Bentshing reminds us that our needs will always be met
Our dinner tables are hubs of sustenance and nurturing. Yet the real center of prosperity for Klal Yisrael was a different sort of table — the Shulchan in the Mishkan. The specially baked loaves of bread on this Table were the starting place from where the brachah of parnassah flowed to the nation.
We’ve already noted another starting place for the blessing of sustenance — the proper recitation of Bircas Hamazon. Rabbeinu Bechaye finds an allusion to the structure of Bircas Hamazon in the description of the Shulchan in the Torah: “And you shall make a Table of acacia wood… and you shall cover it with zahav tahor, pure gold” (Shemos 25: 24).
The letters in the word zahav — zayin, hei, and beis —are the initial letters of the first three brachos of Bircas Hamazon: bircas haZan, the blessing for nourishment; bircas Ha’aretz, the blessing for the land; and bircas Bonei Yerushalayim, the blessing for the rebuilding of Yerushalayim.
No discussion of Bircas Hamazon is complete without an understanding of these three brachos and the order they’ve been placed in.
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