Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Blessings and Prayers on Social Justice

Given the wide range of blessings included in the Jewish liturgy, we might be surprised that there are no blessings for performing ethical commandments, such as giving tzedakah, freeing hostages, or feeding the hungry. There are a few traditional explanations for this absence. First, poverty is understood to involve degradation. Since blessings are meant to celebrate the positive, there is a disinclination to recite blessings over degradation. Second, we generally say blessings over actions that we intend to complete immediately. Once we have lit Shabbat candles and recited the appropriate blessing, we have completed the mitzvah of lighting candles. We say a blessing over eating matzah on Passover and immediately fulfill the mitzvah of eating matzah. But we almost never discharge our obligations in regard to ethical mitzvot. No matter how muchtzedakah we give, we will probably never succeed in fulfilling the obligation to provide for all of the needs of the poor. Even if we feed the hungry this week, we have not solved the problem of hunger.

Rabbi David ben R. Yosef Aboudraham, a fourteenth-century Spanish liturgical scholar, offers one additional reason for not saying blessings before giving tzedakah. The poor person, he writes, has the option to accept or to reject the gift. Reciting a blessing indicates an assumption that the action will be completed. Since the recipient may reject the offered assistance, a person who gives tzedakah can never be sure that he or she will, in fact, complete the deed. This explanation acknowledges the agency of the poor in the practice of tzedakah….