Me'ah Berachos - Obligation

QUESTION: Is there an obligation to recite 100 berachos every day?

ANSWER: Yes, there is a Rabbinic obligation to recite 100 berachos on a daily basis. The Midrash (Bamidbar Rabba, Parshas Korach, 18) relates that in the time of Dovid HaMelech there was a plague where one hundred people died every day. To stop the plague, Dovid HaMelech instituted that the Jewish people should recite 100 berachos daily, and the plague ended. The Gemara (Menachos 43b) also finds an allusion to this mitzvah in a statement of Moshe Rabbeinu in Devarim (10:12): “Mah Hashem Elokecha sho’el mei’imach – What does Hashem, your God, ask of you?” Rashi, in Menachos, explains that the word “Mah” (literally, “what”) should be read as Me’ah (100), so that the pasuk reads, “One hundred [blessings] Hashem, your God, asks of you.” Poskim point out that since this mitzvah is specifically “asked” of us, it has great importance, and one should be careful to fulfill this obligation daily.

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The Gerald & Karin Feldhamer OU Kosher Halacha Yomis is dedicated to the memory of Rav Yisroel Belsky, zt"l, who served as halachic consultant for OU Kosher for more than 28 years; many of the responses in Halacha Yomis are based on the rulings of Rabbi Belsky. Subscribe to the Halacha Yomis daily email here.