Losing Focus During a Meal - Rabbi Menachem Mendel Vilshansky shlita

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

00:09 Speaker 2 Ladies and gentlemen, today we’re continuing our series on the laws of blessings over food, and we’re discussing the laws of diverting one’s attention from eating during a meal. Everyone knows that if a person takes some food and eats—he makes a blessing and eats it—and he had planned to eat, say, a kezayis of a cookie, so he makes borei minei mezonos, intending to eat a kezayis, with more cookies in front of him, and then changes his mind and wants more, he doesn’t need a new blessing. We don’t say that his blessing covered only that kezayis because that was all he originally intended to eat, and that eating more is a new act of eating requiring a new blessing. Why? Because it’s normal for one bite to lead to another. When you start eating, you’re likely to keep going, and halacha takes that into account. Even when you make hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz over bread, if there’s more bread in your home—even in a cupboard, on a shelf, or in the refrigerator—and you took out two slices but then want more, your initial thought, “I want to eat two slices,” makes no difference. It’s normal to keep eating; presumably you intended to have more if you wanted to. But today we have a new situation, one that I think was not so common or widespread in the time of the Shulchan Aruch. Today, people eat according to particular health guidelines or diet rules. I don’t want to call them a “health teaching”—the Rambam has teachings on health, and those are teachings, but Torah is Torah. Torah is what is written in halacha, in the Rambam, and in holy texts. Still, there are particular health guidelines, and keeping the body healthy and whole is among the ways of serving Hashem. A person needs to look after his health,

02:13 Speaker 2 and needs to eat properly; that is part of his obligation under the Torah. So some people follow something someone wrote, or listen to a workshop, or belong to some group—whatever it may be—and they eat according to the portions and measurements they were taught. It’s not Torah from Sinai, and it’s not certain that everything is one hundred percent correct, so I don’t call it Torah. But they are health guidelines, and these people eat precise amounts. In other words, when they want to eat a twenty-seven-gram kezayis—yes, when measuring a kezayis by weight rather than volume, though it should be measured by volume—or when they say, “I’m eating two slices,” they mean two slices. What happens if they change their minds? When they wash their hands, they set out the amount and intend to eat only that amount. What happens if a person suddenly changes his mind and wants more? The same question arises when someone, in the middle of eating, decides to stop and finish, but then changes his mind and says, “No, I’m going to keep eating.” For example, he ate, then took the tablecloth and cleared it away with all the crumbs, or shook it off. He sits down and says, “No, I want to keep eating.” Is there a question here? What is it? Diverting one’s attention from eating sometimes requires a new blessing. Let’s return to our first question, about people who follow particular rules for eating and health. If someone intends to eat a specific amount and then changes his mind, from his perspective this is a new act of eating. Once he has finished that amount, he no longer intends to eat. If he changes his mind while he’s still eating, that’s a difficult question, yes? Clearly, he can change his mind in the middle of eating. But if he changes his mind after finishing the set amount—he eats a specific amount, and only after finishing

04:16 Speaker 2 that amount does he decide he wants more—it’s like a new act of eating, because from the outset he thought, “I’m eating only this amount.” In other words, once that amount was finished, he had already put eating more out of his mind. This resembles cases mentioned in halacha involving someone who washed his hands, sat down to a meal, and cleared the table or said, “Come, let’s bentch.” There are different forms of diverting one’s attention. He said, “Come...” He said, “Let’s make a zimun.” He took the cup for the zimun and lifted it. All these appear in halacha as forms of diverting one’s attention from eating. Sometimes that requires a new blessing. If he’s in the middle of a bread meal, he needs to make hamotzi again, and when he needs to make hamotzi again, he needs to wash his hands again. According to the Alter Rebbe, he must always wash his hands again. Sometimes he needs a new blessing only over drinks, not over food, as we’ll see later. Diverting one’s attention from eating during a meal is similar to leaving one’s place of eating, as we learned in previous classes. When a person leaves the place where he’s eating, his established meal comes to an end, and when he returns, he needs to make a new blessing. And if it’s a bread meal, we’ve already learned the rules for when he needs to make hamotzi again and when he doesn’t. Today we’re discussing a similar but different law: diverting one’s attention from eating more, whether in his mind or through an explicit statement. That is, he turns his attention away from the meal: he resolves in his heart that he doesn’t want to continue eating, or he says explicitly, “Come, let’s recite Birkas Hamazon,” or he takes the cup or washes mayim acharonim. Let’s start at the end and work backward. Someone who has lifted the cup to recite the blessing for the zimun—there is absolutely no question that if he changes his mind, he needs to make both an initial blessing and an after-blessing over any food or drink

06:17 Speaker 2 he has. If he wants to drink, he’ll need to make shehakol and afterward borei nefashos. If he wants to eat bread, he’ll need to wash his hands without making the blessing al netilas yadayim, because he washed earlier and his hands are still clean, and make hamotzi again. If he wants to eat something alongside the bread, say a salad, a vegetable salad, he needs to make borei pri ha’adamah and borei nefashos. That’s because he lifted the cup and said, “Come, let’s recite Birkas Hamazon,” or he washed his hands for mayim acharonim. By washing mayim acharonim, he has already taken the clearest, strongest action showing that he has finished his meal. You changed your mind? It’s a new meal, a new act of eating. Make the blessings again. As long as a person continues eating with his original intention, he eats on the basis of his original blessing. But once he has finished—just as mayim acharonim marks the end of a person’s meal—someone who resolves in his heart not to eat any more, leaves his place, goes from his home to another house, and then returns is also considered to have finished when those two things occur together: he resolved not to eat more, and he also left his place and returned. At that point, if he was in the middle of a meal, he needs to recite Birkas Hamazon. If he wants to eat something else or resume eating, he needs to wash his hands and recite Birkas Hamazon, or make the initial blessing and after-blessing for whatever food he eats. Here the matter is absolutely clear; there is no dispute. What is disputed? There is a halachic dispute about someone who washed his hands, ate, and suddenly decides in his heart that he doesn’t want to eat any more. He decides inwardly, “I don’t want to eat any more.” Or he says, “Come, let’s recite the blessing…”

08:23 Speaker 2 the meal. He did not pick up the cup, did not wash mayim acharonim, or say aloud, “Let’s bentch,” but decided in his heart, “I don’t want to eat any more.” Here the Alter Rebbe brings a difference of opinion. According to one opinion, if he wants to change his mind, he may. If he now wants to eat bread, he may eat bread and everything else without a problem. And the Alter Rebbe leans more toward this ruling as the halacha: he may go back to eating bread and the other foods without another blessing of Hamotzi; he should not make another blessing over the bread. But if he does not go back to eating bread, and instead goes back to eating salads and the like, he will have to make a blessing before eating the foods that accompany the bread. In other words, he decided in his heart not to eat any more. He wanted to—he said, “Let’s bentch,” and then changed his mind. According to the first opinion, he may go back to eating bread, eat whatever he wants with it, and drink whatever he wants. He may resume eating and drinking without making any blessing, according to that first, primary opinion. If he does not go back to eating bread, but only the other salads, side dishes, and everything that accompanies the bread in the meal, he certainly has to make a blessing before eating—only a blessing before eating. Okay. According to the second opinion, they say: No, this is considered a withdrawal of attention. Both saying “Let’s bentch” and deciding in his heart “I don’t want to eat any more” are a withdrawal of attention, and according to the second opinion he has to make another blessing. But because, in cases of doubt, we are lenient about blessings, and to avoid making a blessing in vain, the Alter Rebbe says that if he eats, he should not make another blessing. Still, one must take the other opinion into account. That is, he should take the second opinion into account and neither eat nor drink any more, but bentch immediately. According to the basic law, he may resume eating and drinking without a new blessing of Hamotzi,

10:26 Speaker 2 but the Alter Rebbe says to take the second opinion into account. So the conclusion is that he should neither eat nor drink any more—and he should not resume eating and drinking even with a blessing. Earlier, we said that if someone picked up the cup and washed mayim acharonim, then changed his mind, he may wash his hands again, make Hamotzi, and eat. In this case, there is a difference of opinion. So he should not wash his hands again or make Hamotzi again, and he should not eat or drink until he bentches. Then he can begin a new meal. So, to sum up: Someone who decided in his heart not to eat or drink any more, or said, “Let’s bentch,” and then changed his mind—because there is a difference of opinion about whether he can change his mind, he should neither eat nor drink. He should take the second opinion into account, and only after bentching decide what he wants to do next. Excellent. When a person says, “I won’t drink any more; I don’t want to drink any more,” that is an entirely different case. Here there is a completely different issue. Here, even if he changes his mind, he cannot simply go back. That is, if he decided, “I’m not drinking”—for example, he was drinking wine and then wants to resume drinking wine—he has to make another blessing. If he decided in his heart not to drink, or said, “Let’s finish the meal; let’s stop drinking,” or decided, “I’m finishing my drink now,” or said, “Let’s finish drinking; I don’t want to drink any more,” then if he changes his mind, he has to make another blessing—Borei Pri Hagafen, if it is wine. As for other drinks, some say that because he is eating, and the food makes him thirsty, he does not make another blessing over those drinks if

12:25 Speaker 2 he is thirsty because of the food. If he is thirsty because of eating, he may drink other beverages without making another blessing. But over wine and similar drinks, which are not drunk because of the food, he does make a blessing. If he decided in his heart not to drink, or said, “Let’s stop drinking,” he cannot drink wine, vodka, and the like again without making a blessing. Only drinks he normally has as part of the meal—water, juice, and the like—may be drunk as part of his continued eating. And here, too, we come back to the first point. If someone limits how much of a sugary drink he has for health reasons—say, he drinks no more than one cup of juice—and he says, “I don’t want to drink any more,” but then changes his mind, it makes no difference whether it is wine or something else. He will certainly have to make another blessing, because he specifically intended to drink only that amount and no more. For him, it is not part of the meal. Water is part of his meal—or perhaps he does not drink water at all. Yes, but water is always part of the meal. A sweetened drink, though, about which he has a particular restriction and which he decides not to drink because of a diet or some health rule—if he finished and then changes his mind, he certainly has to make another blessing. So it follows that withdrawing one’s attention from drinking has stricter consequences than withdrawing one’s attention from eating. Regarding eating, there is an opinion that he may go back and eat without making a blessing—bread and the other foods, without a new blessing. But withdrawing one’s attention from drinking—that is, from drinking wine and the like—is always a withdrawal of attention. Why? Because drinking follows eating and is covered

14:13 Speaker 2 by the blessing on the food. As our Sages say, there is no eating without drinking, because a person becomes thirsty. Eating brings about drinking; the drinking follows it. So when he withdraws his attention from drinking, its connection to the meal is broken. If he wants to drink again, he has to make a blessing before and after drinking. Here it is worth noting: If someone eats bread, decides in his heart that he does not want to eat any more, and then changes his mind, we said there is an opinion that if he only decided it in his heart and did not say it, he may go back to eating bread. So he washed his hands again and ate bread. Of course, he did not make Hamotzi; he ate the bread relying on the first opinion. He was lenient with himself in accordance with that opinion. Now he wants to drink. After all, withdrawing his attention from eating also meant withdrawing his attention from drinking. If he is drinking because of the food he is eating now—that is, for whatever reason he began a second round of eating, and now that second round has made him thirsty—then he does not have to make a blessing over the drink. But if this person begins eating again and is thirsty not because of this food, but because he was thirsty all along, then when he decided in his heart to stop eating and drinking, he had already withdrawn his attention from the first round of eating. Now that he has returned to eating, he is still thirsty because of the first round. So he cannot drink now without a blessing; he has to make one. But, as we already said, there is an opinion that when he withdraws his attention from eating and decides in his heart to stop, one should take into account the view that he should not go back to eating at all. So if he does not go back to eating, he will not become thirsty from it again, either, or have to consider that thirst. He will therefore drink only after bentching. But I said

16:08 Speaker 2 I noted that, according to the view in the Shulchan Aruch that the Alter Rebbe says we must take into account but not follow—even though he holds that way as a matter of basic law—if a person merely decides in his heart to stop eating and then changes his mind, or says, “Let’s bentch” without picking up the cup and then changes his mind, he may continue eating bread and other foods. And then, if he becomes thirsty, he needs to drink. So we said that if his thirst comes from what he ate before, he needs to make a blessing before drinking. However, since the Alter Rebbe says to take the other view into account and not continue eating, this question is not relevant. But in a case where it is relevant—where someone did continue eating after changing his mind—then, if he is thirsty because of what he ate before he decided to stop drinking, he makes a blessing over the drink, even though he does not make one over the food. So let’s sum up the practical ruling. A person decides in his heart, “I’m not eating anymore.” The Alter Rebbe says: Don’t eat any more. Don’t rely on the lenient view; bentch right away. If he wants to drink again, then according to all views he must—and may—make a blessing before drinking. He makes a blessing before and after the drink, drinks after making the blessing, and then says Birchas Hamazon. To conclude this part of the subject, let’s mention that if someone clears the table as we normally do today—removing the fish, soup, and meat to bring out dessert—that is not considered a lapse of attention from the meal. In the time of the Gemara, when someone removed the table, it meant he had finished the meal. In our time it does not mean the meal is over; it is simply clearing the table for dessert, the final course, the compote. So clearing the table is not considered a lapse of attention, and one must make a blessing over the compote.

18:03 Speaker 2 According to the halachah. If he eats mezonos whose blessing is in doubt, he does not make a mezonos blessing. If the blessing is not in doubt, he makes the blessing, as we learned in the previous episodes. If someone eats, uh, foods whose blessing is shehakol, he says shehakol; and over foods whose blessing is ha’adamah, he says ha’adamah, because this is the final course. He makes the blessing not because of a lapse of attention, so he makes only the blessing before eating, not the blessing afterward. Now that we understand the laws concerning someone who changes his mind—that is, someone who had turned his attention away from eating and drinking—what happens if he decides to resume? Let’s return to our original question about someone who eats and drinks according to a diet. He decides, “I’m going to eat only this amount,” or “drink only this amount.” If, after finishing, he changes his mind—this is how it appears to me, and everyone should ask a rabbi—but seemingly, this is just like someone who has completely turned his attention away from the meal or removed the table. If he changes his mind, he must make both hamotzi and a blessing over the drink. If he changes his mind while he is still eating and brings more bread, that may be all right. Why? The halachah says that if someone washed his hands and ate bread, and then simply kept eating and eating until he suddenly ran out of bread and had none at home, and sent someone to buy bread—or went himself, within the halachic guidelines that permit him to step out briefly to the grocery store—bought bread and came back, then, since that bread had not been in his home, there is no way he could have had it in mind. He must wash his hands again, make hamotzi, and continue his meal. Seemingly, the law for someone who eats set amounts for medical or dietary reasons and the like is

19:50 Speaker 2 like that of someone who changes his mind, goes out and buys bread: he must make the blessing again. When does this apply? When he has finished everything. But if we’re talking about someone on a diet who started eating, intended to eat a certain amount, and while still eating says, “No, I’ll eat more,” or “I got the amount wrong,” seemingly he does not make another blessing. A person should ask a rabbi about this. But the central idea is that turning one’s attention away also includes a decision about a specific amount or specific drinks. A person drinks only a certain beverage for health reasons and says, “I’m only going to drink this,” and later changes his mind and wants something else. In other words, he had intended not to drink it. This isn’t someone who was drinking without any particular plan and then, oh, great, they brought something. He’s sitting there and they serve cola, and he says, “Fine, I’ll break my health rules and drink cola.” That’s not what we’re talking about; he certainly does not need another blessing in that case. We’re talking about someone who explicitly says, “I have cola at home and I’m not going to drink it,” and then suddenly changes his mind and drinks it. He had intended not to drink it, so he certainly needs to make a blessing over it. It was not part of the meal. In any event, ask a rabbi about the diet question, but the central idea is clear. I’ll repeat it and sum it up briefly: Someone who picked up the cup for zimun and said, “Let’s bentch,” has finished his meal. Someone who washed mayim acharonim has finished his meal. You want to eat again? Wash your hands. Don’t make a blessing on washing; make hamotzi. Or, if you want to eat or drink something, make a blessing before and after it, and then say Birchas Hamazon. Someone who merely decided in his heart to stop, or said, “Let’s bentch”—all right, there is a disagreement here. We take into account the latter view, which tells us explicitly. That latter view tells

21:29 Speaker 2 us not to continue eating and drinking—not to continue eating. Someone who has turned his attention away from drinking says, “I’m going to stop drinking,” but continues eating. Then, if he goes back to drinking wine or the like—drinks that are not part of the meal—he must make a blessing before drinking them. Certainly: this is a new act of drinking, and he probably also needs to make a blessing afterward, because it is not connected to what he drank earlier; there was a break. What happens when people are sitting together as a group? We’ve already learned that when someone is a guest at a meal, his blessing covers what the person serving and the host intend to serve. Someone sitting at a farbrengen has in mind whatever will be served. That means that if he ate only tuna and then they brought in or bought more tuna, he certainly does not need to make another blessing, because he had in mind whatever they would bring. Someone eating at a host’s table—it doesn’t matter whether the host buys more food during the meal, afterward, or beforehand—makes his blessing with whatever the host serves him in mind. So he does not make the blessing twice. As we said, someone eating at another person’s meal, at a large communal meal, or at a wedding meal makes his blessing over whatever will come. He says shehakol over a drink, and later they bring ice cream; he does not need to make another blessing. Why? Because his blessing covered whatever they would bring. Even though that kind of ice cream was not in front of him at first, it makes no difference: his blessing covered everything. We’ve already learned in previous classes that if it is a more significant food, it is best to have it specifically in mind, and so on. We won’t get into those questions, but in principle, his first blessing covers everything. Now, we said that someone eating at a meal has the host’s intentions in mind. Does that also apply

23:09 Speaker 2 when it comes to deciding to stop eating? That is, when there is a break or a lapse of attention—when he decides in his heart that he does not want to eat anymore. For example, if one of the people at the table says, “Let’s stop eating,” but the host does not agree and keeps eating, that guest may also continue eating. If the host says to the guests, “Let’s stop,” and the guests say nothing to him, they are following the host’s lead and can no longer continue eating. That counts as a lapse of attention, because when the host stops, guests generally stop too. But if the host says, “Let’s stop,” and one of the guests keeps eating, shakes his head, and says, “I want to continue”—best of all, he should say, “Just a moment, I’m finishing up; I want to keep eating”—then he is not following the host’s lead. He may continue and does not need to make another blessing. But if they accepted the host’s decision and did not object—he said, “Let’s stop,” and everyone began looking around, “Where are the bentchers? Where’s this?”—and then suddenly they change their minds, they were following the host’s lead. So there, too, when he turns his attention away from the meal, he does so for everyone, and they need to make another blessing. If it is a drink such as wine, they need to make another blessing. If it is food, we said there is a disagreement, so they should not eat again until after Birchas Hamazon. So when the host turns his attention away from the meal and the guests hear him and do not object—do not tell him they disagree—they are considered to be following the host’s lead. If they object, that’s fine. When one of—when—that is, they may continue eating if they say to the host, “Just a moment,” or “Just a second,” or simply keep eating, which is a form of objection showing that they do not intend to follow him. That’s fine. But if they stopped along with him even for a moment, that’s it,

24:47 Speaker 2 They cannot continue eating until after Birkas Hamazon, when they would make a new blessing on whatever they want to eat. But if one of the family members—or certainly one of the guests—if one of the children, and certainly one of the guests, objects and says to the host, “Let’s bentch,” or says to everyone, “Let’s bentch,” and the host pays no attention and carries on, even for the person who said “Let’s bentch,” that is not a lapse of attention. Why? He has no authority to decide for everyone. So he is thinking, “I’m waiting for the host’s permission.” That means it is not a lapse of attention. If he gets up to leave, or asks the host’s permission and says, “I want to make a zimun now”—he raises his voice and says to the host, “Will you let me make a zimun with two people here from among everyone gathered? Will you let me bentch and leave?”—and the host says yes, that is a lapse of attention. So if he changes his mind, he will have to make another blessing. If he leaves, it is certainly a lapse of attention, because he has separated himself from where everyone else is. He has both decided that he is finished eating and left. But as long as he is sitting at the table, even if he announced, “Let’s stop,” it is not his place to make that announcement. He is not the one who decides whether they stop or not. He cannot say, “Stop,” and have everyone agree. So clearly he is not the one deciding; the host decides, and he is following the host’s lead. He needs the host’s permission, so he too can continue eating and drinking without any problem, without making another blessing. This happens sometimes at meals, when you come to your parents’ home. Sometimes one of the children says, “Dad, I’m

26:17 Speaker 2 tired. I want to say Birkas Hamazon.” They’re sitting at the meal and it’s almost over. One of the children is tired and says, “Come on, let’s bentch already.” He says to his father, “Okay, bentching—come on, let’s bentch.” But the father carries on, and the child can carry on too. Of course, in practical terms, you can always give the child permission to take two of the people present, if halachah allows the group to split up for zimun and so on. Those are separate laws. What is important to know is that the initial blessing covers the entire meal as long as there has been no firm decision to stop and no ending of the meal. In the time of the Gemara, they ended the meal by means of the tables. Each person had a small table. We learn about this a lot in the laws of Pesach, in Tractate Pesachim. They would eat at the small table, and when they wanted to end the meal, they would move it away. The halachic authorities say that today, as I mentioned earlier, moving the food, moving the tablecloths, or moving the table does not count, because that is not our custom today. So today we need other actions, clear actions that signal that eating has stopped. The blessings over food in general have many complex laws, so we have to review them and go over them again here as well. We said that when a person makes an initial blessing, it covers what he eats or drinks afterward, but he needs to know when it does. When a person makes a blessing, he needs to eat a kezayis; if he is drinking, he needs to drink a revi’is. If not, the initial blessing has not established a settled act of eating or drinking, and without that, he cannot make an after-blessing and sometimes cannot even continue. For example, suppose someone made a borei minei mezonos and did not eat a kezayis—he did not eat a kezayis within the time of kedei achilas pras, which is six minutes. It should

28:25 Speaker 2 ideally be four minutes, or six minutes. That time has passed, and he has not eaten a kezayis. Does he need to make another blessing? His first eating was not substantial. So if he is still sitting in his place, he has an hour and twelve minutes to continue eating. Ideally, he should eat a kezayis within six minutes, or four minutes—six minutes to begin with. But if you did not do that, then during the next hour and a quarter—the next hour and twelve minutes—you can still continue eating after the fact. With coffee, it is not like that. A person took a coffee and drank a revi’is, but he did not drink the revi’is within six minutes. He started drinking it and finished that revi’is after six minutes. He needs to make another blessing on the next coffee he drinks. He has a problem: he has not established a settled act of drinking. He certainly cannot make an after-blessing. A person arrives at a large meal to which he was not invited. He suddenly walks in and everyone is eating and drinking. He feels uncomfortable joining in, and the others feel uncomfortable with him standing off to the side, so they offer him a cup. He makes a shehakol. When he makes that shehakol, he does not know whether they will give him anything else to drink. So each time they give him a cup, he does need to make a new blessing, because for him it is a new act of drinking. When he made the first blessing, he knew it was only for that cup, unless someone else happened to offer him another. On the other hand, in most places in the world today, when even a stranger comes into a wedding meal or a meal like that, they give him a seat; that is how they honor him. So he knows that if they have already seated him, or even said, “Come join us,” then once they give him a cup, he already has permission to pour for himself, or they will pour for him

30:19 Speaker 2 and keep pouring for him. So usually he does not need to make another blessing, because today it is customary to give a guest one cup and then another. In the time of the Shulchan Aruch, and before that in the time of the Mishnah and Gemara, they would give a person a cup and he would not know if they would give him another. But today people are accustomed to offering more. So in most places, at most meals where a person comes in and knows they will offer him something, either they will give him permission, or when he makes one blessing, it covers whatever comes afterward. But if he is an important person’s driver and comes to an important gathering where it is not customary to serve the drivers, or he comes to a small, private event or a very exclusive wedding where they might not invite him in—where they check at the entrance who may enter and who may not—then he cannot be sure that, after giving him one cup, they will let him have another or invite him to join them. Even if they do invite him, they may not invite him again; perhaps he will be too embarrassed to stay on his own. He needs to ask himself: When I come in here and start drinking now, does it seem that things will just carry on and flow, so to speak, and I will naturally join the meal, or others will invite me over and I will drink more? If so, the first blessing covers everything. Or does he know—and he needs to assess this for himself—that things are not exactly going to flow that way? Then the blessing on the first cup does not cover the second cup when it comes. Each time is a new act of drinking or a new act of eating, a new settled occasion, and he needs to make a separate blessing on each cup and each time he eats. That is the point. In other words, in most places in the world, he

31:55 Speaker 2 makes one blessing on everything. But in places where there are particular reasons why it does not work that way—he was not invited and cannot just push his way in, he cannot simply enter, and so on—he makes a separate blessing on each cup served to him or each time he is given food. Now we come to the law: What happens if a person made one blessing and forgot the after-blessing? So he does not make the after-blessing. What should he do? The law is that if he remembers that he did not make the after-blessing while the food has not yet been digested—if he ate and drank his fill, ate and drank well, and did not remember to make the after-blessing—then as long as he is still satisfied from what he last ate and drank, as long as he is still full or not thirsty from that eating and drinking, he does not need to make another hamotzi, another mezonos, or another shehakol. He eats and drinks on the strength of the first blessing, provided there was no lapse of attention, he did not leave his place, and his attention did not turn away. In other words, he is still sitting here. He has not said Birkas Hamazon, but he also has not stopped thinking about eating and drinking. If his attention did turn away, he certainly has to make another blessing. Right? If he is still sitting in his place and has not left, then even if he remembers after a long time, as long as the food in his stomach has not been digested—which can be up to six hours—as long as he has not become hungry or thirsty, for up to six hours, he does not make another blessing. If he wants to eat and drink again, and he has neither left his place nor had a lapse of attention, he eats and drinks without a new blessing and makes one after-blessing for both rounds of eating or both rounds of drinking. For example, suppose someone washed his hands at three in the afternoon and ate all

33:35 Speaker 2 He had eaten his fill and forgot to say Birkas Hamazon, and he is still sitting in the same place. He might drink a little or not drink at all; he just sits there and remembers two hours later that he did not bentch. No problem: the food in his stomach has not yet been digested. If you begin to feel hungry, that is a sign it has been digested. If he has already begun to feel hungry, it has been digested, and he can no longer bentch. But if he does not feel hungry or thirsty, he can continue eating and drinking without another blessing and afterward say one concluding blessing for everything together. If you begin to feel hungry or thirsty, make a new blessing before eating. Take some more bread, right? Wash your hands. If you took your mind off the meal, wash your hands, say Hamotzi, and afterward bentch for both sittings. If you did not take your mind off it, take more bread and eat. I am talking about a case where he has not become hungry. Right? Eat and then say the concluding blessing. If he became hungry again, he has lost the opportunity to bentch for the first meal. He will have to wash his hands again, say the blessing on washing, say Hamotzi, and then bentch for both sittings together. But if he has not become hungry, he can eat more bread as long as he has not become hungry—after two hours, three hours, up to six hours. As long as he does not know that he has become hungry, does not feel hungry, and likewise does not feel thirsty, then for up to six hours, if he has not left his place or taken his mind off the meal, he can eat and drink on the strength of the original blessing and say one concluding blessing for both times he ate and both times he drank. If he becomes hungry in the middle, he must make the blessings again: wash his hands again, make the blessings again, and afterward say a concluding blessing for both. But really, a person should remember to bentch immediately

35:26 Speaker 2 when he finishes eating. Say the concluding blessing right away, so you do not, G-d forbid, forget. But here we are talking about someone who forgot, or waited, or intended to eat a little more and drink a little more, and did not notice the time. He was busy with all sorts of things and did not realize that two or three hours had passed. Up to six hours, if he does not feel hungry or thirsty, we assume his food and drink have not yet been digested. If he has not left his place or taken his mind off the meal, the original blessing and the original meal still apply, and he need not make another blessing over food or drink. What happens if he did not eat or drink enough? The Alter Rebbe addresses this only in the Shulchan Aruch, not in Seder Birchos Hanehenin. If he did not eat or drink enough, and he does not know—he is not sure whether he is hungry or thirsty—there is an opinion that he may bentch without a problem for up to seventy-two minutes. If he does not know whether he is hungry or thirsty, he may bentch within seventy-two minutes. Another opinion disagrees and says only up to eleven minutes. Up to eleven minutes, says Rabbi Chaim Naeh in Ketzos Hashulchan, he may bentch; after eleven minutes he may no longer do so. That is if he did not eat or drink his fill. In other words, he did not drink enough to feel that his thirst was quenched. He did not eat enough to feel full; he ate less than that. His appetite was stirred, but he was still hungry. Or he ate for pleasure and suddenly craves more, just out of desire. One opinion says

37:04 Speaker 2 that he may say the concluding blessing for up to seventy-two minutes. Another opinion says no, only up to eleven minutes. Since there is a disagreement, consider, for example, someone who washed his hands, ate a kezayis or a kebeitzah of bread but did not eat his fill, and forgot to bentch. If he remembers within seventy-two minutes, he should eat another piece of bread and bentch. He should eat it without a blessing beforehand. There is a disagreement about whether he may still say the concluding blessing for what he ate earlier. According to the opinion that he must say it, he need not make a new blessing before eating. According to the opinion that he can no longer say it, he would need to make a new blessing before eating. When there is doubt about a blessing, we refrain from saying it. So he should eat more bread without a new blessing and, within seventy-two minutes, bentch for both times he ate together. That is after the fact. Therefore, ideally, if he did not eat his fill, he should bentch within eleven minutes of finishing his meal. After the fact, within seventy-two minutes he should eat another piece of bread and bentch for both times he ate together. That is only after the fact. To sum up: someone who ate and drank his fill may say the concluding blessing for up to six hours. During those six hours, he may eat and drink more without making a new blessing beforehand, provided he has remained in his place and has not taken his mind off the meal. It is still part of his original meal, for which he made the blessing. If he did not eat or drink his fill and remembers after eleven minutes that he did not say the concluding blessing, there is a disagreement between two opinions. Therefore, after the fact, he should eat more bread

38:52 Speaker 2 without saying Hamotzi and bentch for both times he ate. We do not do this in the first place. This question leads us to a new question. What happens with someone on Yom Kippur? He drinks less than eighty-six cubic centimeters each time, less than a revi’is. The doctors have told him that he must drink, or must eat less than a kezayis—less than a koseves, sorry—a quantity below the prescribed measure. What is the ruling? Can he say a concluding blessing for two times he ate less than the prescribed measure, separated by some time? Must he make a new blessing before eating each time? In other words, suppose he is told to drink eighty-six cubic centimeters every half hour. He drank less than eighty-six cubic centimeters, less than a revi’is, at four o’clock. At four-thirty he wants to drink another amount of less than a revi’is. Does he have to make another blessing or not? He drank less than a revi’is at four. Now it is approaching four-thirty or five. He did not say a concluding blessing because he did not drink a revi’is. Now he drinks another revi’is—another amount of less than a revi’is, sorry. He drank less than a revi’is and did not say a concluding blessing. Three-quarters of an hour later, he drinks another amount of less than a revi’is. Together, the two amounts of less than a revi’is add up to more than a revi’is. Does that obligate him to say a concluding blessing or not? How many times must he drink, and within what period, to become obligated to say a concluding blessing? That is the question. What about the blessing beforehand? What about the concluding blessing? There is a disagreement here. Rabbi Ashkenazi would say—at least, this is what I heard from him when I discussed it with him—that a sick person should not make another blessing beforehand within seventy-two minutes, and if he drank more than a revi’is, he should say a concluding blessing. In other words, during those seventy-two minutes, he drinks with an interval between drinks longer than the time it takes to eat a pras. Suppose he leaves a quarter-

40:55 Speaker 2 hour between drinks, because he may not drink more than a revi’is within four or six minutes, right? And some say nine minutes. So suppose he drinks less than a revi’is every quarter of an hour. He can drink both amounts under one blessing. He starts at four with less than a revi’is, continues at four-fifteen with less than a revi’is, and at four-thirty drinks less than a revi’is on the strength of the original blessing. After an hour and twelve minutes, he can say a concluding blessing. That is Rabbi Ashkenazi’s view. Rabbi Ashkenazi said that even if there is a question about the concluding blessing, he should not make another blessing beforehand as long as seventy-two minutes have not passed. By contrast, the Machon Halacha Chabad book presents a different approach: if he drinks less than the prescribed measure and some time passes, each time is a new drinking session. Because he has ended the original session, he must make a new blessing each time—a blessing beforehand as well. With Hashem’s help, there is more to discuss at length on this subject. In any case, I have presented both approaches here. Anyone who wishes can follow what is written by Machon Halacha Chabad; look it up in the section on the festivals. Under drinking on Yom Kippur, they present an approach different from Rabbi Ashkenazi’s. Since they have written it, one can also rely on what is written there and make a new blessing over each drink. According to their approach, he also cannot say a concluding blessing, because each time he drinks less than a revi’is.