Image: A large display of fruits and vegetables. (Photo via MaksPhotography/Pixabay)
It’s spring! Every week new fruits and vegetables become available, depending on where you live. The appearance of these new goodies offer us a great opportunity to take on the practice of saying blessings for our food.
Saying the blessings causes us to pause for a moment and NOTICE what we are doing. We stop, we say the words, we hear the words acknowledging that this is a special product of the earth, and then we eat it. It is both a mindfulness practice and a way of reminding ourselves that the produce doesn’t grow at the store: it grows in the earth, watered by the rain (and maybe irrigation) and it passes through many hands on its way to us. Here are the blessings:
A blessing for vegetables and things that grow from the ground:
Baruch Atah, Adonai Eloheinu Melekh HaOlam, borei p’ree haAdmah.
Blessed are You, Eternal, Our God, Ruler of Time-and-Space, Who creates produce from the ground.
A blessing for fruit from a tree:
Baruch Atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melekh HaOlam, borei p’ree haEtz.
Blessed are You, Eternal, Our God, Ruler of Time-and-Space, Who creates fruit from the tree.
It is perfectly OK to say the blessing in English. That said, if you are interested in learning Hebrew, memorizing blessings and prayers is a great beginning.
Enjoy the springtime!
I love the mindfulness connection with food. It presents such a great opportunity to slow down and notice every aspect of taste, beauty, effort, and care. And, then to be grateful.
Yes! I enjoy food more when I stop to bless.
This post makes me SOOO Happy! A chance to pause and be filled with joy that my world has such beautiful things in it. <3 Thank you!