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Praised are you O Lord our
God king of the Universe Who has sanctified us by commanding
us to wash our hands. |
Barukh ata adonai eloheinu meleh ha'olam
asher
kidshanu b'mitzvotav vitzivanu
Al nitilat yadayim |
This blessing can be found on page 726 of Siddur
Sim Shalom.
The Shulkhan Arukh the greatest code of Jewish Law
in our sacred library is broken into 4 sections. Orekh Hayim,
the section in which laws pertaining to regular every day rituals
and activities, open with the laws of ritual hand washing, known
as Nitilat yadayim.
According to the Shulkhan Arukh, nitilat yadaiyim,
washing of the hands should be one the first activities of the
day and should be done before eating a meal. This is suggestive
of the fact that as we make the transition from sleep to wake,
from hunger to satisfying that hunger we are to recognize that
what we eat, with eat as a result of the work of our hands and
what we intend to accomplish over the course of the day we will
accomplish with our hands.
The Midrash teaches us that we enter this world
with our hands clenched while we leave this world with our hands
open, implying that we enter the world in the hopes of grasping
all life has to offer while we leave this world with the understanding
that we can take nothing with us. (Kohelet Rabbah 5:21)
The Shema the most elemental statement of faith
of our history refers to placing them as a sign upon our arm and
upon our heads, a sign of the commandments. Essentially reminding
us that everything we do with our hands must reflect the values
of the Torah everything we see we must see through the prism of
the values of a life bound by the commandments in the Bible.
Our hands connect us to the world. Ours hands can
create and can destroy. Throughout the course of the day we are
going to demolish but hopefully we will construct as well. We
wash our hands at the beginning of the day in order to pray that
this day we hope that at the end of the day we will have built
more than we have torn down. We wash our hands prior to a meal
in recognition of that fact animal life may have been lost in
order that we may eat, and now we must use the energy we have
gained from that food to make this world a better place.
Our hands can find cures to illness and they
can make weapons of war. Our hands can caress and they and do
violence. We wash our hands and say a bracha with the full knowledge
of the vast potential we hold with in them. In Ashrei (Psalm 145)
we ask God to open His hands and satisfy all living creatures.
We too must open our hands to all who need us. Again, I recommend
we add this bracha to our repertoire and enhance our understanding
of our place in this world.
Copyright © 2001 Rabbi
Yohanan Stein. All rights reserved.
New Jersey Region United Synagogue
of Conservative Judaism
PO Box 390; 1025 St. Georges
Ave
Linden, NJ 07036-0390
Phone: 908-925-USCJ (8725)
/ Fax: 908-486-USCJ (8725)
E-mail: njersey@uscj.org
Copyright © 2000 -
2003 New Jersey USCJ. All rights reserved.
Last Updated: July 2003
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