I’m sure more than one prospective Jewish husband has made the embarrassing mistake of telling their future father-in-law about their gym routine when they were asked if they can “bentch.”

Those children who have grown up with a Jewish education know that “benching” refers to Birchat HaMazon, one of the most well-known prayers. The origin of Birchat Hamazon is in this week’s Parshah and that means that bentching is a Biblical commandment – unlike all the other blessings that we instituted much later by the Rabbis.

Birchat Hamazon is actually a chain of four blessings, the first of which was composed by Moses as the manna fell to sustain the People of Israel. This is the most ancient prayer recited by the Jewish people to this very day. The second blessing was composed by Joshua to thank G-d as the Jewish nation entered into the Holy Land; Moses makes no mention of the land in the first blessing, because they had not yet arrived there. The third blessing, offering praise to G-d for the building of Jerusalem, was composed by Kings David and Solomon.

There is another unique feature to bentching: in all other blessings, we answer “amen” only to blessings recited by others, but in the third blessing in bentching, we all recite amen to our own blessing as well. This is to mark a distinction between the first three blessings which was commanded by the Torah and the fourth which was composed by Rabban Gamliel and his Court in Yavneh, 52 years after the destruction of the Bais HaMikdash, in 70CE. 

That was the time of the revolt of Bar Kochba. In his earliest days, he was a disciple of Rabbi Akiva, in fact, Rabbi Akiva argued that Bar Kochba was the Moshiach and that the goal of his revolt was to restore the Beit Hamikdash. Unfortunately, Bar Kochba went off on his own path and failed to realise that his victories were from G-d and the Rabbis withdrew their support. Ultimately, the Roman Emperor Hadrian stamped out the revolt and murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews in Betar, then the most prominent of Jewish cities and seat of the revolt. Hadrian, in addition, refused to allow the corpses to be buried, as a final lesson to the Jewish survivors, and the corpses remained without their final dignity. 

Years later, Rabban Gamliel and his Court in Yavneh prayed and fasted until he was finally able to bribe the Romans to bury his brothers and sisters. On the 15^th of Av, whose anniversary was on this past Monday, Rabban Gamliel prepared to bring them to burial, only to find that a miracle happened over the years: their bodies had remained intact and none of them had decomposed! Rabban Gamliel and composed “Hatov Vehametiv,” the fourth blessing of bentching, to show gratitude for the miracle of protecting the corpses and allowing them to be brought to a proper Jewish burial. 

What kind of blessing should we make over hundreds of thousands of martyred Jews being brought to burial? What kind of “tov” – goodness - should we celebrate as we remember the corpses of our brothers and sisters who have perished in the most brutal and torturous ways? If we are going to praise G-d for goodness, why don’t we at least pick a good occasion? 

Each blessing of bentching relates to a specific era in the G-d-given evolution of Jewish nationhood. The blessing of Moses symbolises the era of the generation of the desert. The blessing of Joshua symbolises the era of entry to the Holy Land. The third blessing, composed by Kings David and Solomon, reminds us of the most illustrious era of the Jewish people, with Jerusalem and the Beit Hamikdash in all their glory. 

The fourth blessing, on the other hand, symbolises the darkest times of about Judaism: exile, an era of enormous pain and destruction.

The Sages of Yavneh wanted to teach that we need to find goodness and blessing even in the tragedies that befall us. The holy Rabban Gamliel and his Court wanted us to focus on the miracles even in the midst of such terrible disaster. 

This is true in our generations as well. We have every reason to mourn the horrendous tragedies of the Holocaust, or to express our dismay at whatever issues are befalling the Jewish people at this very moment. Yet, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, in his inaugural speech just a few short years after the Holocaust, set out a new paradigm. A forward looking, positive outlook. We have an obligation to celebrate the positive elements of Jewish life today - which are truly incredible. 

Even in the midst of the most horrible of times, we must find the goodness that is there, and that which is yet to come.