The Cooking Bracha: A Blessing for Making Food

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The Cooking Bracha: A Blessing for Making Food

by Leah Koenig · October 30th, 2008

Blessings, Cooking, Featured, Food Writing, Jewish Learning, Participate!, Spirituality

Jewish tradition loves to bless food (or rather to bless God for food). We bless bread, we bless wine – we bless snacks as well as meals. We have different blessings for fruit grown on trees vs. fruit grown in the ground and, remarkably, when we’re done eating and feeling satisfied, we bless again! But for some reason, despite all this food blessing, there is no Jewish blessing for cooking.

This fact struck me and Anna as a bit odd. The act of standing in a kitchen – coaxing raw ingredients into a nourishing meal through heat, patience and wisdom, seems pretty holy. The mere fact that the ingredients are there to cook is, in itself, no small miracle! So a couple of years ago, in conjunction with Hazon’s Beit Midrash on (what else?!) Jews, food, and contemporary life, we wrote a cooking bracha. It’s a blessing to be said just before: before turning the stove on under a pot of water, before dipping one’s hands into the flour, before the flurry of activity that, God willing, will create a delicious meal worthy of its own blessing.

Find the Cooking Bracha below the jump…

If you like this blessing, feel free to use it! I’m planning on printing out a copy, framing it, and hanging it in the kitchen at Yoshie’s and my new apartment. (I admit that I’ve only used this blessing a handful of times over the last two years – I think having a framed copy in the kitchen might help up the average!) And if you have any suggestions about how to make the blessing better, please leave them below!

Cooking Bracha
By Leah Koenig & Anna Stevenson

“Blessed are You
Creator of the world
Who brings forth fruit from the Earth.

Blessed are You,
Who gives us knowledge of cooking, and time to cook
And who has blessed us with the need for nourishment
so that we can fully understand Your gifts.

May it be Your will
That the food that I cook
Bring nourishment, fulfillment, and happiness
to those who eat it
And bring honor to the land and all the people that make this meal possible

This post was inspired by NeoHasid.org founder (and The Jew & The Carrot blogger) Rabbi David Seidenberg. David wrote a beautiful, non-partisan prayer for voting, which he shared with Hazon – and which you can find here for use on voting day next week. In doing so, he reminded me about the cooking bracha – thanks David!

Photo Credit: Sauce Food

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7 Responses to “The Cooking Bracha: A Blessing for Making Food”

Eric Schulmiller Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Leah, probably the “mother” of all cooking blessings is the one recited over the mitzvah of “taking hallah” – the blessing said when baking bread, when a small section of dough is burnt in the oven in symbolic remembrance that we can no longer designate a portion of our bread for the kohanim since the destruction of the Temple.

Many centuries later, collections in yiddish called tkhines provided women with devotional prayers for all manner of activities, including some for cooking. There’s even one for making kugel!! Here’s the most famous one, for baking challah, from Seyder Tkhines – a 17th century collection, as cited in WomanPrayers: Prayers by Women from throughout History and Around the World, by Mary Ford-grabowsky

Lord of all the world, in your hand is all blessing. I come now to revere your holiness by baking bread, and I ask you to bless all the ingredients. Send an angel to watch over my baking, so that all will be done well, the bread will rise nicely, and will not be burned. These baked goods will honor the holy Sabbath when holy blessings will be recited. Bless my work as you blessed the dough of Sarah and Rebecca, our mothers. My Lord God, listen to my voice, for you are the God who hears the voices of those who call upon you wholeheartedly. May you be praised to eternity.
Leah Koenig Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Oh, that’s so cool, Eric! I know about taking challah – but I don’t consider that a “cooking blessing” in the sense that it’s not really about the act of making food.

But the tkhines prayers are absolutely amazing. I got shivers reading them!
shev Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Beautiful.

Is there a place we can easily access a printable copy?

Thanks and Shabbat Shalom!
Bobbi Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
This is lovely. I like how you’ve included taking care of the land and blessing those who’ve helped get the ingredients to me. I was procrastinating about making dinner. It’s so much easier to cook on the weekends when I have more time. But to touch my efforts with a bit of holiness, well, I’m off to the kitchen! Thanks.
Bruce Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Can you post a copy in Hebrew with vowels for us illiterates? Thank you for your time and heart.
Leah Koenig Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 9:21 am
Hey Bruce,

My Hebrew isn’t good enough to repost this with vowels – maybe somebody else could?? In the meantime, here is the transliterated version, if that helps:

Baruch atah Adonai
Eloheinu melech ha’olam
Borei pri ha’adamah

Baruch atah Adonai
Hanotein da’at v’zman livshol
V’natan lanu tzorech mason
Lachen anachnu y’cholim l’hevin matanoteycha

Ken y’hi ratzon
Sh’ha’ochel sh’bishalti
Yiten simcha, shleimut v’mazon
L’anashim sh’achlo
V’yiten kavod la’aretz u’la’anashim
She natano li et hahizdamnut
Livshol im hamarchivim ha’eilo.
Nadya Says:
December 12th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Thanks so much, Leah! This has inspired another craft project–I’m set on making all my holiday gifts this year and I have a friend who will absolutely LOVE getting a framed cooking bracha to hang in her kitchen (which I’ll probably decorate with photos that we took together at a farmer’s market in Ojai)!