The "mother of all blessings" — the biblical source for thanking the Almighty for the many worldly gifts He bestows upon us — is found in this week's portion, Ekev: "And you shall eat and be satisfied and bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you." (Deuteronomy 8:10).

And if preparation, consumption, and cleaning up after meals take a great deal of time and effort, if our tradition mandates so many detailed laws about permitted and prohibited foods, and if the Talmud devotes a complete chapter (the seventh of the tractate Blessings) to the Grace after Meals — each individual blessing of which likewise derives from Ekev — it ought certainly be of great importance to study in depth this prayer-blessing, which many if not most observant Jews recite three times a day, every day.

Let us begin with the talmudic rule that we only recite the full Grace after Meals — three biblical and one rabbinic blessing — after eating a meal with bread (other foods mandate an abridged blessing of thanksgiving after consumption). What is special about bread? In many societies — especially before the exaggerated opulence of the communities in which most of us live — bread was the major component of every meal, the basic mainstay of our diet, the "staff of life." At the very least, each course was eaten with the accompaniment of bread. Nevertheless, the sacred Zohar provides the deepest reason: Bread symbolizes the partnership between human being and God; remember, there are 12 backbreaking and ingenious processes between the acquisition of the grain and the production of the bread. The individual is likely to think that it was due to his efforts alone that the food is to be found on the table; but, exhort our sages, remember to be mindful of God, be grateful to the source of nature — the ultimate provider of the bread — and you will share your bounty with others less fortunate and use the energy you derive from the food altruistically, not only egotistically.

It is also interesting to note that when three or more eat together, we begin with an additional blessing — an invitation, zimun in Hebrew — and when 10 or more eat together, the name of God is added to this introductory blessing. This teaches that the purpose of a meal ought to be not only nutritional or pleasurable; it must also be social, fraternal, and even communal. Indeed, the words "companion" and "company" literally mean "with bread," indicating that a friend is someone with whom you share a meal and, conversely, the person with whom you share a meal becomes your companion. In effect, food serves as a means to human fellowship and sharing. And why should we share with others? Because God shares with us!

So the "invitation" blessing leads into the first of the biblical blessings: "Blessed are you, God…, who nourishes the entire world in his goodness, with freely giving graciousness, with loving-kindness, and with sensitive compassion…." God gives whether the recipient deserves or does not deserve it, whether he or she has or has not earned it — and so must we share with others. And God provides the world — not just the Jews!

There comes the second of the biblical blessings, a surprise, a "zinger" blessing: "We thank you, o Lord our God, for having bequeathed to our ancestors a desirable, good, and spacious land, as it is written in your Bible: "You shall eat and be satisfied and bless the Lord your God for the good land that He has given you…." But for close to 2,000 years we lived in exile and the food we ate came from anyplace but Israel — and we still recited this blessing. Why?

We bless God for our ancestral land because exile expresses a precarious existence endangering human subsistence. A stranger to the land and the bread on his table are soon parted. The earth upon which we stand can be pulled out from under us if we are living on it by dint of the largesse of a gentile owner. Only when food comes from your own land is the food truly yours.

Our Grace after Meals then directs us toward Jerusalem, the city from which God's message of peace and tranquility will spread to the entire world. Jerusalem is the home of divine presence, the vision of our national mission, the beacon from which all of humanity will be redeemed.

There is a fourth blessing, established in Yavneh at the end of the aborted Bar Kochba rebellion in 135. When the last stronghold of Betar was destroyed, hope for the restoration of a Jewish national home was dashed. In the wake of this defeat came the terrible Hadrianic persecutions, the cruel Roman emperor who mercilessly tortured to death the greatest of our pious sages. During this time, the Romans forbade the burial of Jewish corpses; miraculously, the bodies did not putrefy. Thus the fourth rabbinic blessing records praises to God "who is good, and who does good" — hatov v'hameitiv — "is good because the bodies didn't rot, and does good because they could eventually bury their dead."

But why, one wonders, does this historical fact about burial and decomposition find its way into the Grace after Meals?

In tying the tragedy of Betar to food, the rabbis teach a critical lesson: It's proper to thank God for great miracles, but it's important not to forget to thank him for simple necessities. We must, even in the face of political and national defeat, recognize that we must appreciate whatever we have, and must learn to give thanks — even if it's only for our being able to give our dead a proper burial.

The necessity of sharing God's bounty, the yearning for Israel, the spiritual goal of Jerusalem, and the need to appreciate whatever we have are all expressed in our majestic Grace after Meals.