Prayer and Blessings
What is the blessing over pizza, and is one required to wash hands for it?
Question
Hello, honored rabbi!
I wanted to ask: what blessing is recited over pizza, and is one required to wash hands for it?
For Sephardi Jews.
Answer
Greetings,
According to Sephardi custom, one should recite "haMotzi" and "Birkat Hamazon" over pizza as found today (even over one slice), because even if the dough is made with a majority of fruit juice or milk, that is still not sufficient, since the taste of the fruit juice or milk must be noticeable in the dough.
In any case, in order to remove doubt, it is proper and correct to be stringent and eat the pizza within a meal, after reciting haMotzi and eating a kezayit of bread, or else to eat from it in the amount that constitutes a meal; and two regular pizza slices constitute the amount of a meal.
Sources: See HaGaon Rav Ovadia Yosef zt"l in his book Halichot Olam, vol. 2 (page 114, sec. 12), and in his book Chazon Ovadia, Berachot (pages 60-61), and in the book Halacha Berurah (siman 168, sec. 50).
With blessing,
Hillel Meirs
