In this brachah, we pray for sustenance. When one consumes food without first praying for the food, he makes the food loathsome. In his Yearos Dvash, Horav Yehonasan Eibeshutz, zl, notes that Horav Moshe Cordovero, zl, the Rmak, would not even set the table without first praying for sustenance. It is, thus, appropriate that we pray to Hashem every day; petitioning Him to help us earn an honest living. We realize the inappropriateness of eating food which is tainted with any form of wrongdoing – whether it is in the area of kashrus of the product, or kashrus in the manner that we earned the money that purchased this food. We understand that such deficiencies in the food defile the body and deprive the soul of its vital nourishment. The Yearos Dvash explains that an honest meal is nourishment for the soul, for, by eating it, we release the “sparks of holiness” trapped in the food.
[The Zohar (Bereishis 4a) teaches that at Creation, as a result of Adam HaRishon’s sin, a cosmic cataclysm occurred in which the vessels conveying Divine Light to the physical world shattered, spilling sparks of holiness (nitzotzos ha’kedushah) throughout the world. These sparks became trapped within the shells of impurity (klipos ha’tumah). It is now the mission of the Jew to redeem these nitzotzos by performing mitzvos.]When a Jew makes a blessing prior to eating food, he sets free the sparks imbedded within the food and all of its sources, thereby returning them to their original holy state.
