Laws of Blessings (Adv.)
Crash Course in Jewish Blessings
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When foods are eaten in combination, which after-bracha do you say?
When foods are eaten in some type of combination, there are two main issues to consider regarding bracha achrona:
We'll now examine each of these issues in detail.
We learned in class #20 about the concept of ikar v'tafel (primary and secondary ingredients). For example, if you have a hot dog with ketchup, your bracha rishona is determined by whichever ingredient you desire, and/or by the majority ingredient1 – in this case, the hot dog is obviously the ikar.
The same rule applies to a bracha achrona: You say only a bracha on the ikar, and not on the tafel.2
"Say that you ate crackers with peanut butter. As we learned in class #22, mezonot is always considered the ikar in a mixture. So the rule is quite simple: Just as your bracha rishona on the crackers "covered" the peanut butter, so too your bracha achrona of Al Ha'michya covers the peanut butter. A separate bracha achrona is not required.3
However, this only applies because the peanut butter and crackers were eaten as an ikar v'tafel, with one bracha rishona covering both foods. But otherwise, if you eat mezonot foods to obligate the saying of Al Ha'michya, this does not obviate the need a bracha achrona on any non-mezonot food.4
Sam ate pretzels and then a bar of chocolate. He needs to say Al Ha'michya, followed by Borei Nefashot.
What about a case where you ate two different foods, requiring two different after-brachot, but you did not eat a full kezayit of either food? Let's look at five different cases:
1) If you ate vegetables and meat, the bracha achrona (assuming you ate a kezayit quickly enough) is a foregone conclusion – both of these foods get a Borei Nefashot. Therefore you don't need a kezayit of any individual ingredient to say Borei Nefashot – they can "join together" to form the required kezayit.5
2) What about a case where the after-brachot are different – e.g. you ate a half-kezayit of crackers and a half-kezayit of apple? The proper bracha achrona is Borei Nefashot. The reason is because the apple cannot "go up" in status to combine and obligate Al HaMichya, but the cracker can "go down" to obligate a Borei Nefashot.6
3) If you drank a half-revi'it of orange juice and a half-revi'it of soda (in immediate succession), they combine to obligate a Borei Nefashot.
4) If you ate a half-kezayit of food and drank a half-revi'it of drink, these do not combine together to obligate a Borei Nefashot.7 However, with a thick vegetable soup, the liquid broth and the vegetable chunks are eaten together as one food, and thus combine to obligate a Borei Nefashot. (In other words, the tafel status of the liquid makes it considered a part of the solid it is secondary to. It therefore contributes to the required kezayit.).8
5) Now let's complicate things a bit. Let's say that you ate a piece of chocolate cake that was precisely one kezayit in size. If we break down the ingredients, we'll see that this piece of cake contains approximately one half-kezayit of wheat flour, and one half-kezayit of other ingredients – sugar, margarine, eggs, etc. In terms of which bracha achrona to say, the custom differs:
[This applies only when the ingredients are baked together in a full mixture, However, if you ate a piece of cheesecake which has a half-kezayit layer of mezonot crust and a half-kezayit layer of cheese, the cheese would not count toward the kezayit.10 In such a case, if the mezonot crust, for example, constitutes 20% of the cake's total volume, then in order to say Al Ha'michya you would need to eat 5 kezayit-measures within 3-4 minutes.]
In any event, the best option is to avoid this issue altogether, by eating a piece of cake that contains a full kezayit of flour.12
Imagine a situation where you have a few different after-brachot to say. For example, you ate fish and salad for your main course, and fresh dates for dessert. Here you'll have to say Borei Nefashot to cover the fish and salad, and Al Ha'aitz for the dates. In this case you should say the Al Ha'aitz first, because of the following rule:
The Three-Faceted Blessing, due to its importance, takes priority over Borei Nefashot.
However, if there would be only salad and dates, then Borei Nefashot would come first. The reason is because in the Three-Faceted Blessing, we say "v'al tenuvat ha'sadeh" (which means, "...and on the produce of the field"). Thus, if it would be said first, according to some opinions, it would make the Borei Nefashot redundant. Therefore, in such a case the Borei Nefasot should be said first. However, when consuming shehakol foods that do not grow from the ground (e.g. meat, cheese, water, etc.), the Three-Faceted Blessing should be said first, because of its importance.13
This concludes class #33. In our next class, we'll begin the guidelines for Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after a bread meal.