Rav Shai's Torah on the Grow

My Mom made a mean egg salad. Usually, I would just stand by the kitchen sink with the bowl and a fork. When I had more patience, I would break out the bread and slice a tomato. Alternatively, I would smear it on rice cakes for a great crunch. Here’s the question: is the blessing the same for each meal, or does the blessing depend on the delivery vehicle for the egg salad?

According to the Mishnah, one blesses on what is essential and exempts what is incidental. Applying that rule to my mother’s egg salad, I would not say “hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz” even on fresh rye. I’d always say she’ha’col, recognizing the egg salad as essential rather than the mode of delivery. Here’s the beauty: When my Mom would serve egg salad sandwiches to me and my sister, we’d each recite different blessings over the same food. We consider different things essential. (Don’t you love being Jewish?)

The great Kabbalist Isaac Luria seems to disagree with God’s assessment of the world. God pronounced everything as very good; Luria thought it was mixed. Maybe what is mixed is very good because it gives us an opportunity to make things better. Could the world be very good if we couldn’t contribute to it by making it better? (Rav Kook would say absolutely not!)

Let’s say our lives, like Luria’s world, are mixed — what do we bless? What’s essential? And what’s incidental? It’s a Rorschach test. Not only will different people make different blessings, but the same person will make different blessings at different times. It has been four years since I’ve been able to savor my Mom’s egg salad. Now I say hamotzi. What’s essential that you’re blessing?