subject tonight is Birkat Hamazon, the idea of bentching after you eat. Since last week we spoke about Birkat Kohanim, so I said, well, let's go along berachot, berachot, so we'll talk about Birkat Hamazon, about bentching. That means that when a person eats a meal in which he ate bread and he washed, as you're supposed to wash before you eat bread, so at the end of the meal, you're supposed to bench and say the Birkat Hamazon as we know it in the siddur, Birkat Hamazon. The mitzvah of Birkat Hamazon is a מצות עשה מדאורייתא. It's a mitzvah, a positive mitzvah of the Torah. And the reason I'm stressing that it's a positive mitzvah of the Torah, because this is different than other berachot. Normally you know that the idea of making berachot is miderabbanan. All kinds of berachot, whether it's berachot before you eat something or whether it's a berachah before you do a mitzvah, like before you bench etrog, before you put on tefillin, before you bench licht. So making a berachah before a mitzvah or before you eat is all miderabbanan. Or there's another type of berachot which is called ברכת שבח והודאה when you praise Hashem. See, when it really this is not really the place to go into, but I'll mention it anyway,

there are three categories of berachot: There's ברכת הנהנין, which is berachot that you make before you have use, pleasure of something, before you eat something, before you smell something, anything that you have use. Then there is ברכת המצוות, before you do a mitzvah, and then there is ברכת שבח והודאה when you praise Hashem, like Kiddush. It's a berachah. Havdalah, it's a berachah. It's not either berachat it's not not ברכת הנהנין, it's not a berachah before you have pleasure, it's not a berachah before you do a mitzvah, it's thanking Hashem. The berachah you make under the chupah, or etc., etc., these are different kind of brachot. All these brachot are miderabbanan. That means that the Rabbanan, the chachamim were the ones that established that you have to make these brachot. Actually, it happens to be one of the seven מצוות מדרבנן. We know that the Rabbanan made seven mitzvot. Really there are hundreds of things that we do that the Rabbanan established, but as positive mitzvot that they made up are only seven. And there is an easy way to remember it.

There is an expression, it doesn't really mean much, but it's the way to remember it: נע בשמחה. נון, עין, בשמחה. \"נע בשמחה\" means move around with joy. Now it's just words to remember. So it's נון, עין, בית, שין, מם, חת, ה'. And those are seven letters that each one represents another one of the seven mitzvot. Nun is נטילת ידים, the mitzvah to wash your hands before you eat. The Ayin is Eruvin, that we have to make an eruv, whether it's an עירוב חצרות, when we make in order to carry, עירוב תבשילין, that we make when Yom Tov goes into Shabbos, or עירוב תחומין, that you make an eruv to be able to walk more than 2,000 אמה. That's the Ayin. \"בשמחה\" is בית, שין, מם, חת, ה'. Bet is brachot, the fact that we have to make brachot. Shin is Shin, Sin is Shabbos, but it doesn't mean Shabbos is miderabbanan, it means נרות שבת, the candles that we light before Shabbos. Mem is Megillah, Chet Megillah which is Purim, Chet is Chanukah, the mitzvah of Chanukah, and the ה' is Hallel, that we say Hallel certain times, Yom Tov or other times, it's all these are seven מצוות מדרבנן. So as we just said that to make a brachah is a מצוה מדרבנן, with the exception of bentching. The

fact that we have to bench after we eat a meal is a מצות עשה מדאורייתא, that's from the Torah. Where does the Torah say it? It's the pasuk that we say in bentching: \"ואכלת\", it's a pasuk in Chumash, so obviously it's from the Torah, \"ואכלת ושבעת וברכת את ה' אלקיך.\" \"ואכלת\", you will eat, \"ושבעת\", you will be full, satisfied, \"וברכת\", you will bless, \"את ה' אלקיך\", you have to bless Hashem. So the Torah tells us that after we eat and we're full, we have to bless Hashem. So this, according to many opinions, is the only brachah that's miDeOraita. There is another brachah which there is an argument in the Rishonim whether it's miDeOraita or miDerabbanan, and that is Birchas HaTorah. Before we learn Torah, we must make a brachah, and we all do that every morning. In the Birchos HaShachar, in the brachos we make in the morning, we also have Birchas HaTorah. Now, in the Gemara it says, if you learn simple peshat in the Gemara, it says that Birchas HaTorah is miDeOraita. It's from the Chumash. The Gemara says in ברכות, מניין לברכת התורה מן התורה? Where do we see from a pasuk that to make a brachah before we learn is a din from the Torah? And the Gemara quotes a פסוק, כי שם ה׳ אקרא הבו גודל לאלוקינו, that if I call Hashem's name I have to make Hashem big, that means if I learn Torah I have to bless Hashem. So therefore many Rishonim, many hold that besides bentching, also to make a bracha before you study Torah is m'd'Oraisa. Many hold that even though the Gemara uses the term that ברכת התורה is min haTorah, to make a bracha m'd'Oraisa, but it's only an asmachta. Sometimes the Gemara uses a term that this comes from the Torah, but it only is that the chachamim connected their din to this pasuk, but it's not really a din. But concerning bentching, there is no question. Everyone agrees that to bentch is a mitzvat aseh m'd'Oraisa. Now, the way it's from the Torah, it doesn't say exactly what you should say when you bentch, which words you should use. So who established the exact words, more or less the setup of the berachot that we have? So it's like davenen. There's a mitzvah to daven. Who set up the nusach how to daven? The Anshei Knesses HaGedolah. These were the chachamim that lived in the time, the end of the first Beis HaMikdash into the second Beis HaMikdash. Now, concerning bentching, the nusach of the bracha was made much earlier. The Gemara says that the

first ברכה, הזן את העולם כולו בטובו, that bracha was made by one of our greatest chachamim, none other than Moshe Rabbeinu. When the Yidden ate the man, and they had to bentch, because the Torah told them to bentch, so Moshe Rabbeinu established the ברכה, הזן את העולם כולו בטובו ובחן. Then the second bracha was established by another one of our very great chachamim, Yehoshua! And other ones were established by the other chachamim. The fourth one was established later on, הרוגי ביתר, when the people in Beitar were killed and then they didn't even let them bury them, and then finally they gave them permission, so the chachamim made a bracha to thank Hashem for that, הטוב והמטיב. But anyway, this is the nusach of the bracha, this the expression of what we should use, but the din that we have to bentch is a din that is from the Torah. But this din is only if you eat bread. Bread means if it's made with one of the five grains. There are five חמשת מיני דגן, five types of grain, anything that's made with the five types of grain. But that's not the only condition. It has to be baked. If it's cooked, then you don't have this din of bentching. And even if it's baked, it has to be made לשביעה, it has to be made as bread in order to fill you. Always used to be that what would a person get filled on? Bread. Everything else, meat or chicken or fish or everything, eggs, were all called ללפת את הפת, that was all to give a taste to the bread. Bread was the main food. Nowadays, Baruch Hashem, we have plenty of everything, that's not what we eat, but those days bread was the main thing. So if you make bread לשביעה, bread in order to be full, then you have to bentch. But if you make it לתענוג, that means just for pleasure, then for that you don't have a bentching. That's for the idea that you don't bentch after you eat cake, which is made How do you establish if it's made to be full or made because you enjoy it? So there are a few dinim here, and there are different arguments, and I'm just going to make it very general.

One is if it made made not with water, but with fruit juice, at least the majority is fruit juice. Number two, if it's a בלילה רכה. I'm not going to so many details here, just mentioning generally. בלילה רכה means if it's a very, very shiter, what's it called, when the dough is not a hard dough, but it's a very Like like flaky dough? No, not not flaky, like cake, nu vos gist zich, that pours. It's a watery dough! Like when you make liquidy, like when you make cake, it's not a dough. When you make bread, it's a dough that you knead. Cake you don't knead, that's called a בלילה רכה. So if it's בלילה רכה יותר מדאי, if it's very, very watery, that's also not called bread. Or if it's made for a filling, if you have like a pie, so even if the dough would be bread, but if you have a filling of fruit inside, then this is not really made to be full on, and you would make a מזונות, and you wouldn't bentch on. So these are just conditions of when you bentch, when you have to say the Birkat Hamazon. But the main point is that Birkat Hamazon, when it does apply, is a מצות עשה מדאורייתא. We learned it's a d'oraisa. Actually, this din that before we eat we have to make a bracha, the chachamim themselves established it, as I said before, based on the din of the Torah that you have to bentch. They said, if the Torah tells us that after you eat you have to bentch, you have to bless Hashem, so certainly we should bless Hashem before we take it. So they said, we establish this mitzvah of bentching before, but it's all based on the mitzvah of the Torah that you have to bentch afterwards. You have to bentch after you finish eating. And as I said, this is m'd'oraita, but there's one more condition the way it's m'd'oraita. If we look at the pasuk, the pasuk says, ואכלת ושבעת וברכת את ה' אלקיך. You will eat, you will be full, satisfied, and you will bless Hashem. So m'd'oraita, you only have to bentch if you are full. But if a person eats, and it could be even eats a lot of bread, but he doesn't feel full, he wouldn't have to bentch. The Rabbanan

came, and they established that you have to bentch after eat a כזית or a כביצה, whichever, which is a small amount. A כזית is an ounce, כביצה is almost 2 oz, different opinions, different cases. But if you eat just that amount of bread, m'd'rabbanan already you have to bentch. Now, this דין דרבנן that the Rabbanan said you have to bentch after eating a כזית or a כביצה is a very, very important din. Where do we see how important it is? The Gemara says an interesting thing, that the malachim asked Hashem, and they said to him like this, the pasuk says, Hashem says, לא ישא פנים. Hashem will not show his face. ישא פנים really means not show grace. Hashem is honest, and whoever deserves to be punished will be punished, whoever not. But Hashem is not going to show a נשיאת חן, a certain grace to somebody who doesn't deserve. That's what the pasuk says, כי לא ישא פנים. He will not be נושא פנים. So they asked Hashem, but you yourself, in Birkat Kohanim, which we spoke about last week, one of the brachot that the kohanim bless the Yidden is, ישא ה' פניו אליך, that Hashem should be נושא פנים, Hashem should show his face and turn and give chen to a to the Yidden. How do you do that when you yourself said, לא ישא פנים, that Hashem doesn't do it? And Hashem answered them, to the malachim, you're right, I usually don't do it, but to the Yidden, I have no choice. I have to be nice to them. Why? So this is what Hashem said, you know why? Because I told them they should bentsch only after they eat enough to be full, and they accepted it upon themselves, obviously through the Chachamim, to bentsch even when they eat a כזית. Don't they deserve to my special grace I should specially turn my face to them? So we see out of all the things that Hashem could have mentioned, that the Yidden are special about, that the Yidden do this and the Yidden do that, and there are many things that the Rabbanan established that we do that the Torah didn't tell us to do. And that's not what Hashem mentioned. But Hashem mentioned to the malachim was, why do the the Yidden deserve for this special bracha is because they bentsch faster than they really should. They bentsch only even if they ate only a כזית. So that number one, first of all, shows that bentshing, Birkat Hamazon bentshing is a very, very important mitzvah, that Hashem chose out of all the mitzvot that the Yidden fulfill to show why He is good to them is because of bentshing. And it shows also that within bentshing itself, the fact that we bentsch by a כזית also shows something special that we have more than anything else. So we have to understand what is the meaning behind bentshing? What's so special about it? So as we

always do, we're going to go through the bentshing a little bit the way it's explained in Chassidus. The name, the Hebrew word for bentshing is Birkat Hamazon, the brachah of the mazon. Obviously, and we do it after we finish eating, obviously what it really is, it's taking what food accomplishes, what the eating accomplishes, and it finishes off, it completes spiritually what the meal does. And this is the end of the meal. This finishes off. This gives the seal to what eating is supposed to accomplish. And not just finishes off, but it's called Birkat Hamazon. What does the word birkat mean? So birkat means the blessing of the meal. But we know better. We learn Chassidus, and we spoke speak about this in the class many times that the word brachah, actually last week by Birkat Kohanim I explained it at length, that the word brachah comes from the word hamshachah. Brachah doesn't mean just to bless, but brachah means to bring down. And like brought the re'iyah is ויברך הגמלים, different pesukim where it comes out brachah means means to bring down. Birkat Hamazon means to be mamshich, to bring down what the mazon, what the food, what the meal is supposed to accomplish. And Birkat Hamazon is the hamshachah, it brings down what the meal is supposed to accomplish. So therefore, we have to understand what do we accomplish through a meal, and then we'll continue and see what do we accomplish through the Birkat Hamazon, through the hamshachah of the meal. To understand that, let's look at the expression of the pasuk where the pasuk tells us to bentsh. So,

I'll repeat the pasuk again: ואכלת ושבעת, you will eat and you will be full, וברכת, you shall bless, את ה' אלקיך. You shall bless ה' your God. But the way the פסוק says it is, את ה' אלקיך. You shall bless את ה'. What's et? Et is alef and tav. Exactly. Et is alef and Tav. What does Alef and Tav represent? So we learn in Chasidus that Alef to Tav represents the whole Alef Beis. Exactly, from Alef to Tav, from the first letter till the last. Which represents the general concept of dibur, of speech. Because when you speak, anything that you say is made up of the letters of the Alef Beis, the כ״ב אותיות, the 22 letters of the Alef Beis. So, את, they are the 22 letters of the Alef Beis. When we're talking about the letters of the Alef Beis, which is dibur, the speech, and we're referring to ה', את ה' אלקיך, this refers to the עשרה מאמרות שבהם נברא העולם. There are the 10 statements Hashem' made when He created the world. Hashem' said, יהי אור, let there be light, יהי רקיע, let there be the רקיע. He said 10 statements. And with these 10 statements He created the world. And we know, as we learn in Tanya, and in the, these days in Sha'ar HaYichud VeHaEmunah, that He didn't create the world once, 5,764 years ago, and then there is a world existing. לעולם ה' דברך נצב בשמים. Hashem' constantly recreates the world, which means Hashem' constantly resays again the עשרה מאמרות. He again says יהי אור. Constantly, He repeats it. Which is what it says takeh in Sha'ar HaYichud VeHaEmunah, the pshat in the pasuk where it says, we say it in davenen every day: ואתה מחיה את כולם. Simple translation is: you give life, existence to all of them. This refers to the universe: you give life. Like, so in Tanya, he says, ואתה, אתה is made up of three letters: Alef, Tav, and ה. Alef and Tav, as we just said, represents dibur, speech, all the letters that come between the Alef and the ת, which are the 22 letters of the Alef Beis, which is dibbur. The ה represents the five מוצאות הפה. When you speak, there are five places where the words come out. Certain group of letters come from the teeth, certain from the tongue, certain from the lips, different... Let's say, for instance, בומ״ף, מהשפתים. בומ״ף is ב, ו, מ, פ. They come from the lips. גיכ״ק, ג, י, כ, ק comes from the גרון, from the throat. The different letters, some come from from the from the tongue. So it says, that says not davka in chasidut, it says all over, that there are ה מוצאות הפה, that are ה, five ways the speech comes. So the word אתה represents the fact that ה' spoke the עשרה מאמרות, which is hinted in the אלף ת ה, that these are the letters from אלף to ת, and vocalized, said through the five מוצאות הפה, מחיה את כולם, this what gives chiyut to the world. ואתה, אלף ת ה, which represent the עשרה מאמרות, מחיה את כולם, that gives chiyut to the whole world. The same thing here also, without the ה, but we say את. את represents the עשרה מאמרות. The problem is, ה' created the world with עשרה מאמרות, which means it's only His words that make it, that made it exist. He constantly repeats the עשרה מאמרות, and the reason the world exists is because ה' is saying again the עשרה מאמרות. The problem is that we don't see it. It's not revealed. If you look at the world, you do not see that the world exists because of the עשרה מאמרות, because of the statements of ה'. So ה' gave us the job. We should reveal it. We should do something to bring out in the world, to reveal, to be mamshich in the world, the gilui, in a revealed way, that the עשרה מאמרות are there and the only reason the world exists is because of עשרה מאמרות. In other words, and it'll depend to the pasuk also. We have two names of Hashem: Havayah' and Elokim. We always learn about it. They're both names of Hashem. The difference is Elokim is בגימטריא הטבע. The name Elokim is the same numerical value as הטבע, the nature. Because אלף and then a למד and a ה and a יוד and a מ is the same as ה ט ב ע. So Elokim represents Hashem the way he is in nature. And not only the way he is in nature, the way he is hidden in the nature. Because the word teva, which means nature, has another meaning which is connected: something that drowns, that sinks. טבעו בים סוף, things that sunk in, drowned in the ים. So teva is called drowning. Why is it drowning? Because teva means the nature in which the words of Hashem are drowned out. You don't see it. Something that drowns falls into the into the water. It's still there. You can't deny the fact it's there. The difference is that you can't see it now. The words of Hashem are there in the world, but we can't see it. So Elokim is בגימטריא הטבע. That represents Hashem the way he said the עשרה מאמרות, put it into the world, and it's not revealed. Havayah', יו\"ד ק\"ה וא\"ו ק\"ה, that represents Hashem the way he is beyond creation. The word יו\"ד ק\"ה וא\"ו ק\"ה, that word is made up of three words: היה, הוה, ויהיה, which means past, present, and future, all in one word. Naturally you can't have past, present, and future in one word. So it's beyond nature. So Havayah' represents Hashem the way he is beyond nature. What we have to do is bring הוי' into אלקים. In the nature which covers up on the truth of Hashem, Hashem wants us to make הוי' to come here. Because in truth, even though השם is hidden in the world, it's the same Hashem as the way he is beyond the nature. That's why one of the ways to show our emunah in Hashem, the words that we use is השם הוא האלקים. Or really the real words are, we just can't pronounce it, is הוי' הוא האלקים. We say that מוצאי יום כיפור seven times: הוי' הוא האלקים. What does that mean? So Chassidus says, Kabbalah says it means that we show that we recognize that אלקים, which is teva, is really הוי', there's nothing more.

When Eliyahu HaNavi had this dispute, this vikuach, dialogue with the נביאי הבעל, with the prophets of the עבודה זרה בעל, and finally he showed the miracle that the fire came down from heaven and the Jews recognized that Hashem is the real God, not the idol, what did they say when they expressed their emunah, belief in Hashem? So the pasuk says, השם הוא האלקים. Really Havayah' הוא האלקים, that's what they expressed. Which means, as the Zohar uses the term, Havayah' ואלקים כולא חד. Havayah' and Elokim are really one. It looks like it's not cuz nature doesn't seem to show that it's Hashem, but in truth it's Havayah'. But it's our job to bring it in. Those are the words. Now let's go back to the pasuk. וברכת את הוי' Elokecha. U'verachta, we said, means to be mamshich. U'verachta, to be mamshich et. את is אלף ת\"ו, which means the עשרה מאמרות. We have to bring down the עשרה מאמרות. And what happens then? Havayah' Elokecha. That Havayah' becomes Elokecha, your Elokim, that we have the Havayah' that's nimshach. That's what happens by benching. But really,

where does it happen? It happens by the eating, and the benching finishes it off. When we eat l'shem Shamayim, when we eat food with the intentions that we're eating because we want to have koach to serve Hashem, we eat only to serve Hashem, we then through the eating bring the Godliness that's there in the food, we bring it out into the open. If we don't eat l'shem Shamayim, then food is food. But we eat properly the way a Yid is supposed to eat, we're mamshich it. And how do we seal it, how do we finish it off? By the benching. So the benching is the end. We make the brachah before miderabbanan, then we eat properly in the right with the right intentions, then ואכלת ושבעת, you eat, you're full, וברכת, now you will be mamshich es, the עשרה מאמרות, now הוי' will become אלקיך. So when we bless Hashem at the end, what we're really doing, we're stretching and finishing off what the eating is supposed to do. We're mamshich it here. And a Yid has that koach. Only a Yid, only a Yid has this power of being mamshich, of bringing down Godliness which is beyond the world to bring it on into the world. Where else do we see, I'll give you another example where we see it. We

find by the beginning of the creation of the world, Hashem says, asked the malachim, the angels, to name the different things, the different animals, and the malachim couldn't do it. Then when He created Adam HaRishon, He said to Adam, \"Can you name the animals?\" So he said, \"Yeah.\" Looked at the ox, he said, \"Yeah, for him, it fits to be called שור.\" Then he looked at the horse, he said, \"Oh, for this, it fits to be called סוס.\" And then he went on and on. So Hashem turned around to the malachim and he said, \"You see, חכמתו גדולה מחכמתכם, he's smarter than you.\" That's what it says in Chumash. The Shelah comes and asks the question, what's so big deal? Why couldn't they do it? Anybody could decide. I could look at this and say this is, I could make up any word I want, and then say, \"This, oh, we'll call this יוקל, we'll call this פֿרײַטל, we'll call...\" Anybody could make up what they want. Why couldn't, he could made it, why couldn't they do it? What's the big chochmah? So he says, Adam HaRishon didn't make it up. Adam HaRishon was able to look in the shoresh, in the root, and he saw the root of the ox in the spiritual, higher worlds, and he figured out that according to that shoresh, these letters, ש, ו, ר, for instance, are the letters that represent what the shoresh of the ox is. So it wasn't just deciding, like in English you call it an ox. Why do you call it an ox? I don't know, somebody decided O-X is called, is this animal. This is called a horse, it's just made up. But when he called it שור or חמור or סוס is because he saw the shoresh. That's what the Shelah writes. Comes the Rebbe, and the Rebbe asks a very interesting question: Even that, why couldn't the malachim do? The malachim certainly know what goes on up there. They're closer, they're up there! So why didn't they see it? And the

Rebbe says the pshat in the Shelah is a little bit deeper: not that they didn't see and he saw; they also saw! The problem by them is they couldn't be mamshich it, because a malach does not have the power, even a malach, an angel, to bring down from the higher worlds into this world. So they had no way of being mamshich the shoresh, whatever is in the source, or shoresh, to bring it down into a form that it should rep- it should have something in this world representing the shoresh. So they didn't know what to do. Adam HaRishon, who had a neshamah, he had that power to be mamshich the concept of whatever is there spiritually in the source, to bring it down, put it into the word, and be able to bring it into the ox and call it שור. So this I'm just using as an example that a Yid has this power of being mamshich. And the same thing here is concerning the food: we have the power of being mamshich the עשר, the עשרה מאמרות into the world, the הויה into the אלקיך. And let me explain it a little bit further. And again, explaining what is the inyan of food, because bentshen is just the end of the meal. We know that in the

world, we have three categories. This is simple, elementary things from Tanya, from the beginning of Tanya. The world is made up of three categories: There are certain things which are holy, that's kedushah. Then we have certain things which are klipah, the other extreme, called ג׳ קליפות הטמאות לגמרי, things which are completely evil, bad. Then we have things which are in the middle, called קליפת נוגה. That's a mixture of good and bad; it's not bad, it's not good. Now, when you do a mitzvah, or something that's holy, that's the first category, that's kedushah. A pair of tefillin is kedushah, a Sefer Torah is kedushah, an etrog on, only on Sukkot, is kedushah. Then we have things which are שלש קליפות הטמאות, that's klipah completely. חזיר is klipah, you're not allowed to eat it, and there are levels in klipah. Then you have things which are neutral, in the middle: a piece of bread, or any type of food, or things like that. It's not a, it's not holy, bread is not holy, but it's not forbidden either. Now, anything that's neutral, that's in the middle, it's up to the human being, the Yid. What he will do with it will decide whether it'll go up or go down. It doesn't stay neutral. When a person eats food, for instance, it doesn't stay neutral. If he eats לשם שמים, he elevates it from קליפת נוגה, which is the middle, the neutral level, makes it holy. If he doesn't eat לשם שמים, if he eats לתאוה, because he likes it and his yetzer hara wants him to eat it, then he lowers it. But it doesn't stay neutral. It's either one. And when we eat, we have this fight, that's exactly what it is, a fight is going on. There is the kedushah side and the klipah side that's fighting over this food: Should it be should it become kedushah, should it become klipah? And a Yid has this power of fighting to the good side and overcoming. That's why it says in the Zohar, that נהמא אפום חרבא ליכול. That when you eat bread, and really it means all food, you're eating with a sword. You're fighting your enemies, because the קליפה is coming and trying to pull it down. I always told the story, there was once a meeting that the Frierdiker Rebbe attended, and they served tea. And there was one person sitting there that drank the tea, but he only drank a half a cup. So someone made a joke, he said, why do you only drink a half a cup? This half is jealous of the other half that you drank. So the Frierdiker Rebbe overheard, he turns around and he says, I wonder which half is jealous of which half. If he drank it lishmah shamayim, then yeah, then that half was elevated, so this half was not elevated, it's jealous. But if he didn't drink it lishmah shamayim, this half is happy! The other half is jealous, because you lowered me to קליפה, and this one still stayed neutral. Because when we eat or drink, we have that fight. And we have the power of elevating it. But in order to do that, we have to have a extra koach that we get before. There's a halachah that you're not allowed to eat before davenen. Unless you eat in order to daven better. But otherwise you're not allowed to eat before davenen. What is the reason? Because davenen it says is the same thing. Davenen is also a time when the yetzer hara comes and fights with us, and we have to overcome the yetzer hara to be able to elevate ourselves to a higher level.

That's why it says in the Zohar that davenen is compared to a ladder. When Yaakov Avinu had a dream of the ladder, the Zohar says, סולם דא צלותא, it's davenen. And by davenen it also says that when we daven, we have a milchamah it says in the Zohar, it's a war. Actually, it's quoted, Gemara says, it's a פסוק, רוממות קל בגרונם וחרב פיפיות בידם. רוממות קל בגרונם means that the praise of Hashem is in your throat. When is that? When you daven. And what happens at that time? וחרב פיפיות בידם, a sword, a double-edged sword, פיפיות פי שתי פיות בידם. When we daven, we're fighting. The Zohar's expression is שעת צלותא שעת קרבא. The time of davenen, time of fighting. We're fighting with the yetzer hara. We're fighting to go up. We're starting off on the bottom and we're trying to go higher, elevate ourselves. The yetzer hara comes, the קליפה comes and says, hey, we won't let you. And we have to fight it and overcome. After we fight and we overcame the yetzer hara, now we have the power, now we became a soldier that could fight. Now we could sit down and eat, because now we could overcome the yetzer hara and eat in the proper way. But if you're going to sit down to eat before davenen, then you don't have that koach that davenen gives you. So eating is the idea of elevating the food, which means bringing Godliness into the food. Like this, the food is גשמי, and it covers up, so to speak, on the truth of Hashem. And by eating it in the proper way, l'shem Shamayim, we elevate the food, so now that the food is elevated, it gets closer to Hashem. Which is, as I said before, the same thing, that it's the עס, it's mamshich, it shows, it reveals the עס, the עשרה מאמרות, השם's power in it, that this is all there only to serve Hashem. So this is what food is. When it comes to bentshn, which, as we said, bentshn is the end of the meal, so what the meal is supposed to accomplish, and at the end you bentsh, that's where you finish off, and you are mamshich, you bring about into the world, begiluy you reveal the truth that's there in the gashmiyut. You elevate the gashmiyut through the meal, but it finishes off by the bentshn. Which is one of the spiritual reasons why we wash מים אחרונים before we bentsh. Before we bentsh, we wash our fingers. What's the reason for washing מים אחרונים? So it

says in the simple peshat, because of מלח סדומית. In olden days, there was a kind of salt which came from Sedom. And מלח סדומית was so sharp, that if you touched the salt to your eye, you would become blind. And since during the meal you use salt, and your hand touched the food and touched the salt, we're afraid later on with your hands you're going to touch your eye. So you have to, before you bentsh, you have to wash off the מלח סדומית. This is one of the reasons why nowadays, some hold, we don't accept it l'maaseh, the women accept that opinion, but not the men. Nowadays, it says, some hold that you don't have to wash מים אחרונים, cause מלח סדומית, this type of salt is not common, so we don't have to wash. We don't accept that opinion. Women, obviously, rely on that opinion, and That's why the custom is that women do not wash מים אחרונים. Nothing wrong, but we don't see it done by all women, real frum, religious women don't do it, because they rely on this opinion. But the men don't. But the point that I'm trying to bring out is here that the reason why there is this מים אחרונים is because מים אחרונים washes off מלח סדומית. That's the physical reason. But what does this really mean spiritually? Spiritually means that we have to get rid of this poison, so to speak, that's there. Because when we eat we're bringing ourselves the food and automatically ourselves closer to Hashem. And then now we're going to bench, we're going to seal that. Now that we're benching, we're going to bring this kedushah really down. So we have to make sure that we are a keli, a vessel, to have this kedushah come down. So we have to wash ourselves off of all the negativity that's possible in order for us to be able to receive this great kedushah. So we wash מים אחרונים. By washing מים אחרונים, we wash off any possibility spiritually this symbolizes washing off anything that's negative, and then we're ready to bench. So basically, what happens here is like this: we start off with washing our hands, נטילת ידים, before we eat. And the reason is because the hands are tamei, impure, not unclean physically, impure, spiritually tamei. In order to eat the bread, we have to become tahor, for the same reason. Because when we're sitting down to eat, we're not sitting down to do something for our physical body. We are, but that's not the whole idea. We're sitting down to serve Hashem, because when we eat, we're bringing the gashmiyut closer to Hashem. This is why eating is compared to a korban, compared to a korban. A sacrifice, a korban is when you took an animal and you sacrificed it to Hashem, that's what eating is. And just like the Kohanim, before they would bring the korbanot, they had to wash their hands every day. So similar we, before we bring our korban, we sit down to eat, we have to wash our hands. That's the preparation. Then we sit down to eat, and the eating is a form of elevation, of being megaleh, revealing that Hashem is the one that makes the world exist, עשרה מאמרות. Then when we finished eating, and we're ready to complete it through benching, so then we wash our hands again, מים אחרונים, which again washes off any possible negativity that might be left, and then we sit down to bench: וברכת את ה' אלקיך. Hashem gave us the koach that through our benching, now we are mamshich Godliness into, we bring down Godliness into the world. Now m'DOraita, this is only done if you ate enough to be full. When you ate enough to be full, it means that the food that you ate, that gives you your complete chiyut, your complete life. You ate enough. So when you ate so much that gave you your complete chiyut, that's when you have the koach to bench, the koach to bring Elokut. But if you ate less than that, that means that you didn't this is not what gave you your complete chiyut, you still don't have the complete chiyut from the food that you ate, you still need more koach in order to bring down the completion of the hamshachah of Elokut. But the Rabbanan came and they said, no, we will add. We will, through their power of through Hashem, gave the Yidden the koach that even if they eat a little bit, only a kezayit, and it's not something that gave their whole body the chiyut because they only ate a little bit, they already have this koach of bringing down Hashem. So benching is not just a mitzvah like any other mitzvah. Benching is a mitzvah that in it contains the essence of what the whole of Yiddishkeit is. The whole Yiddishkeit is the whole reason for Torah uMitzvot we know, Hashem gave us the Torah because Hashem wanted a דירה בתחתונים. He wanted this physical world should be elevated. Now there are a few mitzvot who represent that very much. Korbanot does, and benching does. Eating, and then when you bench, which reassures that the eating was done in a proper way, that represents the general, the concept of elevating gashmiut. So when the malachim complained to Hashem, why are you so good to the Jews? So he answered, well, they bench. Which means this is what they do. But in the benching itself, not only that they bench, they are such a level that even if they only ate a little bit and they don't have their real chayut from it, still they're able to bench and show that they're being mamshich Elokut into the world. So this is why they picked this thing, because this is something that Hashem picked this because this is something special. This is a special mitzvah. And we can see something special in this mitzvah. As I

mentioned before that Moshe Rabbeinu was the one that established the first bracha, and he connected it to the mon. When the Yidden were eating the mon, he made the first bracha, the ברכת הזן את העולם, the bracha Moshe Rabbeinu made it. The bracha that we say now is not over the mon. We don't have to the mon. But since we're saying the same bracha that Moshe made over the mon, this itself shows that the food that we eat has a certain similarity to the mon. And what is that? Just like by the mon the Jews didn't have to work hard that the food, the mon, should be a revelation of Hashem. It's very simple. Every time the mon came down was a revelation of Hashem. It was a miracle. There's no such thing as food coming down from heaven. It was a pure miracle. So the mon itself was a revelation of Hashem's, of of the truth of Hashem. Nowadays, when we eat food, the food doesn't reveal the truth of Hashem. But we have a koach, as we said before, through our eating. And then certainly when we finish and we bentch, that that accomplishes that the food that we have is megaleh, reveals Hashem. So our food has the koach of the mon. In other, we are able to accomplish through bentching that the food that we eat should be like the mon. Just like the mon revealed Hashem, that was a miracle that showed that there is Hashem here, and Hashem makes things happen, we, when we eat food properly and bentch properly, we're accomplishing, we're bringing out this idea that there is Hashem. So there is a connection between the bracha Moshe made on the mon to the bracha that we say now, because it's all goes together. And then another thing here: we find by bentching a concept of a מזומן. That if you have few people eat together, you should bentch together. If there are three, you make a מזומן of three, if there is a minyan, you make a מזומן of a minyan. What what does that mean? That

one yid gives, helps another yid accomplish what they're supposed to. Because this is such an important accomplishment, Hashem said, \"I'm going to give it to you in such a way that you're able to get together, and together you will work on bringing Elokut to the world.\" And we know that if one person helps the other, it's not only that you have help so you could do double, you could do much more. The Gemara says that when two people pick up a load, they could not only pick up double, like one person let's say can pick up 10 lb, two people can pick up together 20 lb, not true, together they can pick up much more. And the same thing here, when a few people get together, then they can accomplish and bring down much more Elokut than they can bring themselves. Similar to a minyan, by davening we find the same thing. Because davening, we said before, is also the same idea of elevating yourself. So Hashem said, \"I want you to daven with a minyan,\" meaning that one yid helps the other. When you daven together, and you become one group, you have the koach of the other nine people. So you don't accomplish just what you could, and you don't accomplish 10 times as much, much more! Because 10 people together could accomplish not 10 times as much as one, much, much more! But it works together, the same thing here with the מזומן, with the inyan of bentching. And again, this is all connected to the idea that by doing this, we bring Elokut to the world. When will this actually come that we will see it with our physical eyes? Now, as much as we eat l'shem Shamayim and we bring Elokut, we don't see it with the physical eyes. The fact that we eat l'shem Shamayim means that we're making this holy. We bentch, this helps it becoming holy. But

can we see it with our physical eyes? No. But when Mashiach will come, then we will look at the food that we ate, and with our physical eyes we will be able to see that this is really Godliness, this is really not bread, but the words of Hashem. Now we do it. Now we accomplish it. And we accomplish it when we eat bread. Why is it that davka when we eat bread? Because bread grows. When we eat meat, meat is a chai, an animal. Bread is צומח, which is lower. What Hashem wants is that we should bring Godliness not only into a higher level, into a low level. We should pick up the lowest. So Hashem said, \"When you eat bread, which is צומח, that's when you should bentch,\" which means that's when you'll have accomplished this idea of bringing Godliness into this low world. It's not easy. That's why the word לחם comes from the same word as מלחמה. לחם is from the same שורש as מלחמה, because it's a war. So we have the war, but we have the koach to overcome the war. We overcome it, and we're ממשיך אלוקות, וברכת את השם אלוקיך. We don't see it.

When will we see it? When Mashiach will come. And that's hinted in bentching, too. Because one of the conditions, dinim, that you have to do in bentshing is there's a din that bentshing you must mention מלכות בית דוד. You must mention the מלכות of David HaMelech. Why? Out of all things, why is it important in bentshing to mention מלכות בית דוד? We have to mention the earth, because the food comes from the earth. But why מלכות בית דוד? So there are different reasons, and one of the reasons is because מלכות בית דוד really means Mashiach. And what we accomplish through bentshing will come to its completion at the time when Mashiach will come. We see another interesting thing: when Avraham Avinu, I'll finish in a moment, when Avraham Avinu wanted to make sure that the people who came to him as guests would recognize Hashem, how'd he do it? Through bentshing. He gave them to eat, and then he said, ברכו למי שאכלתם משלו, I want you to bentsh. And if they didn't want to, so he gave them a whole bill, and he forced them to bentsh. What he really wanted to do was he wanted to bring them to recognize Hashem. So how did he do it? He didn't tell them, put on tefillin, because there was no tefillin then, at least as a mitzvah. But there was no mitzvah of bentshing then either. But he said to them, bentsh to Hashem, because bentshing represents the recognition of Hashem, the hamshachah, the bringing down of Hashem in the world. So when we eat now and we bentsh, we bring Hashem into the world, but we don't see it with our physical eyes. We mention מלכות בית דוד in bentshing because when Mashiach will come, this will be revealed, and then we will actually see, as the pasuk says, ונגלה כבוד השם, that the kavod of Hashem will be revealed, וראו כל בשר יחדו, all flesh will see together, כי פי השם דיבר, that Hashem spoke. We will see it then, and we hope that this will happen very soon, bimheirah b'yameinu, mamash. Matan Torah, what do you mean from Matan Torah? Not Oh, you mean not the desert, the forty years in the desert? Well, Avraham Avinu was already beginning of of a He was a Yid, so he had the koach. He was able to not only himself, but mamshich in them. He was the beginning of Torah already. Avraham Avinu kept the mitzvot, so he had that koach. Not the same as we have now, but it's a little bit. Yeah. Not every second, but when we sit down to eat bichlal, our whole approach to eating should be that we're eating because Hashem wants us to be healthy, so we should be able to serve him. Sure we do. Who says we don't? No, every time we eat, we know that we're eating because Hashem wants us to be healthy to be able to serve him. Now, it doesn't mean that you have to sit and be mitbonen and A

famous story, I'll repeat the story again, even though I told it many times, that the Baal Shem Tov once sent somebody to a certain Jew advice and certain things, he would sometimes send them, go to this person, learn from him. So, once somebody asked the Baal Shem Tov, \"It's hard for me to eat l'shem shamayim. How can I do it?\" So, he says, \"You know what? Go to this and this city, look for this and this person, see how he eats, and you'll learn.\" Fine, he was happy. The best way to learn is is visual, to see. See to learn and hear is one thing. אינה דומה ראיה לשמיעה. When you see, imagine, he'll see how a person eats l'shem shamayim, fine. Finally, he got to that city, came into the house, he imagined he'll probably come into a house of a tzadik who is going to eat with great kavanah, who knows. Walks into the house, only the wife was there, the husband wasn't there. So, he asks her, \"Where's the husband?\" \"Well, he's out in the field working.\" He looked around the house, it didn't look like a house of a big tzadik. You know, a house of a tzadik, you know, you see a lot of sefarim, this looked anyway, but who knows? Anyway, finally, he waited, he waited in the evening, husband came home. He expected a little short man, you know, a big white beard, this, you know, a big tzadik. Well, a big husky guy walks in, didn't look even like a real baal habayit, a poshuter. Okay. This is the guy. So, he said, \"Well, maybe Hashem made him built him big, so what could he do? So.\" So, he wants So, he sat down, he expected him, you know, to eat, you know, so he turns around to his wife, \"Come on, whatever her name was, Sarah, bring the food here!\" Doesn't sound like somebody eating l'shem shamayim. \"Come on, I'm hungry. I'm starving. Bring me the food.\" Well, maybe that's the way he talks, but probably she'll bring in a little bit of food and brings in a plate full like this. Sits down and he watches him, and he starts gobbling it up, mamash fressing like he never saw anything like it, like a real baal taavah, a real And he finished, and he finished, and he just bench't up and didn't understand. What kind of l'shem shamayim is here? So, afterwards, he says to him, \"Could you tell me, what did you What do you have in mind when you eat?\" So, there are a few a few versions of the story, but the point is the same. So, he says, \"I'll tell you what I have in mind.

Every time I eat, this is what I think about: I was once going through the forest to chop wood, he was a woodchopper. I heard noises. So, I followed the noises and I came and I saw some goyim trying to kill a Yid. So, I was ready to help him, so I started fighting with them, and they beat me up, they hurt me, but I chased them away and I saved that Yid's life. And from then on, whenever I eat, I think I'm going to eat a lot, so I should be strong. If ever a goy starts up with a Yid, I should\" be able to really beat them up. And that's what he, that's what the, that's what he had in mind when he ate. So he ate, and he, that's called l'shem shamayim, so you don't have to be a big baal madreigah, it's also called you eat for that reason so he should be able to help another Yid. Anyway, so we all eat could eat l'shem shamayim. But it doesn't mean when you sit like even generally speaking, you know in your mind that I eat because I have to be healthy, and I have to come Shabbos to shul, and I have to daven, and I have to do mitzvot, and that's why I eat. That's called l'shem shamayim. There are levels. Some people every every spoon that they eat, they'll have special kavanot, but even generally speaking, this is also called l'shem shamayim. Yes. So

what about when you make a ברכה על המחיה, but it's not? Okay, so that's similar, that's that's Yeah, yeah. But that's in a minor way. You have it in the in a big way, and this is in a small way. The main thing is by bread, but that the Chachamim made that that it should be also, because we also accomplish to a certain degree. But it's not a real meal, so it's not exactly the same, but almost. One second. When we say the עשרה, there's the עשרה מאמרות, עשרה מאמרות, you know, so it's not the עשרת הדברות? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It says, עשרת הדברות and עשרה מאמרות go together. עשרה עשרה הכף בשקל הקדש. In last week's parshah, the Zohar says עשרה עשרה הכף means that the 10 and the 10 are both equal. The עשרה מאמרות are כנגד the עשרת הדברות. Yeah. I'm having trouble with the pizza. I was looking at her. I'll explain you very generally, not because it's not to get into our inyan, but very generally: if the

dough is made with apple juice or with juice, then it's mezonot dough. Then it's like cake. Now in cake itself there is a din that if you eat a lot of it, you have to wash and you have to bentsch. So the pizza would fall under the same category. So that's pizza which is mezonot, but that's where it would come in if you eat a lot. And the question is, what's a lot? Is two slices a lot or three slices a lot that you have to wash and bentsch? But basically the pizza is mezonot. So it's like cake. And by cake there's also a din. If you eat a lot of cake, then you sit down to eat and you eat a lot of cake, you have to wash. But if you don't eat a lot, you don't. Whatever, I'm speaking very generally without asking shaalot and details of it. Can you ever just forget about bread? Like, dinner with no bread, I don't bentsch? Here? Forget it. Yeah, but if you ate the shiur? Probably. Somebody told me that it's not kneading that No, that's it's because it's cooked. That that's a different story. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's not get into that. I said we are not going to get into details. Now, there's another thing here. If you have the dough made of hamotzi, not with juice, if it's made with water, so it's basically hamotzi. But some hold that because it has cheese on it, it turns into mezonot like I said before, a filling. If you

have a pie, and even if the crust is regular bread crust, but if it's made with a filling, the filling itself makes it into mezonot. But the Alter Rebbe writes clearly in the siddur that only if it's filled with fruit. And he gives an example: but if it's filled with meat or with cheese, it doesn't make it into mezonot. Can you pie the toppings? Even though there's only one piece? Okay. If it's if it's hamotzi pizza. But some claim that that changed. Now how could a halachah change? Because these are not halachot, essential halachah. These are halachot based on the custom of people. Whatever people eat for filling, for being full, that's hamotzi. If you eat it for pleasure, then it's not hamotzi, it's mezonot. Now in the time of the Alter Rebbe, people would not eat like a filling of cheese just they would eat it as a meal. They wouldn't eat it just like you eat a piece of cake. Could be nowadays it changed. Now you take a slice of pizza as a snack. So some claim that even though the Alter Rebbe writes like that, it changed. Now that goes into a sheilah, so I wouldn't say anything. Therefore, the best is, if it's made with hamotzi dough is to wash, not to rely on that opinion to say that cheese makes it into mezonot. If it's made in mezonot dough, then already it goes into the sheilah, how much do you eat in order to not to have to wash. What what if I make a very thin dough? It's flour and water. Very thin, like blintzes? It's not dough. Blintzes is not dough. Blintzes is is not baked. If it's so thin like matzah. But that's a difference. The Sephardim make a mezonot on matzah throughout the whole year because it's it's very thin. Then maybe, then it's takeh, then takeh it would be mezonot, it would be mezonot. Yeah, okay. One more question and that's it. Yeah, what's a good segulah for parnassah? Bentshing is parnassah. The whole bentshing is we're בענטשינג השם, הזן את that you feed, you support the world. If you bentch properly, then you're, it's a keli for parnassah. But why is it a keli for parnassah? Because by bentshing after the meal and eating the meal properly, you're ממשיך אלקות into the gashmiyut, and that's where your parnassah comes. If you realize that Hashem is the one that takes care of the גשמיות, Hashem gives it to you. So, could could you make a could you set up a seder for bentshing? Could, yeah, makes sense, makes sense. I don't know, yeah. Do you think hamotzi, if you eat a slice of pizza and then just one slice, do you say ברכת המזון? Depends how big it is. Yeah, if it has a if it has a kezayit, yes. But if it doesn't have, I mean Then then then it's like eat eat regular bread, if you eat bread less than a shiur, you don't have to bentch. But it's not a good idea to do. You have to wash and make a hamotzi, but you don't bentch. But it's not a good idea to do.