Q&A: Grace After Meals
Grace After Meals
Question
Hello Rabbi, your view is well known that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not respond to prayer nowadays (at least not usually; maybe there are rare cases). And you explained the very existence of prayer, which seemingly contradicts this, by saying that the Sages were mistaken (correct me if I’m wrong). I wanted to ask how the Rabbi explains Grace After Meals, where it is known that the first three blessings are Torah-level, and yet there are requests there as well (the blessing “Have mercy”). It seems hard to explain this away as a “policy change” regarding a Torah-level commandment.
Thank you very much
Answer
The term “Torah-level” does not mean that something is not a creation of the Sages. On the contrary, most Torah-level Jewish laws are from the Sages. They interpret the Torah. There are other mistakes as well in Torah-level Jewish laws. The Holy One, blessed be He, cannot make mistakes, but the Sages’ interpretation of the Torah certainly can be mistaken.
Beyond that, in earlier periods He really was more involved.
Discussion on Answer
Rashba was asked how they recited this blessing before the kingdom of the House of David, and he answered that there was different wording then, along the same lines, and the Sages changed it according to the circumstances.
Before you raise the difficulty about a policy change, raise the difficulty from what is written in the third blessing: “And restore the kingdom of the House of David, Your anointed one, to its place speedily in our days.” After all, if the kingdom returns, we would still need to keep Torah-level Jewish laws, which are eternal, and ask for the return of the kingdom (even though it has already returned). Or perhaps the Sages hinted to us here that the kingdom of the House of David will forever remain in the category of a future hope that will never be realized, somewhat like Professor Leibowitz’s comments about the Messiah.