One aspect of blessing is its concreteness.
We express gratitude for the pleasure derived from a specific object or circumstance.
I eat His bread, drink His water, enjoy all that comes into my area of experience.
And the blessing creates a certain togetherness, a personal bond with the Divine Source.
In a way, it is very intimate, more meaningful than words, because one understands the slice of bread in a way that one does not understand passages of Torah.
God’s speech is beyond me, but His address to me in this slice of bread is something I can grasp.
We can see therefore that the blessing is built around a specific object and involves enjoyment of the senses in order to establish genuine contact.
–Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz