I’m grateful a hundred times a day – Ekev
Rabbi Meir, according to the Talmud, said that a person should say a hundred blessings a day.
He reinforced his view with a verse in this week’s sidra. “And now, O Israel”, says the verse, “what (in Hebrew, mah) does the Lord your God ask of you, but to revere the Lord your God and walk in His ways…” In a play on words, Rabbi Meir reads mah as me’ah, a hundred.
In the simple sense, the message is that we should have a tariff of daily b’rachot, and notionally tick them off one by one.
In fact anyone who conscientiously says the daily prayers will actually end up with more than a hundred b’rachot each day: there are fifteen early morning blessings, nineteen blessings in each of the three Amidot, blessings before and after food, and blessings that respond to others of the day’s experiences. On Shabbat and festivals the Amidot are shorter, but the blessings can be made up by other means.
A friend who served in the British army in Gibraltar many years ago often enjoyed the hospitality of the local Jewish community and at first was nonplussed to be served a procession of entrees on Shabbat, not realising a big main meal would come in due course; the entrees came first to enable everyone to offer a separate b’rachah for each food.
On a more poetical level Rabbi Meir is telling us that we should make every day a day-long act of worship, filled with recognition of the presence and beneficence of God. The Book of Proverbs advises, “Know Him in all your ways” (3:6). Psalm 16:8 declares, “I have set the Lord always before me” – words which open the Shulchan Aruch and appear above the Ark in many synagogues. Every moment should be an opportunity for sensing God in the world.
Filling the day with b’rachot has an ethical connotation too. When you say Motzi, that’s a b’rachah; and in a different sense, when you perform an honourable action, that’s also a b’rachah, a blessing in action. So every one of us needs to stop and think, “Is this action of mine a b’rachah? Am I bringing credit to God and bringing blessing to others at this moment? Or am I secretly ashamed of what I am doing? Or am I compromising my own conscience?”
It is relatively easy to accept that the big decisions should be carefully considered beforehand and examined afterwards. It is harder to acknowledge that the small details of life also matter, which explains Rashi’s comment on the beginning of the sidra. “Because (ekev) you heed these judgments, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant…” (Deut. 7:12). Since ekev is reminiscent of akev, a heel, Rashi says God requires that we heed even the apparently minor commandments which a person tends to tread on with their heel.
Judaism is concerned both with the wide sweep of great ideas and eternal values, and also with the minutiae of Shabbat and kashrut which some dismiss impatiently. It’s all part of filling the day with blessings.
