Blessings for Actions Between People?

Most blessings Jews recite involve commandments between human and divine, including ritual actions like lighting candles, putting on a prayer shawl, etc. It is often asked, though: Why don’t most Jews recite blessings over other commanded actions, including acts of tzedakah [justice] or chesed [kindness]?

Rabbi Daniel Landes provided some useful commentary in My People’s Prayer Book, vol 5: Birkhot HaShachar [morning blessings]:

LANDES QUOTATION STARTS

[Maimonides said that we recite blessings of commandments only over those commandments which are between God and human, rather than between humans.]

Abudraham (thirteenth to fourteenth century, Spain) explains this distinction (“Introduction to Prayer”): “We do not say blessings over commandments that depend on the cooperation of others. Examples of this are ts’dakah [“charity”] to the poor, or bestowing happiness upon strangers, widows, or orphans on the festivals…since the beneficiaries may choose not to accept our gifts, or to reject our kindness altogether,” thereby voiding the performance of the commandment. In his commentary to Exodus 24:30, Torah T’mimah (p.142)

R. Barukh Epstein, Russia/U.S., 1860-1931), he further elaborates:

Many have asked why we do not say blessings over the performance of commandments such as ts’dakah, kindness, returning lost objects, or visiting the sick…. The answer, in my opinion, is simple. The formula of the blessing, “Who has sanctified us through His commandments and commanded us,” implies that through the performance of the particular commandment, we become holier than, and therefore distinguished from, other peoples, who do not perform it. This can only apply to commandments “between man and God,” such as t’fillin, tsitsit, sukkah, lulav, and so forth, which other nations do not observe. However this can not be the case regarding commandments “between man and man,” since these are performed by other nations as well. We cannot say, “Who has sanctified us” — that is, set us apart — “through His commandments,” since we are no different in this respect from any other civilized nation.”

Professor Saul Lieberman (Tosefta Kifshutah, Ber., p. 112) cites a dissenting view: “the commentary by the author of the Sefer Hacharedim (R. Eliezer Azkari — or Azikri, sixteenth century kabbalist and philosopher, Safed) to the Yerushalmi, Berakhot 6:1, states:

All commandments require blessings. I have discovered that R. Elijah [of London] would say a blessing when giving charity or loaning funds to the poor, or performing any of the commandments, although this practice never became widely accepted. In the halakhic rulings of R. Elijah, we read: “It seems that all positive commandments require a blessing. I often say ‘Who has hallowed us with His commandments and commanded us to respect the elderly,’ ‘to honor the aged,’ and so forth.

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— “Halakhah” commentary by Daniel Landes in My People’s Prayerbook, vol. 5, p. 123, continued on 142

What are the implications of these considerations for your own practice? What about our communal work?