mistake -- I'm talking about the sauce, not the meat. I very well might put a meat ball in my bread, but the other modern Americans at the table would think it childish.

Summary: I really don't understand why "in the USA in 2012", the hamotzi on my hot dog roll -- which I'm using only to keep my hand clean and hold the condiments -- covers the hot dog itself.

I would like to offer a conjecture to the chevra. I recall looking into an idea once, but I cannot find my notes. I think there are two distinct reasons for why hamotzi covers other food, and one is so famous that we might tend to forget the other. Specifically: Suppose I sit down to drink a glass of wine followed by a glass of orange juice. I say Hagafen on the wine, drink it, and then I drink the orange juice without saying any additional bracha. Why? As I recall, it is because of the chashivus of the wine. The orange juice is not enhancing the wine in any way, but it is tafel to the wine simply based on chashivus alone, if I remember correctly.

Could it be that Hamotzi works similarly? Could it be that the chashivus of the bread causes Hamotzi to cover everything which is part of the meal, even the hot dog which is being enhanced BY the bread, rather than the other way around. This logic would exclude only the dessert which is not part of the meal, unless the dessert is actually eaten together with bread (as was done in the posts which began this thread) which visibly demonstrates the chashivus of the bread.

This logic even works for the odd case where dessert is eaten at the *beginning* of the meal and therefore requires a separate bracha -- such as fruit on Rosh Hashana night, or maror at the Seder.

Akiva Miller


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