ברכות לפני הסעודה בימי הבית השני ובהלכה התנאית

The dominant view in talmudic and halakhic literature, from tannaitic times until the present, is that the grace after meals is a scripturally mandated practice, whereas the blessings recited before eating area rabbinic innovation. It is thus surprising that the grace after meals isbarely alluded to in the Bible and Second Temple literature. In its original context, Deut. 8:10, the verse cited by the tannaim as enjoining the recitation of grace after the meal, is merely a general exhortation to be grateful to God for the land of Israel and its produce, not necessarily a requirement to recite a benediction following each meal. In biblical narrative the benediction precedes rather than follows the meal, and the same is true of the numerous attestations of blessings over food in Second Temple literature and in the New Testament. In most of these examples the priest or another religious authority is the one who recites the benediction before the meal. It seems that, in ancient times, because all of creation was deemed divine property, the blessing before the meal was considered mandatory in order to render the food permissible for consumption. Eating any food, whether devoted to the Temple orostensibly "secular", without first acknowledging God, was considered a form of sacrilege. According to Philo, sancta devoted to the Temple are permissible for consumption by lay people only if formally released by a priest or religious authority. It seems that the blessing before the meal recited by the priest or religious authority functioned in much the same way: nonsacred food, which also belongs to God, is formally released for consumption when the priest or religious authority utters the blessingover it. While echoes of this notion are found in rabbinic literature, the connection between food and divine property became more tenuous following the destruction of the Temple, when the Temple sancta ceased to exist. At this point the notion of sacrilege was reinterpreted as meremetaphor, and the blessings before the meal as rabbinic injunctions. The weakening of the link between the benediction and the release of food for consumption enabled a very literal rendering of Deut. 8:10, according to which the scripturally mandated blessing should follow rather than precede the meal.