Filling the Wagons: Saying Blessings with Heart and Intention

1. The Torah obligation: In this week's Torah portion, Eikev, we find the source for the obligation to recite one hundred blessings (brachot) each day: “What does Hashem your God ask of you but to deeply respect Hashem.” On this verse, our Sages taught: “From here we learn that a person must recite 100 blessings daily, as it says: ‘What (mah) does Hashem your God ask of you’, don’t read it as mah (what), but as me’ah (one hundred).” In other words, Hashem is asking for one hundred blessings from you each day.
2. Proper gratitude and praise to Hashem: About the deep importance of reciting these daily blessings, the Tur (Orach Chaim 46) quotes Rav Natronai Gaon: “Every day, one hundred souls of Israel were dying, and they didn’t know why until he investigated and understood through ruach hakodesh (Divine inspiration), and he established these 100 blessings for Israel.” The Levush adds: “It was because they weren’t properly blessing and thanking Hashem for all the kindness He gave them.”
3. The great power of blessings when said with heartfelt intention: Rabbi Yehuda Tzadka beautifully emphasized how much a blessing can mean when said with sincerity. “A Jew who lives about seventy years could theoretically reach 2.5 million blessings in their lifetime. But that’s only in theory.” He invites us to imagine a person arriving at the Heavenly Court. Huge wagons arrive, filled with millions of blessings recited during that person’s life. They could be such a powerful merit!

“But when they begin taking out those blessings to examine their quality,” Rabbi Tzadka continues, “they see that many can’t help. All the ones said quickly, with no intention, distracted, with no gratitude, those blessings stand embarrassed. And when they search for the ones said with real kavanah (intent), with joy and love for Hashem, they find only a few. A few sacks are enough to carry them.”

He concludes with a warm encouragement: “While we’re still here in this world of action, we still have the chance to fill our wagons and we can make sure what’s inside is truly valuable!”

4. Teaching children to bless with intention from a young age: The author of Yesod V’Shoresh Ha’Avodah wrote about the joy of teaching children to bless: “I can testify about myself that I was very careful to raise my children in the proper way of blessings over food and other things, even when they could barely speak. I personally recited the blessings with them for every food and drink, and even the Birkat Hamazon (Grace After Meals). This gave me more joy than all the pleasures of this world, because I knew I was bringing satisfaction to our Creator, blessed be He.”
5. “Half a year of life is precious enough to answer dozens of 'Amens' each day”: In the book Medicine and Halacha, a powerful story is shared involving Rabbi Moshe Feinstein and a doctor who eventually found his way back to living a Jewish life. “I met a religious doctor who had made aliyah from the United States,” the author says. “I asked him what led to his decision to live as a Jew. He told me the turning point: A patient came to him with multiple organ failure. The man had only a few days to live. The only option was a complex, painful, and expensive surgery that might give him another six months.

They presented the dilemma to the family but the patient, a former student of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, asked that his rabbi be consulted. The doctor decided to go to Rabbi Moshe himself to hear what he would say. “I arrived and told him everything. When Rabbi Moshe heard who the patient was, his eyes filled with tears. For twenty minutes, he just sat and wept. He hadn’t heard about this student in years and now he was heartbroken to learn of his condition.”

“What should be done?” the doctor asked. Rabbi Moshe asked for a day to think and pray. The next day, he told the doctor: “Do the surgery. We’ll pray for a full recovery and ask Hashem for more years. Even half a year is precious. In that time, he can say Amen to a hundred blessings each day. And every Amen will create an angel, and each angel will stand by him and plead on his behalf in the Heavenly Court.”

6. Saying ‘Baruch,’ ‘Atah,’ and ‘Hashem’ with heartfelt devotion: A great Torah scholar who was gravely ill once approached Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and asked: “What should I work on to arouse Divine mercy in this difficult time?” Rabbi Shlomo Zalman replied gently, “I’m not worthy to tell others what to do but I’ll tell you what I would do if I were in your shoes. I would focus on reciting the hundred blessings every day making sure that when I say Baruch (Blessed), I really feel it, and when I say Atah (You), I mean that I am speaking directly to Hashem, and when I say Hashem’s Name, I do so with full awareness and respect. That would be my strongest point of focus.”
7. The scholar later shared that as Rabbi Shlomo Zalman said this, his face was burning like fire. It’s important to note that Rabbi Shlomo Zalman was in the final year of his life at the time. Throughout his life, he had been known for reciting every blessing with deep devotion, and many people would come just to hear how he blessed. And yet even in his final year he continued to work on this area, because there is no end to how deeply a Jew can connect to Hashem through their blessings.

Courtesy of the Dirshu website.