minor halachic puzzle

[cellio]

After this week's talmud-study session my rabbi told me about a situation he witnessed recently, and it caught my "reason it out talmudically" fancy.

He was at the kollel (Jewish learning center), and one person (let's call him Shlomo) offered another (let's call him Ploni) a glass of water. Ploni said the appropriate bracha (blessing) before drinking, and then Shlomo noticed that Ploni was taking a pill with the water. Shlomo asserted that in that case Ploni should not say a bracha, becuase he wasn't drinking the water for pleasure. Ploni responded that he used only a sip of water for the pill and that he was then going to drink the large glass of refreshing water anyway. Shlomo held that this didn't matter. (So far as I know, the dispute is unresolved. Shlomo and Ploni are both rabbis, by the way.)

This dispute raises several questions. First, assuming that Ploni is not physically incapable of taking a pill without liquid, then the water does provide some level of pleasure. He could have taken the pill without, after all, but it's easier with. Second, it might matter what kind of medicine he was taking -- where it is on the scale from "anti-rejection drug for ny heart transplant" to "aspirin for a minor headache I feel coming on". Toward the latter end of that spectrum, one can argue that the drug isn't strictly necessary, so in a sense you're taking it for your own comfort and not because you need to. (This kind of distinction comes to bear on fast days like Yom Kippur, in figuring out which medicines you may, must, or must not take during the fast.)

But the real problem with Shlomo's argument, I think, is what happens when you apply it to drugs that must be taken with food. He prohibits the bracha for the glass of water because of the medicine; would he similarly prohibit a bracha for an entire meal because of medicine? Even if it was a big elaborate meal, much more than what the medicine strictly requires? If he wouldn't, what's the difference? (I wish I could ask Shlomo that question.)

At best, I think you can argue that Ploni should take a sip of water with the pill and then say the bracha and drink the rest of the glass. But that feels odd to me too, in that if he's going to say it anyway, he may as well say it at the beginning. Alternatively, if he wants to dodge the issue, he could drink most of the water (for pleasure) and then use the last bit to take his pill, sort of in an "oh by the way so long as it's here anyway" manner.

A related story: I was once taking just a sip of water so I could take a pill -- not a large-enough amount of water to require a bracha. But I wasn't sure what I should do; it seemed like I should still make some acknowledgement before consuming these items. Because the pill was for an acute condition, I reasoned that there was in fact an appropriate bracha. (This sentence is here to give readers who care a chance to think of it on their own before proceeding.) So I said "rofei ha-cholim" ("praised... who heals the sick"). :-)

Comments

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

It isn't like the person stating the prayer is wasting their deity's time.

But one saying a b'racha l'vatelah ("empty blessing") or a tefillat shav ("worthless prayer") is devaluing the prayer experience for oneself.

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

Would it not only be empty if nothing were consumed at all, and willfully at that?

[cellio]

Willfulness isn't required for a blessing to be in vain. If you just get distracted and forget to eat the food after saying the bracha, you've made a blessing in vain even though you didn't mean to. There is some discussion in tractate b'rachot about what happens if you accidentally say the wrong bracha -- same issue.

I don't know if there's a difference between consuming nothing and consuming something below the threshold.

[zevabe.livejournal.com]

There is no below the threshold for the bracha rishona. If I ate a crumb of cake it would require a mezonot just the same (bread is different in some respects). If one ate less than the appropriate measure of matza the bracha al achilat matza (on eating matza) would be in vain. But that is a different category of blessing.

[cellio]

Thanks; I think I was letting the bread/matzah issue distract me.