[Avodah] Bracha rishona

[Alexander Seinfeld]

From: Micha Berger <micha at aishdas.org>
Date: Wed, Mar 8,2023 at 05:17 PM

> Joel Rich wrote:
>> If a society always eats dessert as part of a meal, do they make a bracha
>> rishona on the dessert before birchat hamazon?

> You've hit a trigger for me. Because I am still wondering about a more
> fundamental version of the question:

> If a society no longer eat the majority of their food by using flatbread as
> "cutlery", why does HaMotzi cover all the foods in the meal that would
> otherwise have gotten other berakhos?

> The whole concept of meat being "liftan" is not how we eat today.

> We altogether aren't qov'in se'udah the way the gemara assumes. So every
> time questions like this one are raised on list, I need to back up the
> conversation a step ...

Why should liftan mean necessarily eaten in the same bite as the bread? 
it's something you eat along with bread. You think they didn't have 
spoons and only ate their soup by sopping it up with bread? According to 
you, even water wouldn't be covered by Hamotzi. Desserts are different 
not because they're not eating on bread but because at that point in the 
meal most people have ceased to eat bread; ergo, if a sweet mezonos-type 
dish (such as sweet apple kugel) could go either way, depending on when 
it's served, while a pure treat (candy or ice cream) which is never 
served during the main course would never be covered by Hamotzi. (For 
me, sweet kugel is 100% dessert but my family disagree.