Birkot HaTorah

The question no prophet could answer

The prophet Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) asks: why was the land destroyed? The Gemara says this question was put to the sages and the prophets, and none of them could explain it. Then God answered it Himself: "Because they left My Torah." Rav (a sage of the Gemara) says what that means: they did not make a blessing over the Torah first. Because of this passage, the main codes of Jewish law open their rules for this blessing with a warning: be extremely careful with it.

Three rabbis, three versions

What do you say before learning Torah? The Gemara records three answers. Shmuel: a mitzvah blessing, "who commanded us to be busy with words of Torah." Rabbi Yochanan finished it with a request: "Please make the words of Your Torah sweet in our mouths." Rav Hamnuna had a different one: "who chose us out of all the peoples and gave us His Torah." The Gemara does not pick a winner. It rules: "So let us say all of them." That is why there are three paragraphs.

You already know the last one

The third paragraph, asher bachar banu, is the blessing a person says before the reading when called up to the Torah in shul. Here you say it yourself, every morning, over your own learning. Rav Hamnuna, whose version it is, called it "the best of the blessings." Rashi (the classic commentator on the Gemara, France, more than 900 years ago) explains why: it holds thanks to God, and praise for both the Torah and the Jewish people.

Sephardic siddurim use a different word

This siddur says la'asok bedivrei Torah, "to be busy with words of Torah." Sephardic siddurim (the wording of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, which is not this siddur's Nusach Sefard) end the blessing al divrei Torah, "about words of Torah." Abudarham (a commentary on the prayers written in Seville, Spain, around 1340) preferred that, because it covers doing the mitzvot as well as learning.

Why people sway when they learn

While explaining this blessing, Abudarham brings up a custom you have seen: Jews sway back and forth when they read Torah. The reason he gives goes back to Mount Sinai. When the Torah was given, everyone there shook, as the verse says: "The people saw, and they trembled." He adds a second verse, "All my bones will say: Hashem, who is like You," to show that a person and all of his bones are busy together praising God.

Your grandchildren are in this blessing

Count the generations in the second paragraph: us, our descendants, and the descendants of our descendants. The third was added on purpose. Abudarham reports that in Spain people said only "our descendants," and he records a longer version that adds the next generation. It is based on a teaching of Rabbi Yochanan: when a Torah scholar's son and grandson are scholars too, Torah never leaves that family again. The Nusach Sefard text in this siddur has the longer version.

One blessing covers the whole day

On Sukkot you say the blessing for sitting in the sukkah again at every meal. So why is one Torah blessing in the morning enough for everything you learn that day? Tosafot (commentators on the Gemara from France and Germany, about 800 years ago) ask exactly this. Their answer: meals in a sukkah have set times. Torah does not. A person is obligated to learn at every hour, as the verse says, "think about it day and night." So your mind never fully lets go of it. It is as if you sat learning all day without a break.

They loved the Torah and forgot who gave it

The Gemara says the land was lost, in the days of the First Temple, because people "did not bless over the Torah first." The Maharal (Rabbi Yehuda Loew of Prague, who died in 1609) says they surely said the words. What was missing is what the blessing is: loving God for giving the Torah. He adds that people who learn a lot love the Torah itself, and when they sit down to learn, that love pushes the other one out, "because love is not for two." Now read the last words again: "who gives the Torah."

כי אין האהבה לשנים. כי כל אהבה היא דבקות בנאהב

Ask for the sweet taste

The Baal Shem Tov (the founder of Chassidut, who died in 1760) had his own reading of the Gemara's line that the destruction came because people "did not bless over the Torah first." His grandson recorded it in the book Degel Machaneh Ephraim: they did not say this request, "Please make it sweet." The grandson explains it with another teaching of his grandfather: the Torah has sweet water in it and bitter water. So a person has to pray and ask God for a taste of the sweet. That is what this paragraph is.

וצריך להתפלל ולבקש זה מאת ה׳ שיטעים בתורתו המים מתוקים וערבים וזהו ברכת והערב נא

At Sinai every day

The Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah) says the words of Torah are holy, high and sweet. Then it goes further: whoever works at Torah is like someone standing at Mount Sinai every day and receiving the Torah. Its proof is a verse: "This day you have become a people." Moshe said that at the end of forty years in the desert, long after Sinai. Now look at the tense of the last line of the blessing.

מַאן דְּאִשְׁתְּדַל בְּאוֹרַיְיתָא, כְּאִלּוּ קָאִים כָּל יוֹמָא עַל טוּרָא דְּסִינַי וְקַבִּיל אוֹרַיְיתָא.

More than a subject you study

Rav Kook (the first Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel, who died in 1935) explains why the blessing says "to be busy with" Torah. Studying and understanding, he writes, are things you can do with any field of knowledge in the world. Knowledge can shine some light on the person who studies it. Torah does something else: being busy with its words ties you to the source of life itself, and he calls that far higher than anything study alone can give. That is why the blessing picks this word.

שבהעסק שאנו מתעסקים בדברי תורה הרי יש לנו קשר עם המקוריות של החיים

God says it along with you

Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin (founder of the famous Volozhin yeshiva, who died in 1821) writes in his book Nefesh HaChaim: when a person is busy with Torah down here, every word leaving their mouth is, so to speak, leaving God's mouth at that same moment. He points to a story in the Gemara. Two rabbis argued over a passage in the book of Shoftim. One of them met Eliyahu the prophet and asked what God was doing. Eliyahu said God was busy with that same passage, saying: "My son Evyatar says this, My son Yonatan says this."

כל תיבה שמוציא מפיו הן הן הדברים יוצאים כביכול גם מפיו ית' באותו העת ממש

Can I learn Torah before I say this?

No. The Shulchan Aruch (the main code of Jewish law) says to take great care with this blessing. The Mishnah Berurah (a central commentary on it, published 1884 to 1907) explains: do not learn until you have said it. That covers Tanach, Mishnah, Gemara and Midrash. Thinking Torah silently needs no blessing, though the Vilna Gaon (Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, 1700s) disagrees. Verses said as prayer: the Shulchan Aruch prefers they wait. An older custom allowed them, but the Mishnah Berurah says that today people wait.

Do I have to learn something right after?

The Shulchan Aruch writes that the right thing is not to break between the blessing and learning, so the custom is to say the verses of the Priestly Blessing next. That is why the siddur goes straight into them. The Mishnah Berurah explains that they are said as Torah learning, and that Eilu Devarim, which follows, adds a Mishnah and a passage of Gemara, so you have learned Tanach, Mishnah and Gemara. If you did break before learning anything, the authorities disagree about whether you say the blessing again.

I took a nap. Do I say it again?

Saying it once covers the day and the night after, the Shulchan Aruch rules, even with breaks from learning, as long as you have not slept. Dozing off sitting up does not count. A real sleep in bed by day is disputed. The Shulchan Aruch says it ends the blessing, then adds: "some say it does not, and that is the custom." The Mishnah Berurah lists authorities who say to bless again and writes that one who does "has not lost." The Ben Ish Chai (a law book from Baghdad, 1890s) advises saying it without God's name.

I stayed up all night on Shavuot. Do I still say it?

The Mishnah Berurah gives both views: no, or yes, because it was set for every morning like the other morning blessings. His advice: if you can, hear it from someone else, answer Amen, then say a few verses. After a real sleep in bed the day before, he quotes a ruling: say it. Either that sleep ended the blessing or the morning calls for one. The Shulchan Aruch HaRav (the code of law by the first Chabad Rebbe): hear it if you can. If not, say it yourself. The Kaf HaChaim (a Sephardic law commentary from the early 1900s) records the custom: you say it.

I can't remember if I said it. Now what?

If you are unsure about most blessings, you do not repeat them. Here the Mishnah Berurah rules differently: many early authorities hold this one is an obligation from the Torah itself, so you say it again, but only the last blessing, "who chose us," which the Gemara calls the best of them. The Kaf HaChaim rules that you do not repeat it. Both prefer a way around the doubt: hear it from someone else, or have it in mind during the blessing before Shema and learn something right after prayers.

Do I answer Amen after the first blessing?

It depends on whether "Veha'arev na" starts a new blessing or finishes the first one. The early authorities disagree. The Mishnah Berurah: most later authorities lean toward not answering Amen after "la'asok bedivrei Torah," so it is right to say that blessing quietly. The Shulchan Aruch HaRav differs: according to Kabbalah it is a blessing of its own, and you answer Amen. Rabbi Chaim Vital wrote that he saw his teacher, the Arizal (the great kabbalist of Tzfat in the 1500s), answer Amen there.

Do girls say it?

Yes. The Shulchan Aruch rules: "Women say the blessing over the Torah." The Biur Halacha (longer notes by the author of the Mishnah Berurah) gives two reasons. The first: women are obligated to learn the laws that apply to them, and to say the passages about the offerings just as they are obligated in prayer, so the blessing is over that. The second is the Vilna Gaon's: women are exempt from the mitzvah of Torah study but may still say the blessing, the same way they may say a blessing on a time-bound mitzvah they are not obligated in.