Blessings on Various Fruits and Vegetables - Rabbi Menachem Mendel Vilshansky shlita

00:02 Speaker 1 You’re listening to “Lema’an Yishme’u,” a podcast of Machon Halacha Chabad.

00:09 Speaker 2 Today, with Hashem’s help, we’ll discuss a very, very important issue that we encounter in daily life. Fruit is becoming more and more a part of our lives, and today fruit is brought from all over the world to every part of the world. In the past, each country had fruits particular to it. Today, every fruit that can be brought in is imported from the far corners of the world. Sometimes it’s available all year, and sometimes for only part of the year. One halachic example is that the Alter Rebbe writes about carobs, which were not common where he lived, so he does not want to go into much detail about a change in their bracha. Until carobs become like a chain, hanging down in links, they don’t take on the form of a fruit, and that makes a difference in halacha. Once they take on the form of a fruit—when they become like a chain, with that linked shape, with curves and rises and dips—until they reach that point, one does not recite a bracha on them. The Alter Rebbe says, “I don’t want to discuss the differences, because they are not common in my country.” Today, wherever you are in the world, you can find imported carobs. Even though they aren’t the tastiest fruit, many people eat them for their health, or use carob powder, whose bracha is different, of course. In any event, in the past there were no tropical fruits in Eretz Yisroel. Who had ever heard of passion fruit? Who even knew of a fruit like papaya? True, it has been available in Eretz Yisroel for quite a few years now, even decades, but it wasn’t there before. Lychees have been grown in Eretz Yisroel since the 5730s—the 1970s by the secular calendar. Before that, they weren’t there at all. And that’s without even mentioning fruits that arrived very, very recently, like carambola and all sorts of other fruits we never knew. There are various halachic questions to discuss here. We also need to discuss the brachos recited before eating them, but what’s interesting is

02:19 Speaker 2 that the discussion of which bracha to recite before eating these fruits, and each type of fruit, also branches out from how halacha defines these fruits in other areas. Based on the Gemara, many of the Rishonim compare the laws of orlah with the laws governing the fruit. Others, whom the Alter Rebbe mentions, compare them with the laws of brachos over fragrances: which bracha do I recite over the scent of certain plants? On the basis of that bracha, I would determine which bracha to recite when eating the plant. In other words, if I say “Borei isvei vesamim” over a certain plant, then, let’s say, just as an example, when eating it I would say “Borei pri ha’adamah.” And if I say “Borei atzei vesamim” over it, then when eating that plant I would say “Borei pri ha’eitz.” When we discuss fragrances, we’ll talk about the Chabad custom and whether we distinguish between the different brachos over fragrances. This isn’t the place for that discussion. The question here is whether we recite a general bracha, as we do on Motzaei Shabbos: “Borei minei vesamim.” In Chabad, the custom on Motzaei Shabbos is to recite that bracha over any kind of fragrance, whether it comes from a tree or another plant; we don’t change the bracha. But that’s not what I’m talking about right now. That’s not the discussion. The question is whether what the poskim write about the bracha over its fragrance has implications for the bracha recited later when eating it. Why? A tree has a special bracha. We’ve already learned that the Sages assigned it the bracha “Borei pri ha’eitz.” After all, a tree grows from the ground. Its bracha could have been included with that of all produce of the ground. For all fruits—tree fruits, excuse me—we could have recited the same bracha as for produce of the ground: “Borei pri ha’adamah.” But the bracha for a tree was changed. Why? To give it special importance. Since Hakadosh Boruch Hu has blessed

04:16 Speaker 2 us with abundance, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us pleasure through His fruits, the Sages said: Let’s offer Hakadosh Boruch Hu special praise for this special creation. So its bracha was changed for the better and raised from the category of produce of the ground to “Borei pri ha’eitz.” The question is: what counts as a tree? To discuss the bracha “Borei pri ha’eitz,” we need to determine what is called a tree. To recite “Borei pri ha’eitz,” we need to know what counts as growing from the ground and what counts as growing on a tree. It appears from the Alter Rebbe’s words that there are three approaches. It’s worth noting that the Tzemach Tzedek, as we’ll see later, comments that he found two. But the Alter Rebbe discusses three general approaches, while the Tzemach Tzedek discusses two. In any case, the question is how to define a tree, and the views range from one extreme to the other. We know what a tree is—or what we think of as a tree: it has a trunk and branches, and fruit grows from those branches in one of the seasons. Some bear fruit in winter and some in summer, and each year, after the fruit has been picked and the harvest season is over, we wait for it to grow again the following year. Where does it grow again? From the branches, which are covered with leaves. That’s what we think of as a tree: a trunk and branches, with the branches producing fruit. But who says that’s the kind of tree the Sages were talking about? The Sages say that everything depends on the gavza—that’s the term they use. Some say gavza means branches; that’s one approach, as the Alter Rebbe defines it. Others say gavza means the trunk. Either way, we need to understand what qualifies as a tree with something that remains permanently. A tree is perennial; its fruits aren’t. What grows from it lasts a single season. It appears and grows anew from year to year. But the tree must have some part that remains

06:21 Speaker 2 permanently, year after year, for several years. Otherwise, it would be classified as a vegetable or grain. After all, what’s the difference between something sown in the ground and a tree? The first difference that comes to mind, and that the Rishonim discuss, is that what is sown in the ground is sown anew every year. Once you harvest it, that’s the end of it. All the grain and vegetables are indeed “pri ha’adamah.” But when you pick something from a source of life, a source of growth, and that source itself remains throughout the year and for several years—it has to remain for several years, since we want it to be there in the third year, after three years, and in the fourth and fifth years—yes, that is called a tree. So the approaches range from one extreme to the other. Some say a tree is what we commonly call a tree, rather than a bush: it has a trunk and branches, and fruit grows from the branches. But another view says no, a tree doesn’t have to have a trunk and branches. At the opposite extreme, a tree means something that always remains in the ground, with some trace of it in the ground throughout the year and for several years. It endures year after year, for many years. That is called a tree. In other words, anything with a root in the ground that lasts for some time is considered a tree according to this view. For what is the difference between a tree and produce of the ground? Produce of the ground is sown each year, and once it is picked or rots, it is completely finished. Here, by contrast, there is a root in the ground, and growth comes from that root. What is a tree? A tree is something that remains—what is a tree? Roots that produce new growth. It doesn’t have to “see the face of the sun,” in the Gemara’s words. It doesn’t have to be exposed to sunlight or anything like that. The main thing is that something remains

08:21 Speaker 2 that remains permanently. According to them, bananas, for example, whose root always remains in the ground, would be considered a tree. That is one view of the Rosh, as the Tur understands his opinion. There is also a middle view. The middle view says that a tree does not have to have branches on its trunk, but a root alone cannot be called a tree. A trunk that remains permanently—that is, something that stands above ground, even if it is usually dry. Even trees that sprout leaves, whose trunks and branches have some moisture, dry out over time, or have seasons when they look dry. Something that stands there, even dry, and remains in place for years—that, in our case, is called a tree. So here we have three views. One says a tree has a trunk and branches. The second says the root in the ground is enough. The third says a trunk is enough. And the practical differences are endless. That is the first distinction. The second distinction the Alter Rebbe brings in Hilchos Birchos Hanehenin concerns soft, low-growing trees. He says that even if they have a trunk and so on, because they are soft and low-growing, they are not considered trees at all; their blessing will always be Borei Pri Ha'adamah. So let’s take the soft, low-growing plants that reach the height of a bush or shrub—even if they have the shape of a tree, what we would call shrubs—and set them aside. They are not trees for now. We’ll soon see what their status is. A tree takes Borei Pri Ha'eitz; produce of the ground takes Borei Pri Ha'adamah. But as we said, we have three views. So the Alter Rebbe says we should take the most restrictive approach: first, we will call a tree only what everyone agrees is a tree. Someone who says that a trunk rooted in the ground, which remains there throughout the year and for several years, is considered a tree will certainly agree that a trunk with branches is a tree. Someone who says a tree requires a trunk will certainly agree that a trunk with branches is a tree. Therefore, the Alter Rebbe says, only something that has branches on which fruit grows, with the fruit renewed from year to year—over its fruit we recite Borei Pri Ha'eitz.

10:35 Speaker 2 That is true even if the fruit does not grow from the branches. The fact that it has a trunk and branches is enough. Take the date palm, for example. It has a trunk and branches, but the dates do not always grow from the branches. Sometimes they grow directly from the trunk. But that trunk belongs to a tree that has branches, and the branches also produce fruit. So everyone agrees that it is a tree, and its blessing is Borei Pri Ha'eitz. The same goes for oranges, clementines, pears, apples—everything familiar to us that grows on a tall tree, producing fruit and branches and sending out roots. It is a tree: Borei Pri Ha'eitz. What about something that has only a trunk? Borei Pri Ha'adamah. Something that has only a root? Borei Pri Ha'adamah. After the fact, the Alter Rebbe says, since there is a disagreement, someone who mistakenly recited Borei Pri Ha'eitz over a banana instead of Borei Pri Ha'adamah has fulfilled his obligation. Because there is an opinion that it is considered a tree, since its trunk remains in the ground all the time, he has fulfilled his obligation with Borei Pri Ha'eitz if he said it by mistake. But initially, one recites only Borei Pri Ha'adamah. As for the low-growing trees I mentioned earlier, or vegetables and grain—things that grow in the ground and whose roots die and decay when we harvest or pick them—even if someone mistakenly recited Borei Pri Ha'eitz, he has not fulfilled his obligation. If he recited Borei Pri Ha'adamah over tree fruit, he has fulfilled his obligation; if he recited Borei Pri Ha'eitz over produce of the ground, he has not.

12:32 Speaker 2 We have this stated explicitly, and we learned it already in the first classes, when we discussed the laws of blessings and how the blessings are defined. When we said there are different families of blessings, we discussed how Borei Pri Ha'adamah covers fruit that ordinarily takes Borei Pri Ha'eitz, but not the other way around. So in practice, as we said, we recite Borei Pri Ha'eitz only over something that is clearly a tree according to all the views. Take berries, for example. There are strawberries that grow close to the ground—those red strawberries we have in Israel. They grow on a low plant that dies off, so their blessing is certainly Borei Pri Ha'adamah. There is no question about that. But there are berries that grow on trees, and those trees sometimes look like long branches of a bush. For example, in recent years a particular kind has become very common in the market. It has reached all the stores and chains with the most respected badatz certifications, whether the familiar stores with badatz certification, the Haredi ones—Netivos Chazon[?], Atidos Beitan[?], Barcol[?], and so on—or Osher Ad, with its various mehadrin certifications. Lately we keep finding these distinctive, round black berries, which come from South America, from Argentina or Chile. I saw several Torah scholars who said, “Their blessing is Ha'adamah.” I asked them why. They said, “Because it looks like some kind of bush with a long branch.” I said, “Excuse me, that branch is very long and has a root, but many small branches also grow from what you are calling the long branch. So that long branch is a trunk, and the branches growing from it are branches. When you pick the fruit growing on it, both the trunk and the branch remain. That is exactly the form of a tree; it is defined as a tree.” It is not particularly low or soft, either. So the blessing over those black berries is Borei Pri Ha'eitz.

14:38 Speaker 2 There are special berries that grow in Russia, Zoyara[?]. They are extremely sour—so sour that they are not even considered fruit. The Alter Rebbe says that even if someone sucks on them, though there is hardly anything to suck, and sometimes they are so sour and unfit to eat that one cannot recite a blessing over them, someone who does suck on them must recite Shehakol. They are considered neither a vegetable, nor fruit of the ground, nor fruit of a tree. Those are a different kind of berry. They are not found in the Israeli market. I’m talking about what is commonly sold in Israel, yes? Regular strawberries, what we call field strawberries, take Borei Pri Ha'adamah. Those black berries imported into Israel take Borei Pri Ha'eitz. It is important to point this out and emphasize it, because many people do not know how they grow. They grow in South America, and people are unfamiliar with the characteristics of the tree that produces them. But the most important thing is to remember these rules. For a tree, the blessing from the outset is Borei Pri Ha'eitz: it has a trunk and branches, and its fruit grows anew from year to year. What about pineapple? A pineapple plant has a trunk. The trunk produces a stalk, and around that stalk grow many thorny leaves and shoots. They are very thorny, somewhat like a cactus, and they create a kind of—I’ve seen it—what we would call a bouquet, a kind of arrangement. That is why pineapples often appear in flower arrangements for decoration. But ultimately, from its root, from its base, which is like a small trunk above the root, a stalk grows, with one fruit on that stalk. Later, in the second and third years, or the third and fourth if the plant lasts that long, several more fruits grow from the side shoots. Since this

16:39 Speaker 2 A stalk that grows from its base, with no trunk or branches, has the blessing Borei Pri Ha’adamah. As I said earlier, some Rishonim hold that its blessing is Borei Pri Ha’etz. In fact, some later authorities discussed this too. They wanted to argue that a pineapple really resembles a tree, and that its blessing should be Borei Pri Ha’etz because it has a sort of trunk above the root and a sort of branch—the stalk. They wanted to argue that it really is a tree. There was indeed some doubt among the later authorities about what blessing to say over a pineapple. But we have to remember one thing: most halachic authorities have ruled that a pineapple is Ha’adamah, and that is what we do. Someone who insists otherwise gets himself into a serious problem, with consequences in other areas of Torah law, other mitzvos, depending on what blessing he says. If he tries to depart from the ruling that has been established in halachah today, he runs into the serious problem of orlah. Outside Israel, a pineapple plant can grow for four years. In Israel, it does not last more than a year or two. If you want to treat a pineapple as a tree, how can you eat one? In Israel you certainly could not eat it, because its first three years are orlah. Outside Israel you could. Why? Because although it is a halachah given to Moshe at Sinai that orlah applies outside Israel, doubtful orlah outside Israel is permitted. That means that if orlah fruit is mixed with ordinary fruit, or there is doubt whether it is orlah, it is permitted. In Israel, doubtful orlah is forbidden unless it is nullified by a ratio of one to two hundred—and even that applies only if the mixing was unintentional, not deliberate. Outside Israel, the rule is that doubtful orlah is permitted. So with a pineapple that comes from outside Israel, we will not have

18:45 Speaker 2 a problem. With a pineapple grown in Israel, we will have a problem. So anyone who eats pineapple has to accept the ruling that its blessing is Ha’adamah, because otherwise he will be in serious trouble. True, one contemporary halachic authority holds that a tree that does not produce fruit for three years is not subject to the law of orlah. In other words, a tree that does not produce fruit for three years is not considered a tree. But a pineapple does not fall into that category, because it is imported from outside Israel, where it certainly can produce for four years. So we cannot call it a tree that is exempt from orlah. With pineapple, then, we do not try to be clever. But that does not mean we will not encounter other problems in this area. Take the papaya tree, for example—sorry, the papaya tree has a similar question surrounding it. It is somewhat like a banana, somewhat similar to... Yes, there is a doubt about it, but in practice its blessing is Borei Pri Ha’adamah. I meant to bring up something else. Take the passion fruit vine, for example. Passion fruit is a small, tasty fruit. Recently it has been imported from outside Israel, specifically with Rabbi Landau’s certification—the most sought-after, highest-standard certification—and even so, there are conditions on its use. Why do they bring it from outside Israel? Because in Israel it does not last more than three years, and there is an orlah concern, since it really is a tree. What grows in Israel is certainly orlah. Most of what grows outside Israel is orlah too. Only fruit from a passion fruit plant that reaches its fourth year outside Israel—at most its fifth year, since it does not live long—can be taken and used without any question or concern. And then, of course, its blessing is Borei Pri

20:37 Speaker 2 Ha’etz. What happens when you extract passion fruit juice? That is certainly Shehakol. Why? The Gemara says that, apart from grapes and olives—note this, apart from grapes and olives—any juice that comes out of fruit is considered its “sweat,” not the fruit itself. In other words, there are things over which we say the blessing for the fruit, but the Gemara says that the liquid that comes out of fruit is not fruit; it is the fruit’s sweat. So we do not say the fruit’s blessing over it. Grapes and olives are the exceptions. Grapes produce wine, whose blessing changes to Borei Pri Hagafen, and olives produce oil. We do not say a blessing over oil on its own because it is harmful, unless it is mixed with other things for medicinal purposes; then its blessing is Borei Pri Ha’etz. But wine and oil are different from everything else. Wine is Borei Pri Hagafen. Oil, if mixed with other things, is Borei Pri Ha’etz. Otherwise, no blessing is said over it at all. The blessing over all other fruit juices is Shehakol Nihyeh Bidvaro, because fruit juice does not have the halachic status of the fruit. What is the striking point here? It is quite significant, because the Alter Rebbe says that even a fruit’s seed, when a person eats it along with the fruit, has the fruit’s blessing, since he is eating the seed together with the fruit. If he separates it and the seed is bitter, it does not have the fruit’s blessing. If a person eats a fruit with its seed, and the seed is not bitter but sweet or the like, then even if he eats only the seed—a sweet seed from a fruit—its blessing will be the same as the fruit’s. By contrast, when he eats seeds on their own, they will have a different blessing. We will talk about seeds shortly, but let us return to our point. When something is eaten with the fruit, with the fruit as it is, the whole thing

22:39 Speaker 2 has the fruit’s blessing. But when I squeeze a fruit and extract its juice—something forbidden to do on Shabbos—the squeezing does not extract the substance of the fruit; it extracts the fruit’s “sweat.” Sugar is different from all of this. Sugar was already a major question among the Rishonim: should the blessing on sugarcane be Borei Pri Ha’etz? After all, sugarcane grows somewhat like a tree, with a trunk. Or should its blessing be Shehakol Nihyeh Bidvaro? Ultimately, these are not branches, but there is another issue here, one raised by the Rambam. The canes are not an ordinary tree, but we have to remember that sugarcane has one distinction: it is planted specifically for this purpose. That is, it is planted to produce sugar. This brings us to another principle. I want to use the law of sugar to introduce another distinction connected to everything we discussed earlier, and then return to sugar: planting something with the intention of eating a part of it that is not normally eaten. Here is what I mean. The blessing Borei Pri Ha’etz is said over a tree’s fruit. If you eat its seeds on their own, the blessing is not Borei Pri Ha’etz. So no blessing is said over bitter almonds, because they are not fit to eat. If you take an almond and sweeten it through some process, you say Shehakol over it. But suppose you plant an almond tree that produces small, bitter almonds, intending from the outset to cook them afterward. That is, you planted the tree knowing it would produce bitter fruit, which you would then take and cook. Since the tree was planted for the sake of that fruit, for the sake

24:35 Speaker 2 of the fruit, its blessing is Borei Pri Ha’etz. Now back to sugar. Sugarcane is planted for the sugar that comes from it. So perhaps we should say its blessing is Borei Pri Ha’etz? In practice, the halachah is that its blessing is Shehakol Nihyeh Bidvaro. The question is whether someone who said Borei Pri Ha’etz has fulfilled his obligation after the fact. As the later authorities explain, even though the canes are planted for their liquid—that is, they are planted with the intention of extracting sugar from them—sugarcane still does not look like a tree, so its blessing is Shehakol. In other words, it is planted for sugar, but the cane itself is just a dry stalk, a mere trunk from which a liquid is extracted. Ultimately, it is like taking a tree trunk and processing it in some way. Even if the trunk was planted in order to extract its liquid, the blessing would be Shehakol. Only when a tree produces fruit that is not fit to eat, and we plant it intending to take the fruit and process it, will the blessing be Borei Pri Ha’etz. That is why, with fruit that has not yet ripened, halachah says that if a fruit has not reached a certain size or stage of ripeness—and there are defined measures, some of which we know and some of which we do not; for grapes, for example, they say “as large as a white bean,” though, as the Ketzos Hashulchan says, we do not know what that measure is—if a fruit has not reached its proper size or ripeness and is unfit to eat, no blessing is said over it. If it can be eaten with difficulty, its blessing is Shehakol, not Borei Pri Ha’etz, because it has not fully developed. But a fruit that I plant intending to harvest it while small and then process it—there are cases where its blessing will be Borei

26:37 Speaker 2 Borei pri ha’eitz, because it was planted with that in mind. And so too with watermelon seeds and sunflower seeds: in the past, people would say, “They’re seeds; they’re not fit to eat. If they’re edible, it’s only because I take them and process them.” And we said earlier that even if I take fruit and process it, if it wasn’t planted for that purpose, the blessing on that fruit will be shehakol. If I don’t plant an almond tree to produce bitter almonds that I’ll then sweeten by cooking, then even if I do sweeten such an almond by cooking, its blessing is shehakol. That isn’t the usual way to eat it, and it wasn’t planted with that in mind. So the Ketzos HaShulchan, for example, writes that the blessing on seeds is borei—shehakol nihyeh bidvaro. But today, watermelons are planted to produce watermelon seeds. Pumpkins are planted to produce pumpkin seeds. Some pumpkins aren’t brought to market at all for you to eat in soup or in a cooked dish; they’re grown to extract their seeds and prepare pumpkin seeds. The same goes for sunflowers. So today, many halachic authorities have changed their view and say that the blessing on these seeds is borei pri ha’adamah, because that’s why they were planted. Let’s return to our subject and sum up. If a tree produces fruit that hasn’t reached the proper size—it hasn’t fully grown or ripened—the Mishnah Berurah says that when you can see the seeds in a fruit, a grape for example, from the outside, that’s a sign that it has ripened properly, yes? Some fruits are very small, and sometimes no blessing is recited over them. If they can be eaten with difficulty, sometimes their blessing is ha’eitz and sometimes it is shehakol. But when a fruit has ripened and grown on a tree with branches and so on, its blessing

28:22 Speaker 2 is borei pri ha’eitz. By contrast, sugarcane is planted to extract its liquid and sugar. So here is a tree planted solely to extract liquid and sugar from it. Seemingly, its blessing should be borei pri ha’eitz. But since it’s essentially just a dry stalk, not a tree in the usual sense, and what comes out of it is liquid rather than fruit, this isn’t what our Sages meant when they said to recite borei pri ha’eitz. So the blessing on its liquid is shehakol nihyeh bidvaro. But if we go to the other extreme, we find the coconut. In the places where it grows, if you take it off the tree and break it open, you’ll find water inside. What is the blessing on that water—shehakol, as with sugarcane, or ha’eitz? That water hasn’t yet hardened into fruit, but it grew along with the fruit. In countries like Brazil, they have it, and now bottles are being imported here too. You can buy real coconut water at gas stations. What is its status? On the one hand, the tree is planted to produce coconuts with water inside. The tree was planted for the sake of that water. On the other hand, it’s like the liquid extracted from fruit: it’s liquid, it’s water. But it’s also about to become fruit; it will harden and become fruit. On the other hand, it hasn’t hardened yet. Once it hardens, it will certainly be fruit. The fact that it’s on its way to hardening—and that the tree was planted for it—indicates that it really is the fruit’s own liquid, and one could recite borei pri ha’eitz over it. On the other hand, it still hasn’t hardened. It’s still watery. It’s like a tree planted for its liquid, like sugarcane, which is planted for its liquid. So there is considerable doubt

30:25 Speaker 2 in halachah about which blessing to recite over these things, and some say that because of the doubt, one should recite shehakol. On the other hand, we come to a problem with cacao. The cacao tree is planted to make cocoa powder from it. Well, what will its blessing be? Everyone recites shehakol over chocolate, and that raises a question: Why shehakol? After all, why was the cacao planted? So that chocolate would eventually be made from it. It was planted with that in mind. So why recite shehakol? Recite borei pri ha’eitz! After all, the blessing on cacao is borei pri ha’eitz. In practice, the halachah is that one recites shehakol over chocolate. As for the cacao fruit itself, if someone can eat it—generally, yes, it has to be turned into cocoa butter or cocoa powder—but if someone chooses to eat it as it is, and that is the custom of the local people, the blessing will be borei pri ha’eitz. If it isn’t eaten because it’s hard and so on, and he insists on eating it, it’s doubtful whether he can recite any blessing over it at all. What remains for us to clarify is what blessing I recite over parts of a tree that aren’t its fruit. The trunk of a tree, which some people eat: borei pri ha’adamah, certainly. What do we recite over—what do we recite over peels? If the tree was planted so its peels could be taken and then cooked, their blessing will be borei pri ha’eitz. If the tree wasn’t planted for its peels, the blessing on the peels, for someone who wants to eat them, will be shehakol. You can’t eat an esrog as it is. Anyone who uses esrogim not for a mitzvah but to make a preserve—what’s called esrog in honey, esrog jam—the tree is planted for that, for the jam. So only after you’ve made it into jam will its blessing

32:18 Speaker 2 be borei pri ha’eitz. Someone who eats an esrog only with difficulty will recite shehakol, because that isn’t the way to eat it, and it isn’t tasty either. If you want to eat it and you like it, fine—it’s a kind of lemon that you enjoy. Go ahead and recite shehakol over it. But an esrog that people normally eat only as a preserve, only as jam, has the blessing borei pri ha’eitz when made into jam. And so with all these things we’re discussing: people used to cook nuts, for example. A nut that is normally eaten as it is has the blessing borei pri ha’eitz. If you take the nut and cooking diminishes its flavor, its blessing will be shehakol. If you cook a nut in honey and make candied nuts—or candied almonds—you’ve improved its flavor. Its blessing will be borei pri ha’eitz, because its flavor and quality haven’t declined; they’ve improved. A candied almond: borei pri ha’eitz. As mentioned, everything we’ve discussed until now concerns the blessing on tree fruit, but there is also the blessing borei pri ha’adamah. We need to make distinctions there too. What grows in the soil has the blessing ha’adamah. What doesn’t grow directly in the soil has the blessing shehakol. Why do we need to address this? Because lately we have a lot of growing in detached growing media or in water. Sprouts: they initially emerge from the soil, and then people take them and sprout them at home in water or in a detached growing medium and the like. What grows from the soil has the blessing ha’adamah. What is sprouted in water or at home does not have the blessing borei pri ha’adamah. The most difficult question is what happens when you take home a clump of soil with the sprouts. All right. Okay. It grew in a pot; because of the doubt, one would have to recite

34:06 Speaker 2 The blessing on it is shehakol. But if it grows at home, it is not certain that produce grown in soil detached from the ground is considered “borei pri ha’adamah.” I’m talking about those sprouts you put in the refrigerator, which keep growing there in their soil. For terumos and maasros, you do have to separate them when you take the sprouts out of the soil; separating them earlier does not suffice. But as far as the blessing is concerned, because of the doubt, it would be shehakol. Let me say that again: some sprouts grow in the ground, and some are sprouted afterward. The same applies to the various kinds of legumes you sprout at home. Whatever grew in the ground is ha’adamah. Whatever grew afterward from the air, water, and so on is shehakol. Today, one company sells sprouts still in their soil, and they continue growing at home. The package says that terumos and maasros have been separated. That is a mistake, because if they keep growing in the soil at home, terumos and maasros must be separated afterward. But when it comes to blessings, the laws of terumos and maasros do not always determine the blessing. Here there is some doubt, so apparently one should say shehakol. Now that we understand the distinction between what grows in the ground and what does not, there is something else to understand. For something that grows in the ground to receive its usual blessing, it has to be fit to eat in its finest state when it comes out of the ground. Take an onion, for example. An onion comes out of the ground, and its blessing is borei pri ha’adamah. Why? Because people normally eat it raw. I’m not talking about old onions that have already become shriveled. I mean a fresh onion of the usual size sold in the market. Its blessing is borei pri ha’adamah. Not many people know this. Now suppose you cooked an onion in soup. Some people really like taking the onion out of the soup and eating it on its

35:58 Speaker 2 own. The blessing on that onion is shehakol, because its flavor has diminished. Its flavor went into the soup or the meat, so its blessing is shehakol. Even if the onion sometimes absorbs a good flavor from everything around it, that changes nothing: it does not regain its former blessing. The onion remains shehakol. I’ve seen many people take an onion out of the soup and say a blessing. What did you say—borei pri ha’adamah? No. After cooking, the onion is shehakol because its flavor has diminished. So when do you say borei pri ha’adamah? If it is a vegetable normally eaten raw, its blessing is borei pri ha’adamah when it is raw. If you cook it, its blessing becomes shehakol. If it is a vegetable you cannot eat without cooking, such as a turnip, its blessing is borei pri ha’adamah after cooking. Before cooking, its blessing is shehakol. In other words, it depends on how it is normally eaten. It also depends on the purpose for which it was planted. If it was planted to be cooked, its blessing after cooking is borei pri ha’adamah. If it was planted to be eaten raw, its blessing after cooking is shehakol. Corn kernels: the blessing on corn is borei pri ha’adamah. Popcorn is made from corn, and there is a well-known disagreement about whether its blessing is shehakol or ha’adamah. Why does this matter? Today, corn is grown specifically for popcorn—kernels that are not even fit to eat as they are. Their blessing would be borei pri ha’adamah. If I don’t know what kind they are, the blessing is shehakol. If I make popcorn from ordinary corn kernels, using them in a way that is not their normal use, their blessing is shehakol. So with all these things, you need to know both the halachah and the facts. Corn’s blessing is borei pri ha’adamah. But what you make from corn kernels that are not even

37:52 Speaker 2 edible as they are—they are dry and hard when you take them from the ground—would have the blessing shehakol. Unless they were planted or sown for that purpose: then their blessing would certainly be borei pri ha’adamah, provided that this has become an accepted practice worldwide or in a particular country. Today there is certainly much room for discussion about popcorn. Nevertheless, the practical conclusion is to say shehakol over it, because its form has changed completely. But the question is not simple. So, in practice, we say shehakol over popcorn, ha’adamah over sprouts that grew in the ground, and ha’adamah over an onion in a salad; when the onion is cooked, we say shehakol. A radish, as long as it is tender, has the blessing borei pri ha’adamah, because it is planted with the intention of harvesting it while it is tender. If a radish stays in the ground and dries out too much, it becomes as hard as wood. You can’t eat it; it would break your teeth. So if someone manages to eat it with difficulty, its blessing is shehakol. But if the radish is still somewhat tender and you eat it raw, its blessing is ha’adamah. Beets—I’ve hardly seen anyone eat a beet as it is. Perhaps someone might try, but generally, as everyone knows, beets are cooked. Even beet juice has the blessing shehakol, because it is juice. What I mean is that beets are always cooked, either for the vegetable itself or for the liquid. The liquid’s blessing is shehakol; the beet itself is borei pri ha’adamah after cooking, because before cooking it is not fit to eat. Most people eat beets after cooking. Nowadays there are also beets from Russia sold in vacuum packs. They have already undergone some cooking process, and if they meet the requirements of bishul Yisroel, their blessing is certainly borei pri

39:33 Speaker 2 ha’adamah. The point, then, is this: when do we say borei pri ha’adamah? When you eat the vegetable in its normal form, in the way for which it was planted, and at its best. When the vegetable has its full quality and flavor, when it is produce of the ground in its finest form, the Sages designated a special blessing for it: borei pri ha’adamah. But if its quality has diminished, its flavor has changed, or it has lost some of its value, its blessing is shehakol, because its use has changed and its standing—its level of importance—has changed. So we have seen and learned many related things. Since people commonly take cinnamon from the cinnamon tree and eat it as it is, its blessing is borei pri ha’adamah.