I have heard that one should not have pleasure from things in this world without a bracha. Shouldn't it be required to make a bracha on a cigarette? One is benefiting from tobacco without a bracha.

Smoking is more detrimental than beneficial to a person.It is even forbidden according to many poskim. Obviously no bracha is to be made over a forbidden act

but they never made a bracha 100 years or more ago, when the dangers wern't known, and it was supposed healthy? The Chazon Ish didn't make a bracha on his pipe.

It is probably not considered a tangible hana'ah

There also has to be a difference between a bracha on smelling and this.

The Shulchan Aruch 210:2 states:
If one tastes up to a revi’is of cooked /food/ he does not need to make a blessing,even though he swallows /the food/. /However,/ other /authorities/ say that if one swallows /the food he tastes/it requires a blessing. According to them, /the Sages/ did not exempt a person who tastes /food from making a blessing over it/ unless (17) he then spits it out /and does not swallow it/, in which case a blessing is not required even over a large /quantity/. Gloss: /One should therefore bear in mind that/ when it is questionable as to / whether or not one is required to make/ a blessing, one should be lenient /and refrain from doing so/.


The Mishna Berurah:17 explains:
(17) He then spits it out. For this /the Sages/ permitted /without a blessing/, when one’s sole object /in doing so/ is merely to taste /the food/, since /then/ the palate alone enjoys the cooked /dish/ tasted or the food chewed. As to /the custom of/ those /people/ who put the herb known as tobacco into a pipe and /then/ light it and inhale the smoke into their mouths, the M.A. is uncertain as to whether /or not/ this is comparable to tasting and spitting it out /without swallowing/. /However,/ the Acharonim have decided without any hesitation that one should not make a blessing over this tobacco smoking.


Smoking is comparable to tasting and spitting it out without swallowing and therefore we do not say a bracha.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Rabbi Mitterhoff,

Dear Rabbi Mitterhoff
Thank you for quoting the Mishna Brura.I looked it up but have a difficulty to understand the Acharonim comparing spitting out food to exhaling smoke .By food Chazal were metaken a Brocho for the Maase Achile,which according to this Shita is only if one swallowes the food, and the logical reason is because that's darcho bekach. However smoking,where the Brocho should fall into the category of Birkas Hareiach, there the Derech is to exhale as well.(As a mater of fact, when you inhale a Reiach tov, you also ultimately exhale it .Nevertehless we make a Bircas Hareiach). If I could give a Hesber i would say ,that the pleasure of smoking is not from the smell of it but the act of in-and exhaling causes the Hanoeh.(Scientifically it's the nicotin that enters the bloodstream that causes the "benefit" of smoking).It is therefore reduced to purely an act of in-and exhaling not of smelling. Maybe this is also the Kavana of the Magen Avrohom.

Please explain me ,why for anointing (sicha keshtiya) we don't make a Brocho .(Rather I never heard that one should make on it)
Thank you Yaakov

I think Chazal only were Misaken a Bracha on internal Hanahs, like eating,not on external Hanas like annointing (even though in some things annointing is like drinking, but not in all things, and even that is only L'chumrah). Even smelling wouldn't be chayiv if not for the Pasuk "Kol Hanishamah Tihalel Kah" and smelling is what the Nishamah enjoys.

This, I think, is the reason that you can't compare smoking to smelling. Smelling is for the Nishamah, thus it's not Shayich to digest, thus exhaling it is not a problem to the Bracha, which doesn't apply by smoking, that the Hanah is digesting the nicotin, thus it's a Chisoron if you let it out. (Even if Darko Bikach, it's a Lo Plug in the Hanah of digesting)