Daily Halacha: Priority of Blessings When Eating Different Fruits

When you have several fruits that require the same blessing, how do you decide which to bless first?

When you’re about to eat fruits that all require the same blessing, such as borei pri ha’etz (the blessing for tree-grown fruits), there is a halachic order of priority.

In this case, you should give priority to fruits from the Seven Species—the seven special types of produce that the Land of Israel is praised for in the Torah. These are: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates.

Even within the Seven Species, there is an order. The order is based on their appearance in the verse in Devarim (Deuteronomy):
"A land of wheat and barley, vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey (dates)."

The closer a fruit appears to the word “land” in the verse, the higher its priority. For example, olives come before dates, and grapes come before figs. A helpful memory trick is to think in terms of the position of the words in the verse or to remember it by the seed count associated with each species.

What if the blessings are different?

If you are about to eat two foods with different blessings, like a tree fruit (which requires borei pri ha’etz) and a vegetable (which requires borei pri ha’adamah), then you may choose whichever one you want to bless first, even if one of them is from the Seven Species.

For example, if you have a radish and an olive, even though the olive is one of the Seven Species, if you prefer the radish at that moment, you are allowed to bless and eat the radish first.

From “Ach Tov VaChesed – Daily Halacha” by Hidabroot