The Reform movement has brought back the Birkat HaMazon, the blessing after the meal, and it’s come back with enthusiasm. When I went to the URJ camp in the Berkshires I don’t recall singing the Birkat (most shorten it to “Birkat”), but now even our congregations sing a portion of it following communal meals. It is a meaningful set of blessings that come from this week’s Torah portion, Ekev.

We read in Deuteronomy 8, verses 9 and 10, “…a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, you will lack nothing in it…and you will eat and be sated, and you shall bless the Eternal, your God, for the good land God has given you,” this last verse the basis for the Birkat. First we eat, then acknowledge that we’ve eaten enough, and then thank God for our sustenance.

We’re told that there are 100 blessings a day for our recitation, each thanking God for a Divine gift we should acknowledge. When we think of those who go hungry each and every night, those who suffer malnutrition, those who starve to death, we understand the underlying power of the Birkat for we are the fortunate ones. Speaking as one who had been put on a diet virtually at birth, I can say that there are many like me who aren’t at all suffering from starvation. This whole country has far too many overweight men, women, and children.

There are social activists who believe the Birkat shouldn’t be recited because God who “feeds the whole world with Divine goodness, with loving kindness and tender mercy…providing for all God’s creatures Divinely created,” may have forgotten about those in so many parts of the world where that statement is questionable.

But the food is there, at least the potential for all to be fed. True, weather conditions and even political unrest can lead to many suffering while others eat to their heart’s content, and beyond