The bracha on a banana

[א] (halacha 3)

Question: How does one make a bracha on a banana?

Answer: The Alter Rebbe, in his Siddur, wrote regarding the indicators for knowing which fruit's bracha is "[borei pri] ha'eitz" (of the tree) and which is "[borei pri] ha'adamah" (of the ground), that there are three approaches: Approach 1. Any tree that produces fruit every year — even though in the winter everything withers and nothing remains of the tree except the roots, and afterward it returns and renews itself — its bracha is ha'eitz. Approach 2. Once the trunk has withered and it returns and grows again from the root, its bracha is ha'adamah. Approach 3. Even if the trunk remains, as long as the branches fall off in the winter and return and grow again in the summer, its bracha is ha'adamah. And the Alter Rebbe ruled that l'chatchilah (ideally) we are concerned for the third approach, and therefore we make the bracha "borei pri ha'adamah" even if only the branches fall off; but b'dieved (after the fact), when one made the bracha "borei pri ha'eitz," we rely on the first approach, that even in the first type — where only the roots remain — one has fulfilled the obligation. However, all of this is on condition that the fruit grows from the branches that come out of the trunk; but if the fruits come out directly from the trunk, in any case its bracha is ha'adamah, and even b'dieved one has not fulfilled the obligation if one made the bracha ha'eitz. And accordingly, the banana tree (apart from the fact that the thickened stalk is replaced and does not survive more than a year or two, though its roots persist and are not replaced) — its fruits grow on the trunk itself without branches, and therefore its bracha is "borei pri ha'adamah," and even b'dieved, when one made the bracha ha'eitz, one has not fulfilled the obligation (Seder Birchos HaNehenin of the Alter Rebbe (HaRa'a edition) chapter 6, sections 6–7, and note 43).

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