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Maybe מעביר שינה or מחיה המתים or הנותן לשכבי בינה
Something like that
Or maybe even עץ חיים היא!
That is not a birchas hanehenin but a borei pri haetz. It is ground and not eaten raw so we don’t see the fruit anymore. The question is instant coffee I can understand, but what about cooked coffee?
Why is it different from vegetable soup?R’Zeira – and some say R’Chanina bar Pappa – said: The halachah is not in accordance with R’Yehudah.
Berachos 40aWhat makes you think it needs its own brocha?
It isnt fruit juice, it is just says, fruit sweat or essence
Why is it different than wine which gets its own bracha?
Grapes are one of the Seven Species named in the Torah. Coffee beans are not.
The only food with its own bracha is wine, and arguably bread (one can argue the bread is a sub-set of mezonos (foods from grains).
Coffee was introduced in the period of the rishonim (and cocoa in the period of the achronim), too late to get mentioned in the Talmud, and in any event, why would it get its own bracha.
The reason coffee is not ho’eitz is because all the coffee that was put in the water is then taken out. It’s like a vegetable soup from which all the vegetables were removed after cooking.
While our modern science of physics tells us that since the soup is not pure water there must obviously be some substance of the vegetable left, and that if we were to dry out the vegetables we removed and then weigh them we would inevitably find that they weigh less than they did when they were put in, the halacha’s view is different.
The halacha’s view is that color, taste, and smell have no substance themselves, no mass, but are merely properties that a substance has; מראה אין בו ממש, טעם אין בו ממש, ריח אין בו ממש. When you cook vegetables in a soup and then remove them, the same vegetables went in and came out and all that they did while they were in the water was to impart to it color, taste, and smell. What you have left, according to halacha, is not water with particles of vegetable in it, which carry color, taste, and smell, but rather pure water that happens to look, taste, and smell differently from normal water, because it spent time closely associated with the vegetables and learned to copy them.
Therefore the bracha on the soup — or on the coffee — is the same shehakol that we say on normal water. If we were to drink the coffee itself together with the water, then the bracha would be ha’etz. Which leads us to the question of hot chocolate, and the achronim struggle to understand why we should not say ha’etz on it, since the cocoa powder is not removed but is drunk together with the water. (The achronim do not discuss chocolate itself, i.e. the hard substance that we call chocolate stam, because it was not invented until about 1800. All mentions of “chocolate” in achronim refer to hot chocolate.)
This leads to the question of instant coffee. “Reb” Eliezer, with his “daas baalei batim”, thinks it’s more obvious to say shehakol on instant coffee than on regular brewed coffee. But the opposite is true. What is instant coffee, after all, but brewed coffee from which the water has been removed? If it were indeed true that color, taste, and smell have no substance, then instant coffee could not exist. The jar would be empty. But the fact is that when we buy the jar it is full, and we take a spoon of this very real physical substance and dissolve it in water, and drink it without removing anything. So it’s harder to understand why it’s not ha’eitz.
By the way, this same principle that color, taste, and smell have no substance, is why if you spill wine into a mikveh and the water’s color changes it is pasul, but if you soak a dyeing substance in fewer than 3 login of water and remove it, and then spill the water into a mikveh and change its color, it remains kosher. The halacha regards the color that the dye imparted to the water as having no substance, while the wine obviously does have substance.
Either way, juice from any fruit besides for grapes and olives are not considered juice, only sweat, and will never be anything other then Shehakol. The only drink which is a subject in the Rishoinim, is beer.
My understanding is that if you drink water for pleasure, you say shehakol. But if you drink water simply to keep yourself hydrated, you don’t say a blessing.
Does the same logic apply to coffee? If you drink it for pleasure, you say shehakol, but if you drink it simply to stay awake, you don’t say a blessing?
“My understanding is that if you drink water for pleasure, you say shehakol. But if you drink water simply to keep yourself hydrated, you don’t say a blessing.”
You have seriously misunderstood the halacha. Drinking to keep yourself hydrated is the only case when you DO say the bracha, since that is the only case in which you derive benefit. It is OTHER uses, such as washing down pills or bile, that do not have a bracha, because one gets no benefit from ingesting the water.
simplesense, the rule that the only true juices are those of grapes and olives (not only for the purpose of brochos but also for shabbos and for hechsher lekabel tum’ah) seems to derive from and depend on the fact that in the ancient world these were the only fruits commonly juiced. People who juiced other fruits were considered odd, and “botloh daatom”. Since this is no longer the case, it is very likely that the rule is no longer valid, but we lack poskim with the breitkait to say so. (There are poskim who suggest that juicing oranges is nowadays assur mid’oraisa, but I have never heard of one who will also rule that orange juice is machshir lekabel tum’ah, or that its bracha is ha’etz, which should naturally follow.)
DovidBT, I don’t know if the two are the same. In SA O’CH 204,8 says that if medicine is enjoyed because of its taste like fruit flavored Tums, we make a shehakol on it. Similarly, coffee keeping you awake, but you enjoy its taste whereas water has no extra benefit but to quench the thirst.
You have seriously misunderstood the halacha.
Milhouse, it is you who are mistaken. You only make a bracha on water when you are thirsty, but if you just want to hydrate yourself for health reasons, you don’t (unless you happen to also be thirsty).
coffee addict, where is the pasuk? Maybe שמות פרק טו) קָֽפְא֥וּ תְהֹמֹ֖ת בְּלֶב־יָֽם) ?
My coworker needs to make a shehechiyanu on her coffee…if she ever drinks some. She’s 56 and has never tasted it!
coffee addict, is that somewhere in Iyov as there is only 150 perokim in Tehilim?
Reb Eliezer, קפה spells the Hebrew word for ☕.
Daas yochid, if you “just want to hydrate yourself for health reasons”, that is לצמאו. If you are dehydrated then you need water, therefore you are thirsty. It is exactly the same as eating flavorless food when you are malnourished; how could you possibly imagine that this would not be called לרעבונו, or that you would be exempt from a bracha? The principle here, as always, is אסור להנות מעולם הזה בלי ברכה, so a bracha is necessary if and only if there is הנאה. Eating flavorless food, or drinking plain water, when one is full and hydrated, produces no הנאה, therefore one says no bracha. Doing so when one is malnourished or dehydrated, i.e. hungry or thirsty, produces הנאה, therefore one does say a bracha. Anything else is פלוידעריי.
if you “just want to hydrate yourself for health reasons”, that is לצמאו.
They’re not synonymous, though most often overlap.
You are assuming, for some reason, that it’s not possible for a person to drink water for hydration unless they are dehydrated. This is not true. Some people drink water when they’re not thirsty because they are told to drink a certain amount of water every day.
Another ramification would be before a taanis. Often, someone will drink water before a taanis to give extra hydration. Unless they’re thirsty, they would not recite a brocha.
Where does it say anything about flavorless food? The Mishnah and Gemara mention water.
Another ramification would be before a taanis. Often, someone will drink water before a taanis to give extra hydration. Unless they’re thirsty, they would not recite a brocha.
That is just not true. They are deriving benefit from this world so they are obliged to say a bracha.
Where does it say anything about flavorless food? The Mishnah and Gemara mention water.
It’s the exact same principle. Eating flavorless food is exactly the same as drinking water. If it’s for nutrition you say a bracha, otherwise you don’t.
I think some hold that to prevent thirst is considered לצמאו so would require a bracha, but if if the hydration was for medical purposes, if the person wasn’t otherwise נהנה, no bracha.
Your idea that any benefit requires a bracha is clearly wrong; using water in a case of חנקתיה אומצא (and all of the cases the poskim say are comparable) is benefiting from the water, yet there’s no bracha.
On the contrary, when drinking water to wash away an obstruction in ones throat one derives no benefit at all from the water. If one could easily and conveniently spit it out afterwards one would probably do so. Ditto for swallowing water in order to wash down pills, or to wash away bile in the mouth. One has no wish to swallow the water, and does so only since it’s inconvenient or impractical not to. None of that is a benefit from the water. Hydration, however, is the primary benefit that people derive from water, just as nutrition is the primary benefit people derive from food, and therefore does not depend on pleasure of the palate.
Of course you benefited from the water. If it was assur b’hana’ah, you wouldn’t be allowed to use it.
For some reason, you seem to think you can say whatever seems right to you, and ignore what the poskim say.
If you drink water for refuah, you are benefiting from the water (even according to your definition of benefit which requires that you want the water to stay), yet the halacha is that you don’t say a bracha. (שו”ע או”ח ר”ד ח’ ומ”ב מ”ב).
coffee addict, coffee that keeps you awake raises your blood preasure. so it is not good for you. You would make a shehakol for the taste.
coffee addict, I have high blood pressure, so I only drink decaf. Coffee and salt they say to avoid. A little wine is good for you. The Jews don’t get drunk normally because they drink as a ritual, so they can control themselves.
Sleep is good for you. To drink to stay awake is also not good. Sleep Apnea is dangerous where a person periodically awakens and cannot fall fully asleep making it up in the daytime, so he wears a mask for sleeping.coffee addict, good question. I think, you don’t get drunk at once, so meanwhile you are enjoying your wine. The RMA says 695,2 that you don’t have to become drunk. Just drink more than the usual and fall asleep. According to this, you don’t know ahead of time if you become drunk to not make a brocho on it.
coffee addict, are you going to take a drink from a pitcher until you become drunk or are you going to drink glass by glass?
coffee addict, you want a separate brocho., so what brocho do you make on a flat tire? תצא רוחו ישב לאדמתו.
on a dollar? שכחו וגבורתו מלא עולם.coffee addict, you drink too much coffee to appreciate a joke.
coffee addict, I don’t think it is worse than medicine where you make a brocho for the taste.SA O’CH 204,8.
What about, המעביר שנה ותנומה מעפעפי?
coffee addict, I did forget but I an agreeing with you that it is a good one for a separate brocho.
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