Birkot HaTorah (Hebrew: ברכות התורה, The blessings of the Torah) are blessings in Jewish law concerning the giving of the Torah from God to Israel and to the study of Torah. According to Jewish law, the blessings are obligatory to bless before Torah study (including the Talmud[1]), and it is customary to bless them every morning prior to any Torah study that will be taught that day.
The system of Torah blessings is structured as a series of three sections:
In the Talmud it is written that one of the reasons for the destruction of the Land of Israel is to know a Rav, the one who studied Torah without first blessing the Birkot HaTorah. Rabbi's explanation is an interpretation of the verse in the book of Jeremiah which describes God answering the question why the Land of Israel was destroyed:"Who is the ish hechacham (wise man), that may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of Hashem hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what HaAretz perisheth and is scorched like a midbar, that none passeth through?"[3]
From the simplicity of the Bible it appears that the destruction of the land was due to the departure of the Torah, but Rav requires the duplication of the language "they left my Torah" and "did not follow it", meaning that they did not bless before studying Torah.[4] [5]
In the Berakhot, the Undetermined: [[Amoraim]] were divided as to whether contemplation (thought) should be considered as it were speech or not. According to Rav Chisda thought is not considered speech: the evidence for this is that an unclean person is not allowed to say holy things, yet the unclean person should think on the words of the food blessing in his mind. Hence a thought is not considered speech, as such people must ponder the sacred, so that he will not be idle from sacred words, while others are engaged in blessings of praise.
Some Talmudists, like Rabina II (and possibly Rabina I), considered thought to be speech. As the mishnah commands such a person to ponder in their minds the words of the blessing of food, the thought must be speech. Against this, as this mitzvah requires only that the body be pure when speaking sacred words, the duty to maintain a pure body is only when speaking of holiness really and not in contemplation.[6]