10 Facts About the Immense Power of Blessings

1. The Obligation to Learn the Laws of Blessings - It is written in the Gemara: "Our Rabbis taught: It is forbidden for a person to enjoy anything from this world without a blessing, and whoever enjoys from this world without a blessing - has misappropriated" (Berachot 35a). Rava explains that the remedy for one who has misappropriated by enjoying from this world without a blessing is to first go to a sage who will teach him the laws of blessings, so that he will not come to misappropriation.

2. The Obligation to Be Proficient in the Laws of Blessings - The "Yaarot Devash" writes: "One should take to heart not to transgress the word of Hashem, and to learn the laws of the Torah and to be careful of transgressions that one tramples with his heel, especially the laws of Shabbat, holidays, and blessings over enjoyment, and whoever is not truly proficient in them is not in the category of a Jewish person."

3. Caution Regarding Uncertain Blessings - It is told about the Chatam Sofer that already as a six-year-old child, he learned all the laws of blessings, and when he realized that there was uncertainty about the blessing over sugar, he refrained from eating sugar alone all his life.

4. "My son, be careful with blessings, and through this you will be saved from all trouble and distress" - Rabbi Aryeh Leib Bakst emotionally recounted his meeting with the Chafetz Chaim. It was when the Chafetz Chaim came to the city of 'Lida' to strengthen the city's residents in observing the fundamentals of Judaism: kashrut, Shabbat, and purity. "I was then a young man," Rabbi Bakst recalls, "and I pushed my way among the rabbis and dignitaries who came to greet the Chafetz Chaim. Due to the great excitement that seized me standing next to the Chafetz Chaim, I couldn't utter a word. The Chafetz Chaim turned to me, held my hand, and said: 'My son, be careful with blessings, and through this you will be saved from all trouble and distress.'"

Rabbi Bakst concludes his story: "Indeed, many dangers passed over me, the danger of China, the danger of Russia, and thank God, I was saved from all of them."

5. Recognition of Hashem's Kingship in the World - Being meticulous about the laws of blessings is recognizing Hashem's goodness towards His creations, acknowledging that all our pleasures in this world are made possible only through Him. Through intentional blessings over enjoyment, we proclaim loudly that everything came into being through His word, and that He created and creates the variety of products that give pleasure to human beings.

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6. Advice to Awaken Intention - There are five pieces of advice from our Sages to awaken intention in blessings:

a. To pray and bless from a prayer book.

b. Pausing for a moment before the blessing to think briefly about what I am about to thank for.

c. Dividing the blessing into two parts. We learned this idea from the great Gaon of Porat Yosef, Rabbi Y. Tzadka, to divide the blessing in this way: Baruch Atah Hashem - pause for a second and think - Elokeinu Melech HaOlam - pause again - and then finish the blessing.

d. Focus on a different blessing each week.

e. Recite the blessing out loud.

7. It is enough for you that a Jewish child says a blessing once - Rabbi Yitzchak Zev Soloveitchik sent two of his students to establish a yeshiva in Or Yehuda for children from broken families. After a period of hard work and investment, the heads of the institution felt that they were not seeing blessing in their labor. They approached Rabbi Soloveitchik and asked him if there was justification for the institution's existence. Rabbi Soloveitchik replied: "It is enough that you succeed in getting a Jewish child to say a blessing once! If you knew the greatness of the importance of meriting a Jewish child to say 'Shehakol' once, it would not have crossed your mind to close the institution." Rabbi Soloveitchik added: "Go see in the book 'Nefesh HaChaim' how great is the power of a blessing in all worlds."

8. By the Merit of Blessings We Survive in Exile - It is written in the book Me'am Loez Genesis: "King David checked and found through the Holy Spirit that calamity came because they did not properly bless Hashem for the good He did for them, and then he instituted one hundred blessings every day, and when they said the blessings, people stopped dying... and by the merit of these blessings we survive in this exile and we live among the nations, and therefore one should be careful to say them every day." (Vol. 1, p. 117)

9. Carefulness with Blessings over Enjoyment is the Path to Attaining Divine Inspiration - Rabbi Chaim Vital writes about the matter of blessing, that he was warned about this greatly, and that this is the main power to attain divine inspiration. These are his words: "The main achievement of a person to divine inspiration depends on a person's intention and carefulness in all blessings over enjoyment. Because through them, the power of those husks that cling to material foods and attach to the person eating them is nullified, and through the blessings said over them with intention, he removes the husks from them, and refines his material, and becomes pure and ready to receive holiness. And I was warned greatly about this." And Rabbi Chaim Vital concluded by saying: "Therefore, a person needs to give his attention to these matters every time he blesses, in order to bless with great intention, word by word with great joy." (Kaf HaChaim, Orach Chaim, 158-76)

10. Through Blessing One Merits Abundance - The author of Sefer HaChinuch writes: "The matter of blessing is nothing but a reminder to awaken our souls through our mouths that He is the Blesser, and through this awakening of good in our souls, and unifying our thoughts to thank Him that all good things are included in Him, and He is the King over them to send them to whoever He desires, we merit through this good deed to draw upon ourselves from His blessings."

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